FFXI Lag / FPS

All Right I run Vista - Yea I know Thats my first Issue

But besides that, I know people that can keep FPS 27-30 While in Dynamis and other areas with large amounts of people. Here are my specs:

Windows Vista Home Premium
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo CPU
Memory (RAM): 2046 MB

If any Of you run Vista out there and know how to reduce lag. Please help.



Think of the Mithras!

First things first. What resolution do you run FFXI at? Have you increased the background resolution? Are you running with full shadows? Active Antivirus running? Other programs running? Etc.

I run FFXI on Vista x64 with Q9300 Core 2 Quad with 4gb memory. I normally have two games running and only see lag when both are in whitegate, one is at a telepoint crystal (which is odd >.>) or in Batallia Downs {S} (damn strikethru) during earth weather

Overlay 640x480 (I like it small)
Backround Res 2048x2048
Not really much of a techi when it comes to resolution so not sure what they do.
All effects such as shadows / footsteps / etc. Off
Trendmicro PCCillin but I'm not sure if that counts.

Thanks

Ok if you are running at 640x480, your background resolution should be set to 1280x960, that will speed things up a bit as its not rendering the background 4 times larger than it needs to be. Try that first, see how it works.

I'm on it

Still getting like 9-10 FPS Pretty Choppy any other tips?

First update your video card drivers. Then if its still laggy try dropping your background resolution down to match your game's resolution at 640x480. The game will start to look bad without the supersampling of the larger background but if lag is your main concern then I'm sure you could learn to live with it =) Other things try turning off other applications running in the background. Maybe try running the game with your antivirus real-time scanning turned off.

Thanks

I'd definitely try matching your overlay with background res so it's only drawing exactly what you're seeing. It actually gives it a nice effect, though doubling it the way Hypnotizd earlier showed increases the effect and makes it even nicer generally. My laptop can only managed 1:1 though so maybe you're in a similar situation. All this can be done via http://www.ffxicalculator.com/ and very simply!

Aside from that, I use this program in both Vista and Windows 7 for XI: http://www.snapfiles.com/get/vsoptimizer.html - It seems like one of those "It fixes your computer!" BS programs, but it actually works really well and buys me quite a few FPS when playing and allows me to run Firefox, XI and a media player at once. As a note, you don't have to use it for its original purpose and go through configuring stuff, just turn on game mode before you play and you're good to go!

As a last note, try disabling sound in the FFXI Calculator "FFXI Settings" tab and reducing the maximum amount of characters on screen (in-game setting) to see if it changes anything. Sound makes a huge difference for me.