FFXIV Only - Low Benchmark Score and Low FPS on decent settings. Puzzled.

[Bulwarkz]

RAM: What speed is your RAM running at? you neglected to mention it. Speed is more important than quantity these days. Nobody ever really uses 4gb actively. If its below 1600mhz, its not even remotely new. RAM runs upwards of 2200mhz now. Im betting your machine is running 1333 or even 800 if you didn't buy decent ram. Since 4GB is your max ram, I will assume the later.

Wow dude looking at it with CPU-Z and it's at 532MHz =X

In the end, for the same price you could have easily doubled what you have now if you had done some more research.

I pulled the mobo, cpu, hard drive, and dvd drive out of an extra e-machine in the house and threw it into a new Mid Tower Case that came with a 400W PSU. I thought those parts were decent. Then I just upgraded the 3GB RAM by pulling a 1GB stick out and putting a 2GB in (it's all DDR3). The GPU was the last piece, which resulted in awful advice from 3 different COMP USA techs.

I didn't say I had a masterpiece top tier gaming rig, but a modest (average) one that 'would get the job done'. Before FFXIV it definitely did and I posted some of the games I've been playing. This thread has been a great help and I'm prepared to take any steps I feel are needed. I like FFXIV.

[LicontAshontear]

Wow dude looking at it with CPU-Z and it's at 532MHz =X

take 532 and multiply it by the number of ram sticks you have. 2? 3? 4?

532 x 2 = 1064 MHZ (a bit low)

532 x 3 = 1596 MHZ (average)

532 x 4 = 2128 MHZ (basically the equivalent of my system but I only use 3 sticks)

[viion]

Ram isnt much of an issue, your 4GB will be fine, it is very rare to need more than that because games are kind of forced to limit themselfs in order to work for 32bit OS (which has a 3.5max). Crysis Developer said he'd be able to do so much more if everyone was on 64bit and had 8gb ram but unfortunately they are limited.

Just need to up the CPU and Graphics and you're good to go, which you can easily do for rough $200 using Intel, but if you wanted the more budget pricing of AMD you'd need a new motherboard as intel/amd have different socketing.

[nasomi]

Thanks for the heads up on my GPU guys. That was the last thing I got and my budget was low, the COMP USA guy kept assuring me the card would have 'PS3/360' graphics and would be a modest card for modern PC gaming. Friday I'll be making some adjustments. Just need to get all the right ideas in place.

The ps3 has a 7900GT iirc. However games are coded to specifically take advantage of THAT card, they don't have to be compatible with every card on the market, so they can do a lot more with it. Also, I thought compUSA went out of business years ago for giving bad advice and being generally incompetent? Maybe there's some stragglers I guess.

FFXIV is also not, by any stretch, a "modern pc game". When it came out, nothing on hte market could come close to maxing it. MMO's are designed with being futureproof, ie if everything can run it just fine right now, what's going to happen in 3-4 years when technology's capabilities have tripled? Also, have you seen the graphics this game can produce? Holy crap it's amazing, everything is beautiful, it's so close to being "real", especially when compared to everything else on the market. You don't go to the indianaopolis 500 and say "wow, that's awesome, let me go get my 1994 honda accord!" You have to get something a bit more in line with what you're doing.

[nasomi]

Ram isnt much of an issue, your 4GB will be fine, it is very rare to need more than that because games are kind of forced to limit themselfs in order to work for 32bit OS (which has a 3.5max). Crysis Developer said he'd be able to do so much more if everyone was on 64bit and had 8gb ram but unfortunately they are limited.

Just need to up the CPU and Graphics and you're good to go, which you can easily do for rough $200 using Intel, but if you wanted the more budget pricing of AMD you'd need a new motherboard as intel/amd have different socketing.

I'd wager the cpu is fine, for now at least. If he had to pick one, it definitely needs to be the gpu. 4gb of ram is indeed fine, however that crysis guy, dunno, the game uses like 600-800mb ram. Not even close to 4gb, let alone 8gb. I have ffxiv on one computer at max settings and high resolution using 822mb ram, and another one on high settings but 1024x768(mule) using 616mb ram. It just depends on how much else you're doing, like playing back hd video, 73 chrome tabs, running snes emu, itunes, and so on. HOwever make sure it's DDR3, ddr2 is pricy and not available in great capacities, however you can get 12-16gb of ddr3 for $100 or less.

[nasomi]

take 532 and multiply it by the number of ram sticks you have. 2? 3? 4?

532 x 2 = 1064 MHZ (a bit low)

532 x 3 = 1596 MHZ (average)

532 x 4 = 2128 MHZ (basically the equivalent of my system but I only use 3 sticks)

Can't do it quite like that. If your mobo has 4 or 6 slots, it will determine the speed differently.

If you have 4 slots, you'll have 2 sets of 2 for DDR(double data rate) that it can write to simultamiously, so if you have matched pairs in slot 1 and 3, it can use DDR. If you have 6 slots you'll have 2 sets of 3, for which you need 3 identical pieces of ram, in slots 1, 3, 5, to achieve the DDR benefit.

You can't just multiply the number of sticks by the speed, and hte multiplier doesn't go over 3, it's x2 for patched pair or x3 for matched set of 3, and only if they're in the proper configuration.

[Bulwarkz]

So I've gathered a lot of informative knowledge from this thread and I'm putting everything in place. Nasomi you're suggesting with all of the hardware that I've listed, to scrap by modestly in FFXIV the GPU is the only absolute necessity? I may upgrade other things based upon all the advice, but the consensus seems to be the GPU being the biggest set back. Although I thought the dual core 3.2GHz CPU was nice ( since 3.2GHz sounds nice ), cpubenchmark really does have it's performance scored low for one reason or another.

[Zorlin]

My 2nd rig which i mainly use for internet:
E5800 3.2Ghz
2Gb DDR3 1333Mhz
ATI 5570
2100~ Benchmark on Low.

My settings:
1920x1080/General Draw Quality 6/AA off/AO Off Everything else on high.
30FPS+ anywhere excluding uldah(totaly playable)
-------------------------------------
Same rig with a 5750:
Benchmark 2800~ on Low.

Totaly playable settings(30FPS+):
1920x1080/General Draw Quality 8/AA 8/AO Off Everything else on high.

Basicly a better cpu will boost yr fps in city and crowded areas but its not needed since investing in a cpu for an old socket aint smart unless you can get one real cheap. i recomend you get a better video card nothing too expensive but something that is on pair with that cpu a 5750/6750 is fine anything else is overkill for the rest of the setup. You can even consider a 6670.

My main rig is an i7 2600k/12GB DDR3 1600Mhz/2x 6950 in Crossfire that benchmarks over 7000. And honestly i dont notice a huge dif besides the 60FPS its able to achieve the game looks basicly the same with everything on. I consider my dual core setup totaly capable of running the game at an enjoyable level.

And for ones that think ppl dont use dualcores with ff14 your totaly wrong lotta ppl i know use dualcores some even play on laptop dualcores with really weak cards. For example my brother plays on a P6000 1.86Ghz/ATI 5470(400$ laptop) scores 700 on benchmark he been playing on that since release.

[LicontAshontear]

Can't do it quite like that. If your mobo has 4 or 6 slots, it will determine the speed differently.

If you have 4 slots, you'll have 2 sets of 2 for DDR(double data rate) that it can write to simultamiously, so if you have matched pairs in slot 1 and 3, it can use DDR. If you have 6 slots you'll have 2 sets of 3, for which you need 3 identical pieces of ram, in slots 1, 3, 5, to achieve the DDR benefit.

You can't just multiply the number of sticks by the speed, and hte multiplier doesn't go over 3, it's x2 for patched pair or x3 for matched set of 3, and only if they're in the proper configuration.

hmmm I see....

Ok then help me out with this.

I have 3 sticks of 2G ram in 3 slots (total of 6 slots), according to the bios setting they are running at 1854 MHz, according to speccy its 927 MHz, is this correct or is my ram configuration incorrect? I assumed just sticking them all in side by side was fine?

[Bulwarkz]

Yeah I'm confused on how to calculate this too because as I've said CPU-Z is showing a DRAM Frequency of only 532MHz. I have two 2GB DDR3 sticks in two slots (which are the only sockets).