bottleneck performance?

[AkashiXI]

I'd highly recommend people read the thread so you're not asking the OP the same questions.

@OP: Have you updated your drivers lately? Having incompatible drivers to your mobo and gpu can cause performance issues. A year back I had stutter lag (on 14 only) which was due to a nvidia driver. Otherwise view ALL your temps under load and see if anything is bottlenecking your performance.

[Itseotle]

I'd highly recommend people read the thread so you're not asking the OP the same questions.

@OP: Have you updated your drivers lately? Having incompatible drivers to your mobo and gpu can cause performance issues. A year back I had stutter lag (on 14 only) which was due to a nvidia driver. Otherwise view ALL your temps under load and see if anything is bottlenecking your performance.

I know right. OP is not asking why there FPS is low in crowded areas... there asking why its low in crowded areas when there CPU/GPU are not maxing.

Question for you, you say your using an i5 (Quad Core CPU) that's capping at 70% across all cores. Is there any single core that is going over that 70%? One possibility is that your GPU is not being fed enough information because one of your 4 cores (usually core 0) is working harder than the other 3, which will bring down your over-all usage below 100%, but still bottleneck your GPU and FPS.

If it matters, I run into the same situation. I have an i5 clocked to 4500 MHz and a GTX 980. CPU cores never go above 70% either, and GPU never over 35%. FPS hovers about 35 in the most crowded parts of Mor Dhona so not really sure whats at play here. In case anyone else is wondering, GPU Mem Controller hasn't gone over 15%, and the GPU Memory is at 26.6%, RAM is at 4.2 GB used of 16 GB (DDR3 1600 with a CAS Latency of 7ms). Hard drive load times shouldn't matter as well as once your loaded in nothing else is pulling from the HDD. Samsung EVO SSD.

[Judge_Xero]

This is at 1080p Resolution yes?

[Clavaat]

Possible silly question/input incoming:

Did you check 'No Frame Rate Limit' under System Configuration? If not, even set at 60fps, you might see issues. This setting is notorious in the past.
Otherwise, the suggestions other people have are great. MMO's tend to be more CPU-driven than regular games, but either way you should be covered there. It is also possible that you have a poor connection. Try this, if you haven't already:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...4/forum/43814/

I used to have a very similar problem and it was related to a bad node owned by Verizon.

[einzele]

@AkashiXI : yup i have always update my driver, the latest driver didnt have any noticeable difference. im not very sure about mobo-gpu compatible, but this is the only issue i have found until now. even my heavensward benchmark score is normal, i remember it was around 10800.
@Judge_Xero : native is 2560x1080, so yea its 1080p. even if i change it to lets say 3440x1440 with DSR enabled, it will still run at the same fps, but the GPU load increase from 40% to 60%
@Itseotle : its not flat all the same %, sometimes all 4 cores are at diff % between 60-80% and keep changing. our case is the same then, maybe its only 900 series issue?
@Clavaat : yes i have removed the frame limit and when client is inactive as well

i have a screenshot of the software monitor that im using. its taken at mor dhona near animus quest npc with camera looking at the market at 25 fps

[AkashiXI]

Go to your mother board's site and see if the driver you're using is approved by them. If not, revert back to the newest driver that is. Mobo/Gpu compatibility usually isn't an issue, but since your problem isn't anything immediate, I'd suggest that first.

[Aistaraina]

When you had your friend test, did you make sure s/he was looking at the same area of MD as you, and not at the floor? As a couple others have pointed out, I'd just blame DirectX 9 being slow. It doesn't matter how fast your CPU or GPU are if the graphics API itself is a snail. I run an older i7 2600k with a GTX 970 OC, at max settings, and get anywhere from 20-30fps in the heart of Mor Dhona. S ranks ive dropped to ~15fps. Not unusual in crowded areas. I highly doubt you are bottlenecked anywhere.

[Itseotle]

When you had your friend test, did you make sure s/he was looking at the same area of MD as you, and not at the floor? As a couple others have pointed out, I'd just blame DirectX 9 being slow. It doesn't matter how fast your CPU or GPU are if the graphics API itself is a snail. I run an older i7 2600k with a GTX 970 OC, at max settings, and get anywhere from 20-30fps in the heart of Mor Dhona. S ranks ive dropped to ~15fps. Not unusual in crowded areas. I highly doubt you are bottlenecked anywhere.

That could be the case. So its just driver optimazation and such?

Also:

My graphic settings are "Maximum" except that I turn party effects to limited so I can see my character and not a laser light show in combat xD
Also I miss typed in my OP, I have a 970 not a 980 but its still not utilized as you can plainly see.

one thing though, i once used sweetfx, tweaked somethings here and there. then there was one time i format my drive, and i only backup my game data. now that im running the game under the new OS without sweetfx, any chance it might affect something?

Not likely to cause this issue. If anything, it would increase your load and lower your fps, but since your not capping then it shouldn't hurt it. I use SweetFX myself, and disabling it doesn't affect my FPS by more than a few points.

[Ooshima]

When you had your friend test, did you make sure s/he was looking at the same area of MD as you, and not at the floor? As a couple others have pointed out, I'd just blame DirectX 9 being slow. It doesn't matter how fast your CPU or GPU are if the graphics API itself is a snail. I run an older i7 2600k with a GTX 970 OC, at max settings, and get anywhere from 20-30fps in the heart of Mor Dhona. S ranks ive dropped to ~15fps. Not unusual in crowded areas. I highly doubt you are bottlenecked anywhere.

I cannot stress this enough to OP. When you want to compare frame rates, you have to compared in a controlled setting. Which direction you are looking at in the comparison matters as well because both rigs compared have to render the same thing.

FYI, my FC is at Mist #6/7 area where to when I look to the North it is a long slope up all the way to House #1, while looking towards the south is the beach/sea itself. Looking towards the North will result in more details being rendered than looking at the South. When I look at the North, with a pair of 970 in SLI @ Max 1440p I get between 60-80FPS and while looking at the South I can get anywhere from 100-150FPS. Standing on the same spot, just a matter of looking towards North or South.

All in all you are unlikely to be bottlenecked. Try go elsewhere and check. Check your FPS in dungeons and instances as these things matter more.

And for your good info, ARR can no where even stress a single GTX 970 even at 1440p maximum setting. Don't even talk about bottlenecks unless it is hardware failure.

[einzele]

Why are you obsessing about your fps in Mor Dhona?

actually im not fretting about my low fps at md, but rather questioning why my PC is performing worse than my friends with comparable specs.

When you want to compare frame rates, you have to compared in a controlled setting. Which direction you are looking at in the comparison matters as well because both rigs compared have to render the same thing.

the test was conducted with same graphic settings, object quantity and camera direction.

Hmm OP. You did mention that you did a clean OS install. Did you make sure to install the motherboard Chipset drivers?

yes, in fact i reinstalled the drivers yesterday, didnt have any change though.

thanks guys for the feedback! i think i have come to a conculsion
i see that all screenshots show high cpu load and low gpu load, which is similar to mine. it means the cpu bottlenecks the gpu. some have higher clocked cpu and have better framerate yet 970 is still far from 100% load. my i5 is the slowest i5 on the planet though i guess that explains why im getting lower than other people. i5 or i7 matters less since ff is not utilizing ht anyway.
i also notice that all screenshots use 970, i wonder if this only happens to 900 series?
im not blaming the cpu tho, the culprit is the game that is not optimized well enough, hopefully dx11 will fix this.
its funny playing witcher 3 on ultra settings (hairworks off though) and get 60fps most of the time yet i get 20fps at mor dhona
if i could overclock i5 to 8ghz then maybe i would see 60fps at md (i think i'm obsessed after all )