12 months of trying to resolve SLI - time to turn to square enix

[CHA0S_DECEPTI0N]

Try this.

Open Catalyst control Center Latest Version.
Go under "Gaming" and open up "3D Application Settings" and click Add.
Search and find "ffxiv.exe" in your benchmark/game folder and select it (You will have to do this to the main exe during launch as well)
Scroll down and under "AMD CrossfireX" change the "AMD CrossfireX Mode" to "Use AMD pre-defined profile"
Search for "fear.exe" ***(You don't have to own the game to select this option, it's there by default.

Whoops Sorry for the wrong post, I was tired.

OT: Try changing your game profile at Driver Level. That could work in your case. But Yes as others have said it is SE Fault and they really should optimise this game for modern systems. Not everyone uses a Dinosaur Rig.

[Mikaka]

fwiw checking to see if it was due to the number of cards was the first thing I checked :P 2 cards,3 cards, 4 cards, x4, x8, x16 the end result is the same. If your using 2 cards and your sli is working and its on multiple displays in windows 8.1 than your having a different issue all together.

think about that for a minute. I just said I was working on fixing this for 12 months.. and you suggest I try running with 2 cards instead of 4 ... /facepalm

not that id just pop out 2 (half) of my gpus and have em hang out over a game anyhow. Its not up for me to make my system work its up to the vendors to make the game/hardware work.

Anyhow IF people are using 8.1xSurroundxSLI and are having an issue - renaming the install directory will fix it for you. While I need to understand the root (believe it has something to do w/ profiles but no way of saying till I hear from someone on the inside) I wanted to make sure I got the word out to all the folks suffering with this.

As for DX9 v DX11 - in wow for example, I get better minimum fps and a smoother framerate in dx9 than in dx11. Also in dx11 I have really funky rendering issues where postrendering of mountains/stuff on the horizon just shows up white/blank. I don't think the dx11 client is going to be the end all be all of fixes people are hoping for. Regardless it should help some and with image quality for sure. Problem is it should have been present ALL along. Instead another greedy company has no cooth/shame in blatantly and obviously showing how greedy it is by developing every client and system that can make them $$ before bringing the game up to speed for people who have already paid for it.

you and NVidia are soulmates it appears.

I just wanted to let you know that I had 3x Nvidia GTX Titan Black and just added a 4th GTX Titan Black and I am running a Core i7 4790k on and MSI X-Power AC motherboard, 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RAM 2400Mhz, using Nvidia Surround using three 3840x2160 4k monitors and I'm getting like 200fps. My Titan Blacks have been working in SLI using Windows 8.1 for months now. Unfortunately, I don't know what your variable is. Maybe your motherboard?

[Schmak01]

The game still has issues such as very very poor performance when advanced lighting effects are on screen (such as the startup screen or dungeon portals) I get ~80fps at the startup screen with SLI off and 18 with it on :P (this is WITH it working post fix) Other than that, Im now able to get 120fps+ on maximum at 4680x2560 now. Its wonderful. Sad that it took this much time and effort. Also extremely pessimistic regarding the lighting issue being addressed considering the fact I had to fix the SLI issue on my own BUT... its progress.

This is the EXACT same issue I am having with 2 GTX 970's, I had zero issues with my old 680's in SLI. I posted some screenshots on another thread. at 1440p I get 150-120 fps then as soon as the shimmering effects are in my field of view it drops to 30-40. It gives it a slowdown motion, as someone else described, like the matrix. I noticed that the slowdown of my character animations matches the timing of the lighting effect. If stood next to it with my nexus out, the smoke effect will mirror the pulsing pattern of the light effect. Rotate around and the lighting effect of my nexus and fps is normal.

[Schmak01]

Thought I would add my pictures - THIS ONLY HAPPENS WITH SLI On. Turning it off eliminates the problem, but I am not using my second card and average 70ish FPS on 1440p highest possible settings. Vsync makes no difference.
Image portal in view - low FPS



Moved the camera down to get it out of view

[Laraul]

Crystal Tools is a nice graphics engine hampered by an ancient graphics API. Time and time again I place the blame for poor performance on DX9.

The game does not use Crystal Tools (the only games that use Crystal Tools are FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and Lightning Returns FFXIII, all of which are only for console). And if it were DX9 then why wasn't it an issue before Windows 8.1? Why do people think that DX11 is this magic API that will fix everything? This has nothing to do with DX at all!

The issue lies with NVidia or AMD or whomever!

[Schmak01]

The game does not use Crystal Tools (the only games that use Crystal Tools are FFXIII, FFXIII-2, and Lightning Returns FFXIII, all of which are only for console). And if it were DX9 then why wasn't it an issue before Windows 8.1? Why do people think that DX11 is this magic API that will fix everything? This has nothing to do with DX at all!

The issue lies with NVidia or AMD or whomever!

Thanks for the bump I was logging in to do it myself.

I do want to point out that this problem did not exist with my 680's in SLI, it only seems to happen in 7XX, Titan and 9XX cards in SLI. It is not related to resolution. I tried running in 1080p and I still have the issue.

Here is what I posted in another thread. This issue IS NOT CPU Related. My CPU utilization actually drops when the issue is occurring.

Here is process explorer for FFXIV with the problem and FPS is at 30...



Utilization for FFXIV is only 26%, for the threads 8.5% for the nvidia driver, 8.16 for the client

then when I turn away and it goes to 150 fps, SLI goes full throttle:



So what is this showing? FFXIV and the nVidia driver are multi threaded, but whatever this issue is, its not CPU bound issues. It is definitely a driver issue or a FFXIV issue. Not a hardware problem.

[Schmak01]

Here is a video I made of the issue:

http://youtu.be/D0Jp5LSt-Dg

[Wermacht]

Here is a video I made of the issue:

http://youtu.be/D0Jp5LSt-Dg

Try turning transparent lighting quality to Normal.

[Schmak01]

Done that, changed every setting one by one in the game, makes no difference.

[Wermacht]

Done that, changed every setting one by one in the game, makes no difference.

Ahh okay. Well I've noticed Transparent Lighting to normal helps with the shimmering objects, like the one you posted in your video. The senseless hit on FPS has been a problem since launch. I'm an SLI user as well, and I'm recently returning to Eorzea.