game freezing or pausing during game play

[kramykram]

Since the last update, i have an constant intermediate pause during game play maybe even a skip. I am running windows 7, on a macbook pro with bootcamp. I have been playing it like this for a while now with no problems. its a core i7 nvidia 650m graphics card 8gb ram, and owc ssd. I have uninstall and reinstalled the drivers, same with directx, i have turned down the graphics as well and still no fix. please help as this is very frustrating.

[kramykram]

it is also doing the same thing during the login in screen. took my mac apart and cleaned my cooling finds of dust and although it brought the temps down it is still skipping. Turned the fan speed up full blast with no avail also. =( help please

[kramykram]

really still no one able to help me out =(

[kramykram]

So I am only one with this problem out of the few servers left that is having this problem since the update?????????????????

[bungiefanNA]

The game stuttering like that usually means the CPU core the game is running on is hitting 100% usage. You have multiple slow cores in an i7, and the game may be sharing a core with another process. FFXI's primary resource usage is CPU. RAM and GPU are way in excess of what the game asks for, but it can peg a single CPU core easily. FFXI is not programmed to use multiple cores, it dates to before that was a thing. Your best bet is to go through Task Manager and end any process and service you don't need to run the game. Update services and background applications can be doing things that cause the game to lag, unless you learn to specify which core it runs on, and dedicate it just to the pol.exe process. Trim the fat of what is running at computer startup. Turn off things like Google Drive/Steam/OneDrive/DropBox and such if you can.

[kramykram]

ive cut every process off needed to run windows. i still have the same problem, it did not start till this update.

[bungiefanNA]

Have you tried an older version of your graphics driver? That was something I had to do in the past, where a 3-6-month old driver would not have the issue.

[kramykram]

yup i have tried everything except for uninstalling and reinstalling the game. like i said this started after the update. was running smooth before then. i dont think its a pc problem. my ssd doesnt trim, i have ran everything i can to detect virus and maleware. im gonna run in window mode and take screen shot and post my cpu isnt moving much at all.

[kramykram]

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e300/kramy_kram/processor%20and%20memory%20usuage_zpsyrznk0xz.png (http://s41.photobucket.com/user/kramy_kram/media/processor%20and%20memory%20usuage_zpsyrznk0xz.png.html)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e300/kramy_kram/usuage_zpstlapwoum.png (http://s41.photobucket.com/user/kramy_kram/media/usuage_zpstlapwoum.png.html)

[kramykram]

as you can see everything is fine from a pc stand point. ive cancled anythng that can be out. the problem presist to be here.

[kramykram]

also i went ahead and install other games that are way more graphic intense and not a single problem with those 2. so problem lies with this game and that update.

[bungiefanNA]

Many other recent games support multiple processor cores. FFXI is a PC program from 2002, before multicore and hyperthreading were a thing. You're essentially trying to run a Win98 game on a system with features the game can't use, and where the hardware isn't 100% compatible. PC graphics cards back then natively supported DirectX 8 or DirectX 9, which FFXI uses. Graphics cards now support DirectX 10/11/12 natively, and use emulation (offloaded to the CPU) to process older DirectX versions. Also, my first gaming desktop in 2005 used a Pentium 4 at 3.3 GHz for its one hyperthreading core. Now you have 4+ cores in a processor, but they are 1-2 GHz each, mostly, so they are actually slower to process unless an application can use multiple cores. Especially in laptops, for energy conservation, you have slower cores. Desktops can have 3+ GHz cores, because you don't have the concern of a battery.

Comparing another game from another year to FFXI isn't a fair comparison. Games that are more graphically intense are often designed to use the newer hardware.

[kramykram]

That is understandable. But as you can see from my photos, there is nothing consuming any major memory or cpu cores.

[kramykram]

Well i uninstalled and reinstalled the full game. It has fixed the problem. YAY I can play again.