FFXI and Vista-How annoying!

Hey guys, I was wondering if you can help me out. I recently started playing FFXI on my laptop and was sad to see that FFXI had poor frame rates. I started reading and people say Vista is just not good with games and XP is better for it. My friend who plays FFXI on really bad XP laptop on the lowest settings can play with exceptional frame rate. Will I see a huge improvement if I switched to XP with my laptop's current hardware? Attached is my laptop's spec. Thanks a bunch in advanced, and I'll be hanging around in this thread.

 

You need more RAM .... and a better GPU (i.e. new laptop)

XP might improve performance some, but ultimately, that GPU is kind of sucky.

You "might" be able to get away with that GPU for most things...maybe, but if you're lagging and framerates are so slow that you miss skillchains and whatnot, you're likely to not get into many parties.

I also wouldn't count on doing any major raids unless you're in a very very lenient LS...and definitely don't expect to be able to camp anything if you're not moving as fast as you possibly can...

Just think how slow Dynamis will be

 

Is it possible to upgrade the RAM and GPU without damaging the laptop? I don't know too much about the inside of laptops.

 

You should actually list your laptop specs here so we could give you better information.

Generally, you can upgrade RAM in most laptops fairly easily, although some laptops only give you easy access to one of them instead of both.

Generally, GPUs cannot be upgraded in laptops. There are a very select few laptops which allow you to upgrade your GPUs. Yours is probably not one of them - and even if it were, it's not something I'd recommend that you do yourself.

 

Recommended System Requirements

* Operating System - Microsoft Windows XP.
* CPU / Processor - Intel Pentium 4 processor.
* Memory (RAM) - 256 MB RAM.
* Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForceFX series graphics processing unit (AGP)
with 64MB of VRAM.
* Sound Card - DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card.
* Hard Disk Space - 6 GB free hard disk space.
* CD-ROM Speed - 32x CD-ROM Drive (installation only).
* Internet Connection - Cable / DSL Broadband.
* Others - Keyboard w/ 10-key numeric pad, Mouse w/ Wheel.

It just seems like if I downgrade to XP, everything would run a lot better. Who knows, that's why I'm here for your opinions.

 

Wow, this is an old post, but I have to confirm that FFXI with Vista sucks... I'm running FFXI on my desktop Q6600 OCed to 3.4GHz, 4GB ram, 8800GT and it runs very slow. Youtubing while playing and AIMing is nearly impossible because of the huge lag time between typing and stuff actually appearing on screen.

My W3J T7200 2.0GHz, 2GB ram, X1600 on XP runs FFXI great while youtubing and AIMing.

Vista is trash, avoid it like the plague.

 

Vista is great, just not everything is designed to work well with it.

I hope you have the newest drivers for your gpu and updated the game to its newest version also.

BTW some pirated games dont work as well as full versions so anybody reading with a pirated game keep that in mind.

 

I've found they run better, because you don't have to bother with the disk check.

 

If all else fails, dual boot. I have dual boot on my desktop, but TBH, I don't think I've booted into Vista but a few times, and that was only to do comparison on frame rates for newer games.

Either way, you can't upgrade your GPU, but you can upgrade your RAM easily. Or if you really want to play, then you will need a laptop with a GPU with dedicated memory (like an nVidia 8400m GS or GT).

 

Im just the opposite I have dual boot on my desktop and triple boot on my laptop and I have not gone into XP in over half a year now.