New PC not strong enough for the game?

[Raist]

As for disabling the on-die GPU, it should be assignable from within Windows via the nVidia driver settings. Wonder if maybe because the system is defaulting to the AMD, it isn't coming up properly. After a little googling, found out the A4-5xxx series do not play nice with dual graphics setups. You may be able to go into your motherboard BIOS and change the default graphics card that is used, if not flat out disable the on-board completely.

I was comparing GTX 660M to the full GTX 750 (not the mobile version)

I understand that...why I linked to specs for both PC and Laptop hardware to try to demonstrate the loss you suffer when you use a castrated version of a card, even if you are moving to a newer family of GPU's. Didn't expect to find a direct comparison between a 2+ year old laptop GPU and a just released desktop GPU, so didn't bother trying. You mentioned considering moving to a 750 Ti for increased performance--which may sorely disappoint you because you are staying in the same class of card. The point I was trying to make is that just because you moved from a 600 series laptop model to a 700 series PC model doesn't automatically mean you will get a monster increase in frame rate. Each family has cards designed/intended for different uses. One end is more for casual use, uses less power, and typically costs less. The other has the high performance card that is power hungry and costs considerably more.

You have a low power version of the 700 series, and thus is going to be on the lower side of the scores for that family of cards and you may need to adjust your expectations a bit. When you compromise and wind up with things like lower stream processing count, narrow bus width, and such, it can impact how efficiently you are applying various effects. 750's are 128-bit, low power 55/60 watt cards. The low end OEM 192-bit 760 card is a 130W, while Retail 256-bit is rated 170W. With a card (and possibly the system as a whole) designed more towards the HTPC market, you may find yourself needing to scale back graphics settings as a trade off to get the higher frame rates with that card.

And that benchmark is static, standalone content. It also measures load times as part of the score--it isn't designed to measure rendering during online game play. So it isn't the best comparison to make against the live online environment. I scored 5382 on an old C2D system with an ATI 4850 and only 4GB of DDR2 memory--a system thrown together 5 years agoe, with some components dating back to 2006. By notching quality down to Standard Desktop, I was able to hit 6620 on that same system. But it didn't fair nearly as well as expected when I went live--got about half the frame rate (the benchmark does track your frame rate, but even that is misleading unless you watch it closely AND look at the end result details). During the benchmark, your system isn't also dealing with exchanging all that web traffic that contains things like other custom character data and their actions. It isn't dealing with all those online dynamics like increased character count, delayed server responses that dictate rendering of character actions and such--probably doesn't even load the entire zones like it does in-game. The live play environment is simply stressing various subsystems much more than the benchmark's "on rails" test. So the offline performance is not indicative of online performance for this game.

Here's something that may prove a little more telling about your processor though... open an elevated command prompt (right-click CMD and run as admin) and run these two commands to get some scores on the CPU from the Windows Experience Index details:
winsat cpu -encryption
winsat cpu -compression

If they aren't returning something around the 250/500 mark or better, your CPU may well be a bit of a bottleneck as well.

[NekoGato]

I would check the bios settings for the on board graphics. If want to use a discrete graphics card make sure the cpu's graphics is disabled. Also check the motherboard's manual to see where the x16 pci-e is and stick the 750 in it.

[Thanor]

GTX 750 can run 1920*1080 @ 30 fps on high. Ingame fps limiter causes a huge stuttering, i do not suggest suggesting people to use it, better no limiter at all than that one.

That would be an excellent replacement for your current CPU, and overall it will be a very well balanced PC with no bottlenecks. Both 5300 and 760K CPU's are FM2 sockets, so you do not need to replace anything else.
Regarding a discrete and integrated gpu: http://i.imgur.com/VDh9ZtR.png
I hope no further explanation is needed: with 2x GPU you have 2 monitor ports, can run two displays or enable just one by sticking monitor cable there.

Unfortunately there's no way for me to switch which GPU I want to use either in-game settings or nvidia control panel. Also my dxdiag doesnt see that I have an integrated GPU. I found that every other game works fine and uses the gtx 750 except FFXIV.

[Thanor]

Even with all the answers I have got, the fact still remains that all games run better on this than my laptop with i7-3630Q and GTX 660M. ALL except final fantasy. Secret world even requires better rig than FFXIV and it wors fine on ultra graphics on this PC. Someone explain this to me. Secret world recommends and i5 proc with 3.00 GHz while FFXIV requires i5 with 2.66 GHz. THIS means that the problem isnt the processor. The problem is that FFXIV doesnt use the GPU at all.

[Thanor]

And that benchmark is static, standalone content. It also measures load times as part of the score--it isn't designed to measure rendering during online game play. So it isn't the best comparison to make against the live online environment. I scored 5382 on an old C2D system with an ATI 4850 and only 4GB of DDR2 memory--a system thrown together 5 years agoe, with some components dating back to 2006. By notching quality down to Standard Desktop, I was able to hit 6620 on that same system. But it didn't fair nearly as well as expected when I went live--got about half the frame rate (the benchmark does track your frame rate, but even that is misleading unless you watch it closely AND look at the end result details). During the benchmark, your system isn't also dealing with exchanging all that web traffic that contains things like other custom character data and their actions. It isn't dealing with all those online dynamics like increased character count, delayed server responses that dictate rendering of character actions and such--probably doesn't even load the entire zones like it does in-game. The live play environment is simply stressing various subsystems much more than the benchmark's "on rails" test. So the offline performance is not indicative of online performance for this game.

So you dont think that if this PC setup runs every game better than my laptop, then shouldnt it also run FFXIV better?

[Nutz]

Even with all the answers I have got, the fact still remains that all games run better on this than my laptop with i7-3630Q and GTX 660M. ALL except final fantasy. Secret world even requires better rig than FFXIV and it wors fine on ultra graphics on this PC. Someone explain this to me. Secret world recommends and i5 proc with 3.00 GHz while FFXIV requires i5 with 2.66 GHz. THIS means that the problem isnt the processor. The problem is that FFXIV doesnt use the GPU at all.

While SE's recommendations/ requirements aren't as intensive, FFXIV (currently) uses the CPU a lot more relative to the GPU than most games. I have FFXIV set up on 2 different PCs. One using a 560Ti with an i7 2600k, and another using a 550Ti and i5 3330. Both systems run the game well enough, though the first is obviously much better. The system with the 550Ti has no framerate issues with a few effects toned down @1920x1080. It's just because the Intel chip doesn't bottleneck anything. The game is very easy on a graphics card, but your processor has to be pretty decent. This might change a bit when they release the dx11 client, but that won't be for a while still.

[lxSch]

AMD A4-5300 specs:
- 2 cores;
- 3.4 GHz;
- 1 MB cache.
That's an office grade APU that can barely play movies, not speaking of playing games. But ofc it's SE fault.

[Thanor]

AMD A4-5300 specs:
- 2 cores;
- 3.4 GHz;
- 1 MB cache.
That's an office grade APU that can barely play movies, not speaking of playing games. But ofc it's SE fault.

well this "office" pc runs secret world on ultra graphics.

[Judge_Xero]

1. Most up to date drivers for nVidia
2. Monitor plugged into vid card

Run the game in Windowed Mode so you can have the task manager up. Monitor your CPU usage while playing.

What is your CPU usage.

[Thanor]

1. Most up to date drivers for nVidia
2. Monitor plugged into vid card

Run the game in Windowed Mode so you can have the task manager up. Monitor your CPU usage while playing.

What is your CPU usage.

I use the same video output as with other games. My CPU usage in FFXIV is 60-85%, GPU power 5-20%, GPU load about the same. Other games force GPU power to 50-60% and load 60-80%