GPU Question

[SweDDishB]

I read that in the future there are going to be some graphical updates to FFXIV, and its got me thinking I finally need to bite the bullet and upgrade my GTX 480. Currently I'm playing on a 1440p monitor and I'm not even close to maxing out the settings.

I would love to be able to run the game on higher settings and see the world of FFXIV at its best. What card would I need to max the settings now and when they implement the graphical update in the near future? I was looking at a GTX 970. Would that get the job done on a 1440p monitor?

[Krindor]

It will probably be enough. The 970 is one of the cards with the best cost/performance and I recommend you to get it, even if it doesn't max out at 1440p the next in line is 980 which is close to double the price and 2 970s are therefore a better choice. So start with 1 970 and if that is not enough get another if your budget allows it.

But considering that your GPU is a 480 the CPU might also be in need of an upgrade, but test out with getting one 970 first and depending on where the FPS is lying around you might wanna consider upgrading the CPU.

[Vorpal_Spork]

It will probably be enough. The 970 is one of the cards with the best cost/performance and I recommend you to get it, even if it doesn't max out at 1440p the next in line is 980 which is close to double the price and 2 970s are therefore a better choice. So start with 1 970 and if that is not enough get another if your budget allows it.

But considering that your GPU is a 480 the CPU might also be in need of an upgrade, but test out with getting one 970 first and depending on where the FPS is lying around you might wanna consider upgrading the CPU.

SLI/Crossfire are only really worth it for insane resolution multiple monitor setups. Otherwise a single, more powerful GPU is better. On a single monitor you're setting yourself up to have to deal with sketchy or no SLI/Crossfire support in some games, microstutter and diminishing returns for no real reason.

[Krindor]

SLI/Crossfire are only really worth it for insane resolution multiple monitor setups. Otherwise a single, more powerful GPU is better. On a single monitor you're setting yourself up to have to deal with sketchy or no SLI/Crossfire support in some games, microstutter and diminishing returns for no real reason.

Considering his name he is clearly Swedish, the current price for a gtx 970 is 2800 kr while the price for a gtx 980 is 5100kr 2x 970 is 5600 which is only 500kr more than one 980, so for less than 10% more of the price of one he gets about 40% more performance and considering we currently don't know how a 970/980 works at 1440p in dx11 it's better to start out with one cheaper GPU as if it works a better one is wasted. The only reason to get a 980 is if there's a lack of PCI slots or choosing between 3x 970 or 2x 980.

But this is of course depending on how well the dx11 version will handle sli.

[Raist]

I'm gonna hold out until we see the DX11 update released. It's going to unlock some performance enhancements for a lot of systems (quad cores, 64-bit... DX9 doesn't take full advantage of resources available in a lot of systems). Some may find things get considerably smoother when they finally put it out there.

[SweDDishB]

Ty for the responses, I appreciate the feedback. Is anyone maxing the game right now on a single card in 1440p? Would a 970 max the current settings in 1440p? I currently have a Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @3.20 GHz and installed memory (RAM) 12.0 GB. Looking to hopefully purchase a single card but nothing insane like a GTX Titan or anything in that realm.

[Lexxuk]

Ty for the responses, I appreciate the feedback. Is anyone maxing the game right now on a single card in 1440p? Would a 970 max the current settings in 1440p? I currently have a Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @3.20 GHz and installed memory (RAM) 12.0 GB. Looking to hopefully purchase a single card but nothing insane like a GTX Titan or anything in that realm.

I have the 970 with everything set to max and no issues, some areas my FPS is over 100, others it'll drop down to 30. At 720p recording my friends wedding the FPS never dropped below 60 (I had locked the framerate with Fraps).

[MiniTofu]

I have the 970 with everything set to max and no issues, some areas my FPS is over 100, others it'll drop down to 30. At 720p recording my friends wedding the FPS never dropped below 60 (I had locked the framerate with Fraps).

Please don't use FRAPS, look up OBS, that's the next generation game recording. You can record at 1440p at 60FPS+ with your GTX970 using NVENC. Even 4K. Only 1-5 FPS drops.

[raelgun]

Please don't use FRAPS, look up OBS, that's the next generation game recording. You can record at 1440p at 60FPS+ with your GTX970 using NVENC. Even 4K. Only 1-5 FPS drops.

NVENC is low quality which is why it has such a low FPS hit though the GPU processing can help with that, if you want close to FRAPS like quality then you want DXtory, though to record FF14 at 60 FPS, you do need a beefier CPU, but Youtube either does, high quality 30 fps or downgraded quality at 60 FPS for non content creators.

Ive used bandicam, OBS, Fraps, shadowplay and out of those DXtory has the best performance/quality ratio.

[MiniTofu]

NVENC is low quality which is why it has such a low FPS hit though the GPU processing can help with that, if you want close to FRAPS like quality then you want DXtory, though to record FF14 at 60 FPS, you do need a beefier CPU, but Youtube either does, high quality 30 fps or downgraded quality at 60 FPS for non content creators.

Ive used bandicam, OBS, Fraps, shadowplay and out of those DXtory has the best performance/quality ratio.

NVENC on GTX900 series are not low quality, my TITAN has an older NVENC chip, the quality at 50Mbps is decent. It doesn't have much performance impact because it fetch the information from the buffer on a separated encoding chip. This is why the GTX700 series can only max at 1440p at 30FPS while the GTX900 has a newer encoding chip enable to record at 4k @ 60FPS and 1440p @ 60FPS.

I have OBS, FRAPS, Bandicam, Shadowplay, DXTory all purchased or owned. including Miriilis Action!. I've done hours of countless recording between all those softwares.

Running on 3930k, testing X264 is not a problem at all.