Mouse Pointer vanishing in Fullscreen Mode

Im not far behind, this issue along wit major disconnects, ui thats buggy, basically the game should not have left beta and now we,re paying to be beta testers with zero feedback. All I can say is compared to other mmorpgs ive played over the past 15 years, se habe been the worse in terms of customer service and reliability. Very poor indeed.

Another Vista player here who's getting shitty framerates in windowed mode, because she can't play in fullscreen because lol-no-mouse-icon in fullscreen. This is awful SE, fix this.

Really obnoxious issue, bumping this in hopes of it getting looked at & fixed sooner.

I have windows vista 64 bit and amd hd 6990 graphics, mouse cursor disappears in full screen. I just renewed my subscription because I thought the patch might have fixed it now... not. I have wasted the entire night on it believe me tried everything. I heard you can fix this by turning off hardware mouse use software instead but was unable to find how to do this. Started another thread about it.

I am going to ask for a refund I am not playing borderless windowed mode only 20-25 fps and in full screen I get 40-50 fps. This is because my card has 2 graphics cards in it and windowed mode in any game disables 1 of those cards. I saw a moderator said it would be fixed in patch 2.1? Well I am going to get a refund not going to play until it is fixed and there is no way to do anything with drivers or config files, mouse settings etc tried everything. What a waste of time.

Back to the front page with you!

/bump. This is still a problem.

Did anyone else receive an in-game Cursor minion??

Because I'd really rather have an actual cursor when I play this game. -___-

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Originally Posted by Relicreborn

I have windows vista 64 bit and amd hd 6990 graphics, mouse cursor disappears in full screen. I just renewed my subscription because I thought the patch might have fixed it now... not. I have wasted the entire night on it believe me tried everything. I heard you can fix this by turning off hardware mouse use software instead but was unable to find how to do this. Started another thread about it.

I am going to ask for a refund I am not playing borderless windowed mode only 20-25 fps and in full screen I get 40-50 fps. This is because my card has 2 graphics cards in it and windowed mode in any game disables 1 of those cards. I saw a moderator said it would be fixed in patch 2.1? Well I am going to get a refund not going to play until it is fixed and there is no way to do anything with drivers or config files, mouse settings etc tried everything. What a waste of time.

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If you find out how to do this please inform this thread. This has been a problem for I think at least over a year and Square-Enix I guess does not have enough "time" to fix it yet. Wow. They say it will be fixed when the game is patched to "version 2" but I don't know if that has already happened yet. I tried everything to trying to edit game config to installing and uninstalling windows updates and messing with windows mouse configurations but nothing so far has fixed it.

Thank You Asmoday! I Finally Got My Mouse Cursor To Show Up On Full-screen Mode! Totally Made My Day! Thanks A Ton!

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Originally Posted by DarkMarc

Thank You Asmoday! I Finally Got My Mouse Cursor To Show Up On Full-screen Mode! Totally Made My Day! Thanks A Ton!

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Uh...? Are you running Windows Vista? 'Cause the whole point of this thread is that Vista users don't get a mouse icon in fullscreen mode, and no solution (that works) has been posted here...

Chances are this issue wil never be fixed, ms are already starting to drop support for vista, I recently upgraded to 7, what a difference.. Vista is so badly structured, win7 runs very smooth compared to vista.

Hi,

I realize that this is a very old thread and I have not read all of the posts in it, but I wanted to ask if you guys have the pointer trail on for your mouse pointer. That often causes the pointer to disappear in full screen for games.

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Originally Posted by Jederien

This is a known issue that is planned to be fixed during or after the 2.1 update. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue

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Bump for visibility!

This is still a really shitty issue for people running Vista, are they planning on fixing it in 2.1?

Bumpin' this.

yeah I told email support about this, was told to read forums, after i sent them link to this thread, and that it would probably fix itself, but they would tell the engineers, paid 12$ for the game, played 3 hours. meh.

I only brought the game yesterday and im running windows 7
i have no mouse cursor when i login so i cant even get past the option screen
that has

start
configuration
movie
exit

as all i see is a hand cursor flashing and i have no way to select these options if i cant see my mouse cursor so i cant even play the f ing game

Still no Mouse Cursor in full screen even though they said it would get fixed in 2.1

Iv stopped playing for a month now due to that issue. Il give it 2-3 more weeks and then im cancelling my subscription.

Square Enix you make me sad. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. You disgust me.

Just tried to change to FS. I'm a healer doing endgame stuff and I figured it would be easier to be in FS then I came across this issue......
Can't believe this has been going on since launch and it still hasn't been fixed. Just looked for this in the patch notes as well and nothing was mentioned about it

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Originally Posted by SideWays

Still no Mouse Cursor in full screen even though they said it would get fixed in 2.1

Iv stopped playing for a month now due to that issue. Il give it 2-3 more weeks and then im cancelling my subscription.

Square Enix you make me sad. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. You disgust me.

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2.1 hasn't come out yet... but it's coming out this week.

Has anybody checked whether hardware cursor has been disabled? This is often a side effect of notching back acceleration because of driver issues.

still does not work.

Every fix imaginable has been tried and nothing helps. Only Square Enix can fix this. And they are pos so that wont happen.

Yeah, it's still not fixed as of 2.1. It's annoying to be forced to play in windowed mode, with everything that that entails.

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Originally Posted by Jederien

This is a known issue that is planned to be fixed during or after the 2.1 update. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue

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It hasn't been fixed yet. So, after 2.1 will mean in 2 years or can we expect a fix anytime soon, please? 2.15 maybe?

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

Yeah, it's still not fixed as of 2.1. It's annoying to be forced to play in windowed mode, with everything that that entails.


It hasn't been fixed yet. So, after 2.1 will mean in 2 years or can we expect a fix anytime soon, please? 2.15 maybe?

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The "Or after 2.1" is just a excuse at best. It really means if it does not get fixed at 2.1 then we do not know when we will fix it or if we even will fix it.

most likely it's either a DirectX or driver issue, or a combination of both. Don't experience it at all on my Asus laptop running Win8--settings are locked to 32 bit color and full acceleration (NV GTX670MX, running Asus latest 311.00 drivers, stock mouse and sound drivers), so I can't force it to happen on that system.

It also runs just fine on my old XP Pro SP3 box as well (ATI 5870, drivers from around Nov. 2012 I think, Asus Xonar DX Sound with their last stable XP drivers, and a Logitech cordless Trackman Trackball mouse with their last XP driver package). I can however force it on my XP box by notching back DirectX 9 Acceleration one notch--which essentially just disables Hardware Cursor.

Barring some funky method SE may be using for rendering the cursor in a not-so-generic way that is causing it to notget along with all drivers, perhaps it is more of a Microsoft or specific group of vendors that need to address the issue. Getting a third party into the mix can really bog things down.. especially with how tight SE is with their IP assets.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

Yeah, it's still not fixed as of 2.1. It's annoying to be forced to play in windowed mode, with everything that that entails.


It hasn't been fixed yet. So, after 2.1 will mean in 2 years or can we expect a fix anytime soon, please? 2.15 maybe?

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I know, right?

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Originally Posted by SideWays

The "Or after 2.1" is just a excuse at best. It really means if it does not get fixed at 2.1 then we do not know when we will fix it or if we even will fix it.

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Ugh.

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Originally Posted by Raist

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Those of us having this problem are on Vista machines. And the cursor issue *only* happens in this game. No other "fixes" suggested we try on our end fix it, so the problem is on SE's end. They need to fix it.

still no cursor. great job square-enix, really delivering with those promises just like Obama. Great work on the new patch but wow, to think you could be stopped by something so simple as a disappearing mouse cursor. Faith level decrease.

I mean really, you are the ones that broke it in the first place. I think you should be able to figure out how to fix it. Oh wait, I forgot I have 2000 dollars sitting around for a new computer system. Nevermind. /endsarcasm

Note: For any square-enix employees not aware of the seriousness of this problem, it has been going on for almost two years now. Please inform you superior immediately. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Foxydoe

Those of us having this problem are on Vista machines. And the cursor issue *only* happens in this game. No other "fixes" suggested we try on our end fix it, so the problem is on SE's end. They need to fix it.

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That's just it though.. it isn't just an XIV problem--but it is indeed something specific to Vista, and has been for about 5 years now (give or take...forget exactly when it came out).

Windows Vista has always had off and on problems with hardware cursor. Granted, it may very well be tied into how the game engine is getting along with the DirectX emulation in DX9 (or DX11 after the platform update and the hardware is only DX10 compliant)--but that is still an issue with the Vista components moreso than the game. Those DX calls are coded to that level of DX, and SHOULD be consistent---but Vista's DirectX has been the red-headed stepchild that frequently didn't get along well with others ever since it's initial release.

And yes... this is NOT isolated to just XIV. It can be traced back about 5 years to many games... not necessarily obscure games either. Command and Conquer series... Borderlands Series... Civilization... We're tallking reaching back into old GeForce 7x00 and 8x00 territory, and it still persists on the 500 series cards as well. The common element amongst them? Vista.

Early fixes were to disable all things Aero--both the Desktop and Mouse themes. Then, it came back again... the Win7 injections with the Platform Updates brought more wonkiness, including the corrupt and missing mouse--hello Hardware Cursor issues. People were once again reproducing the issue in games that allowed you to toggle HW Cursor in settings. This time, people got around it by running things in SP2 mode with desktop compositing disabled.

The fix has almost always been a workaround of disabling a Vista feature to restore proper behavior of Hardware Cursor. We may be back in that same boat again. The trick is for someone to stumble on that one more little tweak to make it start behaving again....

EDIT:
Out of curiosity... I was poking around in the config file to see if maybe there was some hidden gem in there. Of course, not lucky enough to spot a toggle for HWCursor, but it was the first time I noticed MouseOpeLimit. Never was concerned about mouse before, so never paid attention to that setting. Has anyone tried toggling to limit mouse operation to game use? Just curious if this config option just takes over mouse control or perhaps does something with how it renders as well.

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Originally Posted by Raist

EDIT:
Out of curiosity... I was poking around in the config file to see if maybe there was some hidden gem in there. Of course, not lucky enough to spot a toggle for HWCursor, but it was the first time I noticed MouseOpeLimit. Never was concerned about mouse before, so never paid attention to that setting. Has anyone tried toggling to limit mouse operation to game use? Just curious if this config option just takes over mouse control or perhaps does something with how it renders as well.

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That's the same as enabling the "Limit mouse operation to game window" option in-game. It doesn't help with the issue.

And anyway, regardless of if there are more games with the same issue or if it could be a native problem with Vista, the system requirements of the game specify that it's compatible with that OS. So it falls on SE hands to fix it so that it works properly, as countless other games do. Or, at the very least, they should inform us that it can't be fixed and remove said OS from the requirements. But they haven't done that, they've said that it was going to be fixed, and so we're still waiting for that fix.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

That's the same as enabling the "Limit mouse operation to game window" option in-game. It doesn't help with the issue.

And anyway, regardless of if there are more games with the same issue or if it could be a native problem with Vista, the system requirements of the game specify that it's compatible with that OS. So it falls on SE hands to fix it so that it works properly, as countless other games do. Or, at the very least, they should inform us that it can't be fixed and remove said OS from the requirements. But they haven't done that, they've said that it was going to be fixed, and so we're still waiting for that fix.

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In the past though, the fixes didn't come at the game level though--it was fixed at the OS level. At least, not at first... maybe further down the line through expack/patches to the engine things were optimized better--but it was always due to Vista's screwy API's, and the fix was always something done at the OS level to counter them.

It's all more or less because of DWM. Never liked the decision to move away from the more direct hardware access of XP and earlier OS's --it effectively removed the ability to effectively troubleshoot these issues at the user level, forcing us to be more dependent on M$ and the Hardware vendors to sort things out--which can be painfully slow sometimes. At least in Vista and Win7, you had a means to disable DWM when it was knackering things up--in Win8, we're flat out stuck with it (unless we want to break login screens and such, may not even be able to do it at all now in 8.1). You can't even drop from 32-bit color anymore like we used to. We're becoming more and more dependent on Microsoft's DirectX rules and the vendors drivers. I fear one day it may be to the point that the dev's have to code explicitly to Micro$oft's rigid API restrictions and we'll be completely reliant on the GPU vendors and Microsoft to fix things like this. Starting to wonder if we aren't already approaching that point...

Time for companies to revisit OpenGL again?

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Originally Posted by Raist

snip

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While I understand what you mean, I quote again:

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Originally Posted by Jederien

This is a known issue that is planned to be fixed during or after the 2.1 update. We appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this issue

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So, in the end, it doesn't matter why the pointer doesn't work or how it was fixed in other games. Like I said, if they think that it can't be done they should at least tell us that directly, instead of saying that it's planned to be fixed. It's as simple as that if you say something then people expect that what you said happens or that, at the very least, you give an update apologizing and explaining why it can't be done in the end.

But anyway, I think that it would be good if we could get an update regardless, to know if this is still being worked on and if there's a more specific ETA than "after the 2.1 update" (as said update has been deployed already and it wasn't fixed on it).

I would not have purchased this game had I known about this issue. Square Enix clearly states that the game is compatible with Windows Vista. Not being able to see the cursor in full screen mode deems it unplayable and therefore not compatible. The only way this game operates at all on Windows Vista is in windowed mode and the performance is decreased dramatically. The support ticket response is unacceptable and the moderator post in this thread is too vague. "2.1 or after"?! So when will that be? Customer service is absolutely horrible. This has clearly been an issue for a long time and Square Enix should not be able to claim this game is compatible with Windows Vista when it is not.

So what is going on with this?
I bought this game only to find out I can't play it. This issue was never mentioned anywhere on the store page.
Do you expect me to change my os just for this game?
Playing in borderless window is not a solution, performance is terrible and screen tearing makes it unplayable.

Give us an actual answer SE, are you going to fix this or not and if yes, when?

I have a graphics card that needs to run in full screen for best quality, running in windowed mode is a bit choppy. I still can't see the mouse pointer in full screen after the 2.1 patch and also got the latest drivers for my graphics card. I have Windows Vista 64bit and a Radeon HD 6990 graphics card. I am trying the free login weekend and testing it out. I was told this would be resolved in the 2.1 patch but hasen't so I am not going to renew my subscription, unless someone can tell me how to fix it? But I already tried just about everything and didn't work. I have spent more time trying to get the mouse pointer to work properly in full screen than I have playing the game.. well almost. Just adding a note the the pile of notes from upset people.

Wow, well glad I never put money in re-subbing but hey thanks for the free weekend which I will not be wasting time on. It only took a few seconds for me to check if you fixed full screen mode for vista like you said would be in patch 2.1 right on these very forums. But nope, it's still not fixed, F**ing pathetic!!

Vista is obviously not fully supported in your game but yet its under supported OS's. I swear I should get a refund for being fooled yet again by your Sh**y company.

It's a long time issue with Vista's DWM that has affected many applications over the years. It's basically a Vista glitch that Microsoft basically only ever addressed with SP1 in the scope of addressing a problem with screen capturing for image editing software (it was injecting the software mouse into the images). It's something that really falls on Microsoft to address with their DX9, Aero, and DWM implementations in Vista.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa969540.aspx

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The desktop composition feature, introduced in Windows Vista, fundamentally changed the way applications display pixels on the screen. When desktop composition is enabled, individual windows no longer draw directly to the screen or primary display device as they did in previous versions of Windows. Instead, their drawing is redirected to off-screen surfaces in video memory, which are then rendered into a desktop image and presented on the display.

Desktop composition is performed by the Desktop Window Manager (DWM). Through desktop composition, DWM enables visual effects on the desktop as well as various features such as glass window frames, 3-D window transition animations, Windows Flip and Windows Flip3D, and high resolution support.

The Desktop Window Manager runs as a Windows service. It can be enabled and disabled through the Administrative Tools Control Panel item, under Services, as Desktop Window Manager Session Manager.

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Just saying, it isn't a problem exclusive to XIV--it's more a problem with Hardware vs Software mouse cursor rendering because SE is relying on HWCursor support. This layer is SUPPOSED to be supported fully in DirectX and our drivers at this point, but in Vista it's knackered up because of Micro$oft's shoddy implementations--they integrated a half-assed fix nearly 6 years ago that never properly addressed the issue and considered the matter closed.

At best, SE may be able to go back to the drawing board with the rendering engine and GUI to integrate a HWCursor option or something (this was included in a lot of games in the past). But I wouldn't expect that to happen until the newer DirectX version of XIV is released... whenever that happens.

The only thing that consistently remedied this problem when it resurfaced in the past (aside from running windowed) was to disable all things Aero related (desktop, peek, glass, and desktop/mouse themes--to go back to a more vanilla classic look/feel) and disable the DWM service from loading--basically trying to force Desktop Composition out of the picture (think this may be an option under compatibility options too.. forget the full details). It used to work back when these problems first came up, but who knows with all the band-aids Microsoft has put on Vista over the years. Seems like the more they fix, the more they break sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Raist

Snip

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So, are you saying that each and every one of the games that have been released recently (many of which were developed with Win7+ in mind, not Vista) have gone out of their way to fix this? Because they all work fine.

It seems more likely that SE is using an old (and buggy/unsupported) implementation for their mouse pointer rendering.

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Originally Posted by Yshnal

So, are you saying that each and every one of the games that have been released recently (many of which were developed with Win7+ in mind, not Vista) have gone out of their way to fix this? Because they all work fine.

It seems more likely that SE is using an old (and buggy/unsupported) implementation for their mouse pointer rendering.

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SE took some cues from XI's mouse cursor problems and also incorporated a means to toggle mouse rendering into XIV, then took it a way for some reason. There was nearly a year of work by the community trying to bring back the debug hardware and debug software cursor features because the problem still persisted. Being able to select one option over the other gave them some form of remedy, even if not a perfect one. Some guys found ways to keep bringing it back (several tools to patch the .exe after each beta came out, and there was a new Windower project as well)--but all that went away when the game went offline for the revamp. Haven't noticed anyone else finding and working with the debug modes in 2.0 yet... but, then again I haven't been active in those channels since I left XI either.

Who knows why the option never got fully implemented back into 2.0... perhaps SE just gave up on it since they were planning to move to a higher feature level already. Maybe they were also hoping Vista would fall off the map when Microsoft started phasing out production in 2010 and they weren't expecting to have to deal with it at all in 2.0. But, because it is a problem with the game's current DirectX feature level not behaving properly in Vista, those Vista specific problems will likely persist until SE moves off of the legacy crap and delivers the promised DirectX update.

In a way, you answered your own question. XIV was built with strong XP support initially, then later unofficially supported with the 2.0 rebuild. But it still runs fine in XP... because it's a DX9c game. Vista has always been known to be spotty with pure DX9 stuff because of Microsoft's 10 to 9 emulation crap. Much of this was worked out in DX11 and the Win7 unified drivers and such, and polished further with Win8--but Microsoft and the vendors never retrofitted Vista with the changes. They had a pseudo retro update to incorporate some Win7 enhancements to Vista, but some core stuff still remains borked. Mouse issues is one of them. Other games/apps that also had strong roots in legacy DirectX had/have issues tied to those DX9 throwbacks as well (not limited to just mouse cursor)...even Diablo3 was plagued with mouse cursor issues because of it's DX9 support.

Games/apps that are built solely with Vista/W7/W8 in mind don't fall into the same traps simply because they aren't dependent on those legacy feature flags. No issues with 10_9 or 9_x feature level emulations b/c the base DX will always be straight DX10 or higher. But... if they are building to support XP, they HAVE to write code that uses DX9 directly (not 10_9 or 9_x thunking, but the actual DX9 because XP caps at DX9). There is no DX10 for XP, so you have to code specifically to DX9 to support XP. This poses a problem because then you have to make a decision... make a pure DX9c game and hope it gets along with newer OS's and their DX9 emulation engines/drivers, or incorporate alternate updated coding and an installer to detect/apply the proper version(s) of the game so you can more properly support the native DX level of each of the targeted OS's. It might even result in multiple versions of the game, more or less. So, then you have the complications of on-going support--the logistics of it all can be a bit more than some companies want to invest in (think about XI and the whole PS2/PS3/XB360/PC mess...once bitten, twice shy perhaps?)

In this case, you had a locked native DX9 XP environment in play (XP can't take DX10). Then your Vista starts at DX10, gets DX11 updates and poorly emulates previous DX feature levels not native to the OS. Then finally, you get Win7/win8 with DX11 as their bases, which thunks back to lower feature levels far better than Vista ever could. The game started with DX9 for the XP support... and is STILL DX9 even after the 2.0 rebuild. In Vista, pure DX9 is still handled poorly, and in Win7/8 it's run with far better emulation support.

That's pretty much the long and short of it. Until SE cranks out something along the lines of a DX11 version (or at least a strong DX10 level version) working towards fully locking out XP, Vista is potentially going to be problematic because of fundamental issues with it's DX9 emulation.


New hardware coming out in the coming months and getting demoed at the electronic shows, which means potential price drops on new hardware. Tax Season is around the corner, so people may get to take advantage of some inventory reduction sales (provided people get decent refunds this year). XP End of Life is April, Vista already slated for 2017, and prices aren't that bad for migrating if you plan to install on a current system either. You can already nab Win7/8 for less than $90 online, depending on version (got a sealed win8 Upgrade box for $75 from Canada). Microsoft has a program to get Win8 to students for $70. Not unreasonable to expect more people to begin migrating soon.

Who knows.. maybe SE will do the big upgrade sooner than we expect. Just hope it doesn't go the way of XI's track record.

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Originally Posted by Raist

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Actually, the real reason why it still uses that DX version is because of the PS3 (ARR doesn't officially support XP), and I thought that they said that it would never limit the PC version (which should include bugs like this one, I guess). Regardless, almost each and every one of the games really coded with XP and previous gen consoles in mind and, thus, in base DX9 run flawlessly. And that's a lot of games, as we've often been limited by those consoles in that regard... including Diablo 3, as weird as it sounds.

So, sorry, I still don't see your point. From my point of view it's still bad coding on their part if they used an obsolete method aimed for an OS that is not even officially supported by the game (no matter the reason), while the one actually supported doesn't work properly, moreso when other DX9 games (even badly done ports) don't have this problem. It's not an issue of upgrading to 7/8/whatever, it's more simple than that and SE knows it (see quoted official reply a page ago acknowledging the bug). Also, if they truly intend to only fix this in the DX11 client months away they should say it directly.

While I think that you're just trying to help, it's getting really tiring to see you telling us that it's all Vista's fault and that we should upgrade (and even assuming that our HW is old with a pre-installed Vista, and not that we have custom-built machines where we installed an OS that we had already paid and that works fine 99.99% of the time, that 0.01% left being ARR) when in fact, it's more likely that the real problem is the game itself. Tell me, why none of my old games or the games on my long Steam list have any issues? And why does it seem to be the case with everyone else that has the same mouse problem with ARR? Then, what's more likely statistically, that the real issue is actually in Vista or that it's a simple bug/bad coding in ARR? And even if it was Vista, why in the seven hells has the client to work fine with an unsupported OS and not with a supported one (I know why it does as you can see in my previous pharagraphs, it's a rethorical question)? And why the lack of updates on the matter to confirm anything? That's what I, and I guess others too, want to see answered.

My wife's PC, which runs the game in XP windowed with 15 more FPS than my win7 PC fullscreen mode. Ever since alpha, the game had issues including the mouse glitch which is why she plays in windowed mode. The glitches were mostly fixed except the mouse problem. So just a heads up for those that think its a Vista only issue, it isn't.

Really wish they would fix this crap, we didnt have this problem with the real/original FfXIV.

Bumping this thread every day til they do something..

bump... fix my mouse cursor so i can play in fullscreen already!!