OC Critical Engagements are unplayable...

[Mawlzy]

No, I am not experiencing this at all. It's either your computer, or your connection. I know this because I have fought hunts with this many players since Stormblood and I know all the different hardware issues that have ever caused it.

Things that could help:
- Make sure you have an SSD. This allows you to load/unload players constantly (and their associated glamours). This does happen during battle due to the render limit, so an SSD is important to prevent disk read bottlenecks.
- Make sure you have enough RAM. This helps store all the information in active memory without relying on a page file, which is where it stores active memory on the hard drive. The hard drive, even an SSD, is slower than RAM, otherwise we wouldn't need RAM.
- Make sure you don't have too many programs running in the background that hog resources, such as browsers, other games or downloads. This can hog resources and push active game memory into a page file.
- Look into upgrading your connection. If you use copper wire broadband, you could look into getting a fiber cable if it's available in your area. The difference is that one is limited by the speed of sound and the other by the speed of light.
- Although less likely to be factors, they can be: does the processor and GPU meet or exceed the Recommended Specs of the game, which were increased for Dawntrail?

Intel® Core™i7-9700 or higher, 16 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT or higher

I know throughout gaming an SSD is always recommended, but 14 is one game that really prefers to be on my HDD.

[Jeeqbit]

I know throughout gaming an SSD is always recommended, but 14 is one game that really prefers to be on my HDD.

That's odd, because I can guarantee that in the hunt community we strongly recommend everyone has an SSD. This is because if you go to hunts without one, players load/unload constantly due to the render limit. As the game is constantly reading glamour data from the files to achieve this, it results in being unable to see anyone or the hunt itself, forcing you to AoE to hit it. This is resolved by having an SSD and there isn't really an alternative.

It stands to reason that similar issues could happen in an active Field Operation with 72 players or more.

[Mawlzy]

That's odd, because I can guarantee that in the hunt community we strongly recommend everyone has an SSD. This is because if you go to hunts without one, players load/unload constantly due to the render limit. As the game is constantly reading glamour data from the files to achieve this, it results in being unable to see anyone or the hunt itself, forcing you to AoE to hit it. This is resolved by having an SSD and there isn't really an alternative.

It stands to reason that similar issues could happen in an active Field Operation with 72 players or more.

Yeah I don't understand it and spent a day trouble-shooting it. Fortunately it runs just fine on the HDD.

[Absurdity]

I know throughout gaming an SSD is always recommended, but 14 is one game that really prefers to be on my HDD.

Not quite related to the lag issues but O5S made me realize back then that I needed to run the game on an SSD.
The warrior ghost cheese back then quite literally required an SSD to load into the train fast enough.
Running it on an HDD was basically a coin flip whether or not the party outside died, lol.