New NVIDIA driver 11/27, better performance!

[Naraku_Diabolos]

For some reason, I looked at the Release Notes for this driver update. There is NO mention of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in it, so I wonder why our game got a performance boost. In fact, NVIDIA does not even have our game on their site for promotion, and there is no form of optimizing it on the GeForce Experience software. Please Devs, contact NVIDIA and see if your game can get optimized on their software!

[Pseudopsia]

I see almost no difference between previous driver and new beta driver in Benchmark. There was a performance increase awhile back, maybe this is what other people are seeing.

[Naunet]

I see almost no difference between previous driver and new beta driver in Benchmark. There was a performance increase awhile back, maybe this is what other people are seeing.

It's possible that's because your performance is already pretty top notch. Might be more noticeable the lower on the totem pole you are?

[Naraku_Diabolos]

It's possible that's because your performance is already pretty top notch. Might be more noticeable the lower on the totem pole you are?

I'm also running Windows 8.1, and I have heard that DirectX 11 gets boosted to 11.2 with the installation.

[Pseudopsia]

It's possible that's because your performance is already pretty top notch. Might be more noticeable the lower on the totem pole you are?

My GPU performance isn't bottleneck by the CPU so there's room for improvement. When I overclock my GPU I can get a score of 16000; multi GPU setups can get much higher.

I'm also running Windows 8.1, and I have heard that DirectX 11 gets boosted to 11.2 with the installation.

You're right when you upgrade to 8.1 you get directx 11.2:
Windows 8.1: Directx 11.2
Windows 8: Directx 11.1
Windows 7: Directx 11

Current FFXIV client is directx 9 so it doesn't utilize any from Directx 11 so higher directx version isn't going to increase performance. If you want to see directx 11.2 features you have to have a video card that supports it and a game that supports it. Nvidia's newest graphic cards support up to directx 11.1.

Support for new directx version is slow because MS reserves it for it's new OS and only newer videocards support it. So it's extra work for developers to support it for a small audience. It's rare to find a game that supports direct 11.1 even though it's been out for over a year. BF4 will support it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ctX_11_support

Directx 11 client for FFXIV suppose to be 6 months after PS4 client. I have no idea if they will support features from 11.1 or 11.2.

I think support for DX 11.1 will increase rapidly for newer games because XBone supports it.

[Kittra]

I decided to try out the 331.93 beta drivers today and noticed no improvement over 331.82.

In fact, I noticed a performance decrease in high motion scenes where the frames would occasionally skip, and stuttering out the wazoo when in slow panning scenes that require a smooth transition.

That might not be a problem for some people but I'm a frame smoothness (or frame rating) junkie, so I'll be switching back to either 314.22 (best performance I've seen for the game "still" with the occasional crash) or maybe taking a step back to 331.82 which is the same performance (as far as I've noticed) but without the stuttering of 331.93.

I wish they'd release a driver specifically tailored to FFXIV already!

System Specs:

i7 3770k @ 4.5ghz
ASUS P8Z77v-Pro Motherboard
ASUS GTX 670 4gb clocked to 1035mhz
Samsung 830 256gb SSD
24gb DDR3 1600 Kingston HyperX Memory
Windows 7 Ultimate

Before this driver the only time I experience similar problems in game (with at ton more crashing...) was with the 320.00-327.23 drivers.

[Judge_Hellboy]

I swear I can't remember when was the last time I saw a blue screen........ may have been like.... 9 years ago??

Seriously. >=(

I get a BSOD every now and then.
For some reason it is because I use a DS3 controller. If I bump the USB cable kinda hard, even if it doesn't fully disconnect (still usuable on PC) then there is a chance the PC will freeze and BSOD shortly after.
It seems wiping out the controllers MAC reduces the likelyhood of this happening but doesn't completely alleviate it.
Use this controller/setup for every game and will only cause a BSOD on FFXIVARR. :\

[Vanidin]

I get a BSOD every now and then.
For some reason it is because I use a DS3 controller. If I bump the USB cable kinda hard, even if it doesn't fully disconnect (still usuable on PC) then there is a chance the PC will freeze and BSOD shortly after.
It seems wiping out the controllers MAC reduces the likelyhood of this happening but doesn't completely alleviate it.
Use this controller/setup for every game and will only cause a BSOD on FFXIVARR. :\

After trying 3 different controllers my wife finally gave up on using a controller with ARR because it was never stable no matter what we tried. Any other game it was fine, just had no joy with ARR.

[Kittra]

After trying 3 different controllers my wife finally gave up on using a controller with ARR because it was never stable no matter what we tried. Any other game it was fine, just had no joy with ARR.

The PC wasn't stable while using a controller or the game didn't like the controllers?

For both Judge_Hellboy and Vanidin, if you're getting a BSOD with a USB controller, I would recommend trying out all the USB ports on your PC and see if any of those are stable without the problem.

A couple of days ago I wanted to use the USB ports on the front of my PC for something else, so I plugged the receiver for my wireless Xbox 360 controller into an open USB port on the back... after about an hour I started getting BSOD. After that, every time I started up FFXIV it would BSOD straight away, but it was stable in any other game that used the controller... It turns out that the drivers for those ports or the ports themselves are bad, so I switched to a different hub and now I can play without issue again.

For PC controllers I would recommend either a Wireless Xbox360 controller for Windows or a Wired Logitech Gamepad F310 (possible to plug and play, no drivers needed for the F310). Both of these controllers work perfectly for me in FFXIV and other games.

*EDIT*

I just had a test trial with some of my family members where I asked them, "Which of these controllers could you see yourself using for hours?" and presented them with a Dualshock3 (you can use this with a PC but it requires some setup), a Wireless Xbox 360 controller for Windows, a Logitech F310 (This is almost exactly like a PS2 controller, with a few differences), and a modded Xbox controller.

3/4 of them said they liked the F310 best, while my brother liked the Xbox 360 controller more.

[Ravij]

Can you give a link to this new driver? All I'm able to download off Nvidia website is the R331.82.