Cool idea.. I recall seeing something about this somewhere else too (I forget where though)
I went poking around, and found this little app:
http://www.monyo.com/technical/products/timeadjx/
Go ahead and download the timeadjx-0.2.zip file, and unzip.
The source is in the top directory, but what most of us will be interested in is the binary file in the Releases folder.
There are two executables in there, timeadjx-0.1.exe (an old version), and timeadjx.exe, the new version.
Go ahead and run timeadjx.exe from the console with the 'get' argument.
In other words, type this:
timeadjx get
and you should get some JP text, and it roughly translates into:
Calling GetSystemTimeAdjustment()...
Time Adjustment Value: 150000 (100ns increments) (this was about what my number was, yours will probably vary)
Hardware Adjustment Value: 150000 (100ns increments) (again, yours will vary)
Periodic Updates: On (or off, depends on your setup)
Automatic Updates: Off (again, depends on your config)
(For specific details about automatic time adjustments, please see KB232488)
Ok, for our purposes, all we're concerned about are the two numeric values, the two '150000' numbers in my example.
The "Hardware Adjustment Value" (we'll call this HAV) is the hard-coded value that the computer hardware uses to determine how fast to move the system time. We can't change this, but note what its value is.
The "Time Adjustment Value" (TAV) is the key, and this is what needs to be changed, to modify how fast to move the system time. By default, it should be pretty close, if not equal to the Hardware Adjustment Value. Make sure to jot this number down, as we will be modifying it.
Now for the fun part
Pull out your calculators, and take your HAV, and multiply it by however many seconds you want to move your system time for every real time second. So, if you want your clock to move twice as fast, multiply it by two (so 150000 x 2 = 300000), if you want to move it ten times as fast, multiply by ten (150000 x 10 = 1500000), etc etc
This is your new TAV!
Ok so now you've got your new TAV, fire up your command prompt again, and run timeadjx but this time with the 'set' argument, along with your new TAV. So using the above example, and to make my clock go ten times as fast, my command would be:
timeadjx set 1500000
And it spits out:
Calling SetSystemTimeAdjustment()...
Time Adjustment Value: 1500000 (100ns increments)
Periodic Updates: On
Automatic Updates: Off
(For specific details about automatic time adjustments, please see KB232488)
Now open up your favorite flavor of clock program, and you should see the seconds passing by faster than normal.
To set the clock back to normal, you can either just run 'timeadjx set' along with your initial value for that setting, or just reboot, and your clock will be back to normal. Although for people that have different TAV and HAV values, I recommend doing it manually. I say this simply because my TAV and HAV were the same, so I have no way of telling if the TAV was simply restored from the HAV on reboot, or if Windows actually saves somewhere what the default value should be, in the case that the two are different.
As for testing it in FFXI, I'm dead tired after writing this and I'll hop onto it when I wake up... hopefully we will be able to get some insights within the next few days
All I gotta say is that there better be something to this!! My fingers are tired (><; )
Edit: One of the smileys was messed and also I might be a little off on some of the technical details, but the gist should be accurate.. feel free to point anything out though^^