Possible to use more computer resources?

[Norack]

I was just wondering something, This game runs fairly well on my new computer i just got specifically for FFXIV. However when i am in Gridania i notice some slow down. It only happens in Gridania, im assuming because Gridania is full of tress and foliage and that is harder for my graphics card to do? im not sure. Anyways even when i am there and i see that my computer is slowing down, i look at my computers resources. And I have an octo core and the game is only using 10% of my CPU and only 1.5 GB's of RAM when I have 24 GB's of RAM available to use.

So my question is, is there something wrong with my computer? or is the game for some reason not using all the available resources at its disposal and if it isn't how do i get it so my game uses more resources so it runs smoother?

[REDace0]

Sounds like overkill for the CPU and RAM requirements of this game. Maybe it's the video card that's maxed out?

[Norack]

Maybe? After getting the best CPU and most RAM I could I didnt have all that much money left over for the best video card. its a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, it has 4,095 MB's of memory, and has 2,048 MB's of dedicated memory

[Eldan]

FFXIV currently cannot use more than 2 cores of a CPU or more than one GFX card's capabilities. Slowdowns are probably caused by not maxing out your GPU. You essentially bottlenecked your computer when you bought a 460. If you put that much money into maxing your CPU and RAM, you should have done the same for GFX. Just sayin'.

At some point though, when 2.0 hits, they will have probably optimized to allow more than 2 cores and yadda yadda yadda like they should have.

[Norack]

thx eldan, thats what i been reading that the previous producer and dev team screwed up the engine and servers. So just wait until 2.0 when we get a brand new engine and servers and hopefully it will be fixed is what im thinking?

[Norack]

hmm also maybe this game isnt optimized for windower? because i just noticed that when i play the game in full screen mode the game runs perfect even in gridania. I had to switch over to full screen mode today cause apparently patch 1.20b killed my windower program <,< and i cant use SE's windower............because there windower is freaking horrible

[acpowell]

Maybe? After getting the best CPU and most RAM I could I didnt have all that much money left over for the best video card. its a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460, it has 4,095 MB's of memory, and has 2,048 MB's of dedicated memory

your computer has 4Gb of ram or your Video Card? also any game should run better in full screen because it doesn't have to deal with the desktop and all that jazz on the screen.

[Darkillumina]

Turn depth of field and Ambient Occlusion off. I'm running on a beast system that can almost max Witcher 2 and before I turned depth of field and A.O off, FFXIV was running terribly.

The game is terribly optimized and does not efficiently use the resources required of it. I expect this to change in 2.0 but until now turn off Depth of Field and A.O. You'll be fine after that. Also more cores doesn't necessarily = more performance. You more than likely have an AMD FX 8150 or 8120 which don't run too well on single threaded applications. Regardless, your system theoretically should be able to handle this game fairly well. The 460 is a solid mid range card (on the low end of mid-range) and your CPU is up to snuff. It just comes down to optimization which the current build lacks. The devs clearly recognize this though and it should be fixed with the new engine in place for 2.0.

Again, you could buy another video card but it will not give you that much of a performance boost for FFXIV at the moment due to the optimization issues. If you play other games on your PC on the other hand, I encourage you to buy a 560 or 6870 (or even 6950) if you are looking for solid mid- mid-high range performance.

[Loth]

From the sound of it, you are expecting too much from your system.

Currently you are limited by your video card, the GTX 460 while a good mid-range card does have its limits, so you might want to lower some settings if you want to play in windowed mode.
For us to advice, you would need to list the resolution at which you play and the settings of the game.

As to you getting the best CPU, I assume from what you write you got a FX-81xx, and sorry to say, but that is NOT a good CPU for gaming, the older Phenom II line is actually better at gaming, and both are overshadowed by Intel i5 2400 and above when it comes to gaming that are well threaded, and if limited to 2 cores even the i3 21xx is better.

If, as you say, this PC was build specifically to play FFXIV you went way overboard with memory, 8 GB is currently the sweet spot.
However, you can put some of that memory to good use, if you make a ram-drive and run FFXIV on that. You should see a good speedup in towns unless you are already running on a SSD.

[Zenaku]

hmm also maybe this game isnt optimized for windower? because i just noticed that when i play the game in full screen mode the game runs perfect even in gridania. I had to switch over to full screen mode today cause apparently patch 1.20b killed my windower program <,< and i cant use SE's windower............because there windower is freaking horrible

The game really does suck on windower i get lower FPS

I have

2x MSAA
8 General Drawing
3 background drawing
standard shadows
Depth of field On
Ambient occlusion off
texture Quality High
Texture Filtering Highest

i have a 450GTS and get a nice 25-30FPS in city and higher outside but i do only have a 1440x900 if you have higher then that then that your issue.