So..to those of you saying the PS3 WAS NOT going to limit this game.

[Kittra]

Just so everyone knows, the number units sold of a particular spec of graphics card is well known to devs and the decision to scale back the PC version was made on those grounds - not because of the PS3, which has a very different and very optimized client. They failed to take into the account the number of users that could actually run 1.0 was close to nil upon its release and the client didn't scale very well at all.

So, again, people with crappy PC's are holding back the PC version, not the PS3.

I just wanted to address this part.

Originally I started playing the initial beta and official release of FFXIV 1.0 with an old Core 2 Duo @ 2.5ghz and a GTS 450 (Not a powerful video card) to support it and I had absolutely 0 problems running the game on Maximum settings while getting a constant 30-45fps. Dropping it down to standard (which still looked really really good) I could manage 50-60fps constantly.

The price of the PC was $420 which, at the time that I bought it, was cheaper than the going rate of a PS3, lol...

I'll never understand statements like "You need a monster PC to even begin thinking about playing FFXIV 1.0!" when that isn't the truth at all, it's just people being picky (like me) who spent thousands of dollars to play the game "perfectly" at maximum.

Hell! by the time version 1.23 rolled around, they had optimized the game so much graphically that the same $420 PC could play the game at maximum as well as my newly created $2400 PC...

[Returnee]

Originally I started playing the initial beta and official release of FFXIV 1.0 with an old Core 2 Duo @ 2.5ghz and a GTS 450 (Not a powerful video card) to support it and I had absolutely 0 problems running the game on Maximum settings while getting a constant 30-45fps. Dropping it down to standard (which still looked really really good) I could manage 50-60fps constantly.

I'm not trying to dispute your claims here, but I'd love to know why my system failed so terribly at playing FFXIV 1.0 then.

At the time I had a 3.0 ghz Core 2 Duo and an ATI 5850. The only real weak point was 2gb ram. But the game performed so terribly it was unplayable - and I'm not super picky about frame rates. I tested all sorts of configurations too trying to improve performance.

I also recall seeing people with much better systems, i5/17, more ram, beefy gpu, complaining about poor performance; am I the only one that remembers things being this way?

[Kittra]

I'm not trying to dispute your claims here, but I'd love to know why my system failed so terribly at playing FFXIV 1.0 then.

At the time I had a 3.0 ghz Core 2 Duo and an ATI 5850. The only real weak point was 2gb ram. But the game performed so terribly it was unplayable - and I'm not super picky about frame rates. I tested all sorts of configurations too trying to improve performance.

I also recall seeing people with much better systems, i5/17, more ram, beefy gpu, complaining about poor performance; am I the only one that remembers things being this way?

I think this is because "originally" AO and Depth of Field were on by default even in Standard mode... The type of AO they were trying to use with version 1.0 simply does not play nice with DirectX9 and it reduced all of my systems to a crawl when either this or Depth of Field were switched on.

It didn't help that the game's configuration (set separately outside the game) didn't even list them in the "video" tab, but under the Misc. tab where completely useless options like Cut-scene effects were kept.

They also didn't call many of the video configuration options by their actual "technical" names, so a lot of tinkering went into getting the correct settings down.
Simply selecting High, Standard or Low settings did not really change anything other than the anti-aliasing settings unlike now where it changes all of the settings.

[OrganizationXIll]

I just wanted to address this part.

Originally I started playing the initial beta and official release of FFXIV 1.0 with an old Core 2 Duo @ 2.5ghz and a GTS 450 (Not a powerful video card) to support it and I had absolutely 0 problems running the game on Maximum settings while getting a constant 30-45fps. Dropping it down to standard (which still looked really really good) I could manage 50-60fps constantly.

The price of the PC was $420 which, at the time that I bought it, was cheaper than the going rate of a PS3, lol...

I'll never understand statements like "You need a monster PC to even begin thinking about playing FFXIV 1.0!" when that isn't the truth at all, it's just people being picky (like me) who spent thousands of dollars to play the game "perfectly" at maximum.

Hell! by the time version 1.23 rolled around, they had optimized the game so much graphically that the same $420 PC could play the game at maximum as well as my newly created $2400 PC...

Then explain why my i5 processor, (unsure of the hertz) with 4GB of RAM, and ATI 5450 couldn't run the game at minimum settings with any higher than 15 fps. Please explain why I had to throw the disc in a box to never touch it again. I started at launch, quit, tried again around July 2011 and still couldn't play to any decent degree.

[Sumii]

Then explain why my i5 processor, (unsure of the hertz) with 4GB of RAM, and ATI 5450 couldn't run the game at minimum settings with any higher than 15 fps. Please explain why I had to throw the disc in a box to never touch it again. I started at launch, quit, tried again around July 2011 and still couldn't play to any decent degree.

I just want to point out that depending on the i5 it's either a dual core or quad and while the game is CPU intensive either one would suffice for the game. Your bottleneck was the 5450 which is essentially a dedicated video card with the same or less power than an integrated video card. The GPU architecture on board the FX A8 and A6s is more powerful than the 5450. Your CPU and RAM were fine for 1.0 from what you quoted. What you needed was a better video card. The GT450 he mentioned while not a 'great card' was the highest multimedia level video card by nVidia before switching to the higher end 60/70/80 gaming series.

If you want to compare benchmark scores on the video cards check www.videocardbenchmark.net. Your 5450 scores a 233 while his GT450 scores a 1538 (almost 8x more powerful). A lot of the pre-packaged computer brands will throw the 5450 or a card of the same caliber into a CPU just to say 'Hey look a video card! Games!' when in all reality you're just as well off with the integrated save for maybe the dedicated RAM (not the GPU rendering power).

[Kittra]

Then explain why my i5 processor, (unsure of the hertz) with 4GB of RAM, and ATI 5450 couldn't run the game at minimum settings with any higher than 15 fps. Please explain why I had to throw the disc in a box to never touch it again. I started at launch, quit, tried again around July 2011 and still couldn't play to any decent degree.

I think this is because "originally" AO and Depth of Field were on by default even in Standard mode... The type of AO they were trying to use with version 1.0 simply does not play nice with DirectX9 and it reduced all of my systems to a crawl when either this or Depth of Field were switched on.

It didn't help that the game's configuration (set separately outside the game) didn't even list them in the "video" tab, but under the Misc. tab where completely useless options like Cut-scene effects were kept.

They also didn't call many of the video configuration options by their actual "technical" names, so a lot of tinkering went into getting the correct settings down.
Simply selecting High, Standard or Low settings did not really change anything other than the anti-aliasing settings unlike now where it changes all of the settings.

This was my answer.

I just want to point out that depending on the i5 it's either a dual core or quad and while the game is CPU intensive either one would suffice for the game. Your bottleneck was the 5450 which is essentially a dedicated video card with the same or less power than an integrated video card. The GPU architecture on board the FX A8 and A6s is more powerful than the 5450. Your CPU and RAM were fine for 1.0 from what you quoted. What you needed was a better video card. The GT450 he mentioned while not a 'great card' was the highest multimedia level video card by nVidia before switching to the higher end 60/70/80 gaming series.

If you want to compare benchmark scores on the video cards check www.videocardbenchmark.net. Your 5450 scores a 233 while his GT450 scores a 1538 (almost 8x more powerful). A lot of the pre-packaged computer brands will throw the 5450 or a card of the same caliber into a CPU just to say 'Hey look a video card! Games!' when in all reality you're just as well off with the integrated save for maybe the dedicated RAM (not the GPU rendering power).

This also says what I was going to say, lol.