6950 Performance

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Originally Posted by Heoki

I don't know if this has been posted, but I did this to two of my 6950s and it was pretty awesome.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/159

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Don't you lose the warranty if you flash your video bios? <.<

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Interesting. I've been running an SSD since day 1; I didn't realize it made that much of a difference. I figured it would only help out with between-zone loading screens.

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It's due to Square's inability to utilize buffering properly, so we're forced to frontload a huge amount of data, which causes stuttering and frame loss. The SSD fixes this because it can actually read the data fast enough. Of course, you need fast enough RAM to keep up with the SSD and handle the data coming in. But most non-generic DDR3 RAM can do it easily. DDR2 is a little more selective, but it's fairly minor.

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Originally Posted by Capita

My Q6600 @ stock 2.4GHz runs this game just as well as my i7 920 @ 4.0GHz, both under GTX 480's and SSD (never drops below 60 FPS outside of town, and never drops below 50 FPS in town). Overclocking my Q6600 to 3.2GHz makes maybe a 3-5 FPS difference. Not even worth the extra CPU temps as it doesn't even go past 60% usage stock.

So no, you don't NEED to run your CPU past 3.4GHz. You do NEED at least a Quad Core if you're using a GTX 460 or better GPU. You also do need an SSD if you don't want to stutter around town, so I'll agree with that. That was actually probably my biggest upgrade. From a 7200 RPM HDD to an SSD is like day and night in terms of game performance, and gave the absolute largest performance gain by far.

-- First system --

Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
4GB G.Skill DDR2
GTX 480
1TB 7200 RPM HDD

FPS min-max: 40-60, with periodic stutter to around 15 FPS in Ul'dah.
With SSD: 51-60, no stutter.

-- Second system --

i7 920 @ 4.0 GHz
8GB G.Skill DDR3
GTX 480
1TB 7200 RPM HDD

FPS min-max: 45-60, with periodic stutters to around 15 FPS in Ul'dah.
With SSD: 53-60, no stutter.

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that's very helpful!! thank you ^^

Yeah SSD has made a massive performance for me as well, since I got my new lappy I put the SSD in it from my PC, now XIV on my PC stutters so much on 7200rpm HDD! :3

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Originally Posted by leomax

Yeah SSD has made a massive performance for me as well, since I got my new lappy I put the SSD in it from my PC, now XIV on my PC stutters so much on 7200rpm HDD! :3

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Velociraptors (10,00 RPM0 and caviar blacks (64mb cache) help with this also... not nearly as much as an SSD but at a much more reasonable cost per gigabyte