Amazing system, FFXIV taking FPS hit. Why?

[Coldfire]

Try 720p. Should scale well with your monitor.

[syntaxlies]

Please try not to spread uneducated rabble like this. Macs handle current high-end hardware just as well as any PC, and they're a lot more customizable and upgrade-friendly than they used to be. OSX is what Microsoft tried to do with Windows 7, and came fairly close. You can't knock Apple for building upon their own excellent OS (and OSX is excellent). At least they give you the option to dual boot now for those days you want to play games. Bootcamp runs Windows flawlessly, and games just as well, so I don't see why you'd have any sort of complaint with it.

MacPros are basically PC's. MacBooks are like any other laptop (but better in terms of functionality). iMacs are like the older Macs, but you can still upgrade virtually everything on it.

FWIW, I only have a MacBook. The rest of my computers at home are custom PC's that I build. I just don't like it when people knock something they know little about.

if its so awesome how come he cant play FFXIV

[Coldfire]

Don't bother starting an argument with him. He has no clue what he's talking about and is only here to flame instead of offering support. I'd rather like to keep this part of the forum clean as people are searching it for help. Maybe SE should make a sticky FAQ of all the solutions <.<

[Capita]

if its so awesome how come he cant play FFXIV

Could be a number of things. I highly doubt it's strictly Mac-specific. My MacBook plays the game just fine on regular settings, with 30-40 in town and 50-60 in fields. That's on a laptop. My brother's MacPro runs the game just as well as my PC with an i7 920 and GTX 480. 45-50 in town, 60 in the field.

My guess is the huge resolution. That's a lot of pixels for any single card to be pushing around in this game. His native resolution is almost like running 1920x1080 with General Drawing set to 9 permanently. I personally don't know anyone who can run FFXIV at 2560x1440 resolution, PC or not, and manage the same frames as someone running 1920x1080.

Don't bother starting an argument with him. He has no clue what he's talking about and is only here to flame instead of offering support.

Oh, I remember you now. You're the idiot who thought FFXIV only used 2 cores.

And I am helping. I'm helping this guy by showing him not to listen to clueless people such as yourself, who are only here to give him the wrong idea about his system because of some bias. A bias, might I add, you have no business being biased about due to your lack of knowledge of it.

[syntaxlies]

I guess the real question is why are you gaming on a mac?

[Sorel]

I guess the real question is why are you gaming on a mac?

iMac's aren't cheap. So I would guess that a person who gets one really needs it. So after getting one, for them to justify getting a PC gaming rig with enough peripherals to make FFXIV sing ... that may be too much financial commitment just for one game.

Just a guess though.

[Archadius]

iMac's aren't cheap. So I would guess that a person who gets one really needs it. So after getting one, for them to justify getting a PC gaming rig with enough peripherals to make FFXIV sing ... that may be too much financial commitment just for one game.

Just a guess though.

Precisely. If that person had read the thread, they would know (because I list) the reasoning behind everything.

[Coldfire]

I would download the newest drivers from amd.com directly and install them. If that didn't work, I would open the window, take the computer and throw it as far as I could :P
(That's why I have to buy a new computer every 2 years I guess)
But in the first place a gamer never buys an all-in-one PC. We either buy a console or build the system ourselves and then mod it until it looks like an alien spaceship or a taru-head.

[Archadius]

I would download the newest drivers from amd.com directly and install them. If that didn't work, I would open the window, take the computer and throw it as far as I could :P
(That's why I have to buy a new computer every 2 years I guess)
But in the first place a gamer never buys an all-in-one PC. We either buy a console or build the system ourselves and then mod it until it looks like an alien spaceship or a taru-head.

Unfortunately that's not an option here lol

I tried the drivers, and they are just mega-fail. It's pretty straightforward. You tell a program to install, it should install, not give a runaround whereby you have to install something else after the initial install only to discover the program is outdated even though what you downloaded was most recent. lol

I don't really see how the fact that the hardware is a Mac machine would have a bearing on these problems. It's running Windows exactly how windows is supposed to run. My confusion continues to compound upon itself

[origamikitsune]

Unfortunately, hardware does matter. If it didn't, you would be able to install MacOS out of the box onto a non-mac PC. However, you cannot. Also, if hardware didn't matter, then you would be able to install windows on a Mac WITHOUT bootcamp; however, you cannot (well, you can use something other than bootcamp; point is you can't just pull a Windows 7 Ultimate DVD out of the box and install it on a mac).

This had to do in part with the drivers for the system that you aren't usually aware of. Just popping into the system devices related to my motherboard... two ACPI devices, Composite Bus Enumerator, DMA Controller, two audio controllers, HPE Timer, PCI Bridge... I could go could go on.

The short version; hardware matters.

Which goes back to your question about why your upgrade could be causing problems. You upgraded to a GPU that has an M on it, that means mobility. That means there is most likely some integration between the GPU and the IGP. For nVidia cards on a PC based laptop this is called Optimus, and that integration can be turned off. On an iMac, however, we don't know if that integration can be turned off. It is entirely possible you don't even HAVE and IGP that is separate from your AMD Mobility device - they could be integrated in an Apple-only-way that is very proprietary. Also take into account that this integration between IGP/GPU even on a "newer" models can be less performance than older model. Such is the sin of "moble" "advanced" hardware.

This, I believe, is most likely.

On top of that, when it comes to laptops and all-in-ones, AMD has a history of partnering with various manufacturers in a way that forces the manufacturers to maintain their own drivers. For example, my Toshiba Laptop. I cannot simply download the latest Catalyst drivers from AMD and run them. In fact, they refuse to install (even if I try to force install them manually) because they are not the Toshiba branded drivers (which are v.8.something; I believe the current CC version is 11.something?)

So, to wrap it up, if you were on a "real" mac you would have less issues. Even PC users who use all-in-one PCs have issues. This tech forum is full of people looking for help and having the same issue... with PCs instead of macs. If you have to keep the mac, but can afford to upgrade, you need a MacPro. Like PC users, switching to a non-all-in-one design is ultimately the best bet. At the very least, you have a real video card in a real tower, and might find compatibility with Windows 7 a bit better.