Choppy gameplay

[Firesoul]

Details:
I get choppy gameplay running around town. When I say choppy gameplay, I mean the FPS just drop off a cliff. Despite many other LS members have less 'computer' than I have, they can run flawlessly anywhere, without drops to FPS.

Steps:
1. Flawless gameplay in the fields outside of town, no loss of FPS.
2. In town, FPS drop randomly to under 10 FPS but then rebound. Happens frequently.
3. Running ATI Catalyst 11.8 or whatever latest official release is. Have tried others in the past to no avail.
4. Settings set to less than standard in FFXIV Config.

Date & Time:
Always had the problem.

Frequency:
Always happens.

Platform:
PC

PC Manufacturer & Model Number:
Home built
CPU: Q9550 Intel Quad Core (Overclocked to 3.4 Ghz)
RAM: 8 GB of DDR2-1066 (OC'ed to 1100)
SSD: Intel 120GB; OS files only
HDD: Western Digital 500 GB, 32 MB cache; program files on this disk

OS:
Win7 x64 Professional

Graphics Card:
Asus ATI 5850 DirectCU

ISP:
Time Warner

Type of Internet Connection:
Cable Internet: 10 MB


Question:
Is there an optimal ATI Catalyst driver that might help, like SE has listed on their FFXI official website?

[nasomi]

Try putting ffxiv on your SSD. Quite honestly putting your OS on an SSD is pointless. You'll get better boot times, but how often do you reboot? Once it's loaded, that's it. The games are that which have the constant read and write. Choppyness most frequently comes from video cards, in cities, from loading every avatar's little model as you run through, while it's trying to load the city's architecture. Once you are stationary does the choppyness stop? If so, that's the hard drive. If not, it's the video card. The 5850 is an ok card, but probably won't get you much above medium to medium-high settings. If you try on high, you will lag to death. Try turning shadows down first to see if that solves the problem.

[Bahn]

Try putting ffxiv on your SSD. Quite honestly putting your OS on an SSD is pointless. You'll get better boot times, but how often do you reboot? Once it's loaded, that's it. The games are that which have the constant read and write. Choppyness most frequently comes from video cards, in cities, from loading every avatar's little model as you run through, while it's trying to load the city's architecture. Once you are stationary does the choppyness stop? If so, that's the hard drive. If not, it's the video card. The 5850 is an ok card, but probably won't get you much above medium to medium-high settings. If you try on high, you will lag to death. Try turning shadows down first to see if that solves the problem.

Patch Tuesday pretty much makes me reboot at least twice to three times a month. Also some people actually turn off their PCs at the end of the day. This is more of a personal preference thing so I don't think that's an valid argument against putting an OS on an SSD.

The choppiness the OP is talking about happens when character models/etc are loaded from the HDD for the first time. After the models are loaded in town, the gameplay becomes smooth again because the models seem to be cached somehow. We've had this discussion before, and I too can verify putting FFXIV on the SSD will solve a majority of the choppiness.

It's not his card, but rather just FFXIV (as usual) being poorly programmed to handle player model loading.

Edit: It's also not necessary to reinstall FFXIV. If you know how to use symbolic links, you can simply move the FFXIV installation to your SSD and make a symbolic link from the original location pointing to where FFXIV was copied to on the SSD. That is what I did, and it works fine with no problems!

[Firesoul]

Well, I don't have a large SSD, and I disagree with putting just an OS on an SSD. Look around the internet and tech sites, many, many people use SSD's just for OS's, but I digress. I'll have to look at the choppiness at rest or moving. I'm not logged in right now, but I think it is just when moving. Thanks for trying to help.

[Eunys]

Well, I don't have a large SSD, and I disagree with putting just an OS on an SSD. Look around the internet and tech sites, many, many people use SSD's just for OS's, but I digress. I'll have to look at the choppiness at rest or moving. I'm not logged in right now, but I think it is just when moving. Thanks for trying to help.

The many, many sites of people you have found probably do not game. With 120GB SSD you have more then enough space to move FFXIV over, and the issues of in town loading will improve a ton. Nasomi is spot on with his reply.

[Firesoul]

Nah, these are sites like Anandtech, Tomshardware, and HardOCP. So most of them are tech and gaming sites, but okay I will move FFXIV to my SSD. I was contemplating doing a reinstall anyway, I get some weird lags once in a while on other things.

I was just worried, I know your are supposed to have open room on SSD's for some reason that I can't remember right now. Something to do with how it turns over unused memory, it has TRIM support so it should be fine, but capacity in SSD's is supposed to be under some %. I dunno, I can't remember where/what I read at the moment.

Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully, some of my issues go away.

[Eunys]

Nah, these are sites like Anandtech, Tomshardware, and HardOCP. So most of them are tech and gaming sites, but okay I will move FFXIV to my SSD. I was contemplating doing a reinstall anyway, I get some weird lags once in a while on other things.

I was just worried, I know your are supposed to have open room on SSD's for some reason that I can't remember right now. Something to do with how it turns over unused memory, it has TRIM support so it should be fine, but capacity in SSD's is supposed to be under some %. I dunno, I can't remember where/what I read at the moment.

Thanks for the help everyone! Hopefully, some of my issues go away.

You will not even remotely approach capacity on your 120GB SSD with OS + FFXIV. Win7 alone is about 14GB full install and FFXIV is about 11GB. Have fun, and hit us up with your experience afterwards.

[shal_zee]

I installed ffxiv on my SSD and it help tons!

[Solace]

Oh come on don't tell the guy to put the game on an SSD, are you serious?
Yes everyone go buy some tech that amounts to almost nothing and it will help your choppy game play.. NO no it won't, it won't help him in the least bit. So don't recommend to people that they spend hundreds of dollars on hardware that amounts to absolutely nothing.. ug..

[Eunys]

Oh come on don't tell the guy to put the game on an SSD, are you serious?
Yes everyone go buy some tech that amounts to almost nothing and it will help your choppy game play.. NO no it won't, it won't help him in the least bit. So don't recommend to people that they spend hundreds of dollars on hardware that amounts to absolutely nothing.. ug..

1. He already owns the SSD, so nobody told him to go buy one.
2. Unless you have a clue about what you are talking about please don't reply to threads in this forum with false information.