Both Characters Stuck on Infinite Loading Screen

[mara-v]

I tried opening the NVIDIA settings and setting the card to preferred in that window, and also deleting the intel display adapter and restarting. I'm not sure it made much of a difference but here's what the system settings looks like now: [posted at bottom of this reply because I'm not sure how to do the spoiler/click to show tags in this forum]

Regarding AT&T, I actually didn't have any problems with slowness or lag before the loading issue, and can still create a character and load into the world on it! It's somehow only affecting these 2 characters. You might be spot on with the storage issue, because of my laptop's storage I have FFXIV installed on an sd card that's inserted into the side (could that be affecting something?). Thanks for the recommendation to defragment the hard drive, it cleaned up a little space but unfortunately didn't affect the issue.

=-=-=-=-=-=- System Information -=-=-=-=-=-=-

SYSTEM_OS Windows 10 Home 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
SYSTEM_CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300HQ CPU @ 2.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
SYSTEM_CORE_NUM SYSTEM_CORE_LOGIC 4 SYSTEM_CORE_PHYSICS 4
SYSTEM_BIOS 1.2.7
SYSTEM_LANGUAGE English (Regional Setting: English)
SYSTEM_MEMORY 8060.391MB
SYSTEM_VIRTUAL_MEMORY 134217727.875MB
SYSTEM_PAGE_FILE 9340.391MB
SYSTEM_STORAGE C:\ SYSTEM_HARDDISK_DRIVE SYSTEM_TOTALDISC_SPACE 225.832GB SYSTEM_FREEDISC_SPACE 21.277GB
SYSTEM_DIRECTX_VERSION DirectX 12
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS Intel(R) HD Graphics 530
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DEVICE \\.\DISPLAY6
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_CHIP Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_MAKER Intel Corporation
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_VRAM 4055.750 MB
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_SHARED_VRAM 4030.195 MB
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DAC Internal
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DISPLAY_MODE 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ki127176.inf_amd64_86c658cabfb17c9c\igdumdim64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ki127176.inf_amd64_86c658cabfb17c9c\igd10iumd64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ki127176.inf_amd64_86c658cabfb17c9c\igd10iumd64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\ki127176.inf_amd64_86c658cabfb17c9c\igd12umd64.dll
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_VERSION 23.20.0016.4973
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_DATE 2/27/2018 17:00:00
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_LANGUAGE English
3.0
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_PIXEL_SHADER 3.0
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_VERTEX_TEXTURE SYSTEM_SUPPORT
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DEVICE Unknown
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_CHIP GeForce GTX 960M
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_MAKER NVIDIA
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_VRAM Unknown
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_SHARED_VRAM SYSTEM_UNKNOWN
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DAC Integrated RAMDAC
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DISPLAY_MODE Unknown
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvdm.inf_amd64_2c7c773e20d8bcfa\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvdm.inf_amd64_2c7c773e20d8bcfa\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvdm.inf_amd64_2c7c773e20d8bcfa\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvdm.inf_amd64_2c7c773e20d8bcfa\nvldumdx.dll
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_VERSION 23.21.0013.9125
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_DATE 3/15/2018 17:00:00
SYSTEM_GRAPHICS_DRIVER_LANGUAGE English

[Jeeqbit]

I've read that some laptops use the onboard graphics to save battery life but temporarily get assistance from the GPU for games.

While the game is running, if you open Task Manager, go to Performance and click "GPU 0" (and any other GPUs listed), you could check which has a significant amount of usage: Dedicated GPU memory or Shared GPU memory.

Dedicated GPU memory being what is used should help confirm it's actually using the GPU.

[mara-v]

I'm back in!!

I did a deep dive into my storage and discovered that Steam was taking up a huge chunk of space, but I wasn't using it because my few steam games are too big to actually download. Deleted steam and uninstalled FFXIV from the sd card, and reinstalled it on the laptop proper. Loaded up the first character and she's back in to the now-loaded Eastern Shroud. You guys helped me cover so much ground that I'm fairly sure the issue was with either the amount or type of storage.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions & help! I'm giddy that I'll get to see my friends' in-game houses this weekend.

[Jeeqbit]

Ah, I didn't realise it was on an SD card but that most likely explains it. The game trying to read from that efficiently was most likely a problem. Read speed from a storage drive has a big impact on load times and some drives can actually allow you to load instantly.

[MilkieTea]

I'm back in!!

I did a deep dive into my storage and discovered that Steam was taking up a huge chunk of space, but I wasn't using it because my few steam games are too big to actually download. Deleted steam and uninstalled FFXIV from the sd card, and reinstalled it on the laptop proper. Loaded up the first character and she's back in to the now-loaded Eastern Shroud. You guys helped me cover so much ground that I'm fairly sure the issue was with either the amount or type of storage.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions & help! I'm giddy that I'll get to see my friends' in-game houses this weekend.

I'm glad we were able to help! Yeah the issue sounded like either an ISP or space issue, and I'm glad it was something you were able to fix yourself. Congrats on getting the game to run!