Be sure to lower user access controls in windows if you don't want the game to crash every time the screen dims (either one up from bottom or bottom on the UAC setting). Dgvoodoo specifically addresses this by its use of dx12 vs dx9 in the others but you should lower this anyway.
spoiler is some other stuff I wrote sometime back. It's just a pile of words, might still be helpful. Show Spoiler
I thought I'd make this write up so folks can know about this potential performance boost. These are both outside of windower/ashita, and don't require either to run. Nearly everyone gains fps using these. With windower though you might have trouble taking screenshots, so you might need something else to do it.
There's a few options for this to help newer cards deal with ffxi's ancient directx needs. This can substantially increase fps in most cases or sometimes allow the hardware to work with it in others (laptops with dual graphics).
Two main options for this are atom0s' dx9 proxy and dgvoodoo2 (dx10-11). Atom0s' proxy is here on bg for info and here for installs and updates. Dgvoodoo2 can be found here,
Atom0s explains in good detail how to install his proxy in the thread I linked on bg. His proxy can also allow some laptops with dual graphics to actually work with the game, letting the dedicated gfx do work instead of the integrated (my old asus k53ta worked with this nicely). There's some options you can mess with but it's pretty much just drop two files in, install VS2017 Redist, and it works.
Dgvoodoo2 is a more general directx wrapper/proxy than atom0s', working with many more games than just ffxi, but being a little less optimized for ffxi. It was made to support old voodoo gfx card supported games but expanded to include older directx stuff, including ffxi. A benefit from using dgvoodoo is that any screen dimming from window's UAC or monitor/resolution changes usually won't crash the game. This one's setup has a few more steps but works pretty well on the newest hardware. First, grab http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/dgVoodoo2_62_3.zip (or the newest from the mainpage) and if you are not on windows 10 (win7/8) get this as well http://dege.freeweb.hu/dgVoodoo2/D3DCompiler_47.zip .
Next, you will want these files: and place them into your playonline folder: If on windows 10, you're done for file copying. Win7/8 may need d3dcompiler_47.dll copied to your windows system folder, like this (assuming x64): https://bucket.bluegartr.com/8ea9fcd135069b1b867fc58a04e4bfad.png If the file is already there, do not overwrite it (other guides on this differ but it should not make a difference as long as this file is there one way or another).
For some quick settings, change yours to somewhat match mine and see if there's any change in game.
Be sure to run dgVoodooCpl.exe as admin and click Apply and then OK as well as ensure that the config folder is set to your PlayonlineViewer folder. You will get a dgvoodoo watermark in pol and the game if things are working right, so you can go back an uncheck the watermark and modify the other settings if you want (I put color brightness up to see easier in dark zones).
With either of these proxies (they both work for me) I get 29-30fps nearly everywhere on my main system from 2015, which is an i7 4790k, 16gb ram, and amd radeon 290x 4gb rtx 2060, 1280x1024 windowed with same background res (could probably go higher but it's fine and stable). My old k53ta laptop (from 2011) get 17-25ish fps in populated places (with atom0s's proxy, otherwise it's 10-15 or so), 800x600 windowed with 640x480 background res.
Found something a bit easier to use that also works pretty well: reshade's dx8 to 9 proxy: https://github.com/crosire/d3d8to9/releases Just download that d3d8.dll at the top and drop it into either POL or FF folders (or both, no harm in it) and you'll get a pretty nice boost in performance with no configuration.
About the only thing you might need are common vc++/visual studio runtimes, maybe this: https://download.microsoft.com/download/6/A/A/6AA4EDFF-645B-48C5-81CC-ED5963AEAD48/vc_redist.x86.exe . If you don't have the runtimes, then it'll crash with an error message saying something about a missing dll, just take note of the name of that dll and reply here, it'll probably be from the linked runtime though. If you have win10, you probably have it already.
Been trying this one for a while and it works pretty well.
Dgvoodoo and atom0s's proxies do occasionally show some graphical glitching, like with some shadows, while I've yet to see any glitches with reshade's. Given the ease of use, I would recommend to first try reshade's, then atom0s's if you have a laptop with dual graphics, and the dgvoodoo if you want a little more control or you deal with switch monitors or other desktop/display/UAC things while playing. For me at least, they all perform similarly on my desktop while atom0s's is best on my old dual gfx laptop (actually makes the dedicated gfx part do work while the others don't for whatever reason).
Orinthia Members replied
316 weeks ago