I just got a very nice laptop that is acting as both personal and work. It has some great specifications:
NVidia GeForce 8400M GS Video card w/ 256MB VRAM
3 GB RAM
1.83 Ghz dual core Intel Pentium processors
32-bit Windows Vista Home Premium
Those are the relevant specifications. Much to my chagrin (and upon reading various FFXI forums), FFXI runs worse on this than on my previous desktop that had much worse specifications.
Well, the game runs fine if there are no enemies, PCs, or NPCs on the current screen. Soon as more than 3 other of the above are in my sight, the framerate takes a significant dive.
I had tried resolution changes, compression, turn off effects, etc.
Even on the lowest monitor resolution, same problem.
I read a possible solution was to install driver version 175.16 for the GeForce 8 series with a modded INF file. Why Nvidia doesn't update its laptop graphics cards drivers regularly is beyond me, but I digress.
With this driver update, my framerate has improved slightly, but still noticeably worse than my desktop.
It makes no sense why a system of this caliber runs FFXI this badly. I know some solutions have been suggested around the internet, such as running on DirectX 8.0 and not 9.0. I wanted to know of any laptop users w/ Vista have had similar problems, and if you have found a workable solution yet? I really would enjoy playing FFXI on my laptop for lots of reasons that beat the desktop.
I thank you all in advance!