Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

[derekconlon]

Hello.

I have found 4 threads from the past couple years that are about this problem that I am having today. However, none of these threads solutions (the few that actually had one) worked for me.

I am running Windows 7 64bit.
8gb ram
Core I7 Processor.

Final Fantasy XI is among a slew of games I play on this laptop.

None of them have *any* problems *ever* EXCEPT FFXI.

That problem is, every 1.3 seconds or so, the game "pauses" for 1/2 of a second, then speeds up to catch up the video, then lags again, so on and so forth.

Here are a list of "solutions" i've tried so far:

• Drivers - I have all of them updated
• Final Fantasy Files - Checked and they are fine.
• Disable HID Interfaces or whatever they are called
• Not have any USB plugged in.
• Disabled shadows (and every other thing you can think of)
• Unchecked QoS for both my wired and wireless connections
• EDIT ## - Removed VirtualBox based on a post on Playonline.com forums but it didn't do anything.

The *only* solution I have not tried that that one person said worked for them is re-installing windows, but it would take me 100+ hours to get this laptop back up to its current state, so the chances of me doing that are slim to none, but I might have other motives for that solution also, but that is not a solution as of yet for me.

I know people play on Windows 7 64bit witih NO issues, straight out of the box even, so I'm hoping someone will know why this is doing this to me.

I can give you some of my technical specs or whatever you need, but keep in mind, the fact that EVERY other game (and i'm not talking abou 1 or 2 games, i'm talking about 100's of games) run fine on thsi laptop with ZERO problems EVER.

It is not my hardware failing, or my ram failing, or my ISP being slow so please refrain from such suggestions as I'm not going to be replacing any hardware or buying new ram for 1 old game.

Also, PlayOnline is unaffected by this. This problem ONLY resides with the actual Game Client of Final Fantasy XI.

PLEASE help me

I know other people have the problem, I just hope they solved it w/out having to re-install windows.

Thank you VERY much in advance and thank you for reading.

Derek Conlon of Colorado

[Raydeus]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

Here are a list of "solutions" i've tried so far:

• Drivers - I have all of them updated

Your first solution is probably the cause of your problem, you can check the Playonline site for this info too, but TL;DR: If using Radeon cards (as you probably are) any drivers after Catalyst 9.2 / 9.3 will present this problem.

Catalyst 11.x seems to be working better on W7 64-bit for me, or maybe it only improved because I upgraded CPU (it's still there, even if barely noticeable.) But Catalyst 9.4-10.x is atrocious (with the exception of 10.3 which works slightly better) for some reason.

This problem also used to happen with Nvidia cards, but they have fixed the problem since.


PS > FFXI is old.

[derekconlon]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

Thank you for your reply.

I am, however, not using a ATI Card. Nvidia ALL THE WAY BABY!

I have a GeForce GT 230M Video Card.

This is really sad. I mean, the ironic part is, I have other machines I can play FFXI on, so its not like i can't play, but now I Have to use 1 machine for all my games, and 1 machine for FFXI. that is stupidly annoying and I doubt i continue to play much longer if I cant resolve this issue.

I know its an issue with MY laptop, and not the game, but this isn't just some home-built laptop, its a very popular HP dv6 so WTF wont it work!!!

anyway, thanks again for your help.

I am even less hopeful I can get this fixed now after you thought 100% that i had an ATI LOL

Derek Conlon of Colorado

[cidbahamut]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

The problem is that you're using a laptop rather than a modular desktop. It's a hell of a lot harder to isolate and replace the troublesome component when all your hardware is part of the motherboard.

PC gaming 101: if you want a gaming rig, you build a tower. Laptops are unreliable.

[Armando]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

PC gaming 101: if you want a gaming rig, you build a tower. Laptops are unreliable.

To be fair, having a gaming rig hasn't been a requirement to run FFXI for years. I've also rarely heard of anyone having graphics problems in FFXI that aren't related to the drivers they're using.

[derekconlon]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

I appreciate your opinion of the laptop vs. desktop, however, that is like someone asking how to rebuild their 1966 chevy caprice and you saying "why would you drive a car, only trucks are good for driving..."

And just FYI, I do have a custom built desktop that plays the game just fine. However, when i'm at work, that desktop, which is at home, wont do me a bit of good. A piece of advice: when someone asks you a question, focus on their issue and what they are looking for, don't try to change what they are wanting so that you can be the one with a "solution". One man's solution is another man's waste of time.

If it does have to do with the drivers, then I guess it will never be resolved. I'm not using old out-dated crap just to make some old out-dated game work. god knows how many of my other games would break if I switched to old drivers.

I really do love FFXI, but maybe its time to skip ahead a decade and play something different.

The funny thing is, a similar issue like this has happened to me before. When I was younger, I played a game called Wing Commander II. It was the sickest game. Well, in 1999, I bought myself a shiny new Pentium 2 PC and guess what, when I tried to play Wing Commander II, it wouldn't work, because it would just go TO FAST. What ended up being the problem was, the code simply wasn't written to "control" the graphic speed and when the game ran on a new age screaming fast Pentium 2 (1999 keep in mind) it just ran at like a milllion FPS and you simply couldn't play the game.

Moral of the story is, old code just sometimes wont work with new stuff

However, the extremely lame part here is, FFXI works fine for 99% of the people out there using the same drivers I am

Thank you for your opinions guys.

Hopefully someone comes along who actually has had the problem and fixed it.

Also, by the way, Final Fantasy XIV runs fine on the laptop with no "pauses", however it only scored about 900 on the benchmark LOL. I've noticed alot of people saying both games experienced the same problem and therefore were trying to blame Squeenix's code. NOPE. 14 runs fine.

Thanks again,
Derek Conlon of Colorado

[cidbahamut]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

My guess is that it's an issue with your video card. Your video card is onboard. See where I'm going with this?

[DakAttack]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

I appreciate your opinion of the laptop vs. desktop, however, that is like someone asking how to rebuild their 1966 chevy caprice and you saying "why would you drive a car, only trucks are good for driving..."

That's not quite right. It would be like somebody saying "why would you drive a car off-road, when a truck would clearly be better". Also, why drive a Chevy when you can drive anything else? Shit vehicles.

The funny thing is, a similar issue like this has happened to me before. When I was younger, I played a game called Wing Commander II. It was the sickest game. Well, in 1999, I bought myself a shiny new Pentium 2 PC and guess what, when I tried to play Wing Commander II, it wouldn't work, because it would just go TO FAST. What ended up being the problem was, the code simply wasn't written to "control" the graphic speed and when the game ran on a new age screaming fast Pentium 2 (1999 keep in mind) it just ran at like a milllion FPS and you simply couldn't play the game.

Um, what? A game running a million FPS would fucking look magical, if that was even possible for the game to do or our brains to comprehend. It wouldn't speed the game up.

However, the extremely lame part here is, FFXI works fine for 99% of the people out there using the same drivers I am

It's probably a combination of your hardware and drivers. Your 230M is running at about half the strength of an actual GTX 230, so it's not packing much punch. That and driver issues could easily cause stuttering. I can only echo what other people are saying and suggest you stick to full gaming computers.

[Taskmage]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

Um, what? A game running a million FPS would fucking look magical, if that was even possible for the game to do or our brains to comprehend. It wouldn't speed the game up.

Lots of older games ran all their processes on a per-frame basis, so on a modern system they speed up to an unplayable speed unless you have some other software slowing them down.

[derekconlon]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

A desktop gaming machine is not better than a laptop gaming machine if portability is a big variable in the equation. I thank you guys for hating on laptops though, they DO suck for gaming, but they kick ass for portability.

Ok, those of you who think its my video card....

Really?... REALLY???

I can play Everquest 2 with no lag (FAR more demanding of a video card than ffxi). I can play wow with full graphics, no lag (not that impressive but its still more demanding than ffxi). I can play NFS:Hot Pursuit with full graphics, no lag. I can play <insert every other game in the world> with at least regular graphics and NO LAG.

I wont believe its the video card, until someone tells me WHY, or someone that also has a GT 230M says "i had the same problem and in the end, it wont ever work on that video card" EVEN THOUGH
there are tons of posts out there of people using the 200, 300 and 400 series of M cards and FFXI works fine.

I've done my research and i'm dissapointed to see people just giving me troll answers.

I'm looking for a real solution here, not a new damn computer.

In the end, Final Fantasy XI might not be compatible with my video card, but that is the GAMES problem, not my video cards problem, and honestly, i've seen Nvidia and Sqeenix make changes to fix EXACTLY those problems, so why would they not fix this one if that was the case? huh? huh???

its not my video card and its unlikely the game, so that is why i'm asking the internet, because whatever it is, someone has to have had it happen other than me, and as I mentioned before, this isn't some non-sense generic laptop, i'm sure millions of these things were sold and i'd bet my lunch at least one other person plays ffxi on it.

maybe not.

So, as you can see i'm getting irritated with the useless answers, so please refrain from posting unless you have some positive information into MY SITUATION, not your dreams of a PC gaming system and millions of dollars to switch out hardware for each game that fails to work.

THANK YOU

Derek Conlon of Colorado

[cidbahamut]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

FFXI's engine is old and quirky. The errors you encounter are symptomatic of graphic card issues. Doesn't mean your graphics card is bad, just that it doesn't play nice with FFXI.

We're not trolling you, we're telling you unpleasant truths. You're the one who is now baiting us to club you over the head for being a self righteous blowhard.

[DakAttack]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

A desktop gaming machine is not better than a laptop gaming machine if portability is a big variable in the equation. I thank you guys for hating on laptops though, they DO suck for gaming, but they kick ass for portability.

Ok, those of you who think its my video card....

Really?... REALLY???

I can play Everquest 2 with no lag (FAR more demanding of a video card than ffxi). I can play wow with full graphics, no lag (not that impressive but its still more demanding than ffxi). I can play NFS:Hot Pursuit with full graphics, no lag. I can play <insert every other game in the world> with at least regular graphics and NO LAG.

I wont believe its the video card, until someone tells me WHY, or someone that also has a GT 230M says "i had the same problem and in the end, it wont ever work on that video card" EVEN THOUGH
there are tons of posts out there of people using the 200, 300 and 400 series of M cards and FFXI works fine.

I've done my research and i'm dissapointed to see people just giving me troll answers.

I'm looking for a real solution here, not a new damn computer.

In the end, Final Fantasy XI might not be compatible with my video card, but that is the GAMES problem, not my video cards problem, and honestly, i've seen Nvidia and Sqeenix make changes to fix EXACTLY those problems, so why would they not fix this one if that was the case? huh? huh???

its not my video card and its unlikely the game, so that is why i'm asking the internet, because whatever it is, someone has to have had it happen other than me, and as I mentioned before, this isn't some non-sense generic laptop, i'm sure millions of these things were sold and i'd bet my lunch at least one other person plays ffxi on it.

maybe not.

So, as you can see i'm getting irritated with the useless answers, so please refrain from posting unless you have some positive information into MY SITUATION, not your dreams of a PC gaming system and millions of dollars to switch out hardware for each game that fails to work.

THANK YOU

Derek Conlon of Colorado

Are you playing over a wireless network?

[Armando]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

Lots of older games ran all their processes on a per-frame basis, so on a modern system they speed up to an unplayable speed unless you have some other software slowing them down.

Example: the PC port of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

"Sonic & Knuckles Collection is a compilation for Microsoft Windows based PCs, released in 1997. Games included are Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Blue Sphere (listed as "Special Stage Mode").

This game is virtually impossible to play in windowed mode on any system with a CPU faster than 350MHz (without any patches), because it lacks a speed-limiting feature in this mode. However, the timings used by full screen mode are based on the monitor's refresh rate, so the game can be played at the correct speed at a 60Hz refresh rate on any modern system. The framerate in windowed mode can be corrected with a patch [1] available from the Sega website, or by setting a value in the S3K.ini configuration file, described here. "

[Taskmage]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

I have a GeForce GT 230M Video Card.

Your drivers might still be the problem. The most up-to-date driver for that card is 270.61 but the most recently approved compatible driver listed on SE's site is 266.58. Rolling back to the older driver might be worth a shot.

[derekconlon]

Re: Every 1 Second, Video Pause (Lag)

thank you.

i actually will try to rollback and see if that does anything.

and your right, i was being mean and i'm sorry.

thanks.
Derek Conlon of Colorado

edit: i am playing on wireless sometimes, other times its on a wired connection. it does the same thing both times. it also does it if i unplug the connection physically, or disable them in the system.