Constant video stuttering/Lag

I've been having some issues with the client, after downloading and installing, I get a stuttering video even on the main screen. Makes the game impossible to play. I have tried windowed mode, full screen, attempted to set my core affinity to just one, adjusted graphics settings to take off AA. I can't even take one step without it freezing for a second.

I just got off the phone with support and I was told it's "Because I'm using a laptop". I just updated my graphics drivers as well.

I'm really at a loss at what to do and don't really want to spend anymore money on a game I can't play with my friends. Anyone have ideas?

may very well be an issue with your hardware or software that is running in the background. If you provided more details on your system, someone may have some ideas.

some things to look for: infared or HID devices in device manager that aren't actually being used (unplug or disable them), temperature/fan/CPU speed monitoring/adjusting software/firmware features, etc.

I'm running a G73 ASUS laptop from Best Buy with an ATI Mobility 5800 1GB RAM with 12.4 Mobility driver set on Windows 7 64 bit. Every other game has no issues running like City of Heroes, Diablo 3, World of Warcraft and Star Wars. No issues. I run Viper as my anti-virus and refuses to run not choppy if it's on or shut down. I was told by support to turn off Anti-aliasing but can't seem to find a way to do it either through the FF11 config utility nor the ATI console.

Some seem to think it was the connection but does the same thing on other wi-fi or connected directly. I have tried Windowed mode. Full screen. Different resolutions. Turning up and down settings.

The solution for now was to spend even more money on this game for an xbox copy assuming the expansions would download but they do not so had to buy a 2nd copy of the Ultimate off Ebay, still waiting so I can play expanded content.

If anyone has some concrete solutions, I'm up for it. Phone support was a massive joke. If I could vote into the negative out of 10, I would. Telling me to buy a new computer or laptop to play this game was incredibly horrible. And telling me he had no documentation on the program? Please.

How fast is your CPU? FF11 is a very old game and not the best of PS2 ports, so it doesn't utilize graphics cards very well. What makes FF11 run well is high single-core CPU performance.

Also, there is no antialiasing in FF11, so whoever you spoke to can't have been too experienced.

Deleted. Should have read post.

The antiAlias settings in the ATI Panel is under Advanced settings, though even running at full it had no impact on FFXI for me at all.

The only time I ever had this problem was a dodgy VirusScan/Firewall (BitDefender) and it only went on uninstall.

May be your vidcard/driver combination. Because FFXI's dated way of handling DirectX does not run well in Vista/Win7's DX9 emulataion layer, it is notorious for having issues in those versions of Windows, especially with newer cards(that driver is from Jan, 2012, and though that card was from 2009 it is still "newer" as it is built for full native DX11 support--one of their first if I remember right). The tested and approved driver for your card in Vista/Win7 is 10.11, from Nov. 2010. You can get older (and newer) drivers from the archives at guru3d.com.

Hm okies. I shall try that. Wasn't expecting a helpful response so soon.