General Game Performance - Anyone Else Feel The Way I Do?

[KaiKatzchen]

Hello, I don't post often here but I just wanted to throw up a thread and get the opinion and experiences of others on game performance.

Whenever I am playing FFXIV I feel, hear, and see the effects of my computer being strained to its maximum usage. Live streaming music is affected and lagged out as an example. My computer is definitely able to run the top games at the best or just below best settings, I built it this year and spent around 1200 dollars getting the hardware together.

I ALWAYS run into many different types of video lag in the game, they seem to be coming from the game loading other players, or objects in more cluttered areas, like Ul'Dah. However, its not a small amount that happens only when I enter the city.. it happens ALL THE TIME in the city, and shows up in other areas of the world as well where I am simply just running around exploring or fighting stupid repeated mobs (i digress).

So whats the deal? I know to expect a few troll posts of "your comp sucks" but I can assure you that isn't the problem. I noticed a very popular and surprised thread discussing the issue of character pathing being bugged and super sub par, but I think this is another subject that needs to be addressed as well. Is there some way SE can work on general lag spikes in towns, draw distance, and simple things like that which effect game play on all levels?

I hate forcing myself to play, and then forcing myself to ignore the giant lag spikes and super low draw distances.

Please feel free to comment and tell me about your thoughts on this issue! I would love to console in others' similar pains or at least find a false sense of hope in their fanboyism =]

thanks
-LM

I may get lag now and then, which is mostly in the forum of people taking a minute to pop up in crowded areas... other than that I'm afraid I don't have the issues you speak of.

Good luck getting it figured out though, no one should have to suffer with lag!!

[Delsus]

lol nice sig, I was creeping out for a moment

PHP sigs with IP, browser, OS, etc. are so old they have a beard :P

Well it fits me well in terms of internet/computer skills, you would understand if you could see the infos on the sig lol

It fits me nicely because I have a degree in networking, love being geeky

But if the stuttering and loading lag annoys you then the only thing you can do is get a SSD, put up with it until its fixed or quit playing, your only options atm.

[captainpicard]

I just thought the amount of info I gave about my computer would suffice. Again, this was never intended to be a discussion on what hardware I am using.

With that being said, I am glad people have responded with such interesting information. There seems to be a lot of people who say that their system isn't stressed, but they still feel the clunky effect of the game loading in new objects. This is definitely something that I wanted to zero in on and find out more about, with regards to how other players feel. If it's true that this is just how the system is designed then I hope that it would be continuously brought to the attention of developers. Having an issue like this stick to the game for it's entirety would be quite sad.

thanks all!

Take it to heart. The game client is just not optimized well at all. Take your mouse, and start swinging your camera left and right, left and right, and watch how slow/laggy it is compared to well, just about any other modern game. I stated my stats earlier in the thread, and yes an SSD does help with the HDD grind that causes some of the stuttering people refer to, but it doesn't solve the over arching problem of bad game client is bad. The saddest part is the game isn't even using many of the graphic effects that are standard these days.

[Rydin]

I'd like to see your specs too. I run the game buttery smooth even with framerate drops to the 30s or 40s but I heard someone say that an SSD is why, and I have FFXIV installed on one.

Also i can almost guarentee that the loading lag is because of the physical speed of HDDs, the best option to lower loading lag is to invest in a SSD to install FFXIV on, I have heard that this can reduce loading lag alot, it could be the optimisation of the game or it could just be that so much information needs to be loaded at once.

But if the stuttering and loading lag annoys you then the only thing you can do is get a SSD, put up with it until its fixed or quit playing, your only options atm.

Not always the case.... I've run the game on the same exact system... other than changing hard drives... and I can tell you... SSD isn't the miracle cure....

With something as multifaceted as an MMORPG... there are tons of places along the way that could serve as a bottleneck....

On a core 2 duo with an 8800gtx... You could have the fastest OCZ PCIe SLC SSD on the market and not run the game properly....
BUT...
If you had an I7 990x and a Radeon HD 6970 and a regular 7200rpm HDD... you'd run the game more than adequately on very high settings....

What does that tell us?
Storage medium is the least of your worries....
Even the networking adapter, ISP and bandwidth make more of a difference than HDD

How can you just diagnose that he needs an SSD without asking what type of Internet connection he is using...
Is it wireless?
Do you share internet with others?
Is someone that you share internet with downloading a lot?
Are YOU downloading a lot?
Is there ANYTHING on your computer, running in the background that may be connecting to the internet, or heavily taxing your hard drive?
What kind of hard drive do you have now?
Do you know the RPM and cache size of it?
Is it more than half full?

I can guarantee you, that:
1. A Western Digital caviar black SATAIII 7200RPM 64MB cache
2. A western Digital Velociraptor SATAIII 10000RPM 32MB cache
and 3. OCZ Vertex 3 SATAIII MLC

You wont notice a performance increase with any of these (Provided the HDD's aren't full)

Now if you have an old 5400rpm 8mb cache drive from 2002... or an eco friendly green drive (FV#K THE PLANET).... then go to an SSD... then yea.. it will look like the SSD works miracles... but going from that old drive to a modern high performance HDD will also solve the problem

Seriously... you can run the game with high end everything else, but a mid range HDD and get no problems at all.... no stuttering... no performance decrease...
and if you are using an old outdated HDD... you're better off getting a TB or higher Caviar Black drive and spending a lot less for a lot more HDD space

[Coldfire]

Rydin you don't seem to get the point. Neither did you seem to understand the issue we are talking about. There definately is a huge performance increase on highend/midrange systems when adding a fast SSD for this game.

[Rydin]

Rydin you don't seem to get the point. Neither did you seem to understand the issue we are talking about. There definately is a huge performance increase on highend/midrange systems when adding a fast SSD for this game.

I get the point.... I just dont think so....

Take an I7 990x and a Radeon 6970 with a western digital caviar black hard drive and then with an SSD and you will see very little difference...
I'm not just sure about that statement.. I KNOW that statement is true... I've done it....
You will see a little less loading at start up and between zones.... thats it...

[Coldfire]

We are not talking about loading times between zones or average fps. We are talking about the stuttering in town or other areas with lots of PC/NPC. And that stuttering can only be reduced with a faster HDD.

[Rydin]

We are not talking about loading times between zones or average fps. We are talking about the stuttering in town or other areas with lots of PC/NPC. And that stuttering can only be reduced with a faster HDD.

If there are people who get no stuttering on 7200rpm hard drives, then your theory is called into question

[nasomi]

I wouldn't say the game is stressful at all. I tab out to do all kinds of stuff and i never even turn off my anti virus. Then you have people that run two instances of the game on the same machine with minimal problems. I think most of the "problems" you are describing are just the way the game is made.

For the love of god how can i run 2 instances?? I want nothing more than to play ffxiv on my main monitor while having a mini ffxiv on a second monitor to check prices of stuff on market and listen in uldah.

[Coldfire]

For the love of god how can i run 2 instances?? I want nothing more than to play ffxiv on my main monitor while having a mini ffxiv on a second monitor to check prices of stuff on market and listen in uldah.

Google is your friend.