Constant stuttering in game.

As soon as I logged into PlayOnline this afternoon, and started up FFXI, the loading screens and title screen were stuttering constantly, and then when I got into game the constant stuttering carried on.

The time was around 14:00 GMT today.

The frequency of the stuttering as I have stated above is constant, now pauses, it makes the game unbearable.

Platform im on is PC.

Operating system I use is Windows 7 32-bit.

My graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 5750.

My ISP is Virgin Media.

The connection type is Fiber Optic.

Have any kind of virus scan running or maybe a firewall? Also check your resource monitor via the task manager (ctrl+shift+esc) to see if your memory isn't being munched up by something.

Nope, I turned my anti-virus off, along with any other processes that weren't necessary, and there are no firewalls, FFXI has full access, Resource monitor is telling what i already know, hardly any memory is being used. I have 3GB available. I've looked around the the web for some answers, tried some methods, like turning off QoS, which didn't help, making sure I didn't have virtualbox installed which I don't. It's really perplexing, although I've heard that the newer graphics card don't work well with DX8 so that could be it, it's a shame if it is, as I really wanted to get back into the game.

the 5xxx ATI cards had driver issues just like the nVidia 400 series. Not sure which release finally came out on top for FFXI (still on the 4800 series myself). May have to go to guru3d.com and just download older drivers and test. Think the oldest release supporting the 5700's were around christmas 2009, so may have to start at 9.10 and work your way up, unless someone can post what is working for them.

EDIT: SE did some testing in february, and they are listing 10.11 for use:

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/env...tml?pageID=win

Well I just tried out some older drivers, starting with the 10.11, still got the constant stuttering, and I'm back to square one.

Only a few things come to mind to check on. Check your GPU's Catalyst AI and overdrive settings. In older drivers, there was an actual issue with the Catalyst Control Center itself--the fix was to install just the drivers without CCC and use a third party tool (ATI Tray Tools, RivaTuner, etc.) to configure the card. It could be some similar weird issue where it is throttling in/out of 3d mode or some screwy thing (can monitor clock speeds with GPU-Z while the game is running by toggling the option to keep monitoring when GPU-Z is minimized). If it is not locking into 3D timings, might have to force it into 3D mode by using something like ATI Tray Tools and setting clocks without the Overdrive method. Downside to that is it won't automatically reduce clocks/voltage when in 2D mode--locks your clocks full time.

does it do this also when you run the FFXI Benchmark? I ask this to try to rule out an issue with your connection--if it does it in an offline app that uses similar rendering methods, kinda rules out internet lag.

Download link if you don't already have it:

http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/dow...nchmark01.html

It has some spots where it kind of skips a little on it's own, what you're looking for is a regular pattern. If it is happening here after ruling out issues with the GPU config, then you need to look more closely at your system config...toggle powersaving options (change it to an always on profile, disable powersaving on the NIC, GPU, etc.), maybe even forcing the game to run on one core by setting core affinity via Task Manager or ICE Affinity program, etc.

Just checked over th GPU config, it's all running fine, tried out the benchmark, ran perfectly smooth, and all the powersaving is disabled, always is, I don't like powersaving options. I also set the game to run off of just one core, still with the constant stuttering.

Along with the stuttering, are you seeing people blink-walk also? As in, they suddenly jump a few "feet" from where they were before? If so, there could be an issue with rx/tx to the servers.

Hmmm not that I'm aware of no, although I haven't seen that many people, apart from npc's, but I digress. Thinking about it no, I've just seen then walking like my character, all stuttery, I have to admit though, it is pretty unbearable so I can only stand to stay in-game a few seconds.

This is pathetic. I have a Nvidia 480 and I'm getting 10 frames per second in abyssea? I can run freaking Crysis with 60 FPS.