Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

[Balfree]

So i've recently returned to FFXI, and im considering a full reinstall of the whole game, but with one million expansions to install I wanted that to be the very last thing I tried...

So, the game always ran perfectly, but since i've returned, after all the patches were done, the game now sort of hangs up in intervals of about one minute, it hangs up for a split second exactly 5 times with intervals of about 1 second each.. no matter where I am, even in my mog house which is probably the less graphic intensive spot in the game.

I'm not using windower, but I am using the window mode native to FFXI, I'm restarting the game right now into fullscreen mode to see if that fixes it, though I obviously don't want to run it in fullscreen mode all the time...

My computer specs are still the same as they used to be when I left the game earlier this year, nothing has changed hardwarewise and I can't think of anything else software related I can uninstall to see if that fixes it, currently running Search&Destroy to see if that could help but my hopes are dim.

Anyone been through this?

[KingOfZeal]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

I'm curious, do you have any way to monitor your internet traffic? Ideally, something like a Vista gadget that shows your send and receiving traffic in real-time (which I use) but it doesn't need to be -- Google Toolbar can probably offer the same thing, and I'm sure there's some standalone programs that do it too. Heck, I think even the Windows Task Manager can do it too.

But I'm just wondering if there's a program that is trying to connect to the net to update itself -- I find this kind of problem happens to me with QBUpdate (for Quickbooks), which connects about once every 5 seconds until I kill the program through the task manager.

[Feba]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

Hiccups. Hiccoughs if you're old. Hickups are when someone uses their disk drive as a cup holder.

[Raydeus]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

What else can you use it for? o_O



Edit > Oops on topic. Have you noticed if your HDD is being accessed at the time these little hangups occur? Same with the processor, is it busy before using XI? You could check if there's any process hogging the proc and/or the HDD.

[Balfree]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

The thought that it might be the HDD occurred to me, its way old and i've been carrying the computer around a lot it might have gotten damaged with all the bumping in the car... but I don't think thats it because I don't hear it running too much.. I'm running some applications to get rid of possible spyware and junk i migth have piled up during my time off, see if that helps any.

[Balfree]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

Uninstalled a bunch of stuff, including a C++ Distribution, Visual Studio Express (2008) and all of its components (it sucks), a bunch of tiny applications I needed once and never used again, including Newsletter Studio, Mplugin (this one i have no idea what it was... o.o), Norton Active Scan and Panda Active Scan (they came out of nowhere!) and some other stuff i can't even remember, there were some free MMORPGS among the uninstalls too, freeing up about 9gb on my HDD total in junk i done want/need.

Ran S&D, removed a Win32.ZMist virus... to which i couldnt find a proper description, all i found was that it "eats up resources and desguises itself as "MSN Messenge"...

Ran HijackThis and removed a bunch of applications from the startup and some suspicious looking entries.

Game is running perfectly again, still hard to point fingers at the culprit though, other than my lazyness to keep my machine under control.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Weird "hickups" running FFXI.

Virusbuster



Win32.Zmist



Zmist is a harmless Win32 file infector virus. It aims to demonstrate the most difficult file infecting method ever invented. The virus code is not at the end of victim file, nor at the beginning of victim file, it is completely integrated in the victim file.
It can be detected in memory by using FindAtom("MISTFALL") Windows API call.

The virus stats when an infected file is executed, and the infected part reached. If the virus was not started since last boot, (FindAtom("MISTFALL")=no), then it will scan the local fixed disks and network drives to find Win32 program files to infect.
The decoder of the virus consists of thousands of randomly collected instructions; moreover the decoded virus body is polymorph as well. The longest fix byte sequence is 5 bytes in the code.
Zmist features a built-in disassembler, assembler and source code infection routine. The disassembler scans the target program, finds the executable instruction and data areas, then creates a source code, and finds the places where jumps are possible.
Then the virus inserts itself into the source code, which will change the dislocation of the jumps. The source code infector inserts the virus into the source, then the assembler gathers into a new program, which contains Zmist and the original program as well.

There is only one way to disinfect: deleting infected files.