FFXI causing computer freeze

Basically, since FFXI doesn't know how to multi-thread, it only uses one core. This is fine except when it maxes out one core and it actually causes my CPU to freeze. What's peculiar is that this doesn't happen in cities or most areas other than that, and it seems to be completely random. So far I've froze in dangruff, beaudeux, quicksand caves and most recently arrapago reef.

The freeze isn't an overheating type freeze, or a RAM freeze. My PC will, without warning, freeze entirely. My keyboard doesn't respond at all. Shortly after FFXI freeze and I can't do anything, music in the background playing via chrome will play for a couple of seconds longer and then freeze as well. There are no skips in music or in video. It is a literal freeze. I can't hit the reset button on my tower, it doesn't work. I have to actually hold down the power button until my computer turns off and then turn it back on.

I searched for this problem and found this http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33976820. This person uses the same CPU and GPU as me. They fixed the problem by switching power management to high performance. This helped for a day, until yesterday I got to quicksand caves and it happened there. Then it was fine for a while until I was running the COR quest and froze in arrapago reef.

What very strange is that all the areas I've frozen in my CPU will run at 5-10% maximum. In cities I will use as much as 15-20% but haven't had this problem in a city.

It just happened twice within 5 minutes, sitting in gustaberg fighting level 1 bees running at 5% CPU.

sounds more like an issue in general with your environment? Hard to say for certain without more details. On XP SP3, E8400 C2D CPU, using the ACPI Multicore HAL my load gets evenly balanced across both cores. Might want to check your affinity mask in Task Manager. If it's only getting set to one core, need to change it.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

sounds more like an issue in general with your environment? Hard to say for certain without more details. On XP SP3, E8400 C2D CPU, using the ACPI Multicore HAL my load gets evenly balanced across both cores. Might want to check your affinity mask in Task Manager. If it's only getting set to one core, need to change it.

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There's nothing wrong with the affinity, it's set to all 4 cores. FFXI doesn't know how to multicore, so once it maxes out one core, it doesn't switch to the next.

I strongly believe there's a .dat in common with all those zones I listed, which is causing my CPU to crash.

I've been smacking birds in miseraux, two at a time, /DNC sith sambas and what not and my two cores stay steady around 6 and 8%. Granted, one core is heavily loaded with Kernal time... but still, the game is not taxing anything hard enough to overload a single core. In the past when I've checked it, it would only hit about 52% on both cores in some of the worst scenarios--besieged, campaign. I only know this becase I was looking into the lagging issue people were reporting with Dual cores a few years back, and was trying to figure out why I wasn't experiencing it. Never did figure out why...maybe it was my chipset, who knows.

There is likely something else in your configuration causing the hang--this game should not be overloading any system put together in the last few years, unless maybe it has a CPU bound graphics solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RAIST

I've been smacking birds in miseraux, two at a time, /DNC sith sambas and what not and my two cores stay steady around 6 and 8%. Granted, one core is heavily loaded with Kernal time... but still, the game is not taxing anything hard enough to overload a single core. In the past when I've checked it, it would only hit about 52% on both cores in some of the worst scenarios--besieged, campaign. I only know this becase I was looking into the lagging issue people were reporting with Dual cores a few years back, and was trying to figure out why I wasn't experiencing it. Never did figure out why...maybe it was my chipset, who knows.

There is likely something else in your configuration causing the hang--this game should not be overloading any system put together in the last few years, unless maybe it has a CPU bound graphics solution.

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That's what makes me believe it's a .dat.. I'm freezing in random areas seriously idling at 5% CPU fighting a bee in gustaberg.

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Have you considered the possibility that this may be a connection related issue? Typically, if the data from the server is unable to reach the client or vice-versa the game will be unable to continue running and it may produce the same symptoms of a freeze/crash, especially if it's only occurring in a specific area/zone. While I don't doubt that there could be something more sinister at work here, you may want to try directly connecting to the modem if possible to see if the problem goes away. We look forward to your system specs!

And while waiting for the specifications, I would strongly encourage running memtest86+ if you haven't yet, even though you do believe it not to be RAM related...

Also a simple test on the GPU via something like the Video Card Stability Test from the Freestone-Group could do well.

I can't say it definitely is not software related, but it does seem more like a hardware issue to me.


Just a few thoughts~

Ran memtest, everythings fine. Ran video card stability test, everythings fine. My PC specs are x2 4GB RAM 1333 MHZ, radeon HD 6950 1 GB card, intel i-5 2500k 3.3GHz processor, gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133 LGA 1155 Motherboard GA-Z68A-D3H-B3.

All my drivers are up to date, no it's not my internet connection, I literally have had ZERO problems with ANY other game I have EVER played on this PC since I built it in september.

have you tried running it on the Sandy Bridge Graphics? I know... not the greatest, but it's <supposed> to be able to handle FFXI for the most part. Just curious if it isn't an issue with the GPU's similar to what we've seen with the nVidia setups.