Severe Graphics Lag Since Adoulin Update

Not sure what happened, but was wondering if anyone had experienced issues since the new update as far as graphics performance. I know that I'm running a card that isn't "SE Approved" but it was never an issue until a week ago.

General system specs are as follows:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Processor
Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz
4GB RAM

Tried a whole bunch of different drivers and nothing seems to work. Anytime there are shadows, BRD effects, large amounts of mobs on screen... basically anything, the game drops to about 5 FPS, making it unplayable.

Any insights are appreciated. Or if you need other specs, I can provide those too. This is ultimately frustrating since everything was fine until this update was applied.

double-check your background resolution settings, try 1024x1024 and see if it runs well. Likely this setting got reverted somehow(pushed up to 2048x2048 ++ ), especially if you've updated windower, etc.

check http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Graphics
for more information on how to change these settings manually

Worked like a charm, even at 2048x2048. Part of the problem, however, is that it seems Windower 4 will automatically set the background resolution back to 1920x1080 (to mimic the 1080p desktop) each time it's launched. I have to manually go into regedit after booting up the POL screen and change the settings, which will get annoying after each reboot.

Is there any way to stop Windower from changing those keys, or at least having it default to 2048 x 2048?

If I have to change it each time, it's at least a work around, albeit an inconvenience.

Settings.xml in the windower4 folder. Put the resolution in the profile you are using. Like this:

Put a bunch of the other modifiers in there too just so you can see them.
<profile name="New Profile 1">
<consolekey>Insert</consolekey>
<width>1598</width>
<height>898</height>
<mipmaplevel>6</mipmaplevel>
<uiscale>2</uiscale>
<supersampling>.5</supersampling>
<bumpmapping>true</bumpmapping>
</profile>

Edit:I should note that resolution is the window size, the supersampling is the value for "background Resolution". It's a modifier as it works best when the values are in proportion to your resolution.

Thank you both for your help, and for the clarification on supersampling. Got everything squared away and back to its old smooth running glory.

Hmm I don't get it.. Am having the same issue here, FPS dropping like crazy.
So if I wanna run the game @ 1080p, what am I supposed to do in the settings file?

For FFXI, the power of your graphics card can only take you so far with game performance. From what I've noticed, the graphics card handles effects (weather, spells, etc) and background resolution.

But it is your CPU that handles in-game objects like lots of players/mobs on the screen, lots of polygons, modifications to the environment, etc. This is why adoulin can run horribly even w/o draw distance or high background resolutions. There is a lot of scenery that changes (depending on coalition status). This is also why people can lag in reives or campaign battle (or the santuary of zi'tah--those damn trees!).

It is my understanding that the CPU handles game physics and objects. We are all limited to running this game on one core, regardless of how many cores we are packing "under the hood". I notice a slight performance drop in my 3.3 ghz core vs my boyfriend's 3.6 ghz core with this game.

So even people running, say, a titan, might experience lag spikes and slowdowns if their processor can't handle the physics.

Is there a reason why I can't keep the supersampling settings saved in the windower settings xml? I can save anything else, like my autolog-in or dar distance, but supersampling gets overwritten every time to 2, even though I set it to .5