Low FPS on a good machine.

Hello everyone, I have been having problems with low framerate for a while, actually since I've been playing the game but it's really bothering me, since I believe I have a system that should be powerful enough to run the game on the maximum settings while staying on a solid 60FPS, but I'm always running at 20-40 FPS regardless of my settings, sometimes even lower in heavily populated areas such as cities.

I've been googling for hours trying to find a fix, yet nothing really helped, while a friend of mine with a similar, but weaker, machine runs the game without any problems on 60FPS, albeit with lower settings.

Any suggestions on trying to fix this would be very much appreciated.
Here are my specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz
GPU: nVidia Geforce GTX 660
RAM: 8,00 GB

Limsa Lominsa Aetheryte at Maximum settings:
http://i.imgur.com/tibB3Z7.jpg

Limsa Lominsa Aetheryte at Standard (Desktop):
http://i.imgur.com/TKXE4yD.jpg

Bentbranch Meadows Aetheryte at Maximum settings:
http://i.imgur.com/xgrTdGz.jpg

Bentbranch Meadows Aetheryte at Standard (Desktop):
http://i.imgur.com/i2P8OTZ.jpg

Discard the idea that you should get 60fps constant, that will never happen in player dense area's and fates with the current game client.

what settings have you changed in the nvidia control panel, and when did you last update the drivers?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Discard the idea that you should get 60fps constant, that will never happen in player dense area's and fates with the current game client.

what settings have you changed in the nvidia control panel, and when did you last update the drivers?

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Thank you for responding!

I am not expecting a constant 60 FPS, I'm satisfied with a constant 30 outside of player dense areas, however on any settings it often dips below 20, no matter the area, only in Company Houses and other small cells I get high FPS.
I have not changed any settings in the nVidia control panel, and I run the latest video drivers.

On a side note, I read something about a DirectX 11 game client that may launch at some point, if I can't find any solution to my low framerate, is it likely that it will give me a performance boost?

you might try turning on the occlusion culling setting, and turning off Realtime reflections.

The D3D11 client will help in CPU restrictive situations, such as the case when large amounts of players and shadows are on screen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

you might try turning on the occlusion culling setting, and turning off Realtime reflections.

The D3D11 client will help in CPU restrictive situations, such as the case when large amounts of players and shadows are on screen.

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I've tried both settings, and it boosted my FPS by nothing in player dense areas, and by about 2-5 outside. But even on the very lowest custom settings, I get a low average framerate.

Could the heatsink cooling your cpu be full of dust? this would cause the cpu to throttle down which would decrease your game performance.

I'm not a fan of doing this, but I do want some help...
So...

BUMP!

EDIT: I didn't refresh and did not see the new comment, I'm sorry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Could the heatsink cooling your cpu be full of dust? this would cause the cpu to throttle down which would decrease your game performance.

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I just cleaned out the heatsink, and decided to clean the rest of my case of dust too, but to no avail, I'm still getting low fps. :(

You're actually getting lower fps than i am, and your cpu should be faster than mine even though mine is clocked a bit higher (its 3 generations older, first gen i7)

Can you install MSI Afterburner, and configure it to show the onscreen display for items such as the GPU Clockrate, memory clockrate and usage?

theres a video tutorial on doing so at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeUSkaZ4_t0

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

You're actually getting lower fps than i am, and your cpu should be faster than mine even though mine is clocked a bit higher (its 3 generations older, first gen i7)

Can you install MSI Afterburner, and configure it to show the onscreen display for items such as the GPU Clockrate, memory clockrate and usage?

theres a video tutorial on doing so at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeUSkaZ4_t0

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Done, I ticked GPU Usage, Core Clock, Memory Clock and Memory Usage.

http://i.imgur.com/V8BkaSz.jpg

I'm sorry for it not being very readable, but it says
GPU: 98%, 1110MHz
MEM: 3005MHz, 1004MB

I think you better run Malware Bytes anti malware and check your system out for a bitcoin malware known to heavily utilise the GPU.

This is my stats on my 680/i7 920 in that exact location, i've screenshotted max settings, as well as what i typically use for general gameplay.

Max settings
http://s25.postimg.org/l4638c64r/ffx..._00_28_426.jpg

My typical settings, low shadow lod is also ticked further down.
http://s25.postimg.org/66xm7bswb/ffx..._59_04_900.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

I think you better run Malware Bytes anti malware and check your system out for a bitcoin malware known to heavily utilise the GPU.

This is my stats on my 680/i7 920 in that exact location, i've screenshotted max settings, as well as what i typically use for general gameplay.

Max settings
http://s25.postimg.org/l4638c64r/ffx..._00_28_426.jpg

My typical settings, low shadow lod is also ticked further down.
http://s25.postimg.org/66xm7bswb/ffx..._59_04_900.jpg

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Thank you for the suggestion! Come to think of it I haven't checked for malware in months, I'll do that right away and I'll update the thread tomorrow!

Update: No Malware found.
I really wish I knew what was causing all this so I could do something about it...

Do you have a steam account i can contact you on, theres a few tools i would like to run directly on your machine while the game is in operation.

Not expecting you to know of me, but i'm one of the co-developers of X360CE (Xbox 360 Controller emulator) at https://code.google.com/p/x360ce/ and admin/leader of the VBA-M (VisualBoy Advance-M) project, so utilising team viewer or other utilities to remote access troubled users computers is fairly common to me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

Do you have a steam account i can contact you on, theres a few tools i would like to run directly on your machine while the game is in operation.

Not expecting you to know of me, but i'm one of the co-developers of X360CE (Xbox 360 Controller emulator) at https://code.google.com/p/x360ce/ and admin/leader of the VBA-M (VisualBoy Advance-M) project, so utilising team viewer or other utilities to remote access troubled users computers is fairly common to me.

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Yeah sure, I'm willing to add you on Steam so you can help me try to find a fix, however I'm not entirely comfortable with allowing you (or anyone I don't know) remote access to my PC.
I'm okay however with following any instructions you may have for me to follow.

Unfortunately that will have to wait until Thursday.

My Steam ID is the same as my username here, Omnislash449.

Also, can I just say that I'm thankful for the work you've put into X360CE? I've used it a bunch to play Dark Souls with a PS4 controller.

^.^ Tapeq deserves the majority thanks, i do my best to maintain the game compatibility database (x360ce.gdb) and make sure the games have the right settings applied.

As for steam, i just tried looking you up and im afraid i was not able to find you on there :(.

As for remote access, teamviewer can be configured for viewing only, so i can guide you through it without actually needing to take control.
edit - or atleast i thought it did, might have to go through it blind. >.<.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

^.^ Tapeq deserves the majority thanks, i do my best to maintain the game compatibility database (x360ce.gdb) and make sure the games have the right settings applied.

As for steam, i just tried looking you up and im afraid i was not able to find you on there :(.

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That is strange, Steam is also down for me.
What is your username? I can add you tomorrow after work and we can probably work something out for Thursday if you have the time then.
But now it's late and I want to go to bed, haha.

you can find me under 'Squall Leonhart', real name Danial, as used on google code.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

you can find me under 'Squall Leonhart', real name Danial, as used on google code.

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I just wanted to add you, however there are 2544 results... could you try mine again? My username is completely lower case.

omnislash449
Real name Kevin

EDIT: found a link to my steam account, for some reason it has a different ID as the one I'm logging in with, strange.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/kevinbloodthirst

We might have to organise this for the weekend, i just got word im working today and tomorrow >.<

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Squa11_Leonhart

We might have to organise this for the weekend, i just got word im working today and tomorrow >.<

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Alright, there's no rush anyway, you can send me a friend request and we'll talk about it then.
Thank you for bearing with me and being so dedicated to helping me out!

The problem was TuneUp Utilities, while it's supposed to speed things up by lowering the priorities of other software amongst other things, it made Final Fantasy run worse.

So problem solved!