Major FPS drop/screen stuttering after upgrading video card to GTX 770.

He has already RMA a previous MSI to the new EVGA, so it isn't a faulty card.

I'm having the same issue after the patch; i made no changes to anything now my FF14 is running at OP describes, this started after patch. I think this is on SE's end.

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Originally Posted by Andrewzz

He has already RMA a previous MSI to the new EVGA, so it isn't a faulty card.

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At this point, since the re-install of windows there are only 2 things it could be.

1) Bad driver...Which, he should then roll back to an older driver and try again.

2) Bad card. - Since his card is working well for other games but, spiking, it's either the card or the driver. - Clearly the PCI-E slot is functioning because it's working so, it's not a MB issue and in the same token, the voltage spike on a bad rail wouldn't cause a temp fluctuation -- It would blow out the card so, since it's still working, it's not a PSU issue.

He could have the rear vent of the card blocked...But, even with bad airflow - There's no excuse for those temps.

It's really an either or situation...

I have no idea either as he has also tried the game with a borrowed 660 and having the same issue. I would recommend testing a different PCI slot (If he has one available) updating BIOS, and installing a previous driver (Download them directly from NVIDIA webpage)

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Originally Posted by Andrewzz

I have no idea either as he has also tried the game with a borrowed 660 and having the same issue. I would recommend testing a different PCI slot (If he has one available) updating BIOS, and installing a previous driver (Download them directly from NVIDIA webpage)

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A different PCI-E slot isn't the issue since this is a 1 game problem. He's stated it functions well for D3 and D3 is a moderately GPU-based game so, it's definitely not the slot.

Updating bios won't do much because, once again, it's functioning for everything else.

The primary issue is that the card is overheating and not functioning in a graphically intense environment.

I'm very confident at this point, it's the card or the driver.

There are 3 things I would try moving forward:
1) Roll back to a previous driver that worked well for FFXIV -- I'd roll back to 320.18 or 320.49.
2) Drop performance down on FFXIV to the very bottom, see if that helps, if it does, then we can REALLY narrow the issue down.
3) If neither of the above work, it's simply a bad card and you should return it for a new one...

Appreciate all the feedback I'm getting here. Just thought I'd give everyone an update and response to a few of the suggestions.

I called the MB manufacturer, it's an ASRock Intel x79 Extreme 4, and they said I have the most recent BIOS for Sandy Bridge processors. It's worth noting that my processor is a Sandy Bridge, NOT an Ivy Bridge as I originally thought, Intel i7 Quad Core 3820 (3.6 GHz).

I did try out older drivers, I believe 320.49, but to no avail. I have also tried putting the card into a different PCI slot, but also no luck on that.

There have been a few suggestions that I haven't tried, such as lowering all of the FFXIV graphic settings. I also didn't get a chance to try the second thing mentioned in Lurkios' post. Does anyone think either of these will make a difference? Based on everything I've already tried? Don't want to have to swap out my AMD card again just to have the same problem again.

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Originally Posted by Zand

There have been a few suggestions that I haven't tried, such as lowering all of the FFXIV graphic settings. I also didn't get a chance to try the second thing mentioned in Lurkios' post. Does anyone think either of these will make a difference? Based on everything I've already tried? Don't want to have to swap out my AMD card again just to have the same problem again.

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At this point, I think you should update the MB bios...Since it's clear you haven't...Just because. Then roll back to 320.18 and do a purge with DSweeper.

Purge Nvidia EVERYTHING and then do a custom install, exclude Nvidia Experience -- Never install that crap.

Try again with minimum settings on FFXIV - If there's still an issue, I'd say anti-lasing is too high and at that point, we can tweak it so it's working as intended.

Ultimately, I think you have a hot card.

Also when installing the new drivers, check the mark to do a clean installation, and unmark to install Nvidia Experience and 3D vision driver and 3D vision driver controller.

I already have the latest BIOS that will work with my processor. The tech support stated that the newer BIOS are intended only to be used w/ Ivy Bridge processor, and could otherwise mess up my MB.

Interesting about the Nvidia Experience and 3d Vision driver/controller, haven't tried not installing those. Maybe I'll try that when I get home in conjunction with the other things that were mentioned.

Installing a more updated BIOS won't affect how your motherboard behave, it just includes support to newer CPUs and components, without dropping support to previous ones.

About the driver, yes, if you don't own a 3D monitor there is no need to install those, also if you aren't using hdmi audio output from your card, you can skip to install HD audio too. So, installing the Graphics driver and PhysX should be enough, be sure to mark "Perform clean install"

http://blogs.nvidia.com/wp-content/u...913dc5970c.jpg

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Originally Posted by Zand

Appreciate all the feedback I'm getting here. Just thought I'd give everyone an update and response to a few of the suggestions.

I called the MB manufacturer, it's an ASRock Intel x79 Extreme 4, and they said I have the most recent BIOS for Sandy Bridge processors. It's worth noting that my processor is a Sandy Bridge, NOT an Ivy Bridge as I originally thought, Intel i7 Quad Core 3820 (3.6 GHz).

I did try out older drivers, I believe 320.49, but to no avail. I have also tried putting the card into a different PCI slot, but also no luck on that.

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Infact, its a Sandy bridge E.

Give the 327 or 331.40 beta drivers a go, lots of issues have been fixed since 320.49.

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Installing a more updated BIOS won't affect how your motherboard behave, it just includes support to newer CPUs and components, without dropping support to previous ones.

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These words would be dangerous,.... if op had a gigabyte board. in some cases, newer is not better and can be much worse.

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

These words would be dangerous,.... if op had a gigabyte board. in some cases, newer is not better and can be much worse.

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I do have a Gigabyte, always updated to latest BIOS and haven't had issues with it.
GA-X58A-UD3R
Intel i7 950
MSI 660ti OC PE.

a motherboard from 4 years ago (which btw, DID have on and off issues in its provided bios's) doesn't really represent the issues present in current hardware.

I wasn't aware of any issue with my motherboard's BIOS, and I just made the example with mine that updating BIOS isn't bringing any issue to me.

I am wondering if there is somehow a conflict between your system graphic settings and FFXIV. I haven't used Nvidia cards in a while, but with the AMD cards you can control settings in the Catalyst control panel. Have you tried creating a profile for FFXIV and making sure that all the settings are application controlled?

I have been able to solve some performance issues by doing this with other games.

I definitely want to try a few of the more recent suggestions. I'm wondering if I'd be able to install a new copy of windows on my old HDD, which was previously wiped, and install the new NVIDIA drivers without having to worry about my AMD drivers on the SSD. This way I can swap cards without the hassle of having to uninstall/reinstall new drivers. Anyone know if this is possible?

So, any progress?

have you tried to fresh install your FFXIV:ARR client since a lot of these hardware related troubleshoot?

I'am in the boat. I just recently bought a Desktop PC again to switch from PS3 Version to PC.

My Rig:
I7 4770K @4.3Ghz
16GB Kingston HyperX 2133Mhz Ram (4x4GB)
2x MSI Lightning GTX 770 SLI
MSI Z87-GD65 Motherboard
Corsair HX 1050W PSU
Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate on an 120GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD (fresh installation after assembled the pc, with every driver+bios updated and fresh installed FF XIV ARR)
Games are installed on an 3TB HDD from WD
Game Settings: Max. Resolutions 1920x1080(my usual gaming resolution), 2880x1620 and 3200x1800 (both Downsampling to 1920x1080 with FXAA turned off in the Gamesettings)
My temps are under heavy load ~60°C ish for CPU and 45/48°C on the GFX cards.
Tried both nVidia drivers already, beta and whql, no difference.

When i run benchmarks like the one from FF XIV ARR or something like 3D Mark / 2011 i get superb Performance. I score around 18k Points on the FF XIV Benchmark which is not that bad i believe. Playing other Games like the new Tomb Raider/Bioshock Infinite with 4x SSAA runs smooth at fixed 60 FPS (limited with Adaptive Vsync, not Microstuttering at all).

But playing Final Fantasy XIV ARR gives some heavy FPS Drops at times, where i'm really wondering if SLI is working properly with the game. But then again i have around 40FPS left when i join an Odin FATE with alot of ppl and its really nice to play this event that smooth - so i really have no idea whats the issue with that specific game. Literally theres no difference in running the game with SLI enabled or without. But in the benchmark there is..

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Originally Posted by Mylla_Ashdale

I'am in the boat. I just recently bought a Desktop PC again to switch from PS3 Version to PC.

My Rig:
I7 4770K @4.3Ghz
16GB Kingston HyperX 2133Mhz Ram (4x4GB)
2x MSI Lightning GTX 770 SLI
MSI Z87-GD65 Motherboard
Corsair HX 1050W PSU
Windows 7 64 Bit Ultimate on an 120GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD (fresh installation after assembled the pc, with every driver+bios updated and fresh installed FF XIV ARR)
Games are installed on an 3TB HDD from WD
Game Settings: Max. Resolutions 1920x1080(my usual gaming resolution), 2880x1620 and 3200x1800 (both Downsampling to 1920x1080 with FXAA turned off in the Gamesettings)
My temps are under heavy load ~60°C ish for CPU and 45/48°C on the GFX cards.
Tried both nVidia drivers already, beta and whql, no difference.

When i run benchmarks like the one from FF XIV ARR or something like 3D Mark / 2011 i get superb Performance. I score around 18k Points on the FF XIV Benchmark which is not that bad i believe. Playing other Games like the new Tomb Raider/Bioshock Infinite with 4x SSAA runs smooth at fixed 60 FPS (limited with Adaptive Vsync, not Microstuttering at all).

But playing Final Fantasy XIV ARR gives some heavy FPS Drops at times, where i'm really wondering if SLI is working properly with the game. But then again i have around 40FPS left when i join an Odin FATE with alot of ppl and its really nice to play this event that smooth - so i really have no idea whats the issue with that specific game. Literally theres no difference in running the game with SLI enabled or without. But in the benchmark there is..

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turn occlusion culling back on.

Anyone have an answer for this?

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Originally Posted by Zand

I definitely want to try a few of the more recent suggestions. I'm wondering if I'd be able to install a new copy of windows on my old HDD, which was previously wiped, and install the new NVIDIA drivers without having to worry about my AMD drivers on the SSD. This way I can swap cards without the hassle of having to uninstall/reinstall new drivers. Anyone know if this is possible?

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sure you can.

I want you to download and install CPU-Z. Run CPU-Z then run FFXIV. What does the Core Speed read at the bottom? I had a similar problem where my CPU wasn't reaching it's normal speed. The bus multiplier was locked at x16, which was killing my performance in FFXIV. You may want to reset your BIOS to the optimized default settings and test it again.

Ok, so I have officially tried everything suggested in this thread. And to my surprise, I actually got some results this time! However, I'm not sure what made the difference because I tried multiple things at once.

I started off by wiping my old drivers and and doing a custom installation with only the NVIDIA graphics driver and PhysX. Afterwards, went into my NVIDIA Control Panel and turned off Ambient Occlusion, changed power management mode to Max performance, and then turned on Triple buffering/Vertical sync. Lastly, I tried doing what Syx suggested by downloading CPU-Z and checking my processor's core speeds. That was a complete fail because the program wouldn't install properly after 5 attempts. Instead what installed was just about every piece malware under the sun. Anyway, after removing all the malware and useless junk I just decided to go ahead and update my BIOS. After the BIOS update, I crossed my fingers and fired up FFXIV. To my surprise, I saw a noticeable difference but still traces of that screen stuttering I mentioned in my original post. So then I remember Lurkios mentioning "Borderless Window" and I give that a shot. After switching to Borderless Window the stuttering basically became non existent, and the all around performance became significantly better.

So my question is, why does Borderless Window make such a big difference over Full screen? I thought it would have the opposite effect. Another thing I noticed with Borderless Window was occasional screen tearing, which I'm OK with, but still found strange. Also, is there a way to ALT+TAB with Borderless Window enabled? I tried Window key + D but that just minimizes every window and has everything reappear once I click something. (By the way, all of this was done with the GTX660 card that my friend lent me, not the GTX770)

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Afterwards, went into my NVIDIA Control Panel and turned off Ambient Occlusion

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There is no AO profile for FF14 for this setting to take effect

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and then turned on Triple buffering/Vertical sync.

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Triple Buffering is a OpenGL setting, so no surprise it wouldn't do anything

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Lastly, I tried doing what Syx suggested by downloading CPU-Z and checking my processor's core speeds. That was a complete fail because the program wouldn't install properly after 5 attempts.

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Syx probably meant GPU-Z, cpu-z is not made for monitoring graphics cards.

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Instead what installed was just about every piece malware under the sun.

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Unusual, but not surprising, the cpu-z installer does have some adware bundled, which is why i only ever grap the zip version

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Anyway, after removing all the malware and useless junk I just decided to go ahead and update my BIOS. After the BIOS update, I crossed my fingers and fired up FFXIV. To my surprise, I saw a noticeable difference but still traces of that screen stuttering I mentioned in my original post. So then I remember Lurkios mentioning "Borderless Window" and I give that a shot. After switching to Borderless Window the stuttering basically became non existent, and the all around performance became significantly better

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Your guess is as good as mine, usually its the other way round.

I run on a GTX 550Ti and found that i could only install partial drivers of all the Nvidia software included, because it wasn't very.. windows friendly. I found that just having the basic driver and none of the addons, it works great. I think Nvidia just has a problem with the cards in general. FFXIV runs fine on my system and card now, but i play in windowed mode because once you are in fullscreen it goes stupid.

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Originally Posted by Zand

Lastly, I tried doing what Syx suggested by downloading CPU-Z and checking my processor's core speeds. That was a complete fail because the program wouldn't install properly after 5 attempts. Instead what installed was just about every piece malware under the sun.

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Try to download and use the no installation (Portable) program, and download it from a good source (cpuid.com is the main page)

Borderless windowed mode is actually not as high as your native resolution. If you have 1920x1080 fullscreen normally, you would have to open the ffxiv config file, manually put in 1920 and 1080 for the resolution, and the set the file as read only under properties when you finish so the game doesn't default it back to the lower value. I only know this because I use sweetfx for better AA and had to do this for borderless windowed to work properly with it.

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Originally Posted by Appleh4x

Borderless windowed mode is actually not as high as your native resolution. If you have 1920x1080 fullscreen normally, you would have to open the ffxiv config file, manually put in 1920 and 1080 for the resolution, and the set the file as read only under properties when you finish so the game doesn't default it back to the lower value. I only know this because I use sweetfx for better AA and had to do this for borderless windowed to work properly with it.

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Borderless window does not change the screenmode.

I'm not sure how you got malware from cpu-z, unless you were just randomly clicking download links without a care in the world. FFXIV is CPU dependent. If there was a misconfiguration in your BIOS restricting the CPU from reaching its maximum frequency your performance would nosedive. Playing in any form of Windowed Mode will also degrade performance. You should still monitor your CPU frequency to make sure it is reaching at least 100% of its advertised speed.

If.. Power is correctly supplied to the card, drivers were removed and installed correctly, and the card is not overheating. I seriously suggest replacing the card. Get an RMA, and get a new card sent out to you. Some cards are just bunk on arrival its not uncommon.

If you have not tried already. Install a program called SpeedFan. This will monitor the temps of your GPU, and CPU. It is possible that the card itself is fine, and the issue is with the CPU and RAM. The odd thing tho is that if it was a power issue or an overheating issue, you would most likely be seeing the video card driver crash often, or your machine just mysteriously shutting down. Once again leading to the idea of a bunk card.

(No malware on SpeedFan. Also read everything when installing free software from the internet. 99% of it will install useless crap if you don't unchecked those boxes in the instal. It helps to pay attention to what you are installing on your computer.) Too much useless crap from the internet can also start to cause mystery issues when piled up too high.

I'm getting this same kind of odd stuttering with my GTX 660 I just purchased. Every 5~7s it just hangs for half a second. Otherwise it runs completely smooth and barely even tips over 50c.

I got an odd message about "Windows performance being low" which made me turn Aero off right before I notice the hanging.

This happened to me the other day. I turned off the PC and reseated my GPU. Sometimes its the simple things. My benchmark results didn't change.

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Originally Posted by Asdamine

The reason I asked for the GPU temperature is that any processor unit that over heat to around 90+ degrees will decrease the performacne of the card. Same thing applies to CPU. (that's the reason why people can't overclock a laptop because they can't fan out the heat with the limited space within the laptop casing.)

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As the temperature of the GPU increases, it regulates the temperature by adjust the cooling fan speed. I've certainly seen no desktop GPU regulate temperature by adjusting it's clock speed. If the GPU should reach a temperature outside it's intended operating range, it will protect itself by immediately shutting the computer off.

It's doubtful it's the hardware. Does the problem exhibit itself within other 3D applications? What is with you people though. If a game isn't performing exactly right, you suggest the problem is due to the hardware? When it's limited to ONE GAME? I can only wonderb sacrificial goat offering the Direct3D Gods to appease their anger.

I experienced the exact same thing as him with a GTX680. I never asked for assistance because I knew people would suggest solutions that haven't any relevance. I noticed that a early build of the benchmark lacked the full-screen stutter. I don't know the cause of the stutter. But I know I can't do anything about it. And it runs fines it windowed/borderless windowed mode (which runs at the same resolution as full screen mode). Enough hog-sh*t seriously. I do not beleive what you put this person thru. Just admit you don't know why and the only solution people have is running it in borderless window mode. This problem is far less evident on AMD/ATI cards I've used.

I have observed one thing across all cards i've tested (ATI/AMD/NVidia). If you set the framerate to 30 and playback the intro video, it stutters considerably on all cards I've tried. Yet the video is smooth as silk when the game is run in a window, or borderless window mode. I can't help but feel that it's related somehow to the problem with the engine and full screen mode for some NVidia users.