Low FPS With GTX 980M

Anyone else running this game with a gtx980m? i'm having a horrible time running this game. i'm getting a steady 12-15 fps in the city and 30 in MH.

Running on

Win 8.1
i7-4720HQ
gtx980m
16gb of ram

I was really looking forward to get back in the game.

thanks!

its probably your nvidia driver.

Your specs are too damn high to have 12-15fps in the city. 30fps is the forced cap unless you run a plug-in.

I know this works for Windows 7. Not sure if it'll work for Windows 8.1. But I'd give it a shot if I were you.

While you have playonline loaded go into the task manager and right click on POL, click on set affinity and set the core to just 1 core. In the options it'll show either 0 or 1 just pick one of them and continue to load ffxi like normal.

Try enabling or disabling graphics stablization, or make sure your controller is on/off if it's enabled.

thanks for the feedback guys, i tried enabling graphic stabilization as well as set affinity but no luck. Any other advice?

any particular driver recommendation? im running the latest nvidia ones.

Having a similar issue. Seemed to happen when I upgraded my video card in Feb. My temporary solution was to turn off super sampling in the Windower options. The game looks like garbage but at least it's playable.

that's horrible... was anyone able to fix it

Sounds like you're using a laptop? Make sure you configure it to use the graphics card alone and not paired with the integrated chip, otherwise it will cause extra stress on the processor.

Could it be that the game is running off the integrated graphics card?

That's exactly what's going on. GPU usage is at 0%.

Does your laptop allow you to turn off the integrated chip in the bios/uefi?

There will be a setting within the nVidia control panel to always use the nVidia card or to set it to use the nVidia card for what ever applications you want. By default it will try to run everything through the Intel graphics unless it utilizes DX10 or something which ffxi doesn't.

I just tried to go through the bios and there is no gpu/intergrated override.

From my understanding it's a compatibility issue between Nvidia's optimus and direct x8 / win 8 compatibility.

I already assigned the settings on the nvidia control panel too.

Not sure what to recommend then, perhaps go into device manager and disable the intel graphics adapter, else if its a compatibility issue and this has been confirmed, update/upgrade to Windows 10. There is usually a way to disable Optimus.

I just tried to disable the integrated intel hd and it causes Playonline to crash and when I disable it when the game is running it simply goes blank...

if i update it to windows 10 will that increase the odds of compatibility?

Not sure, but there is always the rollback option with Windows 10 which will revert right back to how your system is now, so it takes a bit but it could be worth a shot.

What manufacturer is the system? There has to be a way to disable Optimus or to tell the system to run Pol.exe on the nVidia graphics. I have an alienware where I can set it in the nVidia control panel. Perhaps try their forums or support for help on that.

Im having the same issue, Windower 4 will run not run on my nvidia, even manually setting pol to run the nvidia it still ran integrated. its like it says windower is running intel so lets keep running it.

You shouldn't still be getting 10~ fps even while using the integrated gpu. The graphical performance of the game relies on the cpu rather than the gpu as weird as it sounds. I am playing on a laptop much weaker than yours and I never had such a big fps problem on either w7 or w10, with new drivers. Btw, you should upgrade to w10 while you can for free and that might even fix the issue.

I searched about disabling Optimus a while ago and unfortunately couldn't find a way, but I never had any problem with it on my laptop either. Pol.exe is picked by my 630M just fine.

This issue started for me when I logged in today. Only getting1.6 FPS in cities. Worked like a charm last night but today, it sucks because I cannot play at all.

I had a similar problem even making tickets with both nvidia and SE and gave up, just easier to play on my desktop. I did however find a solution finally that someone shared. You have to run a Virtual Machine, install FFXi on it, and when you assign the VM to use the nvidia gpu instead of onboard it works. Setting it to use pol doesn't and the nvidia guy was making me jump through hoops to try to fix it and was wasting a ton of time. So there you go. In the future, just don't buy mobile gaming laptops that have two video cards. Most of them are crap (and I don't say this lightly my gaming laptop was expensive) because they don't let you disable that behavior in bios like you could if they were actually two cards, optimus is some Frankenstein monster and you can't disable onboard because of it. It's designed to make batter life longer but if you are playing a game on a laptop the battery life will suck and be on the power hungry gpu anyways.

Intergrated depends on the ram of the cpu, that's why having a dedicated gpu is better cuz it has it's own ram.

did the windows 10 upgrade and still experiencing the same thing...

If you disabled the integrated gpu and it causes it to do something different then that means it was utilizing it. Fiddle with your settings until you get it to work like that, as it should remedy your issue.

As for the "compatibility" FFXI runs on directx9 emulation via directx11, once you disabled your intel card if fiddling with your nvidia's settings the only other thing to really do is change driver versions and see if it helps.

There's a way to bypass all of these issues but it basically requires running a VM. (To be fair, I've never logged my fps in my vms, but they seem decently smooth).

Try this: http://reshade.me/forum/troubleshooting/277-final-fantasy-xi-crashing-on-load#14438

See if it works for you.

It made my laptop actually use the NVIDIA GPU.

I've witnessed a few occasions where the game froze running this way. Though, I'm not sure if it's just FFXI. My desktop's been doing the same thing lately since the last update, and I'm not using these things on my desktop.

so i set up a vm but can't get pol to launch .. lol great.

As far as your tip kurgan, for the dgvoodoo do you have go to drag the setup and dll file in the ffxi directory or keep them in a separate folder inside the ffxi direct

Oh wow, most people don't take that seriously. Which software are you using? Only a few support direct3d acceleration, and you have to have it enabled in the ones that do.

edit: Personally I use VMware workstation, obviously with vmware tools installed. Vmware player should function for it though, but I don't believe you can lock the resolution of the VM like you can in workstation, it's been a bit since I've used just player.

i have the oracle vm virtual box running win 7 lol. installed net framework 4 to have windowder launch but pol won't boot.

virtualbox (last I tried anyway) doesn't have full direct3d support, try vmware player.

Sounds good, I'l give that one a go.

In the meantime anyone familiar with dgvoodoo2 know how to get this thing to run? i've tried dragging the dll and exe in the ffxi directory and having a folder in the ffxi directory and neither works. do i have to set up the instance folder to something else? it's linking to appdata/roaming now.

HUGE thanks to KURGANPRIME! dgvoodoo2 is working like a charm. Have to run it in a particular sequence but it works!!! Adoulin MH @ 50 fps (windower 30dps cap disbaled) with supersampling and everything maxed. Once again HUUUGE thanks to everyone that helped but for anyone that's in this situation, go the dgvoodoo2 route!