Sudden lag spikes and DCs on NA Data Centers?

[Elamys]

I was able to get in for a little bit, but disconnected and back to lobby errors once more.

[Geist]

I was able to get in for a little bit, but disconnected and back to lobby errors once more.

Back for my own report: it went the same way for me, everything seemed to go smoothly then - all of sudden - it fizzled over. Attempting to log back in as I write this.

[Mysuke]

So, I'm pretty new to the game and this is the first time I've encountered a connection problem. Is this usual? Why has there been no information posted by Tech support. Are the forums the only way to get information about server issues?

They post on Lodestone most of the time, not as soon the problem appears but they do give us a update:

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...2b6670f88a6266

[HyoMinPark]

So, I'm pretty new to the game and this is the first time I've encountered a connection problem. Is this usual? Why has there been no information posted by Tech support. Are the forums the only way to get information about server issues?

Welcome to FFXIV! I'm sorry that one of your first experiences has to be connectivity issues. T^T

With regards to this, a lot of things point to the issue lying with Level3 (at least, on my end it does). Since the issue doesn't lie with SE or their servers, then SE is pretty slow to respond when there are issues like this. However, if one of their servers does go down/starts having problems, they usually post about it on the Lodestone fairly quickly. Level3 is an independent company from SE, and SE can't really fix their issues. Instead, they post about the problem hours later, and just use a blanket "ISP issues" excuse when discussing it, even if the problem isn't lying with the majority of ISPs, but just Level3.

Some people posting aren't having issues with Level3 it seems, and I don't really know what to say to help them, but, for myself, I could see that the issue lied with trying to route through Level3's servers to connect to my server (Cactuar). When Level3 disappeared from my traceroute, I was able to connect again, and haven't had any issues. Level3 seems to be...well-known...when it comes to technical issues, just from stuff I've read about them online.

[Luka_BlackRock]

So while I wait on level 3, I decided to do the benchmark. And lo and behold- I scored 12968 on the highest possible settings ^_^

[Luka_BlackRock]

So while I wait on level 3, I decided to do the benchmark. And lo and behold- I scored 12968 on the highest possible settings ^_^

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Tested on: 12/9/2016 3:49:50 PM
Score: 12968
Average Frame Rate: 111.731
Performance: Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.
Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 3.601 sec
Scene #2 10.916 sec
Scene #3 6.041 sec
Scene #4 5.077 sec
Scene #5 4.506 sec
Scene #6 2.344 sec
Total Loading Time 32.486 sec

DAT:s20161209154950.dat

Screen Size: 1280x720
Screen Mode: Windowed
DirectX Version: 11
Graphics Presets: High (Laptop)
General
-Wet Surface Effects: Enabled
-Occlusion Culling: Enabled
-LOD on Distant Objects: Enabled
-Real-time Reflections: Off
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing): FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality: Normal
-Grass Quality: Normal
-Background Tessellation: High Quality
-Water Tessellation: High Quality
Shadows
-Self: Display
-Other NPCs: Display
Shadow Quality
-LOD on Shadows: Enabled
-Shadow Resolution: Normal - 1024p
-Shadow Cascading: Best
-Shadow Softening: Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering: Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering: x4
Movement Physics
-Self: Full
-Other NPCs: Full
Effects
-Limb Darkening: Enabled
-Radial Blur: Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion: HBAO+: Standard Quality (DirectX 11 Only)
-Glare: Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Depth of Field: Enabled

System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit (6.2, Build 9200) (14393.rs1_release_inmarket.161102-0100)
AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight-Core Processor
32717.473MB
Radeon (TM) RX 480 Graphics (VRAM 3072 MB) 8.17.0010.1474

Benchmark results do not provide any guarantee FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn (Windows version) and FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward (Windows version) will run on your system.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Official Website http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/
(C) 2010-2015 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.

Share Results
Type 1
http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 12968 1280x720 High (Laptop) DX11 AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight-Core Processor Radeon (TM) RX 480 Graphics
Type 2
http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score: 12968 1280x720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed Radeon (TM) RX 480 Graphics
Type 3
http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280x720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Score: 12968 Extremely High
Type 4
http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV 1280x720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed Score: 12968
Full Results
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward Benchmark
Score: 12968 Extremely High
1280x720 High (Laptop) DirectX11 Windowed
AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight-Core Processor
Radeon (TM) RX 480 Graphics
http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV

[Stitches1974]

Can you change resolutions on your laptop? The 720P is the reason for the high numbers.

I wonder how well I'd score at 1440P on the benchmark.