Final Fantasy XI Forum

I am happy to say that Final Fantasy XI works without many hiccups, at least works well to the point where I am happy to get rid of my Bootcamp partition.

I have installed FFXI as per the instructions posted in this thread:
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/group/?app_id=22;forum=1;msg=41199

Following the above instructions will fix all black screen problems such as running POL and also during the FFXI log in screens...

I have also experienced the 'black bar' problem mentioned in this thread:
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/group/?app_id=22;forum=1;msg=41029

My work around to the black problem is to manually change the background resolution to 768 x 768, since the black bar only appears when the background resolution is 1024 x 1024 or above. And for those of you who cannot stand the 512 x 512 resolution (I know I can't), you manually edit the the registry file to allow for the 768 x 768 resolution.

Here are a few problems that I still experience during game play and still needs to be addressed (something I thought I might share with everyone):

1. The lag problem, which occurs from time to time, during log in, sending POL message in game, posting items etc... The simple work around I had for it was to Ctrl + R (reply to /tell) and it immediately gets rid of the lag, saves you from having to pressing F11 or F1 and enter twice...

2. Text input sometimes stops responding after I use other programs during play (like looking up FFXI Wiki) or fiddle with the desktop icons, I am not sure if this problem happens to everyone else, but when it happens to me, I can still use macros and go to menus and such, however all text input for chat and commands just don't work. I have 2 work arounds for this, one is to go to Configure menu for Crossover Games and select Refresh Programs Menu (this should fix the text input problem), the other work around is to go to Configure menu for Crossover Games, go to Manage Bottles > Control Panel Tab > winecfg > Graphics tab > then check and uncheck the top most option (something about direct X and mouse pointer) > Click Apply > then OK. (this should also fix the text input problem) Neither one of these solutions work 100% of the time, which sometimes prompts me to re-do the process over and over again, but it always fixes it eventually. I am not saying these are the definite steps to fixing the problem but it seems that doing something with the Crossover Games menus and settings seems to fix it...

3. The POL screen inverting problem, it's random and I have no work arounds for this, but it's bearable.

4. When quitting FFXI using logout or shutdown, the program seem to stall and stops responding and I have to force quit the program.

These are the only bugs that I have experienced so far and apart from these, it's been great for me, I have done Campaign Battles with no lag, kicked grandpa Maat's butt & pretty much everything else...

My settings are as follows for your reference...
[i]
POL set to full screen mode, no music.
FFXI set to Windowed mode, MIP mapping (set to 2: need to edit registry file for this option), Screen resolution is 1024 x 768, background resolution is 768 x 768 (need to edit registry for this as well, and it's a huge step up from 512 x 512 and only a minor difference from 1024 x 1024)

For Crossover Games setting, I have:
Crossover HTML Engine
Microsoft XML Parser (MSXML) 3.0
Microsoft XML Parser
Microsoft DirectX Runtime (Download)
Microsoft DirectX Runtime
Core Fonts

Emulate Desktop on, desktop size is 1036 x 797 (Perfect fit to the FFXI screen resolution size)
Allow the window manager to decorate the windows on
Allow the window manager to control the windows on

I didn't temper with the Audio drivers at all...[/i]

That's it.

Just a little update:

I have recently migrated to an new iMac (I was using a Macbook Pro 15" NVidia GFX card I think), and have tried running FFXI on it, it seems that either the migration or the change of GFX card has upset the program a little bit, now I am experiencing the POL white screen problem. I have enabled the sound and music for POL and now I have to rely on the audio to log on to FFXI. The game still runs fine, but the POL part is frustrating... Does anyone have a solution to the white screen problem? Any feedback would be great.

how are you getting past the white screen?

I remember the rough locations for the buttons and I switched on the sound for POL, so I'm basically 'feeling' my way through the menus with my mouse pointer... The screen remains white until I get into the FFXI login screen...

Insert your POL CD again and on the installer menu click to install the directx8 option. That fixed my white screen.

awesome! Thanks for the tip, will try that out now!

Just tried reinstalling the DirectX from POL CD, it didn't seem to fix my problem... I'm guessing it's something to do with the GFX card drivers.... Since on my Macbook Pro this problem never existed. After I migrated to the iMac, the white screen problem came up and in game there seem to be a lot of strange glitches... flames, effects for glowing, mist all appear as a blotch of white, and certain background will flash constantly... Is there anything I can do to fix this? The game also seems to lock up randomly, although this is rather rare.

What version of crossover games do you have? I just re-read the update log and 7.1.0 fixed an FFXI problem. I have 7.0 and so I'm updating right now. I hope this works.

I am using 7.1.1 and that works.

actually im using 7.1.1 too, and it worked on my macbook pro without that white screen problem... only the screen inverting problem which i believe everyone gets that so far... but after having migrated all the files to my iMac (just bought it), the white screen problem came up... I tried reinstalling Crossover Games, deleted all the plist files and such.... still didn't fix it... tried reinstalling the directx from POL cd, didnt do anything either... one thing i didnt do though, is getting rid of my win xp bottle set up... dunno if reinstalling the bottle would help at all though...

It is worth a shot, just backup what you have so it has any updates you have done to the game files themselves. I find CX runs best when started from scratch so it may fix the issue. Any updates you have done to the game you can copy and paste into the same folder within the bottle and FFXI will only have to do the file check.

ok tried re-installing everything, I'm worse off this time, can't even set the sound so I can't 'feel' the buttons and such.... The POL screen is still white, with sound on the screen is black... what should i do now?

Update: I fiddled with the dxdiagn.dll - switched them all the 'Native' (think its spelt like that...) for POL.exe and polboot.exe and managed to get the music back.

Now I can still login 'feeling' the buttons using the sound effects. The POL member screens (the first few screens as soon as POL starts) are usually visible. Until the morse code part (loging in) which goes white almost everytime then the rest is pretty much the same, all white until I login...

/sigh, any idea how I can remedy this problem? Actually anyone using CX Games 7.1.1 on iMac 24"?

Hi Jason.
First of all, a very big thanx to you and everyone that's tried to get FFXI running.

I've followed every step mentioned, including the links to the other threads, and ended up exactly where you are!
White screen in POL and clueless.
I can hear the sound and can sort of "feel" my way around POL but can't get to FFXI.

At first, I couldn't get the POL to run at all but I fixed that by:
Inserting the installer disk and opening POL from the disk.
(Sometimes it didn't always work and had to reboot Crossover and/or Mac a few times.)

I was able to update POL to the latest edition but after that its been a white screen.

This might be a little off the subject but I once ran FFXI in VMware Fusion.
I also had to "feel" my way around POL with the arrow keys because it was so sluggish.
Once I was in FFXI everything seemed to work. Funny how POL was the most sluggish part.

Here's something fiddly that might let you work around the white screen problem: try switching in and out of Exposé to force the window to update.

If the game is full-screen, the Exposé won't be available. So, force CrossOver out of full-screen mode by typing Command-Option-R. Then fiddling with Exposé.

It might not work, but it's worth a try. If it does work, it won't really show you an actively drawing window. It will just force a snapshot of the window's contents to be drawn each time you force it.

Thanks for your tip Ken but I didn't get lucky.
I also tried hiding the window in the dock and bringing back out again.

Its funny that sometimes during login I can see the blue logging in screen of POL for a fraction of a second.
It sort of flickers in for an instant.

BTW I'm using a MacPro 2x2.8 quad-core with 6GB ram.
I'm also using it in dual display mode. Could that have something to do with it I wonder?

i have an iMac and got that white screen ._. no clue ;L;

by the way, did anyone tried windower or something?

Try the nightly builds. They seem to have fixed the white screen problem.

On the down side, I cannot get the FFXI installer to work on the latest nightly build, so I'm back at 7.1.1 to install FFXI, and nightly to get it to run.

Looks like 7.1.3 might just give this little SOB enough of a kick to make it work!

WOHOO!!!!!! THANK YOU CODEWEAVERS AND ALL THE WINE CONTRIBUTERS WHO MADE THIS WORK!!!!!!

Update on my progress with FFXI on OSX.

• I have the input problem with the keyboard, whether I use the stable or bleeding edge release. (11/27 and 11/30)
  • None of the fixes listed work for me. This leads me to think that the performance of my machine is having an impact, (First gen Intel MB - yes I know the GPU is horrid) and the core issue may be some sort of exotic race condition.
• Stable release produces white screen in the POL Viewer, bleeding edge works fine
• Both stable and bleeding have the POL Viewer inversion problem. Sometimes for several seconds. Mouse activity seems to help it return quicker.
• I can only install FFXI using the stable release. Bleeding edge crashes after showing the splash screen
• Performance is abominable for me, around 1 fps, and since I cannot get the keyboard to work, I cannot try the CTL-R fix.

I do have some limited ability to perform tasks in game. IE, I quit in the middle of the "Chocobo Wounds" quest, standing in front of the chocobo. Using only the enter key, arrow keys and F7 key, I was able to navigate menus enough to complete the quest, BUT, I cannot move, type, bring up the menu, or even quit properly. (so I have to crash the POL viewer by closing the Wine window)

For these reasons, FFXI is an Honorable Mention IMHO when running on OSX, but it's getting close to being usable.

Hey everyone thank you very much for all the comments and contributions...
I have just gotten my Macbook Pro back from the repairs shop and have played FFXI on it. No white screen problem, in game runs perfectly smooth. (though I did notice that the screen has developed this yellow pixels flicker problem, which I believe it's solely hardware and probably someone didn't do a good job at the repairs)

Anyhow, I think I have enough reason to believe that FFXI running on CrossoverGames will run 'properly' or at least with minimal issues, only on certain mac machines... So far I have no problems running the game it self on both iMac and Macbook Pro, no performance issue, only with the occasional lag spike which can be solved with the Ctrl + R/T trick. But as for the POL, iMac still has that white screen problem (i'm fearful of running the update coming up tonight, don't think there's any way of getting around it...) Macbook Pro however has no white screen problem with POL and if I remember correctly, both iMac and Macbook Pro use different video card chipsets? Could this white screen problem be video driver related? I tried reinstalling DirectX and such, didn't work at all. Tried the Expose suggestion too, no fix... I've been digging around the net for more info, but there really isn't that much on Crossover Games + FFXI... most hits takes me back to this Forum anyway.

Running out of ideas >.>

There are some hints on the Wine HQ App Database. (Wine is the app that Crossover is based on/contributing to)

There are some reasons to be hopeful. Recent versions of Wine have some patches that are making this work a lot better, and as that gets fed into the next version of Crossover, things will improve. Conversely, as more is exposed here, Wine will improve.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2739

Even after perusing all of this, it's still unusable on my poor little white MB, and I'm convinced I just need a more powerful machine.

Thanx to everyone with the contributions! I'm sure we're almost there!

Just a quick update on what I've been trying.
I'm not very educated in computers and I'm doing everything by ear and I'm probably doing everything wrong so don't rip my head off or anything ;)

I found it funny how POL runs on a Macbook Pro and not on my Mac Pro. I mean it should have more power CPUwise.
Must be the graphic board and everything related to it?
So, I sort of Googled around and it seems that one usually needs a driver for the graphic board.
My machine has an ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphic board and I downloaded and installed the drivers for the board.
*During installation I got an error and had to give it a couple of tries.

Question: Did I need this installation of the driver?

One other thing I found funny was the "inversion" problem on POL.
I also got the inverted screen when I first installed POL and FFXI but I've never seen it after I was able to update POL.

Nowadays I'm playing on VMware Fusion 2.0.1. It's alot slower than Bootcamp but livable.
I'd get rid of them both if I could get it running on CX!

I know that iMacs, Macbooks, Macbook Pros, and Mac Pros have different graphic boards.
Perhaps a little more info on what we use may be helpful to getting FF running on CX?

Thanx to everyones insight!

running on
Mac Pro 2x2.8 Quad-core Intel Xeon 6GB Ram
Mac OS X 10.5.5 ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
Crossover Games 7.1.1

Just bought a new 2.66 dual core iMac and I bought this software really hoping Final Fantasy XI would work so I could use it on here instead of my ps2 like I am at the moment. I've looked over all of the tricks to getting it running however whenever I go to start into playonline I unfortunately get the blank screen. Anyone running an iMac been able to successfully run XI in CX?

A little update.

I decided to take Charles Chappell's advice on the nightly builds and it DID solve the white screen problem.
Now I DO see the inverted screen. Left and right (mirrored) and upside down.
I was able to update FFXI but just before the screen where you select your character I got a black screen and wasn't able to go any further.
I could hear the music but no visual and had to force quit POL.
And then I realized I hadn't set FFXI config to run FFXI in windowed mode!
I changed the FFXI config logged on to POL and on to FFXI but I got the same black screen.
Left the room for a minute came back and VOILA! FFXI is up and running!
It's just really slow getting from POL to FFXI (took 1 or 2 minutes).
Its slow at first but after the "going into chat mode" trick everything seemed to be moving fine.

I think its the graphic board issue because Guardianknight's iMac and my mac use an ATI Radeon and the reports of FFXI running seemed to all be
from the Mac Book Pros. Mac Book Pros come with a NVIDIA GeForce graphic board. I wonder which iMac Jason and Sergio uses?
It seems the 24 inch 3.06GHz iMac is the only iMac that uses a NVIDIA GeForce.

One other thing.
I can't get Final Fantasy XI Config to run properly. It does boot up but I can't read anything inside it.
Same thing with the winecfg in the control panel. It just comes up blank.
I can see it on 7.1.1 but not on 7.2.0(12_03) version.

Another update...

There's been a recent Mac OS System update, hasn't fixed anything for iMac still. I'm still playing on my Macbook Pro.

About shutting down or quitting the game, has anyone had any problem? Whenever I quit FFXI, I do /shutdown, but it doesn't shutdown properly. The game will quit, but sort of gets stuck in POL black screen. Then I Command + Q for FFXI and Crossover Games, and it'll give me the POL has quit expectedly message... It's not really a major problem, since it doesn't create any problems for future log-ons, but just wandering is it a common problem?

I can't get FFXI to shut down properly either. Exact same thing happens to me too.
The problem with force quitting POL is that I can't just single-click the next time I log in.
I have to go through the "choosing the acount and logging in" routine but its not a big problem.
It just takes about 2 seconds longer to log in.