Really don't know where to post (pc requirements)

As the title states, I'm not sure where to post this. If it needs to be moved sorry.

Onward, I just got he game for PS3 soon to get a PS4 and move there. However, my girlfriend is one of those PC master race followers and doesn't want to play on the console, but her current pc is out dated.

Looking for help and suggestions on PC parts to play the game with around 30 fps on decent settings with no or very little lag in populated areas. I have a budget of around $500 USD, just the pc no monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

Thanks in advance.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/

The game has changed a little since the bench mark test has been released.
I'd say your looking for something with at least 8g of ram Intel i5 or higher, amd a8 or higher... And for the graphics card something higher than 7640ati or the equivalent of that.
As always the higher the graphic card the better the game will run in theory. Just be careful of software incompatibility if you're building it yourself.

AMDX3 proc , 1024 video (radeon 4600 series) , 2gb ram - game going on mid/average settings just fine , i think if get up to 4gb ram and 2k video , game will run on highest lol

FXIV: ARR Minimum System Requirements

Operating System: Windows® Vista 32/64bit, Windows® 7 32/64 bit
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo
Graphics: NVIDIA® Geforce® 8800 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 4770
Memory: 2GB (4GB recommended for 64bit OS)
Disk Space: 20GB.

You may notice that these are lower than the minimum system requirements for v1.0. This is because Square Enix wants the game to be more accessible and run on a wider range of PCs.


FXIV: ARR Recommended System Requirements

For the best performance you should aim to run the game on a system with at least these specifications.
Operating System: Windows® 7 64 bit
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5
Graphics: NVIDIA® Geforce® GTX 660 or higher, AMD Radeon™ HD 7950 or higher
Memory: 4GB of RAM.
Disk Space: 20GB.

There's actually a lot more to it which you can find here http://www.ffxivinfo.com/systemreqs.php But those are minimum and recomended which gives you a good start the things you are missing are trivial... Mouse keyboard and monitor don't mean a hell of beans compared to the pc's processing power

Even though the ARR website lists Vista as the official minimum requirements for the PC version, I can accurately say the game will run under XP SP3 (the Alpha and Beta versions were designed for it as a minimum) and I still play ARR in XP). However, as should be obvious, SE has dropped all technical support for the game running under XP, so if something goes wrong that is caused by your operating system, they won't be able to help you I'm afraid.

But really, if your girlfriend's computer is reasonably up to date it should be able to run ARR with no problems (especially if she's a 'PC master race' gamer like you said. ;)). :D

If you have a machine that you need to upgrade a few parts, just make sure all the requirements are met for the new piece you are getting. I have a PC that really just needs a new processor which the biggest bottle neck on FFXIV performance. It has 8g RAM, 1g video memory (DDR5), and a quad core 2.3ghz processor, and FFXIV is nigh unplayable on it, it runs all settings on low and still frame skips while running in mostly unpopulated areas at around 25fps. Cutscenes just barely play without skipping.

But I can't just upgrade the processor. The motherboard is cheap and old too, to get a better processor I'd also need to get a new motherboard. But wait! The power supply is also cheap and low (300w maybe). Upgrading the processor also probably means an upgrade in PSU. Getting a new motherboard also means that it has to be compatible with your current GPU and memory.

Things can cascade to where you end up buying half of a whole new computer. Just do your research. Make sure the chipset of the motherboard matches the processor, and make sure you have sufficient power.

With $500, not sure if that's a hard cap or not, but if you started from scratch, you would be hard pressed to get something with decent FFXIV performance for that much. I'd appraise a decent machine for FFXIV, if you had to buy everything, at at least $650-750. I would recycle as much from an older comp as possible - monitor, mouse, keyboard, optical drive, hard drive, case, operating system, etc. If all you need is MB, CPU, GPU, RAM, PSU, then $500 can probably do it for you:

• $70'ish on the motherboard (something with a modern chipset)
• $80'ish on memory (that's about the going rate for 8g RAM)
• $70'ish on power supply (try to get at least 550w with a decent brand name)
• $140 on the CPU (you can really get bang for your buck at this price especially if you dabble in over clocking)
• $140 on GPU (you can get something at 2g memory on DDR5 at this price range)

Yeah, for $500 the above could get you something really nice, as long as you didn't need anything else.