FFXI Maxing CPU With 5 Instances Running.

As the title says, by the time I load my 5th account, the CPU is maxed out.

Running Windows 10 and pulled this from dxdiag:

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 15063) (15063.rs2_release.170317-1834)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: HP
System Model: 870-224
BIOS: F.11
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 8192MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 8132MB RAM
Page File: 3109MB used, 8222MB available

Graphics Card:

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Type: Full Device
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1C02&SUBSYS_82FC103C&REV_A1
Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER]
Device Problem Code: No Problem
Driver Problem Code: Unknown
Display Memory: 7047 MB
Dedicated Memory: 2982 MB
Shared Memory: 4065 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Monitor Model: ASUS VS238
Monitor Id: ACI23FA
Native Mode: 1920 x 1080(p) (60.000Hz)
Output Type: HDMI
Driver Name: C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvhdc.inf_amd64_261118f104023aa1\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvhdc.inf_amd64_261118f104023aa1\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvhdc.inf_amd64_261118f104023aa1\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvhdc.inf_amd64_261118f104023aa1\nvldumdx.dll
Driver File Version: 22.21.0013.8546 (English)
Driver Version: 22.21.13.8546

I feel like I should have the power to run this with no problems. Anyone have any tips on how I can optimize my game to run efficiently? Nvidia settings are standard and graphics driver is up to date. The next program down the line is my task manager using about 3%. Each instance takes about 15-20% each.

Any help would be great!

From my experience FFXI in a mog house is around 5% and in town is 15-20% so this fits my experience. If there's some magical fix I would love it, but this is probably just how it runs.

There's no magic fix to let you run 5 accounts at max specs on a midrange PC. If you turn down your settings, it will help. Undersampling or at least not oversampling will help. Dgvoodoo may help, or may make it worse. You say you have 8192MB of RAM available, but don't say your actual utilization.. since you mention page file usage, it seems likely paging is wasting cpu time.

Fully running around killing ***only eats about 3% per account on mine.

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

With all 5 instances open, web browser with roughly 3 pages open at any given time (Chrome),I'm running at 50% Memory. 54% GPU

It all scales to what has to be rendered. I generally run mine at 640x480 or 800x600, and they often round to 0% CPU on my main machine(i7 6800k and GTX 1080Ti). A 1920x1080 instance is likely using 3-4x as many resources as a 800x600 instance at the minimum, even more if it's oversampled with full settings.

@OP:

A PC of mine with comparable specs:
CPU:fx-8350 passmark of 8949
and r9 290x 4gb passmark of 7384

to yours
i5-7400 passmark of 7397
gtx 1060 3gb passmark of 8919

can run 8 chars at 800x600 with minimal fps drops below 30. Anything past that and it starts to tank. So, your performance seems to be in line with your specs to me.

Perhaps a bigger problem is that you have a 4 core CPU and XI isn't multithreaded: no matter how windows divides 5 instances, one core will need to support 2 of them and struggle to do so. If you want 5 instances running smoothly, you likely need to make sacrifices on settings or buy better hardware.

Yeah if you're running them all at 1920x1080 that's why it's maxing it out.

You open all 5 windowers using default size?

Going from 1360x765 to default (1920x1080) triples %

Im running them at 1600x900 windowed. Looks like I'm going to have to scale down. Appreciate the helps guys

Don't know if you're doing math on the fly but this was helpful for me (being lazy) finding perfect scale for what I wanted

https://pacoup.com/2011/06/12/list-of-true-169-resolutions/

I haven't tried 5 instances but I've done up to 3 at 1080 while each in their own VM, while doing other things and once I moved the virtual drives to a couple of ssds it runs well (had slow bootup issues).

But it's not like I have the framerate uncapped or anything, i5-3570k

FFXI iirc runs on a single core/thread per instance.

Most i7 CPUs are 4 cores with HT, or 8 threads and if you have Task Manager open, you will see increased util on 1 of the 8 cores if you have FFXI up.

Non HT CPUs like an i5 will mean 1 of your cores will be running FFXI, if you have 5 instances and only 4 cores and no HT, then it can max out your CPU since there are no more resources to run anything else and running another app will have to share time with one of your FFXI instances.

Since you are running an i5, you have access to 4 cores only. no hyper threading. So your 5th instance is trying to grab time from the other 4.

FFXI is not GPU bound IIRC, unless all 5 instances are running at 4k, then maybe it'll start to take a gtx 1080.

I have considered upgrading to an i7 for other purposes. If it would improve performance on FFXI, that would really help justify the idea.

Any recommendations in the $300ish range for an i7?

Pretty much any PC store is going to have them under 300.

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.aspx?N=4294966995+4294925594&Ntk=all&sortby=match&myStore=true

4 different i7 299 279 269 259

Yea downsize them. I run 8 sometimes but i usualy have them at 640x480 or 800x600 yea you loose the quality but if your going for quantity and less lag have to compromise.

I have had success lightening the load using dgvoodoo and setting the vram use for each individual instance to cumulatively less than my max. Helps a lot.

I'm running an i5 4690k @ 4.5 Ghz and whilst the CPU load can go up, I don't find it's ridiculous. Make sure you don't have super sampling on if you use windower, as that greatly increases the resolution it renders each instance at. I regularly run 6 copies of the game at 3440x1440. I have the draw distance (in the config plugin) set to high on my main, but I set it at default on my alts just to ease the CPU usage a bit. GPU usage is always super low, but I have a 1080. I'm fairly sure that FFXI uses the CPU way too much for rendering, and really doesn't utilize GPUs anywhere near as much as it should. As Darian said, dgvoodoo *might* help, but dgvoodoo also would add CPU overhead as it has to convert all the DX8 calls into more modern calls.

Proejct mercury can do wonders when multitasking on an overstressed system
https://techcenter.dk.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/project_mercury.html
Its free so try it before buying new hardware


also disabling shadows and weather can do wonder.
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/37945/ffxi-lag-and-you/

does the config plugin allow us to use profiles for each char?

Didn't want to open a new thread since I am encountering the same issue to an extent

I am running 5 instances maxed out 1920x1080; however, CPU usage and ram is only about 55% total.. but when zoning to Selbina or veridical conflux it jumps to 80-85% (CPU but RAM is about 55%-60%)

Appreciate your feedback guys, this only happens in 1 zone technically.

System Spec:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (8 CPUs),3.5GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 16270MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce GTX 1080
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Display Memory: 4095 MB
Dedicated Memory: 3072 MB
Shared Memory: 1023 MB
Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz)

System could use some upgrade, but I even tried running 4 instances at 640x480 and it gets down to 60%-70%..

Would greatly appreciate your support.. tried Dgvoodoo but the difference was minimal.. after reading some replies on ffxi and CPU cores.. is having 1 core supporting 2 instances would really make the difference? if yes why isn't it the same case on most zones then?

Thank you

An option you have: lower your resolutions.

the i7-3770K is a quad core and each of its cores can handle 2 threads (which is probably what he ment by talking about 8 CPUs[?])

Processors don't 'degrade', paste might dry and crack and dust might build up which would lower the amount of overclocking, but that's easily remedied.

As shichi said, it is an 8 thread cpu, which is what really matters. Each POL will likely have a thread to itself just allowing windows to schedule, so affinity likely won't help.

It's mostly just a matter of load, without upgrading parts you can only do so much. Note that if you use a smaller resolution to reduce load, it's background resolution not window resolution that has the largest impact.

Eh they "can" if you continuously run them out of speck but under normal operating conditions it's very unlikely.

Honestly about the best you could do without splitting up your boxes is datswapping the conflux to remove the glow effect.

Try not running in 1920 x 1080.

I can run 5-7 instances @ 800 x 600 in everything to include Dyna-D with the following setup without any issues.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/kcompson/saved/myLKBm

*I prefer to run @ 800 x 600 because I like to be able to see everything on my screen which makes it easier for me to see everything.

Much love guys for the support to the thread and the community <3

Agree CPU was with me for a while and it's time to upgrade..

Again, thank you

That’s a lil’ pedantic given that scenario can be resolved with new thermal paste. The unaddressed degradation of thermal paste will lead to the degradation and ultimately the death of a CPU. However, when addressed CPUs can go a long time.

While you might be like wtf dude; the reply is really more so to be informative for the OP (Necrobumper) who more than likely won’t understand the contextual technicality of your “gotcha”