Running FFXI On Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Little by little, I'm getting closer to building my new desktop. I still have a few core pieces to buy, but I should be picking them up in the next week or two (yay tax return lol)

Anyways, I have Vista Home Premium 32-bit, and recently ordered the 64-bit version for $10 from Microsoft...the hardware I have currently/will be buying soon all has 64-bit drivers (obviously my number one concern) but I'm concerned about FFXI running on a 64-bit OS.

Anyone have any first hand experience with this? Is there a 64-bit POL client? If not, can it be emulated well in 32-bit mode? And how exactly does that work, anyways...I've never installed and used a 64-bit OS before, and I'm looking to get past the 3.5 Gb memory limitation inherent in 32-bit OS's (ultimately looking to go up to 8 Gb, but will be starting with 2x2Gb DDR2 800).

Thanks for any advice...

It should work. I googled it and found this site: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/game-setup-tweeking-optimizing-q/71470-ffxi-vista-64-bit.html and they don't seem to have any issues running it.

big dork why didnt you just put it in my thread Geek Squad? lol thats why I named it Geek Squad so all the pc, related questions go thr lol

I run FFXI on my HP Laptop. It has a core 2 duo with 4GB RAM and has Vista 64 bit edition and it works flawlessly. I haven't had any problems with FFXI running.

you wont have a problem with 64 bit vista. I've been running it over a year and have had no problems.

lol, I didn't wanna "hijack" your thread ^^

Thanks for the info, everyone ^^

lol wouldnt it only be hijacking if you basically cut my question off and got yours before I could get my answer lol

I dont care of that, I'm not gonna throw you out of a thread lol

Prolly, but I err on the side of caution when it comes to netiquette...

Anyways, {Understood.} ^^

I've got Vista 64 Ultimate, and FFXI runs without issue. The only things you really need to be aware of are:
1) Download the Vista installer and use it instead of the disc: http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/download/media/vista02.html?pageID=media
2) Disable UAC, or if you don't like sanity just run POL as admin.

As far as hardware, beware of DDR2 1006MHz, it is very finicky. I may be downgrading very soon as I can't make 8GB of 1066 work.

i'm running ffxi in vista64 without any problems at all, so you shouldnt have any problems

damn kvass i ran vista for about 3 months before i nearly killed myself irl for all the messups with it. There were places i couldn't stay in very long and mobs i simply couldn't attack without being booted. funnily enough once i went back to XP problem solved. However FF DOES run on vista, but in my experience and feedback from many players who have had or still run vista 90% have run into trouble like me.

Simple fact is if u run FF on vista and it crashes just go back to XP it'll make life that much more sane for you

I play on Vista64 on my lappy. It works fine except that its Vista.

I ordered the last of the parts I ordered yesterday from newegg, god I can't wait to build this thing, gonna have a Quad Core processor, 4 GB Memory, 2 X 512 GB DDR3 Video Cards, 500 GB SATA 3.0 hard drive...I swear to god if this thing isn't somewhat future proof I'm gonna stab somebody lol.

By the way, if ANYBODY needs memory it's is DIRTY CHEAP on newegg right now. Seriously, I got 4 GB for like 59.99, Corsair too, not some no name brand.

This pretty much sums it up. I've been running Vista ever since it went retail, x64 Ultimate edition since July. The one thing that really sucks about FFXI and Vista is when it does the secure desktop and asks you "Cancel" or "Allow" if you are running other programs. This will cause POL to crash.

Start->Run->"secpol.msc" and then head to "Local Policies"->"Security Options" there is an option for "User Account Control: Switch to a secure desktop..." set this to Disabled to fix that problem.

I'm running FFXI on vista x64, and I disabled UAC, it runs perfectly.

I was reading somewhere that Vista has issues with unsigned drivers...is this true? Is there some way that I can turn that function off? I'm gonna be quite irritated if Vista refuses to accept a piece of hardware because some company decided not to pay Microsoft for their "licensing"...

Why would you do that..it is vista.. for god's sake someone save that computer ;;

I know, I didn't want Vista either, but I got it for cheap as hell, and I wanted to get past the 2 GB memory limit in 32-bit XP

Hopefully Windows 7 isn't as broken in the 64 bit edition...

Impossible, once you use VistAIDS it's too late. Only one thing to do now : prevent us from being contaminated please :

FFXI does work on 64 bit Vista and XP. (I play on both, and recently built a new i7 computer that has 64 bit XP on it.)

Don't really see anything special you need to do. If you have problems with the POL viewer for 32-bit, POL has a 64 bit POL viewer you can install... Just look for it on their website under Platforms > Windows

I've used 64-bit for awhile with FFXI. XP was a pain in the *** to figure out since it was new at the time. If you have old FFXI software you need to download the new installer on POL website. Second you might also need to set the config to on the icon/application to Windows 32 bit compatible and run this program as admin. I think there's drivers out there now that don't require you to do this step.

For Vista, you will need to turn off Aero since it will crash FFXI windower every time. Also pulling up task bar crashes it also. I believe there's a way to turn it off also, but not sure how.

just a note to anyone that bashes an OS. if you are bashing vista, i can almost guarantee you either haven't tried it or just don't know what you're doing. as a technician and someone that uses vista, i can assure you that POL works fine with it, just as a few of the above posters confirmed. you just have to go download the 64bit version. and here's my short rant:
an OS is simply built to make a computer usable. how well it performs and all that jazz is determined by your computers specifications. Vista requires at minimum a gig of memory for premium or higher. minimum specs isn't something you should be shooting for. if you can't afford the computer to run an OS, then don't bash it, be happy that the OS was developed, and hardware manufacturers had to up their game for better and more affordable parts. Did you know you can buy 4 gigs of memory for $50? try that 2 years ago. more like $400. and my final point, if something doesn't work with an OS, it is not the problem of the OS. guess who's problem that is. The manufacturer! if someone doesn't feel like updating their product to the latest drivers for a new OS that's their problem. and it is also yours because you either have to find someone that supports the OS or hope that manufacturer makes a new up to date product. thankfully SE was nice enough to make POL vista compatible, cuz they aren't stupid and know that MS owns like 95% of the computer market...

Anyone have an idea on what to do to fix this.

my g/f is using vista premium home edition on her laptop, and whenever she comes to the blablabla screen just before the chose character screen she gets kicked of with this message

"Terminated As Error ocurred in Final Fantasy XI. Full Screen Mode Lost> (-1)"

Now, if she use the built in windower mode it works, but she also dont wanna use it for whatever reason.

Anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

secpol.msc doesnt exist on her version btw, just saying it cant find it.

I love how vista threads turn into lolvista threads.

very helpful thanks. gonna try this right away!

np man, try away.

I run FFXI on my PC on XP media edition and run FFXI on my laptop on Vista home premium if you can tell me how i can work out if i have 32 or 64 bit i might be able to help you ?

dun worrie bout that i mostly did all the work already.

I run FFXI on Vista ultimate edition 64bit, with 4 gigs of 1066 ram, and an Nvidia 9800GTX+. I haven't had any problems with the game running at all (except when POL is being a *** and wont let me re-activate my account cuz of unmentioned maint.) but anyways, Never had a problem with Vista either. I haven't had a single crash on this pc, and I've done alot to try and test it out.

I do agree with Ziggz too.

sounds to me like a graphics error. never really know tho. check for the latest graphic drivers on HP/Toshiba/whatevers website. the game may be running in a resolution that's too big for your screen as well. so double check your resolution and then set FF to the same. And last, and certainly the most annoying, full screen FF hates it when something else takes over the graphics on the screen. If something comes up Always On Top, or if Vista is switching to basic theme as it does for many games, then it could be causing the crash. That's all i can think of atm.