Telepoints, Avatars, Magian Moogles, and Veridical Confluxes. A long-overdue topic.

[Edyth]

Telepoints, avatars, Magian Moogles, floating Cavernous Maws, and Veridical Confluxes are notorious for the lag they cause to almost all users. The lag is so bad and apparently so universal that I think it's a software issue, not a hardware issue.

We need an option in config or a text command to "Disable Auras". A single avatar in Voidwatch is just too much for me to be able to play a frontline job smoothly in that event, even with all effects turned off, weather turned off, shadows turned off, and even /names turned off in case that little bit helps. Back when I did Waking the Beast at 75 cap, there were so many Fenrirs that the frame rate was lower than the old Game and Watch titles, literally. The game moved at less than 1 frame per whenever I pointed the camera towards all the avatars. I've even had people tell me not to summon because of the lag my avatar caused for them. This lag is even worse if playing in the first-party windowed mode on the PC version. Please let us disable these infernal auras.

Clarification: when I say telepoint, I'm referring to the elaborate glyphs below the telepoints at Dem, Holla, Mea, Yhoator, and Altepa. The Recall and Vahzl crystals do not have this issue if I remember correctly.

Note: I did not post this topic in the technical support section because it is a universal issue experienced by nearly all players, even players who meet or exceed technical specifications. The few players who aren't graphically affected are still impacted when most of the frontline fighters in their alliance are lagging like crazy and battle performance is impacted, or when someone says "PLZ DN'T SMN I HATE AVTR LAG."

DO NOT MOVE THIS TO TECHNICAL SUPPORT. I DON'T REQUIRE ANY TECHNICAL SUPPORT. I AM SUGGESTING A NEW CONFIGURATION OPTION.

[cidbahamut]

I've noticed that whenever I'm around the items mentioned above, that my CPU usage spikes pretty high and my case temperatures start to run considerably higher.

I don't want an option to disable these things, I want them to optimize their game so this isn't an issue in the first place.

[Kaisha]

Only real fixes would be for them to either disable it, or make a new rendering engine for FFXI that doesn't dump everything onto the CPU.

My GPU is only around 10% load in FFXI, regardless of what's going on.

[Arcon]

I don't want an option to disable these things, I want them to optimize their game so this isn't an issue in the first place.

I'd prefer this as well, but chances are that if they couldn't fix it in ten years they're not competent enough to do it. Disabling it seems like the easier way to go about it.

[Elexia]

What lag? I'm guessing it must be an Nvidia or Intel problem because I don't experience any lag whatsoever near any of those entities, but I use AMD.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

What lag? I'm guessing it must be an Nvidia or Intel problem because I don't experience any lag whatsoever near any of those entities, but I use AMD.

It isn't, it's the out-dated FFXI coding.

I Have AMD and it happens to me, seems to happen more of the most recent cards, probably due to emulation of a VERY out-dated directX.

[Volarione]

I'm running on a 2011 alienware laptop. None of these have ever caused me to lag. However my game had started to just shut off completely for no known reason.

[Arcon]

What lag? I'm guessing it must be an Nvidia or Intel problem because I don't experience any lag whatsoever near any of those entities, but I use AMD.

I'm somewhat sure it's a DirectX issue. I know of no exceptions to it. Maybe your system specs are just higher so you don't notice it as much.

[Rosina]

I never experienced lag and i was/am on ps2/360. It might be how ur pc is loading the graphic or what is also around you with the present of such effects.
If you are all alone w/o mobs or anything near you then it is the aura. If not its other factors @ work.

[Twille]

It's definitely a DirectX issue. FFXI uses an old version of DirectX that dumps some of the effects off to the CPU rather than utilizing the GPU. For some PCs, this can cause a decrease in frame rate.

[Dreamin]

It's due to FFXI using DirectX 8.1. Both Xbox 360 and PS3 actually handles this much better than any 'more modern' pc which by now are all on either DirectX 10 or 11 (depending on which graphics card you're using - both discreet as well as embedded card). On these newer machine, all the DirectX 8.1 are done by your CPU (or render in software). This is why a good CPU is much more important than your graphics card for this game. And it's also not a X number of core issue either but more a purely how fast can a single core of your multi-core machine run. This 'lag' happens to all 3 - Intel, AMD, or nVidia cards/chips.

[Camiie]

What lag? I'm guessing it must be an Nvidia or Intel problem because I don't experience any lag whatsoever near any of those entities, but I use AMD.

You may not get it from an Avatar or a Maw, but I think everyone gets it from a Conflux. Those will slow your framerate to a crawl. The closer the camera gets the worse it becomes. I also use AMD, so it's definitely not what you're theorizing.

[Jerbob]

I had this issue for a long time until I finally messed around in FFXIConfig for some unrelated problem. I think I reduced the resolution of my background overlay thing and fiddled with bump mapping; suddenly everything was much smoother. Of course I still get graphical slowdowns, but confluxes and avatars are infinitely better now. Perhaps trying these settings is worth a go?

I agree though, this really should not be an issue - plus having graphical slowdown effect my macro responses is incredibly irritating.

[Eric]

I actually had to downgrade my graphics drivers all the way down to the 2nd to oldest driver that I could find to make the game run better.

[SNK]

Yeah it's a directX issuse more then anything. They really need to update that mess so it stops locking people up so much.

[Theytak]

With my terribad lolintel graphics card, of that list, only the telepoint glyphs make me lag, and that lag ispretty bad. Avatars/Confluxes/Moogles don't cause any noticeable lag for me, except when everything does, but then it's an issue of everything causing lag. That said, they really should give us the option to turn off aura effects in our effects filter. Doesn't make any sense that we can't.

[Reiterpallasch]

I'd suggest a way to make ALL of that lag go away until SE gives an official "fix", but since most of the people here seem to think DAT swaps are the devil and that it destroys the game for everyone, I'll just keep my fix to myself and let the rest of you suffer through it or figure it out yourself.

After all, I wouldn't want to risk the banhammer for helping people get rid of lag right? After all, if you change how a flux looks, you're a dirty smelly botter.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I'd suggest a way to make ALL of that lag go away until SE gives an official "fix", but since most of the people here seem to think DAT swaps are the devil and that it destroys the game for everyone, I'll just keep my fix to myself and let the rest of you suffer through it or figure it out yourself.

After all, I wouldn't want to risk the banhammer for helping people get rid of lag right? After all, if you change how a flux looks, you're a dirty smelly botter.

Only .dat swaps that fix an event. AKA Lamps labelled 1~6 is plain cheating.

[zataz]

personally i don't have lag issues and if i do then i just don't notice it.

[FrankReynolds]

They could just make the crystals / telepoints models stand still instead of spinning and fix most of this. I don't know what they would do about avatars though.

[Damane]

same problem here with confluxes, avatars etc.

and recently lag spikes during zergs due to new WS animations, especially when Resolution and ukyo's fury is spammed (this is no joke lol). Higher tier have the same effect to lagspike wise. tough those are nearly not as bad as the one mentioned above (confluxes, avatars etc.)

[Meyi]

I only notice a slight lag with telepoint crystal and confluxes. And occasionally with earth weather if I have weather on. The biggest lag I experience is from the floating maw by the Abyssea Surveyor when I try to get time/atmas/cruor buffs. The responses from controller to screen are so sluggish I feel as if I could freeze or disconnect at any second. :(

[lllen]

I get a serious drop in frame rate around confluxes and smn's avatars, omg I hate smn's (I'm 99smn). Funny the Titans, Garuda's etc that are the mobs in abyssea that just roam around don't cause the lag, but a smn's garuda, esp if more than one causes the problem. My own avatar when playing Smn doesn't see to effect me unless I get with other Smn's.

[Mooshywooshy]

The reason for the drop is that it isnt just a normal glow around the edge. Its essentially cloning the avatar 7 times and rotating it slowly behind itself (as can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_eeyPFLlBU)

I havent looked at avatar glow in a long time but im sure it could be replaced with a more efficient glow, although the way they did it was best for the engine they are on. It will follow the avatars movements 100% and stay behind the avatar thus making the glow.

Of course it can be turned off through the dat so probably no reason why it couldnt be turned off through a menu.

-edit-

Oh Telepoints probably just need to be remade, the effects from 1.0 FFXI are not the best when it comes to looks and efficiency.
As for Confluxes im not sure why those would cause lag. (I dont get lag from any of the above so its all word of mouth to me :[ )

-edit2-

Looked into the Conflux, the pretty cone like glowing effect uses quite a few things repeating over themselves to look like that, so thats likely why :( So pretty though

[Tamoa]

All these things cause lag for me aswell - telepoints, confluxes, avatars - everything that has a glow. So yes please, make it so that we can turn that effect off.

[Modoru]

Pandemonium Warden when he does Astral Flow, holy shit mother of lag.

[Tamoa]

Pandemonium Warden when he does Astral Flow, holy shit mother of lag.

Oh god yes lol, I can barely move if we're unlucky and AF goes off. Terrible.