Extremely long load times

[Onisake]

Thanks for the replies.

I don't run any background defrag programs, or anything taxing on the resources. No Antivirus or antimalware software Just Rainmeter and driver controllers for the Video and Sound devices.

"when was the last time you did a registry scrub?"
The rig was just built a little over a month ago. Total format and clean installs.

"is your laptop also a radeon chipset? i've noticed the radeon tech doesn't run the game as efficiently."
Yes it is. The funny thing is that it runs the game nearly as well as my desktop. It could even be considered more stable considering that it can run the game in full screen mode without encountering the issues that my desktop does using near identical settings. The only difference would be the screen size.

"From what I can tell, when in full screen mode it prioritizes resources to to FFXIV"
Now that you mention it, when I was trying to find a fix for the problem, I found this little program that someone made called FFXIV Priority Booster. Link. The guy who made it was having a problem that sounded similar to mine. Quoting his post from the link:



I tried using it but saw no measurable difference in performance, but then again I'm using a quad core processor. The program does what it advertises though. Keeps FFXIV at high priority (or whatever you set it to) and organizes threads.

I've noticed this problem on my alienware laptop with the 'turbo booster' where it overclocks certain threads to increase performance. i've noticed this doesn't really work as intended for most applications i use. so i turn it off and force it to use the entire chip. it draws more power and produces more heat, but that's why I have a badass cooling pad.

my guess is you may be experiencing something similar. as laptop chipsets behave very differently than desktop counterparts. when in beta I dedicated two cores to FFXIV and set another as a backup and it showed much improved results. my desktop at the time had no problems, all problems i had were purely on my laptop and related to the processor not knowing where to put resources. dedicating two cores helped considerably, but i was always a little afraid i'd blow them out.

For now i would say just hang tight if the game is playable. I'm hoping the new engine for 2.0 alleviates a lot of this. from what i can tell it's optimized for mid-range machines and not high end. I have dual 580s in SLI and they crash whenever i set the game to the highest settings. a single 580 should be able to run the game fine, yet i see issues on anything above standard settings.

how were you measuring performance? using the benchmark utility?

I ran furmark the other day and my system crashed hard. I seem to have some instability somewhere in my system (most likely drivers) i need to find.

edit:

check your HDD too. that's my current bottle neck for the game and the major source of my loading times on my desktop. my laptop has an SSD and loads pretty fast all the time as long as my processor isnt' freaking out

[Ketone]

Again though, the issue is not the laptop lol. The laptop runs the game just fine. It's the desktop that's having the issua, and again, only when in full screen mode.

Also, my HDD is an Enterprise class drive that's never over 0% fragmentation. It's also the drive that I run all of my games off of without issue, so that can't be the problem.

I too am hoping that the new engine in 2.0 will fix all the problems, but it seems that the Japanese are having a hell of a time figuring out PC optimisation lol. I'm not just talking about Square-Enix here either.

[udubdave]

I'm experiencing these exact same issues, and it just started happening to me yesterday. I didn't change anything on my computer or install anything either. I don't think it's a performance issue because I have a quad core and the game was running absolutely perfect two days ago. Now, I have long load times, the game would just stop randomly and then start back up again a minute later, like it lagged for a whole minute, and maps suddenly just stop loading until I sit there for a minute or two, and then it'll load again. Very frustrating.

[Ketone]

Welp it's now happening even in windowed mode. This is so frustrating.

[Onisake]

Again though, the issue is not the laptop lol. The laptop runs the game just fine. It's the desktop that's having the issua, and again, only when in full screen mode.

Also, my HDD is an Enterprise class drive that's never over 0% fragmentation. It's also the drive that I run all of my games off of without issue, so that can't be the problem.

I too am hoping that the new engine in 2.0 will fix all the problems, but it seems that the Japanese are having a hell of a time figuring out PC optimisation lol. I'm not just talking about Square-Enix here either.

Oh i thought the laptop was the issue. never mind.

. . .ok. so what's the data transfer rate of your enterprise? FFXIV is a different type of game. it's also HORRIBLY inefficient. just because it's enterprise class do not assume it's working as intended. like i said: double check it. you don't' know what you don't know. until you pinpoint where your bottle neck is everything is suspect.

because you're experiencing issues loading issues and not FPS issues it's most likely a data-transfer rate issue. IE: check your router. check your hard-drive. check your processor.

[Ketone]

Well everything you suggested was already reported on earlier in the thread, HDD specs included.

SATA 3.0gbps, 7200, 64mb, WD RE4, 0% fragmentation

Router is fine. Ports forwarded, DMZ has no effect. Processor is fine, voltages are fine, not OCed. It gets particularly bad during peak hours. During the "blackouts", there is no PC activity, S and R numbers are low, and then suddenly after some time everything just pops into place. Sometimes I'll be waiting so long for an NPC to load their text after talking to then that I will have to terminate the program in order to move again.

udubdave, can you post your system and OS specs for comparison? Maybe we have a common culprit.

[Onisake]

Well everything you suggested was already reported on earlier in the thread, HDD specs included.

SATA 3.0gbps, 7200, 64mb, WD RE4, 0% fragmentation

Router is fine. Ports forwarded, DMZ has no effect. Processor is fine, voltages are fine, not OCed. It gets particularly bad during peak hours. During the "blackouts", there is no PC activity, S and R numbers are low, and then suddenly after some time everything just pops into place. Sometimes I'll be waiting so long for an NPC to load their text after talking to then that I will have to terminate the program in order to move again.

udubdave, can you post your system and OS specs for comparison? Maybe we have a common culprit.

That right there makes me think it's not your system.

compare the two network cards on your laptop and desktop.

[udubdave]

Well everything you suggested was already reported on earlier in the thread, HDD specs included.

SATA 3.0gbps, 7200, 64mb, WD RE4, 0% fragmentation

Router is fine. Ports forwarded, DMZ has no effect. Processor is fine, voltages are fine, not OCed. It gets particularly bad during peak hours. During the "blackouts", there is no PC activity, S and R numbers are low, and then suddenly after some time everything just pops into place. Sometimes I'll be waiting so long for an NPC to load their text after talking to then that I will have to terminate the program in order to move again.

udubdave, can you post your system and OS specs for comparison? Maybe we have a common culprit.

Not sure what specs you're looking for but here's all I know:

Intel Core i7 950
4GB RAM
Windows 7 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Hitachi HDD 2tb 7200rpm 64mb 6gb/s

[Ketone]

Intel Core i7 950
4GB RAM
Windows 7 64 bit
ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series
Hitachi HDD 2tb 7200rpm 64mb 6gb/s

Ok we have several similarities. Separate HDD for the game, ATI graphics card, 64 bit OS, intel CPU.

What catalyst version are you using? Also, go to performance -> AMD overdrive, and can you tell me if gfx overdrive is enabled? Many card do this by default.

[Ketone]

Ok I believe I have finally isolated the issue. It seems to be directly related to the HDD.

I found that whenever the game fails to load assets from said HDD, If I go to manually access files from that drive, the game loads everything up right as I go to access them.

I think this may be an issue with the Western Digital RE4 HDD. If data isn't constantly being read/written to the drive, it tends to go to "sleep", for want of a better term. When this happens, for whatever reason, FFXIV takes ages to get it to "wake up" again... but if I manually "wake" the drive by just accessing some folders on it, the game loads everything instantly after that.

Again though, this is only an issue with FFXIV.

Now I just need to come up with a means of keeping the drive active while I play and I should have no issue. I hear that investing in a SSD would be ideal, but I'll likely write a tiny app that just constantly writes and deletes a 1 byte file or something.