The FFXI PC

[Runespider]

As someone that has setup a lot of new pcs to run XI for family and myself over the years I can say it's not hard to get a cheap pc to run FFXI (at ps2 settings anyway.. ), it can be hard to get the drivers right (cause Square don't upgrade the game to take account of new video cards etc) and to fix the problems you get with conflicts on laptops that cause silly (fixable) lag but thats about it.

If you buy a laptop and notice really horrible lag just ask for help fixing it on forums, just need to disable some things within windows. HID devices/infrared etc.

Also some things Square added are terrible for lagging out your machine, notably telepoints and abyssea confluxes. You can easily change the dat for conflux to get rid of that though.

Once you play on PC you will never understand how you played on anything else, dat modding alone makes it worthwhile for the fun it adds to the game (different hair styles/armors etc). FFXI on pc is so much better than on console, it's crazy how much more enjoyment you get from the game that way. If you're a graphics whore then setting max settings on FFXI will blow you away at how nice the game can look.

[Inafking]

BTW, anyone migrating from PS2 to PC should probably get one of these. It helps a lot if you're like me and don't like playing games with mice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270795755733

[Alhanelem]

BTW, anyone migrating from PS2 to PC should probably get one of these. It helps a lot if you're like me and don't like playing games with mice.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270795755733

Nobody plays FFXI with the mouse. the controls are so badly designed that the mouse is completely useless.

That said, for games, mainly shooters and RTS games with well made controls, a mouse is far superior to sticks.

If you want a demonstration of why typical RTS games are bad for consoles, I point you to Starcraft 64. Yeah, imagine playing starcraft with an analog stick.

[Feynman]

Seems like an appropriate place for my question. I recently switched from ps2 to PC. I've never played a game on a PC before so I'm not sure what the best graphics settings are. I've tweaked them, and keep playing with them more each time I log in. Any suggestions on what the best graphics settings are?

I had to disable my NVIDIA card just so playonline wouldn't crash so I'm running on the integrated graphics. The main problem I'm having is the the backgrounds/environments look better than what I saw on the ps2 but the text, equipment and status icons look pretty bad. More blocky/pixelated. Any suggestions?

And no I'm not sure what my current settings are. Like I said I'm playing with them each time I log in. But what I described is standard. Seems to be the same regardless of the setting I have tried.

[scaevola]

An iPhone with an appropriate graphics card could probably run FFXI. That said, probably the single best thing about FFXI from a practical standpoint is the mouse functionality is so useless that the game itself ends up being more playable on a mouseless laptop/netbook than 95% of the PC games out there.

Basically all of my FFXI time is spent on the couch with my old lady while she watches trashy TV or does homework, or outside on my deck. It's wonderful.

[Juilan]

An iPhone with an appropriate graphics card could probably run FFXI. That said, probably the single best thing about FFXI from a practical standpoint is the mouse functionality is so useless that the game itself ends up being more playable on a mouseless laptop/netbook than 95% of the PC games out there.

Basically all of my FFXI time is spent on the couch with my old lady while she watches trashy TV or does homework, or outside on my deck. It's wonderful.

A 60 gig iphone could, If you're less than 20 gig you most likely can't get text messages on the thing

[Alhanelem]

change screen resolution in the config tool. Only thing that can make the text look bad.

[Feynman]

I'll give that a shot tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Zumi]

Whats kind of bad is FFXI doesn't even run on well at all on current gen video cards, like the nvidia 400 or 500 series. SE really doesn't update FFXI to make it work with these cards. Usually they see stuff like 2 fps and graphical glitchs that make the game unplayable.

It requires major tweaking, driver downgrades, custom drivers ect to even run at all. FFXI is such an old game and its SE doesn't want to spend the money to keep up with new technology. Its a major pain to get FFXI to run on any new self built gaming PC. Even pre builts that use newer cards will have problems running it without a lot of tweaking.

[Eric]

I agree, Zumi. I have had to downgrade my video card drivers so much that I can't play FFXIV, just so that I can avoid having my FPS drop to 12 FPS around Veridical Confluxes. It's almost impossible to climb Parradamo Tor if confluxes lag you, because there's a turn where a conflux is located and it lags me so much that I end up falling off no matter how careful I am.