Playonline viewer has stopped working after logging in on character

Hello, i have had this problem lately that whenever i log into FFXI it gives me a black screen and then a message saying "Playonline Viewer has stopped working" then it closes down.
I was playing the game perfectly fine up until a couple of days ago when logging in a ran around for a few seconds and then it gave me the message for the first time.
I decided to completely reinstall the game but still no luck whatsoever so then i as a last resort decided i would start again completely by formatting my hard drive and reinstalling windows. Once i had done all that and then reinstalled the game AGAIN all seemed to be well for about 20 minutes when i decided to go do some leveling in La Thiene Abyssal but when i zoned into La Thiene Abyssal i got the "Playonline Viewer has stopped working" and now upon logging in i cant even run around for a few seconds like before it just goes black screen and then the error message appears.

Now i have done a lot of looking on the itnernet for solution but to no success, i seemed to find alot of people having this issue with NVIDIA graphics cards but i have a ATI Radeon and also people seem to be having the problem when opening POL to be clear is as soon as i log in to my character.

I tried to figure out what was wrong on my own and i found something that may completely irrelevant but when i go into my programs (where you uninstall/change programs) my Steam icon seems to be unrecognized i will give you a link so you can see what i mean;
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/81096543.png/


I would really appreciate some help towards getting this issue resolved.

Thank you.

more often than not, this is attributed to driver and/or hardware issues. Looks like you are on Vista/Win7? These OS are more prone to driver issues then XP--check the supported driver list at POL and try the recommended drivers there as a starting point. Otherwise, may need to go into your case and do some spring-cleaning---get the dust bunnies out of your fans and such, and generally make sure they have decent airflow. It's possible some may need to be oiled--many have a plug under their sticker in the center of the frame. Also, ATI's have a long history of low fan speeds by default as well--might be worth it to enable fan speed control and speed it up a bit. Basically want to eliminate any hot-spots you may have, as overheating can cause a GPU reset.

Oh yeah, and the latest and greatest hardware (both ATI and nVidia) are having issues with specific graphic features. May need to turn things off like shadows and such in game, possibly even trim AF/AA, Catalyst AI, Occlusion Detection, etc. in the graphics card's properties screens

Hey thanks for the quick response, im pretty sure i have no windows compatibility issues or graphics card issues because i was playing completely fine up until a couple days ago and i have just recently cleaned all of the inside of my computer. Any ideas about the Steam and the Microsoft visual C++ ect ect, that have the unrecognized icons?

Did you ever figure this out? I'm having the exact same issue on a Windows 7 computer and I didn't change anything on my computer. I can't fill out a tech support form either because their form doesn't like my dxdiag paste.

We do apologize for the problems you are having with the game. The lockup / crash you are experiencing could be caused by a video card or display related problem. When you encounter a video card or display related problem, please check to make sure of the following:

1. You have a compatible video card, check system requirements on the game packaging or www.playonline.com
2. You have the latest video drivers in the correct language and for the correct operating system.
2a. nVidia - http://www.nvidia.com
2b. ATI - http://www.ati.com

Adjust the Resolution:
To change display resolutions, use "FINAL FANTASY XI Config" before running the PlayOnline Viewer. To access this program with the Steam version, access the Start menu from Windows, and go to "Computer," "Your local disk drive (Default is C:)", "Program Files (x86)" ,“Steam”, “SteamApps”, “Common”, “FFXI”, “SQUARE ENIX”, “FINAL FANTASY XI”, “ToolsUS”, and then "FINAL FANTASY XI Config." By altering the background graphics and overlay resolutions, you can run FINAL FANTASY XI at higher resolutions. 64MB of texture memory is recommended for these settings.

Frame Rate Issues:
If you are having issues with the frame rate, try changing the following options in the FINAL FANTASY XI Configuration Tool.

"Screen Size" Tab
- Overlay Graphics Resolution (Default setting: 640 x 480)
- Background Resolution (Default setting: 512 x 512)
The frame rate will increase by decreasing the size of both resolutions.

"Textures" Tab
- Texture Compression (Default setting: Low)
- On-screen Maps (Default setting: Uncompressed)
The frame rate may increase by adjusting these settings.
(Results may vary by hardware.)

"Effects" Tab
- Enable bump mapping (Default setting: Unchecked)
- Environmental Animation (Default setting: Normal)
The frame rate may increase when you disable bump maps and environmental animations.

Turn off bump mapping in the FINAL FANTASY XI Config utility:
1. Click on Start, navigate the Start menu and go to Programs or All Programs, then PlayOnline, then FINAL FANTASY XI, and click on FINAL FANTASY XI Config.
2. Click on the Effects tab, and un-check Bump Mapping.

Turn on Fog Table Emulation in your video card software.

These steps vary, based on which card you have. The software provided by the video card manufacturer is used to make setting changes. You should be able to find something called Fog Emulation Table, and you want to make sure that is turned on.

If none of these fixes resolve your issue, please reply back to this thread with your DirectX Diagnostic so that we may further investigate your issue.