I have a fix for you guys. What I need is to get this info to square and find out if its rooted in Nvidia/Amd's profile application or if its rooted in ffxiv itself. I have spent such a long time and so many man hours, its almost..... crazy. I finally get it fixed as im now getting burned on the game. Either way im insatiably curious as to what the root cause of the problem is, as this is just a "bandaid" persay. It solves it but doesn't address the root of the problem.

Without further adieu...

(you guys are gonna die lol) Rename your Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn install directory. I changed mine to FFXIV - A Realm Reborn. Another guy simply made a batch file that added a number afterwards. (he needs to change his after every time he uses the game. It would always work (SLI) the first time after a reformat, and then stop. He changes his directory name and it works and stops again after 1x. So he created a batch to rename it upon launch of the game each time. For me - I just had to rename it once. Once renamed it works fine. Same thing fixes the Benchmark.

I "assume" this is an issue with nvinspector not applying the proper profile to the game. When you change the directory name - it just uses the "default" profile or something. The game still has issues such as very very poor performance when advanced lighting effects are on screen (such as the startup screen or dungeon portals) I get ~80fps at the startup screen with SLI off and 18 with it on :P (this is WITH it working post fix) Other than that, Im now able to get 120fps+ on maximum at 4680x2560 now. Its wonderful. Sad that it took this much time and effort. Also extremely pessimistic regarding the lighting issue being addressed considering the fact I had to fix the SLI issue on my own BUT... its progress.

Just wanted to share that with you guys. Its been tried on several machines already by several people. If you have the same issue as I do - it will fix it. However, if you have the issue I do, instead of giving up I would suggest/have suggested/do suggest contacting square and NVidia as I have. They ignored me because I was the only one raising a stink. Is that wrong? Dramatically so... but they did it. Their own words were something along the lines of "we check for noise regarding issues and if we don't see action on the forums etc, we assume its the user".

Sad from a company that charges a 100% premium on its products and flawed to the core when it comes to a rig like mine which very few people use to begin with. Of those people you get guys such as yourself who just wash their hands of it.. and NVidia never knows. Of course with their resources and the advertisement claims they make - you would think they check this stuff front and backwards in house before launching a driver but its become very evident over this saga that they care about one thing and it shares a shade/color with their logo.

Ironically as I think I mentioned - I built an AMD rig partially out of spite, and partially because I needed a back up rig anyhow... and xfire works just fine for me. This isn't to say it doesn't have its own issues (cant get bezel compensation to work in 14.6 when displays are in portrait orientation) but it should have been more than enough to get NVidia to do something. Apparently not. 20 or so driver releases, 12 months of dialogue between myself and 3 different NVidia employees, 30 screenshots, 2 videos, 6 pages of logs and what can only be labled as a practical disseration's worth of explanatory information and attempted resolutions by myself... and the last contact I got from anyone at NVidia was march. They just began ignoring me and the problem.

As much as I like their "hardware" their software and their customer service A) doesn't merit anything remotely close to the price premium they charge and B) the way they carry and handle themselves with customers should deter anyone from buying their products. I had provided my personal contact info and asked a dozen times to be put in contact with a software engineer or driver specialist or whatever they label them as over there, only to be ignored each and every time. It got to be so bad that I considered looking into whether any legal action was possible. I unintentionally (then intentionally) saved every single bit of correspondence both ways and to anyone interested.. it will show them in a very new light.

Anyways - rename your install folder (not the SquareEnix, the sub folder) and enjoy :P (you may have to do it each time you play, if so theirs a batch file available on page 8 or 9 of this thread http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?...461&highlight=)