Details:
I get choppy gameplay running around town. When I say choppy gameplay, I mean the FPS just drop off a cliff. Despite many other LS members have less 'computer' than I have, they can run flawlessly anywhere, without drops to FPS.
Steps:
1. Flawless gameplay in the fields outside of town, no loss of FPS.
2. In town, FPS drop randomly to under 10 FPS but then rebound. Happens frequently.
3. Running ATI Catalyst 11.8 or whatever latest official release is. Have tried others in the past to no avail.
4. Settings set to less than standard in FFXIV Config.
Date & Time:
Always had the problem.
Frequency:
Always happens.
Platform:
PC
PC Manufacturer & Model Number:
Home built
CPU: Q9550 Intel Quad Core (Overclocked to 3.4 Ghz)
RAM: 8 GB of DDR2-1066 (OC'ed to 1100)
SSD: Intel 120GB; OS files only
HDD: Western Digital 500 GB, 32 MB cache; program files on this disk
OS:
Win7 x64 Professional
Graphics Card:
Asus ATI 5850 DirectCU
ISP:
Time Warner
Type of Internet Connection:
Cable Internet: 10 MB
Question:
Is there an optimal ATI Catalyst driver that might help, like SE has listed on their FFXI official website?
Choppy gameplay
Printable View
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10-11-2011, 04:03 AMFiresoulChoppy gameplay
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10-11-2011, 08:28 AMnasomi
Try putting ffxiv on your SSD. Quite honestly putting your OS on an SSD is pointless. You'll get better boot times, but how often do you reboot? Once it's loaded, that's it. The games are that which have the constant read and write. Choppyness most frequently comes from video cards, in cities, from loading every avatar's little model as you run through, while it's trying to load the city's architecture. Once you are stationary does the choppyness stop? If so, that's the hard drive. If not, it's the video card. The 5850 is an ok card, but probably won't get you much above medium to medium-high settings. If you try on high, you will lag to death. Try turning shadows down first to see if that solves the problem.
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10-12-2011, 10:11 AMFiresoul
Well, I don't have a large SSD, and I disagree with putting just an OS on an SSD. Look around the internet and tech sites, many, many people use SSD's just for OS's, but I digress. I'll have to look at the choppiness at rest or moving. I'm not logged in right now, but I think it is just when moving. Thanks for trying to help.
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10-12-2011, 11:11 AMEunysThe many, many sites of people you have found probably do not game. With 120GB SSD you have more then enough space to move FFXIV over, and the issues of in town loading will improve a ton. Nasomi is spot on with his reply.Quote:
Originally Posted by Firesoul
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10-12-2011, 12:53 PMshal_zee
I installed ffxiv on my SSD and it help tons!
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10-13-2011, 03:31 AMFiresoul
Nah, these are sites like Anandtech, Tomshardware, and HardOCP. So most of them are tech and gaming sites, but okay I will move FFXIV to my SSD. I was contemplating doing a reinstall anyway, I get some weird lags once in a while on other things.
I was just worried, I know your are supposed to have open room on SSD's for some reason that I can't remember right now. Something to do with how it turns over unused memory, it has TRIM support so it should be fine, but capacity in SSD's is supposed to be under some %. I dunno, I can't remember where/what I read at the moment.
Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully, some of my issues go away. -
10-13-2011, 03:44 AMSolace
Oh come on don't tell the guy to put the game on an SSD, are you serious?
Yes everyone go buy some tech that amounts to almost nothing and it will help your choppy game play.. NO no it won't, it won't help him in the least bit. So don't recommend to people that they spend hundreds of dollars on hardware that amounts to absolutely nothing.. ug.. -
10-13-2011, 04:10 AMEunysYou will not even remotely approach capacity on your 120GB SSD with OS + FFXIV. Win7 alone is about 14GB full install and FFXIV is about 11GB. Have fun, and hit us up with your experience afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Firesoul
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10-13-2011, 04:10 AMEunys1. He already owns the SSD, so nobody told him to go buy one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Solace
2. Unless you have a clue about what you are talking about please don't reply to threads in this forum with false information. -
10-14-2011, 06:37 AMnasomiI just ordered a 40gb SSD for my computer, that will just be for the OS and FFXIV. I've never used an SSD before, but the performance hits I take on my otherwise high end system are unexplinable for anything other than the hard drive. I'll be sure to let you know if the SSD solves my problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by Solace
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10-14-2011, 07:37 AMFiresoul
Well, I don't know about the numbers you gave for SSD capacity, but I have win7 Pro on the SSD but all my programs(where given a choice) are on a HDD and I only have 43 GB of the 111 available left on the SSD.
Hopefully on reinstall of OS and FFXIV the numbers get smaller. -
10-14-2011, 08:43 AMBahnPatch Tuesday pretty much makes me reboot at least twice to three times a month. Also some people actually turn off their PCs at the end of the day. This is more of a personal preference thing so I don't think that's an valid argument against putting an OS on an SSD.Quote:
Originally Posted by nasomi
The choppiness the OP is talking about happens when character models/etc are loaded from the HDD for the first time. After the models are loaded in town, the gameplay becomes smooth again because the models seem to be cached somehow. We've had this discussion before, and I too can verify putting FFXIV on the SSD will solve a majority of the choppiness.
It's not his card, but rather just FFXIV (as usual) being poorly programmed to handle player model loading.
Edit: It's also not necessary to reinstall FFXIV. If you know how to use symbolic links, you can simply move the FFXIV installation to your SSD and make a symbolic link from the original location pointing to where FFXIV was copied to on the SSD. That is what I did, and it works fine with no problems! -
10-15-2011, 10:52 AMJediman
can u get us a screenshot of your "Choppy gameplay" graphic image?
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10-15-2011, 11:15 AMJediman
mod delete this post if you c it .....
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10-27-2011, 10:59 AMFiresoul
Well I thought I would finally post back. I have completed my reinstall and all things good.
It seems the problem is much less noticeable now that FFXIV is on the SSD. It still fluctuates with char's on screen and all but mostly in the cities there is much less choppiness.
I don't know if the SSD was the trick or just old driver settings, old registry errors, etc.
It definitely runs better now however. Constant 60 outside of cities and usually never lower than 40 in cities. Most of the settings are also a bit higher than before too. Still can't see how my old 500 gb, 16 mb cache HDD was lagging so bad though.
Whatever, it works and I'm happy now. -
10-27-2011, 08:51 PMEunysMechanical HDD's are terrible at fast data retrieval is why, even the slowest SSD's will out perform the fastest HDD's. Add on top of this that the game is poorly designed from the start and it's just a world of hurt. Glad your getting better game play though, thanks for the update.Quote:
Originally Posted by Firesoul
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10-28-2011, 11:34 PMnasomi
My gameplay improved dramatically with my SSD. with a 40gb I have win7 x64, ffxiv, office 2010, and photoshop, all fully installed, and i have about 2gb free. Everything else goes to a secondary hdd. fresh install on regular sata drive didn't fix my problem, but my SSD did. It makes sense though, it needs to read a TON of files when it has to load every character model out there when you're in the city, a hdd's 8ms latency adds up, but the ssd doesn't have that.
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10-29-2011, 12:25 AMZenaku
Or wait for 2.0 if you really can't then i guess what the other say to do would work also.