New PC not strong enough for the game?

[Thanor]

Hello guys!

I got my new PC yesterday and installed final fantasy on it.

However, it runs very sluggishly and very low fps, around 25-30 on lowest settings full HD.

here are the specs:

AMD A4-5300, FM2, 1MB, 3.4 GHz
hyperX 2x4GB DDR3 RAM
EVGA GeForce GTX 750 superclocked 1GB GDDR5

I thought this would run the game better than my laptop with GTX 660M, 2 GB, but it doesnt.
Is the problem the 1GB ram on the GPU? My laptop runs this on high graphics 30-40 FPS.

If I upgrade the graphic card to a GTX 750 Ti 2GB, would it run the game much better?

Thanks in advance!

[Thanor]

I did a benchmark test and these are the results:

There seems to be something wrong with my settings or something else. I dont know why the game does work...

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:15/03/2014 17:32:29
Score:5246
Average Framerate:47.094
Performance:Very High
-Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
Graphics Presets: High (Desktop)
General
-Enable HDR rendering and improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Enabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects. (LOD) : Disabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Real-time Reflections : Normal
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing) : FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality : High
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Self : Display
-Other NPCs : Display
Shadow Quality
-Use low-detail models on shadows. (LOD) : Enabled
-Shadow Resolution : High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading : Best
-Shadow Softening : Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering : x8
Movement Physics
-Self : Full
-Other NPCs : Full
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : Strong
-Glare : Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Enable depth of field. : Enabled

System:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130828-1532)
AMD A4-5300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics
8143.172MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750(VRAM 4025 MB) 9.18.0013.3523

Benchmark results do not provide any guarantee FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn will run on your system.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Website http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/?lang=uk
(C) 2010-2013 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.

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http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_eu #FFXIV Score:5246 1920x1080 High (Desktop) AMD A4-5300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750

[Thanor]

Another weird thing is that the PC's hdmi port doesnt work... dont know if it's related.

[Thanor]

This is when the game is running in the background:

Seems like its not using the GTX 750 at all to run FFXIV

[Sheer]

Make sure that ARR us using your discrete GPU and not the integrated graphics chip that came with your processor (since it's an A4). That actually might be the issue.

[Raist]

Also, be mindful of the feature set of the card you chose. You are comparing a 750 against a 660. Yes, they are in different families and should (ideally) have better architecture that makes them faster. However, since you are now at the 50 level for features, you may be cutting that architecture short because of reduced pipelines, bus width, etc. That 750 is the lower power model within that family, and so it has been "cut down" considerably. Here's a side by side comparison of the GTX 750 and GTX 760 specs:

http://www.hwcompare.com/17107/gefor...force-gtx-760/

Here's a comparison between the mobile models (660m vs 750m)
http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-...eForce-GT-750M

Note that in some areas, the 660m still has better stats then the 750m--just enough to make it come out on par or just ahead of the 750m when it all gets added up.

So, you want to consider more then just the generation differences between cards (600 series versus 700)--you have to consider the specs like stream processor count, memory architecture (DDR3/DDR5, 64, 128, 192, 256, 392 bit bus width) and how that all impacts throughput. A lot of scaling back on those key features can have a profound impact on the fill rate, reducing the card's potential. You could see a significant change by moving to a 760 model because you are removing more of that bottleneck. If you stick with that card, you may find yourself scaling back some graphics settings to get more FPS out of the 750. May want to put the graphics cards settings all on Application Control or Performance settings to remove any extra strain on the card and also to make sure your in-game settings actually have a chance at taking effect when applied.

[Thanor]

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

[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]

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?