FPS Drops

Ever since coming back to the game after a few months, I've been experiencing very specific FPS drops. If I run the game from boot, I can maintain 60 FPS perfectly. The moment I step into a city it's like the game is imposing an invisible 30 FPS limit that doesn't go away no matter if I move or restart the game. This 30 FPS 'limit' also occurs if I start the game after having my PC on for a while. This clearly isn't a hardware error, as I'm running much higher spec games perfectly, and did not face this issue with FF14 in the past. The issue stays consistent whether there's programs in the background or not.

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Can you submit a FFXIV system report? Simply go to the 'Config' option on the Final Fantasy XIV launcher and to the right of 'System Information' click on 'Display.' Post this information here.

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Started playing today with 60 FPS, took a break to play something else and came back to a permanent 6 FPS or under until I rebooted. This did not happen when I played last year, and is making the game absolutely not worth the trouble.

Thank you for the information SutoTia.

I would recommend doing a clean boot. Simply open the task manager and select the 'Start up' Tab. Disable everything here and restart the PC.

Does this occur if you switch to Directx 9 mode?

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

Hi there, sorry for delays. Clean boot hasn't helped much. Updated Nividia drivers seem to have helped a bit, but still happens after my PC's slept for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if this were just an Nvidia driver issue.

Thank you for the update SutoTia.

Did anything change on your PC before you came back and experienced this issue?

Does this occur if you have the game in windowed or borderless?

Also, check your V-sync setting in the Nvidia Control Panel. What setting is it on currently?

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

Occurs in both modes, sadly, and I have V-sync disabled. Same graphics card and no hardware changes, so I'm having trouble placing the culprit as anything but poor drivers on Nvidia's part.

Hello SutoTia, Thank you for posting on the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums

The next thing we would like to suggest is uninstalling and reinstalling the game. Please let us know if this helps the issue.

Hope to be of assistance.

I'll try a reinstall today. A driver rollback to previously working drivers didn't fix it, unfortunately. Starting to suspect it's a problem with the windows Fall Creator thing.

No change after a reinstall, problem still occurs.

To summarize the issue: game runs perfectly, hitting FPS as high as 120 under normal conditions. Opening a browser, entering somewhere like Quarrymill or booting the game after playing other games drops and locks my FPS. Happens with both current graphics drivers and those that I ran when the game worked well for me, in October of last year. Only notable change is the Windows Fall Creator update, but no real way to avoid using that. A full reboot of my PC fixes the problem for approx. 2 hours, or until I enter the stated problem areas.

Fixes attempted: multiple different graphics drivers, disabling and uninstalling Windows game mode features, toggling from fullscreen to borderless,changing from Direct X11 to 9. I'm really at a loss here. This doesn't seem like so much of a performance issue as much as FF14 deciding to lock its framerate at random.

I have now reported this as a bug, as I've taken every step to ensure that it isn't a problem with my setup and this is the only game I play having this issue.

Strange update: decided to try using the Stormblood benchmark after the FPS drop kicks in, and it runs perfectly. Not even programs in the same engine as FF14 are being hit by the FPS issues, only FF14 itself.

You try to do a "clean" install of your drivers? I stopped letting gforce experience auto update cuz it kept giving me run time issues with ff 14. Clean installs usually require third party tools so idk if i can post stuff here but you can usually just google "clean driver install" or something along those lines.

Yeah, tried a clean install. New drivers, rolling back to the drivers I had when I last played, doesn't make any difference sadly!

I'm having the same issue, only happens with FFXIV, and only while my browser is open when the game is running.
Using windows 7

Which browser are you running, and is hardware acceleration on in said browser? I tend to run into it no matter if I have my browser up or not, but hardware acceleration can be picky.

Hello Thank you all for your input on this thread!

Please let us know if any of the suggestions we have given solve your issues.

I'm currently using Chrome for my browser.
After changing the "Power Management Mode" to "Prefer maximum performance" and rebooting my PC, everything seems to be working just fine. It's been about 2 hours now and no problems so far.
NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > Global Settings > Power management mode

I'll be keeping this issue open until such a point where something resolves it. FPS drop happened again today after a few hours, locked to 35 FPS and below.

Thank you for the suggestion Firetruck. This may be something worth looking into.

I know you're saying everything else runs just fine including other games, but I'd like to know your specs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HannibalGraham

I know you're saying everything else runs just fine including other games, but I'd like to know your specs.

---

Thank you for your support and input on this thread!

Geforce 1060 6GB, Intel i5 4590. 16 GBs of RAM, and running off an SSD. When the slowdown happens, both utilization and temps of CPU and GPU are fine.

Sounds like your computer is more than enough to play the game. I don't know enough about NVIDIA, so I suggest you check your settings. Usually changing the settings on a GPU can cause issues if you tick the wrong box.

Thank you for the update SutoTia.

Here are a few more things to try:

Try switching to Directx 9 mode. If you are currently using Directx 9, switch to 11.
Make sure your anti-virus/firewall has an exception for Final Fantasy XIV.
Install the game on the C drive if it is not already.
Change the compatibility mode to Windows 7. Find the exe file for the game, right click it and select ‘Properties.’ From here, select the ‘Compatibility’ tab and select Windows 7.

We hope we can be of assistance in helping you enjoy the exciting world of Final Fantasy XIV!

Hello everyone,

Due to no response from the original poster, this thread will be moved to 'Closed Concerns.' If anyone is still having this particular problem, please create a new thread and we will assist you in any way we can.

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.