FPS Drops, occasional crashes

Hello some assistance please.

So here's my situation. My gaming computer is an I-5 2500k Sandy Bridge with 8 gigs of RAM. Initially I had a Geforce GTX 560 TI on it, but I recently upgraded it to a GTX 670, as well as installed Windows 8 on a new hard drive, a Seagate 3TB (from 2 500gb Seagates). I noticed that during some cutscenes, the game suffered from severe frame rate drop, and in some even crash. Now it wouldn't bother me that much since sometimes that just happens in busy cutscenes, but I noticed this did not happen in the same cutscenes on my secondary computer, which is an Intel Quad Core Q9300, with the GTX 560 TI I removed from my gaming computer and 8 gigs of RAM.

I did some research and I found out FFXI and Windows 8 don't quite mesh yet, so I figured that might be the problem. So I reinstalled Windows 7, problem still persisted. Then I read that the 600 series of Geforce cards don't play nice with FFXI either. So I uninstalled all the drivers and re-installed the GTX 560 TI... in other words I put the system back the way that it was prior to my "upgrades" with the exception of my har drive... the problem still persisted. It seems I did something to my system at its core that's causing this drop in FPS. Could the hard drive be the problem?

Possibilities I have read about in my research:

1. Drivers - they are all updated
2. DirectX - I have 11 installed, up to date.
3. CPU temperature - I am not overclocking, and temperature seems stable at 58-63 degrees.
4. Remove spyware/additional programs - I am running things exactly the same way as I did prior to my attempted "upgrades", back when this frame rate issue was not happening.
5. Set Integrated Graphics Chip to Always Disabled.

The only difference that I can see between now and prior to the upgrades is that some programs still have that blue-and-gold administrator shield in the icon, despite the fact that I have UAC turned all the way down to the lowest level.

There's just no reason it should be outperformed by my far weaker computer, and I have no idea what might be causing it. Any thoughts?

Thank you

might want to try installing the standalone DX9 runtimes (this resolved some issues that cropped up with Vista, but it seemed to carry over to some Win7 installations too if I remember right). Also make sure other components are to the same service level and such for Windows (Windows SP level, .NET, etc.).

Also make sure you are on the same version level for the sound/video drivers as well as your IDE/SATA and such for the motherboard (have even seen network drivers throw issues at times as well). Sometimes the HD audio bridge is a culprit--you may find a patch from the video card maker for HDMI audio issues, usually addresses such problems. As always, when changing drivers (esp. if reverting to an older driver release), make sure to do a complete uninstall/cleanup of the current drivers, reboot, then install the other drivers.

You both know your stuff here, thanks RAIST. I would recommend the same things you've tried going down the troubleshooting list. As we move forward I would try doing a clean boot of the system by using the MSCONFIG tool and choosing selective startup. If that fix produces the same results you may want to try opening up the task manager and either changing/designating the core that the program is running on or changing the priority of the program on the system. If you reach a hard place you can always create a ticket and call the Square Enix Support Center Tech line for further assistance. Thanks for your patience with this issue.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

might want to try installing the standalone DX9 runtimes (this resolved some issues that cropped up with Vista, but it seemed to carry over to some Win7 installations too if I remember right). Also make sure other components are to the same service level and such for Windows (Windows SP level, .NET, etc.).

Also make sure you are on the same version level for the sound/video drivers as well as your IDE/SATA and such for the motherboard (have even seen network drivers throw issues at times as well). Sometimes the HD audio bridge is a culprit--you may find a patch from the video card maker for HDMI audio issues, usually addresses such problems. As always, when changing drivers (esp. if reverting to an older driver release), make sure to do a complete uninstall/cleanup of the current drivers, reboot, then install the other drivers.

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could you explain how to check all these things? i have no idea where to find all this.

ok this is really strange. so i tweaked some settings on my I-5/670 to see if it would make any difference, it didn't. on a whim, i tried logging in my main character onto my q9300/GTX560TI too look at a particular cutscene i've been noticing the frame rate drop on... and it happened there. it didn't happen on my secondary character on the q9300, but it did happen on my main... does that make any sense? could what's attached to a particular character cause frame rate drop?