FPS has dropped to half and don't know why....PLEASE HELP!!

[RaineMagus]

the GPUZ thing reads: PCI-E 3.0x16@16x1.1 .....is that a normal number? or does that show the problem (I did the render test and it moved to 16x2.0)

These are normal / expected numbers. Usually the bus would be throttled back even lower than 1.1 x16, down to say 1.1 x2 or x3 ... yet this really depends on the motherboard and bios support for power management.


Still, just because proper speeds are being achieved doesn't necessarily mean the drivers installed in Windows are the latest. Short of checking the date of your PCI-E controller drivers in device manager, I can't really say.

EDIT:

Also my PCI-E is 3.0, so does the second section of numbers mean anything?

-The first numbers in GPU-Z are the card's reported maximum speed and protocol version. While the card may support 3.0, your CPU's controller can handle only 2.0. The second batch of numbers are 'actual' negotiated bus speeds (the real / true speed).

That you have PCI-E 2.0 isn't a problem. PCI-E 3.0 is essentially 'overkill'. With 3.0 x16 in use, the highest bandwidth that I've ever seen utilized by FFXIV:ARR was around 16%. Higher bus speeds can reduce load-stuttering, yet the general gameplay (at 60fps) is well under the capacity of 2.0 x16 or even x8.

also there's one more thing I noticed:
I was playing Metro Last Light before the crash and had it at max and it ran smoothly.

NOW I had to reinstall it and I'm getting slower FPS and blinking shadows.

do you think this is related?
I'm guessing it's a possible software issue somewhere...I might be missing something..

I reallllly don't want to have to do another install of W7....

Improper chipset drivers *can* cause all sorts of artifacting or stability issues. It could be related. It could also simply be that the newest AMD drivers don't work correctly in Metro LL, and that when you played the game before you had older drivers installed (in the past Windows installation).

May be related, or may not be related... It's very hard to say just guessing on what's known here through the forums.