FFXI Frame Stuttering

I'm running a self-built windows 10 x64 desktop, with a intel core i7 4770k processor, MSI Z87-G45 Gaming mobo, 32 GB of ram, a pair of regular (Non-SSD) 2 TB hard drives (non-raid), and an EVGA NVIDIA GTX 980 SC graphics card.

The issue I'm seeing mostly in FFXI, but I think I see it elsewhere, is frame stuttering, the game will freeze visually for a moment, then catch up, but not crash or anything. I'm not getting crashes, but I THINK see some lag sometimes in other software. I ran a video benchmark (firestorm), and it actually came up higher than the last time I ran it prior to upgrading to win 10 (back when I was running win 7 on the same hardware).

I'm running current NVIDIA drivers, running windower, config at 60 FPS, etc. This never used to happen until like, earlier January or so.

Is my card starting to die off? I'm seeing no artifacts or messed up textures though. If my card's on it's way out, I'll go buy a 1070 GTX most likely. But I want to know for certain before I go out and invest in an expensive graphics card.

It's Windows 10 and FFXI. FFXI is DX8 which is emulated through DX9 is spotty on Windows 10 x64. Chances are the system is doing a form of hardware assisted software emulation of a generic graphics card for FFXI. I'm on my phone now otherwise I would give you the link for the DX9 libraries for Windows 7-10. Those might help, also be sure the nVidia drivers you have support DX9 on Windows 10. Lastly look for a DX9 on Windows 10 download from MS.

I upgraded to windows 10 back when it came out, maybe I should have been more specific. This issue started last month, I'd been playing with FFXI on windows 10 for over a year without this issue that just appeared out of nowhere.

Application pol.exe has been blocked from accessing Graphics hardware.

Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

these are the 2 errors im getting (Windows 10). both of them cause the game to lock for 3-5 seconds, then Crash. i tried changing the delay for recovery to 8 seconds, but it still doesnt help, does it at least once a day. ALWAYS at the worst time.

Yep that's the DX8 on Windows 10 issues. Did you upgrade to newer nVidia drivers recently? Newer drivers hsve been breaking compatibility with older DX8/9 applications. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. It's why I'm still on Windows 7 x64 for gaming.

Ive been having this same issue, started earlier this month. The only dif is i know its internet lag. Sadly only ffxi services seem to be affected. All of my other games run fine online, i can multibox with no issues. For some reason though ffxi keeps R0 me. Looks like screen stutter but is actually game lag.is there anyway i can dedicate bandwith for just ffxi or any other ideas? I've done all the options ive seen online.

For DX issues you can try uninstalling MS update KB3081424, it's been known to break DX compatibility.

Here is the DX9 package, it will just install the DX9 libraries which might help applications using the older compatibility layer.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35&nowin10

If the web installer doesn't work you can try the redistributable package.

The way this works is that d3d8.dll under syswow64 just redirects the calls to d3d9.dll which looks to see which version to use vs what's available and what capabilities the hardware has. If it can't find a proper match then it uses an emulated 3D card for missing functions. Normally hardware and OS has all the required libraries present to function with older DX8 titles but... lately things have been breaking cause driver and OS developers aren't focusing on backwards compatibility.

That patch doesn't show up, I google it and I get this:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3081424/cumulative-update-for-windows-10-august-5,-2015

The update from AUGUST of 2 years ago?? You want me to uninstall a patch I installed back in august of 2 years ago, for an issue that started in January of 2017? And I tried installing that direct X runtime web installer, and it says I already have the same or a newer version.

Yes a patch from 2 years ago can break compatibility today. And I said if the dxweb installer isn't working then try the redistributable. Your not needing a new DX version but the older libraries that might assist in using legacy code with modern drivers.

Ultimately you can do whatever you want. Don't ask for assistance on things you don't understand and then pop an attitude about it.

Here is a link for getting older DX8/9 games working in Windows 10.

http://www.dosgamers.com/directx-9-windows-10-windows-8

I reinstalled directX9 from that link and rebooted, and it didn't help at all. Not sure what else I can do, since that patch is something I can't uninstall. If the old patch is affected by a newer patch, wouldn't removing the new patch fix it? If you suggest reformatting, I will not do that, since I already had to do that once a couple months ago to fix a different issue. Sorry about the attitude, but I had a feeling reinstalling directX or fiddling around with a patch I can't uninstall because it's 2 year old patch that never gave me an issue, won't help.

Those are the known things to do first. Was there any update forced that happened at the same time as this? Windows 10 tries to force all updates and it's highly likely one of those broke DX8/9 for your graphics card. What was done immediately prior to this breaking.

I ran GTX 970 on W10, 60 FPS no stuttering. Upgraded to GTX 1070, frames would drop to 1 game would freeze for 1-3 seconds and then return to normal, it fixed itself and I don't know how. Are you using FastCS? It can interfere with FPS some. I couldn't find a fix so I capped frames to 30 FPS and the stuttering stopped. You can also try disabling GEO bubble effects which seemed to help my situation some.

Could've been the cumulative update on the 11th (KB3213986), but I don't remember the exact time I had this issue, and I'm not using FastCS, and I get these stutters even when bubbles aren't involved, not even sure HOW to disable GEO bubble effects.

Well I'm using Windows 7 x64 with Intel Optimus and Geforce 970m. Had to monkey around with settings to get it to use my Geforce instead of the Intel HD graphics.

No tech expert, but I tried running the game on my 2013 macbook air recently using VMware Fusion and Windows 7 x64 and had the same issue. Game didn't crash but I had a constant stutter. Other than FFXI, VMware ran great. I read that even on windows if you have any VMware software or any other virtualizers installed to try uninstalling them.

Also make sure you have controllers disabled if you're not using one. And make sure if you have controllers enabled, it's plugged in and/or turned on.

You have identified the problem, it's not properly using your graphics card.

Vmware doesn't emulate a GPU very well, much less on a Macbook. That means your virtualized FFXI was running with limited acceleration via DX9 on emulated rasterizer. So on your main system there is a problem with getting the 3D code to run on the native directx pipeline. I will check a few things when I return from my trip to see if there is an alternative method. Try running it without windower just to check.

Yeah I had the same problem running it without windower.

Then it's 100% a software library vs hardware driver issue. The hardware isn't running the game natively and instead the CPU is doing all the work which is incredibly bad for performance. I don't use Windows 10 for gaming so I'm not sure all the levers and knobs to tweak. In all honestly it's going to be an uphill battle as neither MS nor nVidia give a ***about DX functioning correctly.

I would start sniffing in that direction. Also try to get dgVoodoo working. It's kind of a last ditch solution but its a wrapper that translates DX8 code into DX10/11 and bypasses the DX9 translation layer.

I read some posts awhile ago and it suggested disabling the DoS packet scheduler in your network adaptor settings. May as well try...

I'm having the same issue on my system not using the Geforce card and using the HD graphics instead. I've tried using DGVoodoo, but the game just randomly crashes at the most inopportune of times. Any way you could potentially provide some info as to how you got XI to use the dedicated card?

Inside the nVidia software I set pol.exe to geforce along with the windower launcher. Had to tweak the settings a bit but got it working. Used gpu-z to view the gpu utilization to verify. Also you might need to rollbsck to a specific driver version.

I'm experimenting more with dgVoodoo and trying to figure out which plugin or addon is causing the crashing. It looks absolutely amazing though.

I'm still thinking that maybe it's my card, because I was streaming on crunchyroll just now, and saw a stutter during watching a video, the audio was going, but the video stopped for a moment. It was the same thing. I know I"m using the video card, because I went to manage 3D settings in the NVIDIA control panel, went to power management, and set prefer maximum performance, also, in config surround PhysX, I set it to the GTX 980. If there's anything else to change (I'm using a desktop, so Optimus isn't a thing I have), I don't know what it is.

Do you have any newer games to test this with?

I've played some warframe, and I think I've seen the behavior there too. I haven't had the chance to play anything like, say BF1 in awhile, which would be more demanding than anything else since it's a recent game.

I've had similar problem with a 770. It ended up being a power management problem from the card.
A soft like gpuz should show you the card voltage, or you could launch any game and check gpuz log a few mins after an check the power voltage delta.

Been running two instances of FFXI, so far it's had 1.0500V min, 1.2000V max, and Average of 1.0828V.