Freezing in Windowed Mode

[Xandur]

So ever since i believe 2.2 or 3.0 was released (the problem may have been present before this) i've been having a problem with Windowed mode. The entire purpose is to make it easy to use other programs while playing FFXIV. This means the users, me in this case, will be switching tasks constantly, but there's a problem.

Approximately 80% of the time i move from FFXIV to another window, or another window back to FFXIV, the client freezes. After a short bit if I try to click on the game the screen will turn white. There's been a few times where it has actually disconnected me but usually it unlocks after a minute or two (yes, 60-120 seconds, sometimes more).

I used to think it had something to do with my video card setup. I was crossfiring two Radeon HD 6950's, but of course, with the game in windowed mode, it was only utilizing one card. I upgraded and downgraded video card drivers multiple times proceeding an ATI driver cleanup tool to ensure absolutely everything related to the video cards and ATI were removed, and no luck. I formatted thinking it was something with my installation of windows and had tried Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 all with the same results. In the cases of formatting, I fully updated windows and installed only what was necessary to play the game, see it properly (video card drivers), and hear it properly (sound card drivers) and the issue was still present.

I was having hard drive issues at the time they first started so I bought a new motherboard, and replaced my hard drive, and the issues continued. A few months ago i decided to upgrade the video cards from the two mentioned above to a single ATI Radeon R9 290x from Sapphire. The issue is still present

Ive tried messing with power management options with no resolution, and I've messed with the TDR setting in the registry which has provided a tiny amount of relief in terms of the freezing not lasting as long, but caused problems elsewhere (i.e. Youtube videos were now having issues when trying to play one while playing FFXIV).

Is S/E aware of this? Is this being fixed? Has anybody else experienced this and knows how to fix it?

[Squa11_Leonhart]

windowed mode working fine on nvidia.

[RobbieH]

Approximately 80% of the time i move from FFXIV to another window, or another window back to FFXIV, the client freezes.

This sounds like something messing with explorer.exe and makes the game freeze when it somehow connects with the game.

Are you:

- using any custom themes?
- applications to change windows looks?
- applications that interfere (in the sense they monitor, change their look etc) in any way with windows opened?
- Try using compatibility mode for Vista SP2 and XP SP2 on ffxiv.exe

Protip: Don't use registry cleaning software, does more harm than good most of the time.