Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

[Chewurface]

I've been searching the internet and found some other people that are having the same problem I am in various FFXI forums. The problem is, when I zone into Arrapago Reef my frame rate drops to 1-2fps. The problem is being caused by the music file for that zone. I know this because A) If I turn the sound off the game runs fine in that zone, and B) If I move the music file for Arrapago Reef out of the folder it is supposed to be in, I can play in the zone with no frame loss with all the ambient sound effects and other sound effects still on.

I have tried dropping all the graphics settings to their lowest values, this did not help the problem. Only shutting off the music or moving to music file will make the game playable in Arrapago Reef.

At first I thought it was a problem with my PC or it's hardware, so I replaced my graphics card and sound card with brand new state of the art cards. The problem still persists.

I have all the latest drivers for all the hardware in my system. My DirectX is version 9.0c and according to dxdiag has no problems with any files, plus passed all the sound and graphics tests.

I also had a couple of ls members send me a copy of their Arrapago Reef music file thinking perhaps maybe mine was corrupt. Their files produced the same problem.

I have access to all areas in FFXI and have never had any problems before. Unless there are a million people in a zone (Dynamis and such) I always run at 20-30fps.

I sent a bug report to SE about this problem, but I am looking for others who are experiencing the same issue.

I am NOT saying that this is not an issue with my PC. But since other people are having the same issue with Arrapago Reef only, and we most certainly all have different PC configurations, I don't know what else could be causing it.

I ran the file check utility from the PoL viewer and it reported no errors as well. Oddly enough, I ran the file checker again after moving the music file for Arrapago Reef to a temp folder and the it still reported no errors. GG on that file checker SE, looks like it works real well. /em rolls his eyes

If you are having this problem, please post your system specs here so we can look for a common factor between our machines. My system specs are as follows:

Intel P4 2.4GHZ 533MHZ FSB CPU (Northwood core)
1 GIG PC800 RDRAM
Intel 850emv2 mobo (Intel 850 chipset)
Evga Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS 256MB GPU (AGP 4x)
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 (PCI)
80 GIG Western Digital HDD (7800 RPM ATA100)
Antec True Power 550 Watt Power Supply

My old graphics card and sound card that had the same problem were:

Gainward Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128 MB GPU (AGP 4x)
Sound Blaster Live (PCI)

[Starzero]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

I think the issue is with the sound card. From all of the threads I've read regarding framerate issues in certain zones, that seems to be the overwhelming cause of the problem. It happened to me too when I first zoned into Ru'Aun Gardens and when I zoned into Arrapago Reef on the PC for the first time. To contribute specs, mine are:

AMD64 2800+ processor
1 Gig 2100 RAM
ATI 9800 Pro 128
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Gamer Edition
Seagate 7800RPM 120G HDD
Maxtor 7800RPM 300G S-ATA HDD

So far, the only way I've ever gotten either zone to work is to remove the .bgw file for the music in that zone, which sucks because those zones have pretty nice background music to them.

[Suichi]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

It's never lagged for me.


Then again, I'm on PS2...

[Starzero]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

Yeah, on the PS2 and the Xbox 360 all of the zones are fine. There's just something about the sound cards on some PC's that just doesn't seem to want to work with a few zones for some people.

[Balfree]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

The new sound file formats seem to be more hassle than it's worth. SE wanting to protect their files ruins everyone's fun, and in that topic, i bought the game, it comes it sound. I should be allowed to playback the files in any way i see fit... silly silly SE.

[Chewurface]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

I have this same thread running on the KI forums. The one person there who posted with this problem also had an Audigy model sound card. At that point I was thinking that maybe there was something in the Creative driver architecture that was causing this. I posted that I was going to try and enable the on board audio on my mobo and disable the audigy to see if it would fix the problem. Before I had a chance to do that, the other poster replied that he/she actually bought the audigy card to replace his/her on board audio because he/she thought that was what was causing the problem. So now I don't know anymore, maybe I'll still try it, but it seems like a big hassel for something that most likely will not work. I think everyone who has this issue should fill out a bug report for SE, maybe if they get enough they will actually look into this problem.

The other poster on KI called SE about this, their advice was to "turn the sound off." What the heck is that??? We pay them a monthly fee to fix/update/maintain this game, stuff like this is one of the reasons I thought we paid!

If this is not a hardware or driver issue, then perhaps it does have to do with the new encryption SE is using. Has anyone tried to format their PC and reinstall Windows and FFXI to see if that fixes it?

Link to my topic on KI forums:
http://www.killingifrit.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=118901

[Starzero]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

I looked at the Tech Forums on Alla, and there are a number of people there who are having the same issues as us with some zones dropping to 0-2 fps in certain zones. One of them mentioned that there is a compatability issue with the RealTek sound drivers. Unfortunately, there isn't any known fix to getting the right bgw file working in the zone that has issues other than to remove it. I have reformatted and reinstalled FFXI quite a number of times to see if maybe a file was indeed corrupt even though the file checker didn't mention anything, and it didn't help.

[Hellrazzor]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

nothing went wrong for me it went so cool <i have to say i dieed like 24 times beacuase of the devill children IMPSSS and the fleaaaaa that u cantt seee> i got all the jobs now so i cant say i will be going back there sooon

[Chewurface]

Re: Frame rate issues in Arrapago Reef

PROBLEM SOLVED!

It turns out that my problem (and a few others) was being caused by my antivirus program, which happens to be Zone Alarm. Please note that Zone Alarm did not write the A/V program that you can buy from them, they out source it to another company. Another player was having the same issues and had ETrust A/V program, disabling also fixed his/her problem. I can't be 100% sure, but for some reason I think that the ZA A/V program may be made my ETrust.

Here is what I did:

First I disabled Zone Alarm all together (firewall and A/V) and checked Arrapago Reef, the game ran at 30fps (with music).

Next I reenabled the firewall but disabled the A/V in the Zone Alarm control panel, still got 30fps in Arrapago Reef (with music).

/joygasm

I have no problem with turning off my A/V while I play FFXI, I'm 100% sure that I will not get a virus while playing. I can't speak for everyone, but when I play FFXI that's all I do, no windower and no other programs running in the background that could potentially download a virus while I played.

I am a happy Tarutaru now. Hope this helps some other people as well.

Happy Gaming!