Unplayable Frame Rates...Help!

So about a month ago I installed DGVooDoo, ReShader, and the HD texture packs. Everything went awesome and the game was brilliant and smooth!

About 3 days ago, my FFXI has become VERY slow. My frames aren't actually dropping (according to my monitor), but the movement and actions are so delayed and dragged out I can't even play. It's almost like an emulator that a PC can't run properly. My ReShader overlay has vanished also.

I've tried deleted the DGVoodoo stuff, reinstalling POL and FFXI, and reinstalling ReShader. Checked Windows Defender to see if anything was quarantined. Nothing is working.

Any suggestions?

Ryzen7 3700x
2080ti (latest driver, but didn't update when the problem started)
32gb DDR4/3200
Z570 mobo
Windows 10 Home
Windower 4

Try without reshader/dgvoodoo/windower? Tried atom0s's dx9 wrapper? ( https://forums.ashitaxi.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=855 , don't need ashita to use, just drop in place like you did with dgvoodoo) Maybe some games settings changed with nvidia's control panel? Maybe windows update was happening or changed some settings back to a dumb performing default (like xbox bar or something useless)? Look in task manager while the problem happens to see if something sticks out.

i also recently tried DGVoodoo and it slowed my system down tremendously. I also experienced unplayable frame rates.
When you delete it, make sure that you also delete those 3 files that they tell you to paste in the Playonline Viewer Folder; d3d8.dll, d3dlmm.dll, ddraw.dll. Also, you may want to reinstall your old d3dcompiler_47.dll file that you overwrote previously in the DGVoodoo setup or download a new one from the internetz.

Then you did it wrong.


yeah, you did it wrong.

Yeah. I'd started getting access errors that'd cause a FFXI window to just hard crash. Swapped from dgVoodoo to that basic dx9 wrapper and haven't seen another. Some gnarly shadow flicker in a couple areas, but, seems to be more stable.

While I know the download page complains about Google flagging the dgVoodoo files, Windows was also preventing me from dropping the new version into the POL folder. It might be a false flag, but, something out there is very convinced that dgVoodoo contains malware, to the point that it deletes the executable as soon as it's unzipped.

I have a very similar system to you. There really is no need for DgVoodoo. That basically is for Intel CPU's and some AMD that have built in graphics. It forces the GPU to pick up the game in stead of the build in cpu graphics. Your Ryzen 7 3700x does not have built in so you should be good without it.

Maybe i did.
I don't have any issues otherwise with my system and my game looks good otherwise. I just tried out DGVoodoo to see what all the fuss was about. I followed Logical's (NextGames) youtube tutorial and it just didn't work for me.

No big deal.

Fortunately, i was able to undo what i tried and was able to play normally again.

Interesting. I did notice the game was much smoother and the graphics seemed more crisp after installing dgVoodoo. ReShader helped even more.

Is there anyway to regenerate/download that compiler file? Stupid me didn't back up before I overwrote the files.

Also, I'm using the d3d9.dll and not 8. Could that be part of the issue with ReShader? My POL folder has both 8 and 9 in it.

This is not even remotely true. DGVoodoo is a directx proxy, and while upgrading to a newer version of directx will offload some work to the GPU, it also has numerous benefits.

It prevents various crashes related to nvidia drivers, allows for software like reshade to be used, and prevents ffxi from erroring out when fullscreen is lost. Some of these are more important to some people than others.

For example, if you have multiple displayport monitors, you will lose your desktop resolution whenever you power one off. This allows you to still turn your monitors off without crashing your FFXI instances.

Atomos' D3D8->D3D9 proxy on the other hand, is used exclusively to ensure your dedicated GPU is active when FFXI is being played, as windows 10 won't recognize a dx8 game as worthy of it on it's own.

Thorny, I have the exact same system except my cpu is the gen older. I dont need DgVoodoo to run 6+ characters at full resolution. I tried using it on my computer only to realize it hurt more than helped since I dont have the same issues others have who have multiple graphics cards. I have zero nvidia crashes and I have no need for the D3D8>D3D9 proxy since there is no secondary graphics card. So like I said, its not needed.

The proxy and dgvoodoo really help to make windows actually deal with the ancient dx8 crap that ff11 uses. Modern vid cards pretty much just emulate dx8 to the point where very old gfx cards and their very old drivers can run this game better. The wrappers help to solve this, dgvoodoo working for many other games (ancient 3dfx voodoo api games and dx5/etc stuff) and atom0s's wrapper being just for ff11. Using a proxy/wrapper like this lets you get a pretty consistent 30fps in places like dynamis-d jeuno, domain invasion, or anywhere with a ton of mobs/players on modern gfx cards with high resolutions (though too much gfx spam from spells/songs/etc in DI does tank fps no matter what for brief spurts). Though if you're not really having any issues without wrappers, it won't be a big deal without it. Also, reshade also does some dx8 wrapping but I never liked reshade.

dgvoodoo has a watermark you can set in its control panel to ensure it's being used (pol and ff11 use different dlls and can both get watermarks to ensure they're both using the wrapper). If you have the d3dcompiler thing in your windows folder DO NOT OVERWRITE IT. The included one with dgvoodoo is only if your system never had it to begin with. Atom0s's does not, you just drop it where it says to. It has a .ini to modify if there's some odd issues, it also does not play too nicely if you set the game's brightness/contrast too high in the game's config (the weird shadow tearing).

If you installed ff11 to the "program files" folder by default, windows does not like you modifying anything in those folders so you'd need to take ownership of ff11's folder to properly copy things to it. That is, you need permission to write to this folder. If you don't know what this means please google it.

Maybe it's relevant, but the main reason I installed dgVooDoo was to eliminate the fullscreen/crash situation. Not even being able to Cnt+Alt+Del without crashing FFXI sucks. When I installed everything and it worked perfectly, dgVooDoo fixed that. When all this started happening tho, FFXI started crashing again whenever resolution changed/screen flashed.

The game HATES the windows screen dimming for a UAC prompt. Lower it down or turn it off entirely.

I own a 2080ti... You really think I have UAC on lol.

I have the same GPU and a better ryzen, the 3950X. It doesn't mean anything to own hardware and have something functional.

Reshade offers an improvement to the player experience, and the displayport resolution blanking is a very well documented issue. You also cannot use that nice hardware to play another game in fullscreen mode without crashing XI unless you use dgvoodoo. Thus, to some people, it is needed.

You personally choosing not to use it because you personally don't care for the improvements it offers means nothing to anyone else. Further, it's almost certainly not the cause of his problems to begin with. So, your choice not to use dgvoodoo is entirely irrelevant to this thread.

Funny you seem to be here to trash ideas on helping him vs actually making suggestions on what could help. That is certainly helping this thread and him tremendously.

I'm not trashing any ideas, he already said he tried without dgvoodoo in the initial post:

It seems like you have something against dgvoodoo, because you came in after that to say it's not needed. Unfortunately, that isn't true, because if you'd just read my last post you could see that the reasons people use it extend beyond performance and cannot be accomplished without it.

I have nothing against you, and I'm not trashing anything, I was just preventing the spread of misinformation. There are very clear benefits to using dgvoodoo, and while nobody is forcing you to use it, some people will find it necessary. On the technical side, it's far more likely to be a help than a hindrance.

As far as his actual issue, I would second Kireek's notion that a windower addon may be responsible. Perhaps something is placing too much load on the render event, due to a bad loop or otherwise poor optimization. Look at your recently adjusted addons, particularly those that aren't in the launcher(ones in the launcher would likely be widely reported by now).

Good suggestions, but the only non-launcher addons I have is Equipviewer and SellNPC (which isn't in my auto-load). I'm 100% certain nothing has changed with those from when those worked to it not working.

Edit: oh and MAGA, but again. Not in my auto-load and I haven't used it recently.

Have you tried taking everything off autoload temporarily just to verify without a doubt there's no issue with a plugin or addon?

Do you play with a controller or have a controller connected? There's a known controller related stutter in the base game that I see mentioned in Ashita channel pretty often.

I would recommend logging in with no addons/plugins, and if the stutter persists, restore your autoload and try logging in with no controller attached. Even if you require a controller to play effectively, that would at least identify the issue so further troubleshooting can be done.

Ya, I use a controller. Last night was when I reinstalled and saw it didn't work so I just played something else. I'll try everything mentioned in this thread tonight.

I'd be happy getting back to how my FFXI experience has always been... w/o dgVoodoo, ReShader, or HD textures. All that eye candy was nice, but that's not why I play this game.

Do you by chance have Findall and/or Visiblefavor enabled when the problem begins?

So I uninstalled FFXI again. Wiped out the Play Online folder, deleted the appdata, used CCleaner to wipe the registry of FFXI, and reinstalled.

No more issues. Using the exact same Windower profile too.

No idea how or what could have happened, but at least I can play again.

^ patently false information.

ctrl+shift+esc

It sounds like your voodoo broke, which is probably what caused the lag.

I know that shortcut, but Window's short cuts don't work when FFXI is on top. I ran into a silly issue where I had closed out of everything else accidentally and couldn't figure out how to get my desktop back without logging in/out. I've since learned that Windower has //minimize :-P

How could dgVooDoo break? Unless Windows 10 updated (which it very well could have), nothing else changed that I'm aware of. If it was a Windows issue tho, I doubt I'd be the only one posting.

I'm not going to reinstall it because my system runs 60fps just fine w/o it and always has.