LOW FPS - GTX 660 Ti I5 2500K ~13 fps in towns

[SolanQ]

I'm not experiencing any of these nasty FPS drops when panning the camera that some of you are describing. Performance has generally been pretty good in the game outside of really busy FATEs and in the city trade districts. I don't know if this is because of my drivers, my graphics settings or because I'm running in Borderless Windowed mode (I have dual monitors, so I don't run anything Fullscreen if I can avoid it), but I'll list my specs and settings below in case it may help someone with similar hardware:

My system specs (stock speeds on everything):

i5 2500k
8gb DDR3
GTX 680 2gb
Windows 7 64-bit

Graphics drivers I've tried:

*WHQL 314.07 -> worked great for all other games, but FF14 caused display driver crashes every 30-50 mins, followed by god awful performance
*BETA 326.80 -> game works great since installing these, not a single crash and performance is good in most places and just about acceptable in cities (~30fps is usually where I draw the line and that's about the lowest I get)

My ingame graphics settings:

- Borderless Windowed mode @ 1680x1050 native res

[animapain]

I'm not experiencing any of these nasty FPS drops when panning the camera that some of you are describing. Performance has generally been pretty good in the game outside of really busy FATEs and in the city trade districts. I don't know if this is because of my drivers, my graphics settings or because I'm running in Borderless Windowed mode (I have dual monitors, so I don't run anything Fullscreen if I can avoid it), but I'll list my specs and settings below in case it may help someone with similar hardware:

My system specs (stock speeds on everything):

i5 2500k
8gb DDR3
GTX 680
Windows 7 64-bit

Graphics drivers I've tried:

*WHQL 314.07 -> worked great for all other games, but FF14 caused display driver crashes every 30-50 mins, followed by god awful performance
*BETA 326.80 -> game works great since installing these, not a single crash and performance is good in most places and just about acceptable in cities (~30fps is usually where I draw the line and that's about the lowest I get)

My ingame graphics settings:

- Borderless Windowed mode @ 1680x1050 native res

You don't think it odd that you're running custom settings to improve performance even though that card is easily able run it maxed out? perhaps CPU bottleneck though?

[C-croft]

You don't think it odd that you're running custom settings to improve performance even though that card is easily able run it maxed out? perhaps CPU bottleneck though?

Not if s/he is running dual monitors on a single 680 2gb in borderless windows even with native 1680x1050.

I do know about the crashes prior to the latest beta drivers, but I still have an annoying drop to windows as though I hit the windows key.

[Ranebow]

True I over exaggerated a little, but the stuttering is driving me crazy lmao damn near makes me dizzy xD I've just done another fresh install of windows, just installing FF and using nvidia drivers a few steps down from what I was using ( as they were beta drivers after all ) So I'll post back if I see any change.

I don't think you exaggerated, because it is THAT bad. It's a situation that shouldn't exist and so far can't be pinpointed, meanwhile causes half performance loss ANYTIME you pan the camera. I can't think of any other 3d program with this symptom.

Not if s/he is running dual monitors on a single 680 2gb in borderless windows even with native 1680x1050.

Monitor count is irrelevant. The program is only displayed on a single output i.e. 1680x1050.

Thats the point i don't see why you would take 2 of my quotes then try to become a troll out of it.

Your declaration of computer prowess doesn't help anyone get closer to the solution since your situation is unique, thus making it irrelevant and subsequently your point is also irrelevant.
Either make your case or don't, but don't throw words like "troll" around because someone challenged you.

Hey everyone, I did some digging around the Nvidia forums and stumbled upon this thread:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/t...37951/#3937951 (read post 14 and 15)

Looks like the reason those of us with monster systems are having issues is because DirectX 9 is a terribly outdated API (it came out in 2005) and is completely unoptimized for our multi-core, multi-thread, and/or multi-gpu systems. Funny how I remember having the same issues with Guild Wars 2 and DirectX 9 last year, despite having hardware that far exceeded the recommendations put forth by ArenaNet. There is nothing you can do at this point other than hold your breath for the DX11 graphical code to be implemented by SE sometime next year. That being said, it's not guaranteed that performance degredation will be alleviated with a switch to the DX11 API unless FFXIV was coded to support multithreaded rendering in the first place.

Here's some more information regarding multithreading in DX9:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx
http://www.codermind.com/answers/How...Direct3D9.html
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/que...g-new-textures

DX9 doesn't explain why some do not have issues, and some do. Also, it ran fine in the beta phases, even with the test bloat. Why would it run slower now?

This exactly

Also didn't the benchmark run in DX 9 ? and I scored 12k on that with 103 FPS average. Granted it's not a great platform considering all the players,but as I and many have mentioned the FPS nose dives when there is simply no reason to. For instance, I was outside quarrymill this morning, FPS was 30 while facing 2 walls and the open gate. I walk slightly into the gate and the fps is back to normal when probably 100+ people there ( FATE grinding probably ). Thinking it was because of the pre-rendering the game does, I walked out and sure enough 30 fps again. I'm not walking far,maybe 3-4 steps out.

I can live with it for now but hugely annoying to have stuttering all the time.

Is occlusion culling enabled? Were you facing the people? What did the loads look like on your cpu and gpu? Is there HDD activity during this player loading phase? Textures might not be cached in the GPU's RAM at the time. It ran fine in beta phases because there was a fraction of the people playing compared to now. It is not a driver issue, it is a programming issue. It is FFXIV's use of DirectX 9 as a rendering pipeline. Some people say they do not have issues, what they are saying is their FPS loss is not as great as yours. Whether they've customized FFXIV's graphical settings or not, EVERYONE experiences a drop in FPS when entering an area with a large number of players. Even PS3 players do.

I dare someone to post a video of their system settings window visible while they transition from an area with few players to a crowded area. I guarantee their framerates drop. Even AMD's 13.8 beta drivers, which explicitly mention improved support for FFXIV have not prevented this drastic framerate loss for some people. This is caused by DirectX 9. It's an issue between DX9 and your CPU and the only thing you can do about it is lower the fidelity of shadows and pray the transition to the DX11 rendering API alleviates the issues. Read the links I've posted and stop stating it isn't the problem because phase 3 beta and the benchmark were fine. Both instances are COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the current state of the game. There isn't 60 -100 people in various sets of armor running around on your screen at the same time in either scenario.

Here's some more information regarding DX11 and it's multiple features directly integrated into the API. Realize that SE has basically tried to take features inherent in DX11 and push them through a DX9 graphical API, which is very inefficient and can impact performance on all systems across the board:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fea..._deconstructed
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx

Nvidia has supported DX11 multithreaded rendering since their 270 series drivers. AMD will apparently not support it. There are very few games that support multithreaded rendering in the first place, but they also don't have the same rendering obstacles that MMOs have to deal with, so they run just fine on a single thread. If FFXIV was never written with this type of rendering in mind then performance gains from the DX11 API will be minimal. The only improvement seen will be a smaller impact in performance when shadow, lighting, and tessellated geometry are set to higher qualities.

If you really want to help, re read the thread and note the other posters whom clearly state answers to questions you shouldn't be asking. Nothing you or those links discuss, has any direct bearing on why there's intermittent performance loss from panning the camera - a situation that manifests itself on some machines, which are identical to one another specification wise. This would clearly suggest that it's a problem with the software itself and the Direct X9 API is perfectly fine.

We're getting entirely off track here when we should be listing clean information about the systems we use and under what environments. Maybe a new thread is needed and then will get noticed by mod/devs whom can feed it back.

[C-croft]

Monitor count is irrelevant. The program is only displayed on a single output i.e. 1680x1050.

So, wait, are you saying in borderless windows, the GPU stops rendering anything other than the game including the second monitor?

[Syx]

If you really want to help, re read the thread and note the other posters whom clearly state answers to questions you shouldn't be asking. Nothing you or those links discuss, has any direct bearing on why there's intermittent performance loss from panning the camera - a situation that manifests itself on some machines, which are identical to one another specification wise. This would clearly suggest that it's a problem with the software itself and the Direct X9 API is perfectly fine.

We're getting entirely off track here when we should be listing clean information about the systems we use and under what environments. Maybe a new thread is needed and then will get noticed by mod/devs whom can feed it back.

I can't even fathom your idiocy. Panning the camera sends a draw command to DX9 which calls the graphical information from the game engine which pulls and renders shadow and lighting data in the CPU to send back to the GPU to render on to the screen. It does this linearly through a single thread for every single model that needs to be loaded. The game was written this way. There is no fix at this time other than lowering your settings, waiting for DX11 feature support, or Yoshi-P deciding to perform a full rewrite of the game engine in a completely different graphics API that has built-in support for all of the graphical bells and whistles used including multithreaded rendering. Go away you useless FUD-spreading know-nothing. You've contributed nothing to this thread except speculation.

I would LOVE to see you create a new thread full of simple, three-line system specifications and overall whining and nagging. The developers will not respond or acknowledge it. I've posted irrefutable facts regarding the graphical limitations of DX9, cited websites from the creators of the API, and stated that FFXIV is not the only MMO to suffer from the very same issues. I don't know what you expect to happen here, but a developer coming in here and saying "There's something wrong with our graphics engine and we will completely fix it by rewriting it right away" is not going to happen. You can either be smart and accept that or continue complaining while disregarding facts and common sense regarding how PC video games actually work.

I think the general problem here is that 90% of the users on this forum have no idea what they're talking about and think just dropping some specs here and saying "me too" is going to drive Square Enix to believe everyone else knows what's wrong with their game except THEM. This thread can reach a thousand pages and that will never happen. Suck it up and wait for possible framerate improvements with their DX11 implementation.

[JamieLee]

I can't even fathom your idiocy. Panning the camera sends a draw command to DX9 which calls the graphical information from the game engine which pulls and renders shadow and lighting data in the CPU to send back to the GPU to render on to the screen. It does this linearly through a single thread for every single model that needs to be loaded. The game was written this way. There is no fix at this time other than lowering your settings, waiting for DX11 feature support, or Yoshi-P deciding to perform a full rewrite of the game engine in a completely different graphics API that has built-in support for all of the graphical bells and whistles used including multithreaded rendering. Go away you useless FUD-spreading know-nothing. You've contributed nothing to this thread except speculation.

I would LOVE to see you create a new thread full of simple, three-line system specifications and overall whining and nagging. The developers will not respond or acknowledge it. I've posted irrefutable facts regarding the graphical limitations of DX9, cited websites from the creators of the API, and stated that FFXIV is not the only MMO to suffer from the very same issues. I don't know what you expect to happen here, but a developer coming in here and saying "There's something wrong with our graphics engine and we will completely fix it by rewriting it right away" is not going to happen. You can either be smart and accept that or continue complaining while disregarding facts and common sense regarding how PC video games actually work.

I think the general problem here is that 90% of the users on this forum have no idea what they're talking about and think just dropping some specs here and saying "me too" is going to drive Square Enix to believe everyone else knows what's wrong with their game except THEM. This thread can reach a thousand pages and that will never happen. Suck it up and wait for possible framerate improvements with their DX11 implementation.

Funny you should mention panning the camera... Seems the FPS drop is looking to be in part to the way Windows and direct x handle frame buffering.. Eg every time you pan a camera around Your video card gets the draw request the thing is to draw the new frames whatever is in the video cards frame buffer has to be unloaded from ram... Normally this is not much of an issue... But if your trying to load X amount into a buffer thats only y wide and z deep and has x amount of accessible memory your going to take a hit..

just looked up your card the 192 bit memory interface is whats semi holding your card back that card bairly pushes enough memory pipeline to fill 2gb of memory on the card.

[animapain]

Funny you should mention panning the camera... Seems the FPS drop is looking to be in part to the way Windows and direct x handle frame buffering.. Eg every time you pan a camera around Your video card gets the draw request the thing is to draw the new frames whatever is in the video cards frame buffer has to be unloaded from ram... Normally this is not much of an issue... But if your trying to load X amount into a buffer thats only y wide and z deep and has x amount of accessible memory your going to take a hit..

Man, i love this guy. SE should just hire you. Been a lot more helpful than them and you are clearly knowledgeable with regards to computers and programming. Anyway keep your info coming as I find it intriguing and very note worthy.

[SolanQ]

You don't think it odd that you're running custom settings to improve performance even though that card is easily able run it maxed out? perhaps CPU bottleneck though?

The reason I'm running custom settings is because there are some settings I just don't like visually, such as the Limb Darkening and Radial Blur. In addition to that I disabled Shadows on Other NPC's, because they're powered (at least partially) by the CPU, which means in areas where you have a CPU bottleneck they decrease performance regardless of GPU power (I save about 5-8 fps by turning them off).

As for Anisotropic Filtering, that was supposed to be on 16x. It looks like I forgot to change that back after some testing I did. Even so AF is a pretty low impact and entirely GPU-based setting, so turning it up doesn't affect my lower end performance in any way, since that is, as you rightly guessed, 100% limited by my CPU.