Bah, forum eat reply. if this shows up twice I blame lemmings:
Some genral performance tips for FFXI (and other games too)
1. Defragment your hard drive. The less fragmented your drive, the faster your game will load.
2. Create a static virtual memory page file 2 times as large as your available ram. If you don't know how to do this, you probably should not attempt it.
3. Run start:Run:Msconfig, click on the startup tab, and remove any programs you don't need at startup. For example, oftentimes quicktime, realplayer, things like that are set to run at startup, but you only use them maybe once every 3 or four days. Getting rid of them will save precious ram.
4. If you are serious about really improving performance, get two SATA 10,000 rpm drives and run them in a raid array. your load times will be reduced to almost nothing. Expect to spend around $500 to upgrade that though, more if your curent motherboard does not support SATA.
5. Update your motherboard bios, drivers, windows update files, etc.
6. Make sure your bios settings are correct for your video card. For a 9800xt, you will want agp8x, set to 256mb throughput. Also make sure your ram clockspeed is set correctly. often systems default to a lower speed than the ram is capable of.
7. Heat management. If speed is the goal, heat is the enemy. Make sure your computer has at least 3 case fans.
Ram cooling kits are worth thier weight in gold. Also make sure your drive cables are not blocking airflow. Those round IDE cables are not just for looks, they do a good job of reducing air drag inside the case. I also heatshrink wrap my power supply wires, and keep everyting cable tied out of the way for better airflow. Make sure you have the fan in the front of your case installed to blow cool air into the case, and the fan in the rear to expel hot air out the back.
8. Power supplies. some systems do not get enough power, and therefore run slower than they should. Make sure you have at very least a 350 watt power supply.
That's all I can think of for now, will post more if I think of them.