To the OP and for whoever else that follows. I seem to have gotten the game to work without having to disable the graphics card. I downloaded the latest beta driver from nVidia: Verde 285.38.

I did originally disable the graphics card because I was frustrated that I couldn't even get POL to start properly, but during the long FFXI update I poked around for a solution. I'm not super computer savvy, so I'm not sure how to figure out if the game is still being run through integrated graphics or if it is being sent through the card now, but at the very least, I am able play without having to disable.

System: Dell XPS15 L502
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Card: nVidia 525M 1GB