Animation problems?

Hello I am sorta new to FFXI but I am nowhere near new to computers/video games, ESPECIALLY the final fantasy series which I LOVE by the way! XD. Ah, anyways, I am having troubles with seeing some of the animations for spells such as Dia. Some things you should know:
-I am running Windows 7 professional 64-bit
-I am running everything in enhanced mode (1366x768p)
-I enabled bump mapping and mip mapping.
-I DO have all the animations enabled in-game.
Thing is, sometimes I will see animations when enemies attack me. Mind you, I'm talking about special effects, not the *movements* of the characters and such. But other animations such as when an Orcish Mesmerizer casts Water or Dia on me, I don't see those. The effect of the spell IS applied, but the game looks dull without the special hit effects and magic effects... :( Is there something I should check or look for? Or am I running everything too hard with all the enhancements and stuff?

hummm... are you a gear swapper? I know that if i'm swappin stuff and getting cast on or casting on someone, sometimes I'll "spell lock" er w/e and no animation so I'll sit there and bang on my macro to make sure I'm actually doing what I want to be , I attribute it to lag and this game just being ancient. I run on a similar system, and it .. happens. especciallly around flux's or tele points. (not so much around recall crystals though)

Well no I am not swapping gear. This sort of thing happens at any given moment whilst playing the game. It's weird, because sometimes when I cast cure on someone, the animation DOES show, but sometimes it does not. Other times is like with Dia and Poison and Water. I've NEVER seen the poison animation, nor the Water animation. They just simply do not display.

UPDATE: I have realized that this issue occurs most frequently during BATTLES. I didn't even realize there was supposed to be a "hit" animation when being struck or striking! I tested this by engaging a monster, then disengaging it and letting it attack me. Sure enough, I saw all of the animations. Why is this?? I can't see the animations DURING BATTLES, but I can see most of them, if not all, when I am not engaged with a monster!

By the way, I ran into a small bug at La-Theine Plateau at that big snowy thing with the telepoints. the stairway leading up to the full telepoint is INACCESSIBLE, unless the character moves to the far left side of the stairs and climbs there. It took me forever to get around this bug and it really irritated me XD.

Anything? Could I be running my computer too hard? I am running the game both background/overlay at 1366x768, all effects enabled; I have everything running at full power. But I notice absolutely no slowdowns.. plus I run an Intel-Core i5 Quad 1st gen @2.66 GHz w/ 4GB RAM. I don't imagine that I lack sheer power, and my graphics card has 1GB VRAM. My graphics card is the NVIDIA GeForce 310M.