My game crashes no matter what I do...

[waywardVerdict]

I bought the game from the SquareEnix website because it was on sale, and when I finally loaded it up, it kept crashing when I tried to create a character. It took me a while, but I found a fix by turning off character video for creation, and even then it would crash if I moused over any of the races other than Hume, Tarutaru, and Elvaan. So I was forced to make a Hume character, and the moment I clicked confirm, the game crashed. When I logged back in and tried to log in with the character I created, the game crashed again. I feel incredibly frustrated because I had to pay to make a character, and now that money is wasted because I can't even get into the game. Is there anything I can do?

[Zenion]

I think we need a little more information to troubleshoot this. What operating system, to start with?

If it's Windows 7 or later, are you doing basically anything else at the same time? FFXI is really fussy; if you're running it in full-screen mode, it will pretty much crash if anything else tries to take focus (use borderless windowed mode instead.) If the screen dims to ask permission for a program to change files, crash (set security settings to show the dialog but not dim the screen.) Connection lost, probably a crash.

You might also have some bad files, which shouldn't be happening if you just installed it from the website, but you could try uninstalling and reinstalling from the free download version (http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/download/media/install_win.html). Yes, you could have gotten the game for free, but don't feel like you got ripped off, what you paid for was content IDs for all the expansions.

You could also have video driver conflicts, FFXI uses an old and outdated version of DirectX which isn't really supported any more, a lot of users use something called DGVoodoo to help make newer Windows versions play nice with it. You may want to look into that and see if it helps.

If you come back with some more system information and details about what's going on while the crash happens, someone might be able to offer you a little more help.

[VoiceMemo]

If crashing on char creation.
Try switching to simple character creation visuals. FFXI config, misc, check "simplified character creation visuals"

If crashing when login, need more info on your system, OS, video card, etc.

[waywardVerdict]

My OS Specs are:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10300H CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.83 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
And I'm running Windows 11. I tried using Windower, but when I click 'play' from PlayOnline, the window just closes and FFXI never starts up.

[waywardVerdict]

I'm using I6, I believe, and I have an NVIDA GEFORCE graphics card that's up to date.

[Zenion]

Do you have pol.exe and polboot.exe set to run as administrator? (You'll find them in Program Files (x86) > PlayOnline > SquareEnix; pol will be in the PlayOnlineViewer folder, polboot will be in the FINAL FANTASY XI folder.)

Because of how pol launches polboot, you're not granting polboot, the main FFXI application, permission to change files when you get the user account control popup, but FFXI will be trying to write data for things like macro palettes that would be generated either at character creation or first log in. If it can't, it might panic and crash.

This may not be your issue, but give it a try and see if it helps?

[VoiceMemo]

My OS Specs are:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10300H CPU @ 2.50GHz 2.50 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.83 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
And I'm running Windows 11. I tried using Windower, but when I click 'play' from PlayOnline, the window just closes and FFXI never starts up.

Have you also tried non windower, ffxi official, in windowed or full screen mode? Does it crash?

Is the computer store bought or built from parts? I've seen some store bought computers come preloaded with firewalls and other programs that could interfere with ffxi starting.

[waywardVerdict]

So I went and reinstalled the game again, this time keeping it in windowed mode, and it was 100% the permissions for file change. Thank you so much for the help, I really appreciate it!

[Zenion]

Glad we were able to help, I hope you enjoy your time with the game now that you can play it!

[Votraftur]

Good morning! Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XI Technical Support Forums.

We are glad to hear that you are no longer experiencing this issue. If you have any more questions or concerns, please make a new thread in the technical support forums.

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