[rambus]

I have no idea about OCing and if She had them at all but still makes me wonder what ot tell her best settings for a comp like this:

Intel core I7-950 3.06 Ghz Intel smart Cache LGA1336
HDD: 30 GB kingston 2.5 inch SATA Gaming MLC solid state disk
6GB (2G times 3) DDR3/1600 Tripple channel ( max is 4 times 6)
Monitor 23" windesceen 1920x1080 Asus 3D VG236H
Video: AMD radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video

Full max config ( AC and depth of field)



Max in a crafting:



MAX with No AC ( yes to depth of field)


Max ( all highest or high), 4x MSAAA, no AC, yes to depth of field:




Max ( all highest or high), 2x MSAAA, no AC, yes to depth of field:



whats the deal with low system rescore use but low fraps in a setup like this? >..>

This post has been edited by rambus: 29 December 2010 - 07:02 AM

[Velhart]

FFXIV's unit configuration always makes my head hurt. Even when getting a really nice graphics card, it still doesn't run FFXIV properly at full spec.

[octoberasian]

Oh wow, if I'm looking at the screenshots right, FFXIV DOES NOT use the extra 4 threads in a Hyperthreaded Core i7 CPU. That is interesting. That would mean FFXIV only uses a max of 4 cores of a CPU. It's completely under-utilizing the CPU.

But, it is going in line with how much CPU FFXIV uses. I assume that the faster the CPU the better the CPU usage will be, obviously but it seems like a minimal improvement.

My PC is AMD Phenom II X4 805 with Radeon 5770 MSI HAWK video card. This is how much CPU and RAM it uses.

Lowest settings (No AA, everything set to low or lowest, no Depth of Field and no Ambient Occlusion)
	CPU (Outdoor) = 41 to 45%
	RAM (Outdoor) = 425 MB to 460 MB

	CPU (City) = 45 to 48%
	RAM (City) = 510 MB to 660 MB

Midrange settings (2X MSAA, all High or Highest, no AO, no DoF)
	CPU (Outdoor) = 25 to 36%
	RAM (Outdoor) = 360 MB to 425 MB

	CPU (City) = 42 to 47%
	RAM (City) = 560 to 612 MB

Mimicked FF13 PS3 settings (2X MSAA, all Standard, no AO, DoF enabled)
	CPU (Outdoor) = 32 to 38%
	RAM (Outdoor) = 405 MB

	CPU (City) = 43 to 49%
	RAM (City) = 575 MB to 608 MB

At 4X MSAA, Depth of Field, High or Highest settings in FFXIV is going to be very demanding to any video card and CPU. Going to 8X QMSAA is even worse. I have seen my PC drop to 2 to 5 FPS.

Maxing everything, and I mean everything, and the CPU goes up to 90 to 100% usage with framerates hitting 1 FPS or 0 FPS.

I have tested and benchmarked this with my PC and 4X MSAA and 8X QMSAA are too demanding for current generation computers. If 4X MSAA on my system drops my framerates to 10 to 15 FPS (Outdoors) and only goes up another 7 to 10 FPS on a much higher end PC that's much faster than mine, then there is something seriously wrong with this game's engine.

On my system at 2X MSAA and High or Highest with DoF, no AO, and the game runs between mid-20s to low-30s FPS at 1680x1050 resolution Outdoors, drops to mid-10s to low-20s in cities.

I can use 8X MSAA in other games without ever hitting something as low as 22 FPS and the game still looks very good. This is like the Metro 2033 of MMORPGs at the moment. You can't ever get very good framerates at high settings without spending a lot of money on a graphics card. Even worse is that Crossfire or SLI only work in fullscreen mode with 2 video cards. External antialiasing through Nvidia's Control Panel or AMD's Catalyst Control Center also only work in fullscreen, not windowed.

And, by the looks of it, I think current generation video cards, even the Nvidia 500 and AMD 6000 series, will not suffice for this game. We're looking at a future video card coming in 2011 or even 2012 that can run the game decently with 4X or 8X AA with high or highest settings above 30 or 40 FPS at 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 resolution, using a single card that's not in Crossfire or SLI.

My best suggestion after seeing all this is for people who are going to ask on how to get the game running at high framerates is that they have to be willing to spend money for this game. And, I'm not talking at just minimally playable, I'm talking about settings above 30 FPS to near 40s.

Go with the following system:

• 4-core CPU from Phenom II (not Athlon II) or Core i7 (preferably socket 1366 CPU) family. Upcoming Bulldozer 4 core/8 thread CPU from AMD or upcoming socket 2011 Sandybridge 4 core/8 thread CPU from Intel.
  
• CPU frequency of at least 3.0 GHz, no lower. Note: FFXIV seems more dependent on CPU frequency and not how many cores or threads it has.
  
• Radeon 5870 or 6900 series; or Nvidia 480/570 or 580 series. Note: FFXIV stresses the GPU a lot even if going at middle of the road settings.
  
• 4 GB RAM

Go with settings at 2X MSAA, High or Highest in all settings, no Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field. Do not use 4X MSAA or 8X QMSAA or even 16X AA (if it's available for your system) until the next generation of video cards.

This is to run the game at 30 to 40 FPS, not 60 FPS or higher. This is not meant for those on a low budget, and not meant for those that want to get minimally playable because those computer systems are much cheaper.

[rambus]

look atthe FPS rates too, the 16x> 2x there was hardly a difference ( none since the 2X is actally lss then the 16X SS)

is that from depht of feild then?


could all this issue really be in programing? she tried wow out, she had EVERYTHING at the highest possible setting * some things let you click "ultra" or 16x or 8x that* and it was rare to dip below 60 FPS, even when doing crouded fight areas like the first drak rush in alterac valley.

with the low FPS like that in a system like she got she thought her comp was broken lol

here is what lwow looked like:

This post has been edited by rambus: 29 December 2010 - 03:26 PM

[What?]

It has to be an issue with the programming right? I logged on in November after the patch and the game seemed to perform better than before (which might have been because fewer people were online, not sure) but whenever it rained I lost 20-30 FPS. CPU and GPU usage I don't recall went up. Sandstorms or whatever else gave no FPS loss at all, just rain. As soon as it ends I'm back to 60 FPS constant. I can't really explain that, I'm still confused why it happens. That was the update they added in the General Drawing Quality and Background Drawing Quality but mine were at 8 (standard) and 5 (high) respectively by default, which from what I've read is the most commonly used setting.

No changes to any drivers or anything, nothing changed but the game itself. From that and the fact XIV isn't really pushing visuals that much compared to other games, I'm blaming bad programming and optimisation for now.

[octoberasian]

What?, on 29 December 2010 - 04:30 PM, said:

It has to be an issue with the programming right? I logged on in November after the patch and the game seemed to perform better than before (which might have been because fewer people were online, not sure) but whenever it rained I lost 20-30 FPS. CPU and GPU usage I don't recall went up. Sandstorms or whatever else gave no FPS loss at all, just rain. As soon as it ends I'm back to 60 FPS constant. I can't really explain that, I'm still confused why it happens. That was the update they added in the General Drawing Quality and Background Drawing Quality but mine were at 8 (standard) and 5 (high) respectively by default, which from what I've read is the most commonly used setting.

No changes to any drivers or anything, nothing changed but the game itself. From that and the fact XIV isn't really pushing visuals that much compared to other games, I'm blaming bad programming and optimisation for now.

It's basically another "Crysis"-effect. Game looks good but the underlying code running it isn't optimized at all. It took... what?... two generations of video cards I think to get Crysis playable at high settings. The same is happening again with Metro 2033. FFXIV's Crystal Tools is also doing the same thing again, and yet the game isn't as detailed as Crysis or Metro 2033, yet it is utilizing a large amount of the CPU and GPU just to run the game.

There is no reason that this game should be averaging 25 to 30 FPS with settings lower than what I have for Crysis. It's very poor programming. It's running very unoptimized code that ties up CPU resources and bogs down the game and the PC itself. 4X MSAA is unplayable and 8X QMSAA is atrociously more worse.

[GeorgeReturns]

octoberasian, on 29 December 2010 - 10:54 PM, said:

It's basically another "Crysis"-effect. Game looks good but the underlying code running it isn't optimized at all. It took... what?... two generations of video cards I think to get Crysis playable at high settings. The same is happening again with Metro 2033. FFXIV's Crystal Tools is also doing the same thing again, and yet the game isn't as detailed as Crysis or Metro 2033, yet it is utilizing a large amount of the CPU and GPU just to run the game.

There is no reason that this game should be averaging 25 to 30 FPS with settings lower than what I have for Crysis. It's very poor programming. It's running very unoptimized code that ties up CPU resources and bogs down the game and the PC itself. 4X MSAA is unplayable and 8X QMSAA is atrociously more worse.

Aion used the fail crysis engine and that was their early problem.....


MY point is that if exceptional machines cannot play ffxiv..... HOW THE FRAK can a PS3be expected to?

Fire the morons who did the programming, hire a sony team and have them do the pc as well, then later bring up graphics for pc users. Get it playable first ya jack arses.!

[rambus]

I think most games will have an issue to compely max out settings when they are new. (lest not cheaply)

my issue is this.

the min settings are laughable with the settings you get, the game barely runs.

the rec settings state GTX 460 V ram768.
what kind of settings can you use with the recommended? you have the 460,465, 470, 480, 570, 580 so you have 5 G cards now above what is recommended and you still can't max settings. 2.6 times more then the V ram in the rec and the game runs at 7-10 FPS?! ( and faster idk how much faster a 6970 is vs a 460)

its not making use of cores, like ase said it would not ue the HT cores

so what is the point in putting an I7 in the rec for a processor? all it needs is a fast 4 core equivalent apparently.

GeorgeReturns, on 30 December 2010 - 09:17 AM, said:

Aion used the fail crysis engine and that was their early problem.....


MY point is that if exceptional machines cannot play ffxiv..... HOW THE FRAK can a PS3be expected to?

Fire the morons who did the programming, hire a sony team and have them do the pc as well, then later bring up graphics for pc users. Get it playable first ya jack arses.!

yeah really, how does the PS3 do compare to the system i posted anyway?

This post has been edited by rambus: 30 December 2010 - 09:30 AM

[octoberasian]

GeorgeReturns, on 30 December 2010 - 09:17 AM, said:

Aion used the fail crysis engine and that was their early problem.....


MY point is that if exceptional machines cannot play ffxiv..... HOW THE FRAK can a PS3be expected to?

Fire the morons who did the programming, hire a sony team and have them do the pc as well, then later bring up graphics for pc users. Get it playable first ya jack arses.!

rambus, on 30 December 2010 - 09:26 AM, said:

yeah really, how does the PS3 do compare to the system i posted anyway?

I decided to run a simulated benchmark of how FFXIV would be on the PS3 as shown above.

This is RAM and CPU usage alone using my computer just by looking at Task Manager: (Specs mentioned in the post above.)

Mimicked FF13 PS3 settings (2X MSAA, all Standard, no AO, DoF enabled)
        CPU (Outdoor) = 32 to 38%
        RAM (Outdoor) = 405 MB

        CPU (City) = 43 to 49%
        RAM (City) = 575 MB to 608 MB

The reason I used FF13 is because it's using the Crystal Tools and is the best indication of how FFXIV will run and look on the PS3 whenever it is released.

FF13 uses the following:

• 1280x720 resolution
  
• 2X MSAA

These are given stats of the game that you can find anywhere.

With that, I assumed a PS3 equivalent settings then would be:

• 1280x720 resolution
  
• 2X MSAA
  
• All settings set to Standard
  
• Depth of Field enabled.

I get the following framerate from FRAPS as a result:

- Outdoors -
Min	 Max	 Avg
35	45	41.278

- Cities -
 Min	 Max	 Avg
14	25	16.244

Since those framerates take into account that I have background programs running and Windows 7 itself, the CPU performance may be better or worse than what I have. But, seeing that the PS3 uses a GPU based on the Geforce 7800, framerates may actually be lower unless they sacrifice some settings.

According to the Digital Foundry on Eurogamer, FF13 ran at 20 FPS at the lowest. In many situations it'll average out to 25 to near 30 FPS. So, we're looking at a 30 FPS maximum for PS3 FFXIV outdoors only. Inside cities, it may be considerably worse. If you see above, I hit 16 FPS average, and if the PS3 is going to be about 10 to 15 FPS lower on average, we're seeing no more a 5 to 10 FPS in the cities.

Imagine going to The Adventurer's Guild with all those bazaars there or The Market Ward with all the Retainers on the PS3. If I'm getting only 16 FPS AVERAGE at 1280x720 with 2X MSAA in the cities around crowded areas, the PS3 will be damn near unplayable.

And, the 7800-based Nvidia RSX GPU is below the minimum required video card for FFXIV on the PC-- Geforce 9600, and considerably lower than the recommended-- GTX 460.

And, if you see above, at those settings, it's pushing my CPU around 30% outdoors and around 40% in the cities. RAM usage also goes up and will be between 400 MB to 600 MB.

The PS3 only has 256 MB of RAM for the system itself with 256 MB dedicated to the GPU. The CPU is a 3.2 GHz CPU with 7 cores, with 1 of the 7 dedicated to the system OS-- GameOS. Since the PC version only uses a max of 4 core, 2 cores will go unused.

When SE mentioned some months ago they were having issues with memory on the PS3 in running FFXIV, they weren't kidding from the looks of it. To run FFXIV on the PS3 is going to take a miracle in programming or some serious shortcut taking like reduced character model detail by reducing the number of polygons and texture resolution. They may also forgo anti-aliasing just to get the game running on the system.

This could very well be why the PS3 is delayed indefinitely.

My only hopes is that they don't use the PS3 as an excuse to limit details and graphical fidelity and performance on the PC since the Crystal Tools is meant to be scalable to any system it's on. FF13 360 was a good example on how it scaled the game. 1024x576 resolution if I recall and averaging 25 FPS with slightly reduced details which is barely noticeable unless you looked real hard. (Eurogamer made a good analysis of it.)

[What?]

Rambus could you take a picture of your FFXIV config settings for me? Stuff under "Video settings" and "Graphics", I'm curious and want to compare even though my PC is far worse. For example "General Drawing Quality" at 10 causes my game to drop to sub 10 FPS but I didn't even notice an improvement in visuals. That along with Ambient Occlusion can die in a fire until it's optimised better, I think it's better to pretend they're not even there. So even though your settings might not technically be the maximum possible, it might as well be.

My computer and settings aren't really good but I can manage 40-60 FPS (mostly 50-60) outside Limsa and Uldah, Gridania is more 40-50 with a few rare instances of 60. Cities are a pile of shit however, 20-30 usually and never anything higher. Gridania stutters all the time and people have had that same issue with way more powerful PCs, so I don't think it's my machine.

Intel Core i5 760 2.80Ghz (Overclocked to 3.80Ghz)
4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Dual Channel
Radeon HD 4870 1GB (Overclocked Core clock from 550Mhz to 780Mhz and Memory clock from 900Mhz to 1100Mhz)
Monitor's max resolution is 1440x900

[octoberasian]

You have a couple things going for you that makes you hit 40 to 60 FPS on average:

• Overclocked CPU. I have noticed that FFXIV seems very dependent on the frequency of the CPU and not the number of cores. Sure, a dual core 2.0 GHz CPU is minimally required, but it's not going net high framerates in this game. I run FFXIV on a stock clock of 2.6 GHz Phenom II X4 810, and it is generally slower than your overclocked i5 760. Therefore, my framerates are reflective of that.
  
  For normal PC users that don't overclock and want to get very good framerates will have to go for a good 3.0+ GHz CPU from Intel or AMD.
  
• Lower resolution. 1440x900. FFXIV's performance degrades a lot the higher the resolution. When I tested it at 1280x1024, 1680x1050, and 1920x1080 (the 3 most common resolutions in Steam's Hardware Survey), I saw framerates drop between 5 to 15 FPS on average as the resolution went up.
  
• Overclocked GPU. I have a factory overclocked Radeon 5770 at 875 MHz Clock/1200 MHz Memory. This where it led me to conclude that my CPU is holding back the game's performance, which in turn means FFXIV is more CPU dependent than on the GPU.
  
  Overclocking a video card will definitely help in the framerate department. I remember somewhere on another FFXIV forum-- Alla, FFXIV Core or Eorzeapedia-- someone suggested that FFXIV seems to be very sensitive to the speed of your GPU and its memory bandwidth. I don't know where that post is anymore and it'll take me a while to find it. It's not my words though, but it seems the benchmarks I've done reflect that as well.
  
• Disabled graphics features. Disabling Depth of field and setting low texture filtering helps a lot there for performance.
  
  Ambient Occlusion is broken beyond belief. Another person on KI with Crossfired Radeon 5970s mentioned he cannot run FFXIV with AO enabled and at the highest settings. And, a Radeon 5970 is very good card, it beats the GTX 580 in many benchmarks. But, to see that FFXIV can defeat two of them is boggling to the mind. It defies all reational thought when you think about it.

In conclusion, when a PC user is interested in playing FFXIV, they have three choices:

• Somewhat Playable.
  
• Decently playable.
  
• Very playable.

Somewhat Playable.

This is for someone that wants to just quickly play the game and doesn't care how it looks but as long as it's somewhat playable. We're talking low-end and mid-range computers here. Simply put they just want to play the game and have it running on something that is affordable.

Settings will generally be a lot lower but at least the computer will be able to handle it.

Decently Playable.

This is for someone who wants it to look good and have decent framerates. Here, you are looking at a mid-range to some lower end high-end PCs. They have a slightly higher budget and can afford them. However, looking very good and high framerates is not entirely possible. You'd be looking at 30 to 40 FPS here dependent on resolution and how many settings are set to High.

I'm right here with my FFXIV settings playing at 1600x900 resolution with most at High and Depth of Field enabled.

Very Playable.

This is for players like "What?" above with 40 to 60 FPS average. However, certain sacrifices are made-- lower resolution, Depth of Field disabled, low texture filtering. He's also compensated for that by bumping the Anti-aliasing to 8X Q MSAA and buffering it with both an overclocked CPU and an overclocked GPU to handle the extra stress that FFXIV puts out.

People here will either have to a.) overclock or b.) go very high-end. If you cannot do either of those or don't want to risk overclocking, players will have to settle with Decently or Somewhat playable.

You can also be very playable with high settings but you'd have to lower the game resolution by a lot. At 1280x1024 with my current settings, I was hitting 45 to 50 FPS on average. So, obviously, lower resolution, higher framerates.

[What?]

I was switching between high and low texture filtering hoping it would increase the actual range where textures swap from low to high. For example:

http://sidicas.dyndn..._1292320245.jpg

I was trying to get that to extend out further so I wouldn't need to look at those blurry textures, but it only affects the detail of the transition not the range. I didn't really notice a big impact on performance when switching between high and low, so I just left it at low. I might check again, but texture filtering along with 4x MSAA vs 8xQ MSAA didn't seem to make any real effect on performance at all. Depth of field made an impact alright, around 15 FPS or so lost when it was on.

Do you get 30 to 40 FPS in the areas outside Limsa and Uldah? As long as it's sunny and not raining I'm at 60 there (bit of a FPS whore so if it was up to me it'd be sunny all the time). If you want I can connect my PC to a 1080 HDTV and play at 1600x900 (if it's supported on that TV) to see what differences there are between our CPUs, if there are any while playing FFXIV. My graphics card is weaker (I think, and I'm not sure by how much) but if I was getting higher FPS in the same areas and under the same settings despite the weaker card it might answer that question.

The recent interview with the new director mentions that he wants to make FFXIV easier to run on lower end PCs, so we might see some changes for the high end also. At least they better make changes, because it's ridiculous right now what's expected from people to run the game at a high FPS and a high resolution.

Edit: Forget that, stupid idea, obviously wasn't thinking the whole way. Will check a few settings on my TV tomorrow regardless out of morbid curiosity

This post has been edited by What?: 31 December 2010 - 01:13 AM

[rambus]

more pics, with guding her what to test I saw no difference in the SS she sent me with DoF effecting her FPS to a great amount.

16x to 2x didnt effect much ether, the only time I got the comp to see 60 FPS was hitting everything on standered

MAX 16x no AC:



MAX with 8x:



( i dont have MAX with 2x but this 2x pic is lightly lower settings like selecting " high" on everything not" highest") this meas some where maxed some where not, w/e says high:



All standered:


I find it very stange the CPU and the RAM was nowhere near max in any of these 10-20% CPU about 20-33% in ram but GPU was 99% cept for the all standered that gave 63% as you see.

[What?]

Rambus I asked you to take a picture of the XIV config because saying "All MAX", "everything on high not highest", "All standard" means nothing to me and I can't tell what on earth your settings are. Now I'm going to assume the one that has "All standard" is the one with Ambient occlusion and Depth of field off, with General Drawing Quality on 8 (standard).

I think it's safe to say this:
General Drawing Quality: Keep this at 8 and never any higher.
Ambient Occlusion: Always keep this off.

Ignore them, they don't exist. Okay? They are troll options to fuck with your PC for now.

Depth of Field is up to you. Personally I think it doesn't look great and takes away too much FPS for little visual impact.
Every other setting: resolution, AA, textures, texture filtering, shadows (even though they're ugly and I keep them off in game), and Background Drawing Quality can be set to whatever you want, i.e. the highest available as long as your system can manage it.
No system I've seen can manage General Drawing Quality at 10 or Ambient occlusion on without taking serious hits to FPS, so ignore them.

[What?]

Anyway, I gave XIV a shot at 1600x900 and 1920x1080.

1600x900: FPS was more or less the same as when I played on 1440x900. I think at most there might have been a 5 FPS difference between them. Settings were the same as above, 8xQ MSAA etc. Kinda surprising as I thought 1440x900 was pushing my system.

1920x1080: Ran better than I expected, outside Limsa where I was getting 60 FPS in 1440x900 and 1600x900 I managed 45-47 FPS. That was with 8xQ MSAA and I tried 2x MSAA also but there was no difference. (Does the AA even apply if I only used the XIV config to set it? I thought I noticed the AA in game but I'm unsure now.)
While outside at 45-47 FPS my GPU usage dropped to around 70%. In 1440/1600x900 when it's running 60 FPS GPU usage is at 80-90%. Should I take this to mean my CPU is causing me to drop to 45-47 FPS in 1920x1080 and not the card? The same thing I noticed in towns while running 20-30 FPS, GPU usage was always around 40-60% instead of 80-90% when running at 60 FPS outside.
Towns are pretty much exactly the same at 1920x1080: 20-30 FPS. I was expecting to be running at 10 FPS or something so that was very surprising.
Outside Limsa while raining gave me 35 FPS, which is the same as I get in 1440x900. But when I'm running at 45-47 FPS normally and it drops to 35 FPS in rain it's a lot less noticeable than going from 60 FPS to 30-35 FPS, same with the towns. GPU usage went up to 95-99% constantly while raining, the only time I've seen XIV take it that high, usually 90-95% is max with constant dips to 80s. When it's raining in 1440x900 GPU usage is at like 60% or so, so it felt like at 1920x1080 the rain was working my card for once.

I'm starting to think playing at 45 FPS and dropping to 20-30 FPS in towns is a bit better than going from 60 FPS to 20-30 FPS. The game, aside from apparently a bit more stuttering in towns, was overall more consistent I felt, it's less jarring. I could easily see someone prefer to run at 45 instead of 60 for consistency's sake. Ideally 60 FPS everywhere should be possible but until it is I'd probably prefer running at 45.

Is there any computer out there that can manage over 30-40 FPS on average in towns?

[rambus]

What?, on 01 January 2011 - 02:50 PM, said:

Rambus I asked you to take a picture of the XIV config because saying "All MAX", "everything on high not highest", "All standard" means nothing to me and I can't tell what on earth your settings are. Now I'm going to assume the one that has "All standard" is the one with Ambient occlusion and Depth of field off, with General Drawing Quality on 8 (standard).

I dont know.

max means highest possible

then there is one that was lowered a bit where you select everything that says high, some settings that max, some it is not

then there is standered meaning anything that says that is what was selected.

I don't know the settings, w/e you see those words that is what was selected.

this picutes was ment to show cpu and ram usage vs G card, FFXIV puts too much on g card it seems
it took standered settings for it not to run on 99% consisnety on the g card


and for some reason on that comp the 16x to 2x didnt change much on FPS, even show lower 2x have lower fps then 16 x in the same sroundings

This post has been edited by rambus: 04 January 2011 - 04:09 PM