Ati/AMD Some graphical issues.

[Kusuku]

Hello.
I'm going to show you a video that demonstrate graphical issues that are suffering Ati/AMD's users since FFXIV's release.

http://youtu.be/dHh4jBXksX4

Firstly, you can appreciate flashing trees. Secondly, shadow issues (in this video don't appear correctly but it's annoying). And finally some framerate drops in Ul'dah, it shouldn't happen with my computer.

My computer specifications:

• Ati HD 4890
• Intel core i7 860 2,8Ghz.
• 4 GB DDr3 1333Mhz.
• Resolution: 1920x1080
• All running on Windows Seven x64 and I'm using the latest AMD drivers.

Catalyst Control Center configuration and Game Configuration:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2cpqhe8.png

[Nynnde]

i have the same problem than you with my HD 4890 graphic card... Please fix this soon

[origamikitsune]

Flashing trees: Happens on all video cards. Adjustments to AA can fix this (for whatever reason, this game seems to prefer none, or x2 AA; people who have no AA have seen performances increases by turning AA on to x2) and the flickering can mitigated by lowering AA. Stupid, I agree.

Shadow issues: Not exclusive to ATI. They just have really piss-poor shadowing on characters.

Low Frame Rates In Town: 9/10 caused by your hard drive, not your video card.

[Coldfire]

In any case the problem lies not on the users end but in the game's code. Wonder if we will ever see these things fixed.

[Kusuku]

Thank you for your answers!

Flashing trees: Happens on all video cards. Adjustments to AA can fix this (for whatever reason, this game seems to prefer none, or x2 AA; people who have no AA have seen performances increases by turning AA on to x2) and the flickering can mitigated by lowering AA. Stupid, I agree.

I have tried with all AA configurations and is the same for me, including no AA.

Shadow issues: Not exclusive to ATI. They just have really piss-poor shadowing on characters.

Yes, is a bit weird.

Low Frame Rates In Town: 9/10 caused by your hard drive, not your video card.

So, what kind of HDD I need? Sata II 7200rpm is invalid? I cannot believe it haha.

[origamikitsune]

Yes it is a problem. This game constantly reads-writes and in a horribly inefficient manner. This game caches a whole lot of info, and from what I understand does not handle the read and write buffers terribly well.

Many, many people have reported that upgrading to better hard drives, or switching over to Raid 0 arrays, or switching to SSDs having improved or, in the case of SSDs, removed the stuttering issues.

Having a 7200rpm SATA2 drive does not inherently mean you have a great hard drive. That's like saying that my race car has X top speed on the speedometer, there for it is better than your race car. There are a whole lot of factors involved beyond one ore two stats.

That said, any game that has the hard drive as a bottle neck needs to improved because omg, that's such a basic function. -.-

[Coldfire]

Yes it is a problem. This game constantly reads-writes and in a horribly inefficient manner. This game caches a whole lot of info, and from what I understand does not handle the read and write buffers terribly well.

It's the other way around: the game almost doesn't cache at all. There's no precaching and old data of characters that ain't on screen anymore is lost after a few seconds. I think this is due to PS3 restrictions... pretty sad. We play on PC and have to live with PS3 restrictions :/

[origamikitsune]

I stand corrected. Either way, the dang game has obscene read/write issues.

[Kusuku]

Thank you very much. Just a question about hard drivers. Could a SATA III HDD run faster than and SATA II disk in my motherboard that supports 3gb/s? (but I think it is SATA II speed or a little faster).

[Coldfire]

From what I've seen, the 'flashing' trees are a result of having Depth of Field enabled and anti-aliasing of transparent textures disabled.

I think it's cause there's no mipmaps and no alpha blending for those textures. 20 layers of textures is a bad joke of a tree anyway xD

Thank you very much. Just a question about hard drivers. Could a SATA III HDD run faster than and SATA II disk in my motherboard that supports 3gb/s? (but I think it is SATA II speed or a little faster).

An increased interface bandwidth only works if the hardware is faster than the current interface. With normal HDDs this is doubtful.