Major lag problems - Dynamis, BRD songs, SkyFollow

Greetings all,

I seem to have a problem while playing FFXI on my PC that I need some help with.

I went on my first Dynamis run last week, which turned out for me to be horrible because of the lag. Yeah I know, everyone has lag in Dynamis. No..not like MY lag. I play side-by-side with my wife, who is on the PS2 version. The were times in Dynamis when my screen literally looked like a PowerPoint presentation for minutes at a time and I literally could not do anything – no targeting, no macros, no camera movement…nothing. I look over at my wife’s PS2 and it’s running just fine. My wife is doing her RDM thing and people are SCing on mobs. I see my character standing still on her screen even though I am pressing the analog sticks on my controller like crazy. Dead mobs are disappearing on her PS2 yet on my screen the same mobs are not even dropped yet.

I always knew I had bad lag problems. For example, every time I’m around a BRD player or BRD mob, those songs cause my screen to freeze for a few seconds and then everything snaps back to normal as the animation catches back up. Also, certain zones, like Promyvions and Sky, give me extremely bad lag. This is my first online game of this nature and I always thought the lag was just something that was a symptom of this type of game, having to stream so much information; therefore, I always just ‘dealt’ with the lag since I thought everyone else had the same problems. Since my experience with Dynamis, I realize that isn’t the case and I have a real problem in literally not being able to play that part of the game. Now I question whether or not I would even be able to fight in HNM or Sky parties effectively at all.

Before you run me through the typical checklist, let me just say that I’ve been through all of it. Weather effects = off. All effects during battle = off. Chat filters = many. Animation frame rate setting = minimum. Textures = low. Bumpmapping = off. Environmental animation (flowers, trees, etc…) = off. Overlay graphics resolution = lowest. The real kicker is… Graphics resolution = 512 x 512.

No, I do not have any other programs running in the background.
Yes, I have updated all the drivers.
Yes, we are running on high-speed cable. (Same cable as my wife, and she has virtually no lag trouble like me.)

System specs:

Windows XP Home Edition
Processor: AMD Athlon 1800+ 1.5Ghz
Video Card: nVidia GeForce FX 5200 AGP
RAM: 1.024 GB (DDR I think)
Motherboard: Some ASUS model, can’t remember exact one right now. I can give more specifics later when I get home if needed.)


My PC is a few years old now but it runs superb with any programs except FFXI. FFXI, however, is the only real 3D game that I play on it. I always thought that I had a great system, but due to my inexperience in ‘hardcore gaming’ perhaps this is not the case. I have thought about upgrading processor, RAM, and/or video card, but I just don’t understand which could be the problem, if in fact any of those components are the problem. I did upgrade the video card from a GeForce 2 to a GeForce FX about a year ago, yet noticed very little difference in performance. According to the FFXI system requirements website I am blowing the requirements out of the water, so I am really baffled.

I tried rolling back the nVidia drivers to version 56.64 and the 66.93. I ran the benchmarking program with those drivers, but I seem to get the best performance out of the most recent drivers. My benchmark with the most up-to-date drivers is about 3700, which according to the benchmarking site makes my PC “Very Tough”, but that is with the graphics settings on “low”. But TELLING me that I have a “VT” system still doesn’t make it PLAY like a “VT” system.

I keep reading threads from people that have similar problems as me (BRD songs and Sky lag) and a lot of them seem to have nVidia cards, which seem to be a problem in general. I am thinking more and more about upgrading to an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, which seems to be a good card.

I just want to be able to play the game smoothly. Should I upgrade RAM? processor? video Card? Is there a sweet video card I can get that will solve my problem? Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help,
Shape