Game stutters if there's players

[Misha]

I can get a good 60fps with pretty much all settings max but I get insane stuttering especially with stuff like depth of field on. My fps doesn't change at all and system runs really well aside from what appears to be video lag in this game. I'm FINALLY picking up a SSD today, currently have a average 7200 hdd.

Throughout my FF career I've replaced and tried all parts on multiple computers as well as my own and they all run choppy with above average fps. Friends have experienced this problem as well which is not fps related (If it was it could easily be cpu or gpu related) ... anyways just saying I'm finally fed up and want a ssd for this game and a couple other future mmo's coming out :P So I'll update once I have it all installed tonight, hopefully fixes this long withstanding issue. For me and my friends it also happens in fields as well not just uldah. The only constant is we all have average hdd's at best... so I'm crossing my fingers this will be the solution I've been waiting for xD

[Okiura]

An SSD drive would help, i run 2 in raid-0 configuration but i still experance delays loading other players and NPC's i know so many issues get blaimed on the server lag and a lot of it incorrectly. imo for his problem there is two possable causes if you see a drop in FPS and stuttering then this is PC related, if you jsut have terrible delay when other players pass by you but the game(fps) is still smooth then it is probably server lag.

I have the 2nd issue if i'm crafting and a player runs by it takes ages to update whats going on with my craft somtimes my player doesn't even perform the action i just see the outcome and have to guess what the orb is doing for my next action.

[Digirotta]

...i run 2 in raid-0 configuration but i still experance delays loading other players and NPC's...

You didn't mention what type of SSD's you have, nor how they're connected to your computer.

As far as i'm concerned, there is no working TRIM-function availabe for SSD's in RAID-0-array. TRIM is SSD's "defragmentation tool". If you've been using that array for a long time and deleting and installing a lot of data, it's possible that SSD's are lacking performance now. Assuming they even support TRIM?

Then again, a slow SATA-port may also be a bottleneck. A single fast consumer-priced SSD can reach 500mb/s in readspeed, while SATA-II transfer speeds caps already at 300mb/s, making a raid-0 array somewhat useless. SATA3 caps at 600mb/s.

(I used AGT3-25SAT3-120G Agility 3 as a reference drive, according to THIS chart. This is the one i run FFXIV from, and i have my OS in a SSDSA2MH080G2R5 X25-M)

[Okiura]

You didn't mention what type of SSD's you have, nor how they're connected to your computer.

As far as i'm concerned, there is no working TRIM-function availabe for SSD's in RAID-0-array. TRIM is SSD's "defragmentation tool". If you've been using that array for a long time and deleting and installing a lot of data, it's possible that SSD's are lacking performance now. Assuming they even support TRIM?

Defrag a SDD, i thought that was only for ppl with OCD who like to see all their data buched togeather when they open some drive management software.

But it shouldn't matter either way cos you shouldn't need a SSD drive to play, the PS3 doesn't have one. I'm not being bottlenecked at the SATA port or R/W to/from RAM or at my CPU cache. i have no problems with stuttering or drop in fps. The game is just slow reading data from the servers.

The point i was making with my post is SSD are not the magic fix that ppl are after. get one because they are good but not because it may make FFXIV a bit faster. a SSD drive would help with the stuttering and drop in fps as this would be a problem with the pc loading the data.

it won't help the servers send what body, neck, main, off hand, head, legs, ring1-4, feet, throwing, hands, waist is equipted as well as hair type/color, eye shape/color and all the other little details of the player that breifly ran past you.

[Misha]

Finally got my SSD and full game reinstalled... a good 90% of my stutter is now gone, so far I'm loving it ... I'm capped at SATA 2 though (Only downside about my pc) but I'm sure if I had a MoBo with SATA 3 it'd be perfect^^ Perfectly fine with current setup atm though, so this indeed did fix my problem I've had since beta. Characters instant pop (was almost perfect before even in cities with tons of people) as well as loads shortened a bit. All in all great fix for FF and all set for SWTOR and GW's when released even more so now (Doubt they will be anywhere near as bad coding or servers, so I'm sure it'll be silky smooth in everyway unlike FF!)

[ESCUDO]

God i'm trying so hard to play this game but it seems it only gives me reasons to stay away from it. Stutter, Travel is a joke, maps are freakin huge and there's no way to speed running other than skills. Quest system is also a joke, it sometimes doesn't explain what you have to do and i'm still in the first quests, i need to travel to another city to buy another tools that allow me to harvest, for example, as i started in Ul'dah, or i'm missing something.

When talking to merchants and selecting the Buy menu it takes like 3 second to show the items they have to sell, god.

Should i start on a new server in terms of slow merchant loading or it's a known issue? If so any recommendations, or doesn't it matter?

I have chosen Lindblum because it's the name of a castle in one of the few decent Final Fantasy games out there, which is 9. =)

PS: Is this game still free to play? Honestly i don't know, because when creating the options in the account menu it says at the end of 30 days it will charge for every character i have, or something like that.

[nasomi]

Sata2 is 3gbit/sec, sata is 1.5gbit/sec. You aren't "capped" at sata2, the protocol is capable of transfering at 375MB/sec, much faster than the physical media is capable of. Even sata's 187.5MB/sec is faster than pretty much any single hard drive.

People are reccomending SSD's not because of their raw read/write speed, but because of their low random read/write latency. That is, how long it takes to find the data you need. The drive with physical platters needs to rotate to the correct position, get the arm int he correct position, and grab the data. The SSD has it stored on a glorified ram chip, so there's no physical lag.

I have the same problem, when I go into an area it's chopppy when I first get there until hte models are loaded. Then I can run around find.

And if you're here to complain, travel is fine, you have feet and ports. That's a lot more than you had in xi, and the maps are just as big. Running from bastok to jeuno? Not much different than from uldah to gridania. In fact uldah to gridania is faster. And you can port there, without finding a white mage! Free warp too! At any level! Instant travel is bad. It makes the world feel small, and less immersive. XIV's quests are easier than XI's. But I guess you want it all handed to you so you don't have to think at all. There's other games that cater to what you want, maybe you should try them.

[PrettyPrincess]

God i'm trying so hard to play this game but it seems it only gives me reasons to stay away from it. Stutter, Travel is a joke, maps are freakin huge and there's no way to speed running other than skills. Quest system is also a joke, it sometimes doesn't explain what you have to do and i'm still in the first quests, i need to travel to another city to buy another tools that allow me to harvest, for example, as i started in Ul'dah, or i'm missing something.

When talking to merchants and selecting the Buy menu it takes like 3 second to show the items they have to sell, god.

Should i start on a new server in terms of slow merchant loading or it's a known issue? If so any recommendations, or doesn't it matter?

I have chosen Lindblum because it's the name of a castle in one of the few decent Final Fantasy games out there, which is 9. =)

PS: Is this game still free to play? Honestly i don't know, because when creating the options in the account menu it says at the end of 30 days it will charge for every character i have, or something like that.

...AHAHAHAHAA

[Digirotta]

Sata2 is 3gbit/sec, sata is 1.5gbit/sec. You aren't "capped" at sata2, the protocol is capable of transfering at 375MB/sec, much faster than the physical media is capable of. Even sata's 187.5MB/sec is faster than pretty much any single hard drive.

Please keep in mind, that the original poster i was quoting, hasn't revealed which SSD's he/she has in RAID-0 setup.

SATA1 or SATA/150 = 1,5Gbps or 150MB/s
SATA2 or SATA/300 = 3,0Gbps or 300MB/s
SATA3 or SATA/600 = 6,0Gbps or 600MB/s

My single SATA3 SSD, with 580mb/s read speed and 280mb/s write speed, would alone exceed SATA2 3Gbit/s standard. My drive is number 401 on this list.

THIS is why i'm concerned about Okiura's stuttering gameplay. Is it her/his lack of TRIM, slow SSD's, or bottlenecked protocol?

//edit: Typo. And a broken link.

[Misha]

ya any half decent SATA 3 will knock a 2 way outta the park... and using a 3 in 2 config basically halves it... I'd personally reccomend a SATA 3 on a compatible Mobo to those who have ruled out everything else (Of course also wouldn't reccomend if FF is your only purpose to get one... better just to wait for a possible fix, the coding and decompression of high res textures is handled very pathetically and worse than any other game) ...

There's a few other fixes you can do as well which have helped many people (Not a 100% fix), things like increasing memory cache on your NTSF partitions, properly setting affinity or SLI to coincide with the lack of decent coding accordingly, fresh installs, up to date drivers (Esp for ATI, they perform worse on this game, it's horrid, but at least it's been slowly gettin better).

Fact is though SSD's response time and read rate are well beyond that of mechanical... so it's an easy fix, not recommended, but if you must make sure you SATA 3 on a compliant Mobo. Countless people have fixed this poorly coded issue this way, and until SE does something about the base coding don't expect much else xD