FFXI broke something

FFXI always crashes around 5 minutes into the game. Sometimes it takes windows explorer itself with it and I either restart the PC or log off the current user account to close everything. When it doesn't lock up windows, it breaks something else. I can't actually play any other games after FFXI crashes. I've investigated this. When I run any directX based game, my gpu (measured with gpu-z) reports 0% usage. However, I can run furmark (an OpenGL based benchmark) perfectly fine. I already ran the file check function in the play online viewer on FFXI and it came up with no errors. The only character i'm playing is my galka that's placed in bastok. I would very much like to play this game but in it's current state it's unplayable. I would appreciate any insight you may have to offer on this. Also i'm on a trial account using the setup downloaded from the trial registration web page. I'l reply with my dxdiag if someone wants it.

EDIT: I figure basic pc specs would help
CPU: Core 2 Duo e8400, stock voltages and clock
GPU: Radeon HD 6850. It's a Sapphire model
RAM: 4x1 gB sticks of DDR2 PC2-6400
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

EDIT #2: Updating from catalyst 11.9 to 11.11 didn't help