FINAL FANTASY XI: Ultimate Collection Seekers Edition Forum

The game is pretty easy to get up and running now.

Make a new "winxp" bottle, name it whatever you like and install the game.

Then, Configure >Manage Bottles > Control Panel > winecfg

Applications > Default Settings and change Windows Version to "Windows Vista"

Now the only real hard part, settings for POL and in game.
Programs > Run command..

regedit => HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > Software > PlayOnline** > SquareEnix > FinalFantasyXI

0000 0 MIP Mapping (0=disabled, 1=enabled) Further raises blur textures more times use sparingly.
0001 Display mode width (X)
0002 Display mode height (Y)
0003/0004 3D Resolution (keep them the same I use 2048/2048
0007 Sound: 0=Disabled, 1=Enabled
0011 Environmental Animation: 0=Off, 1=Normal, 2=Smooth
0017 Bump mapping: 0=Disabled, 1=Enabled
0018 Texture compression: 0=High, 1=Low, 2=Uncompressed
0019 Map compression: 0=Compressed, 1=Uncompressed
0021 Enable hardware mouse cursor: 1=Yes, 0=No (I use it so mine is set to 1)
0022 Show opening movie: 1=Yes, 0=No
0023 Simplified character creation visuals: 1=Yes, 0=No (leave at 0 for better graphics)
0028 Gamma Base: 0x3f800000 = 1.0, 0 = 0.0, 0xbf800000 = -1.0
0029 Maximum sounds: 12-20(possibly more but no easy way to tell)
0034 Windowed Mode (leave 0=off)

::none of the others have an in POL config that effects the rest directly.
:: if you are testing a lot make the settings you like and safe the registry key using the file > export function in regedit while having the key you want backed up highlighted.

In game:
Misc.:

• Shadows can be set to [Normal] or [High]
• Weather effects can be set to [ON]
• Character Models Displayed can be turned all the way up to Max
  Misc.2:
• Clipping Plane and Animation Rate can be turned all the way up to Max
• Set your aspect ratio as needed
• Keyboard Type, Mac users you have to set this to [Compact] since Apple makes the Numpad number only it can't be used to control your character. When you select compact it will show you the button configuration, if you don't like the settings you can change them under...
• Key assignment use whatever settings you prefer here. I leave the WASD for movement and arrows for camera. I actually just use the W and control my character with more accuracy using the camera controls.

NOTES:

1. You don't have to make a virtual window any more saving you from adjusting the window size to fit the game.
2. The game will likely crash every time you close it. command+option+esc force quitting it is the easiest way to quit it.
3. I was able to have my settings set to max on many things, you may have to adjust for slower video cards.
4. The game seems to run faster than Parallels and is faster than VMware Fusion 3.
5. if you need windower for SEs stupid move of not allowing Japanese input or not leaving us with big enough macros to allow the BLM gear swaps then you are out of luck. Windower is a .net 2 application which does not work in Crossover yet.
6. you can bind key strokes to a controller if you like but nothe that switching windows may mean you are typing WASD instead of moving your character.

Hi Zak,

I'm trying to figure out how to add regedit settings and your list of commands is confusing. What exactly are my entires? 00001? Or "Mip Mapping"? I've never done this before and it seems like your instructions are assuming a general knowledge of regedit. :)

Could you make your instructions for regedit more "noob" friendly?

I'm especially interested in making use of the built-in gamepad support, rather than binding the gamepad to keystrokes. It's a setting in the FFXI config app that doesn't seem to work...

Is the lack of a working FFXI config app the reason why we have to use regedit?

Thanks for posting your knowledge on the subject. It's much appreciated! :)

fahr wrote:

I'm trying to figure out how to add regedit settings and your list
of commands is confusing. What exactly are my entries? 00001? Or
"Mip Mapping"? I've never done this before and it seems like your
instructions are assuming a general knowledge of regedit. :)

Ok a crash course in regedit. If you don't know what it is DON'T TOUCH IT. Ok now that we have the basics behind us :P

fahr wrote:

Could you make your instructions for regedit more "noob" friendly?
regedit is not easily noobified so i added a screenshot to the original postImage Link. You want your regedit screen to look similar to mine. On the left pane if you open the path per the instructions you will see what is in the image. The post shows JP and NA paths you would have to go to if you use the EU version it should say "PlayOnlineEU" you will only have 1 entry, PlayonlineUS, PlayOnlineEU or PlayOnline. Everything should already be there, just change the values by double clicking on the line you want to change.

fahr wrote:

I'm especially interested in making use of the built-in gamepad
support, rather than binding the gamepad to keystrokes. It's a
setting in the FFXI config app that doesn't seem to work...
We can't until Crossover gets gamepad support, until then, any app will have to read input from something it knows (keyboards and mice)That is why binding keys to a keyboard works. I hate the keyboard and binding keys to it but it is what we have for now.

fahr wrote:

Is the lack of a working FFXI config app the reason why we have to
use regedit?
Yes.

Hi Zak.
Thanks for posting your tips! Hope you can help me.

I followed your instructions word for word but still can't seem to get in to FFXI.
I got in to POL and was able to update FF but I get stuck with a big black screen where you choose your character.
I messed around with regedit a bit and by changing the display mode to 640*480 and putting it in windowed mode
I was able to get a little further to actually choosing the character but got stuck just before the character would
come up. Now I'm stuck with a little black screen.

Any suggestions?
Thanx in advance.

Mac Pro, 10.5.8, ATI Radeon HD 2600

It sounds to me like you have a driver problem but you would have to ask Stefan about that in the advocate forums, he is working on DX support so he knows much more about the drivers than I do. You may want to consider upgrading to Snow Leopard (it is cheap USD$30 and well worth it) I know ATI has gotten some driver upgrades though I don't know which cards it applies to.

None of the old tips seem to apply in CX v8 but since you are still on Leopard you could try using them in the last v7 and see if it will run. You have the game completely set up so it won't take much work to try it out you just need to do a couple settings, they are in the tips & tricks.

Thanks Zak.

I shied away from snow leopard until they got all the bugs and problems fixed and never got around to installing it once they had. I'll order snow leopard today and see what happens before doing anything else.

Thanks again.

Polarbear wrote:

Thanks Zak.

I shied away from snow leopard until they got all the bugs and
problems fixed and never got around to installing it once they had.
I'll order snow leopard today and see what happens before doing
anything else.

Thanks again.

10.6.2 is really good.

Quick update.

I installed snow leopard and am still getting the same results. But it did make my quicktime player icon really cool looking :)
Don't have much time this week but will try to come back to this problem as soon as I can.

This may sound like an odd question but, what language is your Mac running in? System preferences > Language, what are the first 3 or so languages. Back when I was testing something out in JP it is a black screen like you describe. It may even be that I switched the language after installing not the language itself so let me know if you did that too.

I'm running a Japanese system and the first three languages in the system preferences are Japanese, English, and French in that order. My FFXI disks are also Japanese. I don't have an NA or EU disk or account.
As far as I know there isn't a Cxgames 8.1"J" but 8.1 seems to handle Japanese with no problems.

It never occured to me that the language could have a difference so I haven't tried switching languages. I'll give it a try when I have some more time next week. If I'm able to get FFXI running on an English language system I wonder if I'll still be able to read and chat in Japanese?

After a lot of problems with version past 7.2.2 (that somewhat did run ffxi) and before 8.1 (which didn't want to work for me), I finally been able to make the damn thing run almost 100%.

My current environment is Imac 24'(first 2009 model). Currently running Snow leopard 10.6.2 but did run fine on 10.6.1 too

FFXI was tried both in EU and US flavors (US full installation and EU POL client only). they both installed and runned smoothly.

The POL configurator works fine. The FFXI one still doesn't (ie: launches but shows its windows without the options' checkboxes). To set options you'll need to use regedit as explainer here and in the other threads.

Using the keyboard is a pain if you use the Apple 'compact' keyboard (without numpad). If you have that it's very reccomended you settle the compact keyboard mode in FFXI. To do that you need to call the FFXI ingame menu pressing "fn" and "minus" key (or was it "control" and "minus"...?) and set it into Game Options. I also reccomend you to get a joypad-to-keyboard mapper if, like me, like to use a joypad to control your game. I could tell you what software I use but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to!

The japanese support in ffxi is built in, so yes, you will be able to READ correctly the messages written by JP users. You WON'T be able to type in japanese with an EU/US client though. I never tried the JP client on a EU/US system though... It might work. The Windower aplication would help with that, but it uses .Net which is, to my knowledge, unsupported in CXGames.

Speed is good at 1024x768 (with 1024x1024 res.), but haven't tried higher resolutions, nor have I tried intensive events yet, so YMMV.

Forgot to add this: CXGames will crash on FFXI Shutdown. Oh well. That's no biggie.

Polarbear wrote:

It never occured to me that the language could have a difference so
I haven't tried switching languages. I'll give it a try when I have
some more time next week. If I'm able to get FFXI running on an
English language system I wonder if I'll still be able to read and
chat in Japanese?
YOu are correct there is no CX "J" the language support is grabbed from OSX and I would assume the same for Linux.

It makes no sense to one of my friends or myself either. Try putting English to the first on that list and try again, just remember to change it back before you restart or OSX menus will change to English. I just want to know if you see the black screen or not. I don't believe you can type in it without but why it does not work makes no sense, it should show up as question marks but instead it won't switch languages, you can still read it in chat and all menus. If you could test this for me since you have the JP client as well that would be helpful.

griffon wrote:

Using the keyboard is a pain if you use the Apple 'compact' keyboard
(without numpad). If you have that it's very reccomended you settle
the compact keyboard mode in FFXI. To do that you need to call the
FFXI ingame menu pressing "fn" and "minus" key (or was it "control"
and "minus"...?) and set it into Game Options. I also reccomend you
to get a joypad-to-keyboard mapper if, like me, like to use a joypad
to control your game. I could tell you what software I use but I'm
not sure if I'm allowed to!

I am also an advocate if you can email me at zak.adelmangmailcom and let me know what program it is I should be able to tell you, I may have to look it up first.

griffon wrote:

I never tried the JP client on a EU/US system though... It might
work. The Windower aplication would help with that, but it uses .Net
which is, to my knowledge, unsupported in CXGames.
No problem in not having the JP client thankfully 2 of us have it though if you could let me know what language input is supported in the EU client that would be helpful since I don't have it. .net2 is not supported sadly but I tried using winetricks forcing the install with WINE and it still didn't work.

griffon wrote:

Speed is good at 1024x768 (with 1024x1024 res.), but haven't tried
higher resolutions, nor have I tried intensive events yet, so YMMV.
Try setting it to full resolution it works great, just make sure you make it a bit shorter than your screen so you can access your dock. I set my res to 2048x2048, 3x AA, and other HD settings it was as smooth as in Windows XP and smoother than WIndows Vista and 7.

griffon wrote:

Forgot to add this: CXGames will crash on FFXI Shutdown. Oh well.
That's no biggie.
Thanks for mentioning that I completely forgot to mention it. ><

Yo Griffon was wondering if I could get d name of d software u use or the gamepad.

thanks

Hi,

Something called 'ControllerMate' is handy for mapping gamepads/joysticks in Mac...

Cheers!

So far this is what I have tried.
Display mode at 12801024. (Big black screen after POL)
Same as above in windowed mode. (Big black screen)
Display mode at 640480. (Ditto)
Same as above in windowed mode. (Small black screen but gets to choosing the character stage)

All of the above on both Japanese and English system languages. (Same results)

All of the above in mirroring display mode. (Same results)
I have two monitors hooked up on my Mac and this may use more video power than a single monitor. I just couldn't find the time to unhook everything so I tried it all again in mirrored mode. The 7.1 releases seemed to cope with the two displays with no problems anyways.

Having tried so many versions of CXgames I get the feeling that the ATI Radeon doesn't quite get along with FFXI. Will be patient though :)

BTW, POL runs like a charm. A lot faster than on Fusion or Parallels or perhaps even Bootcamp!

So much to do and so little time.
Mac Pro, 10.6.2, ATI Radeon HD 2600

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Hi,

Something called 'ControllerMate' is handy for mapping
gamepads/joysticks in Mac...

Cheers!

Not really, ControllerMate is simply key binding which means if you accidentally press spacebar or click on another screen you are now typing gibberish and completely lose control of your character (very bad if it is an accident out in the field using autorun) which is why I stopped using it since I play and talk on AOL/Yahoo/MSN (Adium) at the same time, necessary if you need to translate quickly online and copy/paste it in(I am in a JP LS). It needs real support which will "grab" the controller input, like it can with the mouse, so you can move and type at the same time if you have to, like I have to do often in Dynamis.

It must be the 2600 because I am using a MacPro with ATI Radeon HD 3870 and 2 22" LCDs. It sounds like the 2600 drivers were not updated but I don't know that for sure. I still think FFXI and POL runs faster in CXgames than in windows XP and it is definitely faster than vista and 7 in bootcamp and of course in virtual machines which will always be slower.

Zak Adelman wrote:

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Hi,

Something called 'ControllerMate' is handy for mapping
gamepads/joysticks in Mac...

Cheers!

Not really, ControllerMate is simply key binding which means if you
accidentally press spacebar or click on another screen you are now
typing gibberish and completely lose control of your character (very
bad if it is an accident out in the field using autorun) which is
why I stopped using it since I play and talk on AOL/Yahoo/MSN
(Adium) at the same time, necessary if you need to translate quickly
online and copy/paste it in(I am in a JP LS). It needs real support
which will "grab" the controller input, like it can with the mouse,
so you can move and type at the same time if you have to, like I
have to do often in Dynamis.

Hmmm...something called 'gamepad companion' then?

Cheers!

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Hmmm...something called 'gamepad companion' then?

Cheers!

Still binding to keyboard keys so same problem.

Once I reach the Character login screen the screen graphics go yellow can you help me fix this?

I just wanted to give you a guys a heads up that I was able to get FFXI running using these settings. I also used the install guide from WINE AppDB (http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=2739&iTestingId=47308).

Everything seems to work without issue, which I am very happy with. I was also very happy to see that the game will run in Windowed mode without issues. The game will still crash when you quit it, though you dont have force-quit the app anymore. After it fails and you get the error window, just quit CXG. It will take a minute or two to quit, but it will cleanly quit CXG.

Running CXG 8.1.4

Can give system specs if needed.

I'm hopelessly confused as to what to do to get this game working.

I'm running 8.1.4 on my macbook, installing from the Final Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection DVD.

The install runs flawlessly, Pol opens and runs without any problems, updated also easily. I was also able to update Final Fantasy XI without any issues as well. However every time I close PoL it crashes rather than close. This wouldn't be a problem normally, only when I go to log into Final Fantasy, PoL crashes and nothing happens. FF11 will not launch and if I try to close the window nothing happens. If I try to force it closed Crossover closes down entirely, but the FF11 window appears just before cross over goes down, so I'm guessing that PoL not closing fully is causing the issue.

I have the bottle set to run as Windows Vista (as per the instructions above) so I'm not sure what might be causing that problem.

Another thing, I tried to get edit the registry as posted above. However, when I get to FF11's keys, all the options are not there. All I see is: (default) Reg_sz (value not set) and bFirst Reg_Binary 00

Am I missing something?

What are the specs of your Macbook? Also, have you tried removing everything and reinstalling POL and FFXI?

As for the registry keys, since FFXI hasn't successfully loaded, they might not have been created yet.

Hey guys, so I have everything installed and ready to go, get to log in, saw the opening movie (but later turned it off just to speed up the process and what have you)

I created my character and everything, it even goes through the screen showing me that it is loading the player data and gets me ready to play but the second that finishes it goes to a black screen. (Typically this is where I would just log on to the world and everything) Since I am creating my character for the first time it should be the intro to the city I picked but it remains a black screen.... anyone know what might have happened?

Hi...

..have a read of the winehq entry for this title..

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

...there is a suggestion this game broke recently, perhaps
then with MacOS 10.7 ....

Cheers!

So does that mean there is no way that FFXI is going to work on my Mac then?

That's depressing considering all the work I have done to get it to work to this point :( creating a character and all that just to stare at a blank screen! blah..

Well if anyone possibly finds any solutions please let me know!

...that would seem to be the case, but it's also a non
trivial job to roll back OS just to check if it was 10.7 ....

...mind you, since the release of 10.7 the 'emulated virtual
desktop' function isn't working either, so all of this may
actually be a MacOS bug, in which case you'd need wait for
the next OS update from Apple before anything will be fixed...

Cheers!

So somehow my config for POL was switched back to Windows XP, switched it to vista and now ffxi is running beautifully :)

Aaaaand... years later on a much newer version of Crossover Games, on Fedora Core 16 KDE Spin (x86_64), this thread helped me get past a black-screen bug that happened immediately after selecting which toon to log in as.

Whoever said time travel to older forums was a bad idea?

Light-sources in game are a bit funky (they tend to flicker with odd triangular patterns around them), but I actually find that to be kind of entertaining and not the least bit annoying.

My thanks for the instructions in this thread.

EDIT -- oh, silly me, I only read the original post when writing this. It seems I'm not time traveling after all. =)