Strange freezing issue, but only with FFXI (new graphics card, driver issue?)

[Akuramini]

Details:
I recently installed a new graphics card, a Radeon HD 6950, and it's fantastic! Except with FFXI, where after about 30 minutes of play it will freeze my computer and generate a very nasty buzzing sound from my speakers, disallowing any input whatsoever and requiring a hard restart. This only ever seems to occur with FFXI. My drivers have been updated, and subsequently replaced with older drivers to test with, and the issue continues to occur. Even stranger, the freeze seems to only happen either in Abyssea zones, or during combat (i'm not sure which might be the cause; the only time I've noticed this happening has been in both Abyssea, and in combat-- I've "afk" tested by just sitting in non-combat zones like the Mog House, Jeuno, and San d'Oria, as well as afking in Abyssea doing absolutely nothing and lasting the entire 120 minutes with no issues... but if I've been fighting for a while, then the freeze occurs).

I would like to add that after tonight's freeze, I started playing around with keeping other programs on (in this case, Steam) with FFXI running in the background behind them, playing under the same conditions that would cause my system to freeze (in Abyssea, party in combat) , and it seemed to have an effect after about an hour (no freeze for twice the typical length of gameplay).
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Steps (most recent experiences):
1. Entered Abyssea - Vunkerl, walking around after having fought Gruesome Gargouilles for a short time (15-30 minutes), system freeze.
2. Entered Abyssea - Vunkerl, AFK'd at entrance with 120 minutes of time, no issues whatsoever.
3. Entered Abyssea - Altepa, fought Camelopardalis for a short time (20-30 minutes), system freeze (this happened tonight).
4. Re-entered Abyssea - Altepa, exact same scenario as before but with FFXI running in the background: no issues for the duration.

Date & Time: 10/13/2011, 20:15 EST (8:15 PM EST)

Frequency: Approximately every half hour or so, unknown exact conditions (possibly combat related, possibly an issue with Abyssea zones, possibly a combination of them?)

Platform: PC

PC Manufacturer & Model Number: Homebuilt Computer

OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6950

ISP: Comcast

Type of Internet Connection: Cable
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I'm really at a loss of what to do about this! Could it be my card is just bad?

[Neogavsta]

Hi,
I'm having exactly the same issue except i have the radeon HD 6970. I can run any other game without issue but as soon as i run FF11 it locks up. I dont have the Abyssea yet but still am having freezing problems. Mine has never been in combat its ussually when im runing round looking for things to kill

Any ideas anyone


Platform: PC

PC Manufacturer & Model Number: Homebuilt Computer

OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6970

[SE_James]

Akuramini,

First off, please note that we have not confirmed compatibility on any Radeon HD cards newer than the 6800 series, as detailed on the Official PlayOnline website, so we’re not able to guarantee perfect performance on your card. That being said, if your hardware itself is locking up entirely, to the extent that you need to actually restart your computer, that’s more indicative of a hardware issue, than anything software related. FINAL FANTASY XI may be triggering this failure, but it’s still a hardware failure, be it the power supply, motherboard, video card, or any other integral part of your hardware. Since that is the case, we can only recommend proceeding with hardware troubleshooting, contacting the hardware manufacturers for support.

[Neekzz]

Details:
Same issue here. PC freezes, locks up my system, noise thru my speakers. For me it happens in and out of abyssea.

Steps Taken:
I am a PC tech and have run full hardware Dio on my system using the dell hardware dio and the PC doctor Dio kit and found no probs so I went to the good old INTERNET to see it's not just me, its other ATI players as well. I have read post of ppl performing a clean install of just windows, FFXI and ATI drivers and still getting the same probs.
I recently uninstalled virus protection on the PC to see if it would solve the issue but haven't tested it cause I'm just playing on my other PC till SE accepts something is wrong and the probs go away.
I have played with my drivers a little recently in an attempt to get FFXIV working better. Seems I will have to go back a few drivers if i want to play FFXI again on my best rig, making FFXIV suck, again, so I won't. I'll play on my other PC that also rips the system requirements of this game to shame, runs on nVidia but still seems to have in game framrate issues of it's own.

Date and Time:
I can tell you that I have been playing on this PC about 8 months now and never have had a problem up until last 2 weeks. Since last update, It's been freezing more often.

Platform: PC

PC Manufacturer & Model Number: Alienware AREA51 ALX i7

OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Graphics Cards: 2 Radeon HD 6970s in CrossfireX

ISP: Comcast

Type: CATV

[Nemster]

The game does seem to run better on nVidia cards than ATI. Having previously been running a Radeon 4870X2 I did have a few issues with FFXI, now I'm using nVidia again and I don't have any issues running FFXI (new 500 series card too).

Neekz, I think running cards in CFX can cause issues too. SLI/CF still aren't perfect and can cause issues with such an old game. My 4870X2 was a dual-gpu card that ran in Crossfire, I think that was the cause of some of my issues with XI.

[Neekzz]

Thanks Nemster, It's possable that may be the new drivers are running the croosfire and the old one I had was not, had not thought of that. I guess I am going to have to try to force it off, play on one GPU, and then I'll post what I find here.
Akuramini Have you had any luck trying to solve this or are you still in the same spot?

[Fumetsu]

NEED ANSWER WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN

I too am having this issue Ive tried multiple thing to resolve this issue I have a pretty high end computer
just happen less 2 min ago<10:30pm EST.> again i was in The "Boyahda Tree" killing steelshell to do some skilling dagger and it just keep locking up my computer sometimes 10mins other 30mins it would lock up and i cant do anything but reset the PC

Ive tried checking for registry key error missing .ddl files reinstalling the game on my regular hard drive instead of ssd changing bios on my graphics card and going to an older set of drivers and still keep happening the funny thing is that this just started happening it hasn't happen before the first time it happen i was in SKY killing seiryu and just froze up lucky i mange to kill him before it happen or i would have been pissed I am getting really sick of having to reset my PC every time that isnt good for my PC i need a solution to this please i really like this game ive been playing on and off for more then 7+ years i really would hate to have to stop.
AMD x6 1090t
x2 OCZ SSD 60Gig
Corsair Vengence Ram 8gig
XFX ATI HD 6950
Asus formula 4 mobo
WD 1.5tb traditional hard drive

[Fumetsu]

And this is not a Hardware Issue your game in causing this saying it a hard issue is just pointing the finger at the other guys because we don't want to admit fault do give me that Ive tested all my hard component and its the game because why doesn't happen when playing other game such as MW3 or battlefield Batman Arkham city even older game run just fine because i play Command and conquer Yuri revenge 2 all the time as-well with no issue please just look into this it obvious that if more the one person is having that same problem it must be your software don't forget we are all pay customers here and we need a better answer the its a Hard issue because its not. BTW Ive spent 3hours on the phone with ATI just to have them tell me its a Software issue and i run 2 6950 and i tried both of them separate and together and same thing freeze's

[Kristal]

And this is not a Hardware Issue your game in causing this saying it a hard issue is just pointing the finger at the other guys because we don't want to admit fault do give me that Ive tested all my hard component and its the game because why doesn't happen when playing other game such as MW3 or battlefield Batman Arkham city even older game run just fine because i play Command and conquer Yuri revenge 2 all the time as-well with no issue please just look into this it obvious that if more the one person is having that same problem it must be your software don't forget we are all pay customers here and we need a better answer the its a Hard issue because its not. BTW Ive spent 3hours on the phone with ATI just to have them tell me its a Software issue and i run 2 6950 and i tried both of them separate and together and same thing freeze's

It's not the game or the hardware, it's the drivers. FFXI has a peculiar way of using DirectX, and most older drivers have been tuned to work with this. The way I understand it, newer videocards aren't designed to work with old DirectX versions, so they emulate those older versions, and if something goes wrong there, it goes wrong at a very deep level, which means it's unlikely for the PC to exit gracefully and the whole thing just locks up.
I get the exact same freeze problem from time to time (very irregular), but always when I have other stuff running (such as Firefox with YouTube paused in one of the tabs.)

[jerji]

Hey all, is there any update on this? I'm losing my mind trying to figure it out and a workaround would justify many pizzas being delivered to your doorstep.

I reactivated about three months now and have been having a really terrible time with the sporadic freezes. I'm still running on XP and had a Radeon HD 5770 but, assuming the video card was the issue, I upgraded to a Radeon HD 6870 and am still having the problem.

Here's the behavior I experience under Windows XP:

My computer randomly freezes while playing FFXI. By "freeze," I mean the last image on the display remains, the mouse and keyboard become unresponsive and sometimes I get the "CD skipping" type audio artifacts. I have to reboot when this happens.

This has happened as frequently as five times in one day and as infrequently as once in three days with the game running the whole time. The fastest it's happened is about 3 minutes after rebooting and logging back into the game. It's risky for me to do just about anything in the game that requires pops since I never know when I'm going to have to reboot and I've been screwed by this several times now.

Also, it doesn't appear to be dependent on the zone or what I'm doing. I've had many freezes while bazaaring in Jeuno, freezes while fighting NMs in Abyssea, freezes in Dynamis, in my mog house, etc

Things I've tried:

- Disabling most background programs
- Closing Firefox before playing
- Disabling power saver modes
- Updating to the lastest XP patches
- Updating my video card drivers
- Cleaning out my machine and replacing the thermal compound
- Buying a new video card, as shown above
- Inspecting the motherboard for bulging or leaking capacitors (none found)
- Inspecting admin log for errors but there is no trace of this problem when it happens
- Inspecting heat sensors -- everything is running well within tolerances
- Down-clocking my machine from 9 to 6 (which makes it very sluggish)
- Replacing my PSU (another $100 down the drain due to this problem)
- Upgrading my chipset
- Hopelessly tweaking various bios settings multiple times
- Running spyware/virus detection software (spybot, adaware, AVG)
- Removing anti-virus software (AVG)
- Using different RAM entirely

The list really goes on and on-- I'm sure I've forgotten some things as I have been battling this problem for three months now. Every time I think I have a bright idea, I get slapped in the face with another extremely frustrating freeze.

If it's actually a hardware problem, then the only remaining things I have to change are the CPU and the motherboard but both are quality components and relatively new, so I'm dubious. I could also upgrade to Windows 7. But this thread and several others on the internet give me little hope that all of that trouble would actually get me anywhere.

This thread has given me the idea to try disabling most of the options in my video card settings and I'll try this next, but man, it really does seem like FFXI is at fault here. I haven't had this problem while playing other games, including The Witcher, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 Beta. It started when playing FFXI and so far has only occurred while playing FFXI in three months time.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thankyou.