Possible to use more computer resources?

[Laraul]

People we're complaining that the game was using 99% of their GPU, and people are complaining that it's now not using the remaining 99% of there CPU? 99% of my brain is being used trying to see past the irony... and 99% isn't enough.

[Norack]

I run the game at 1920 X 1080 resolution. I guess I overstep when saying I bought the best CPU, I bought the best one that I could afford its a AMD Phenom II X6 1090T. Also I found a new windower program and am currently using that and it is running almost like it does when in full screen with 20-25 fps in very crowded areas and 30+ fps when running around outside now. I am just nit picking lol I just like playing games like solo play on consoles I guess. I just have to get use to it i guess, or wait till 2.0. I am not so much worried about the drop in FPS as the fact that on the back of the game it recommends a quad core? but is a singlethreaded game <,< that makes no sense to me. And they recommend 4 gigs of RAM but no matter what my game is always using 1.5 gigs of RAM. Like when the game runs smooth like a console game it uses 1.5 gigs of RAM, when it obviously needs more, it just uses 1.5 gigs of RAM and never uses more. Just curious as to why they recommend 4 gigs when the game cant use more than 1.5? idk though <,<

I also hope that in 2.0 they make this game 64 bit compatible, and not just make this game run on WoW64, that would be so sweet.

[Norack]

People we're complaining that the game was using 99% of their GPU, and people are complaining that it's now not using the remaining 99% of there CPU? 99% of my brain is being used trying to see past the irony... and 99% isn't enough.

What?

Im not complaining im not mad that the game isn't running perfectly. Im just wondering why it only uses so much of my CPU and RAM when the game recommends more. For Example it recommends 4 gigs of RAM, but the game only ever uses a maximum of 1.5 gigs of RAM for me. I'm just like "Hey you know I have an extra 2.5 gigs of RAM you can use if you need it" and the computers going "No I need the extra RAM but im not going to because im going to show you I can run using only 1.5 gigs of RAM" or something <,< idk lol.

[Geesus]

Other thing is, when buying a Nvidia GPU, the card mem isn't what gives you the bang for the buck. I mean it does for some parts but your bang comes from your mem interface; that 128bit, 256 bit or 320+ bit rate. This is where you will notice the processing power of your GPU. Again this is primarily on Nvidia cards, don't follow ATIs cards to much as I'm not a big fan of their architecture. So yeah you may have fast clock "speeds" but if your processors are crap in speed, that's gonna be your bottle neck.

Best way to explain is, your mem int is the amount of lanes on a highway. Your Clock speeds are your "speed limit" on said highway. Sure your speeds maybe 75mph but if you only have 2 lanes for your cars or your GFX info in this case, you will still have a traffic jam no mater how fast you increase the speed "limit". So if you have a low # mem interface your hurting yourself. That and the fact as others have mentioned, a 460 is a nice card but struggles in game right now. If you can just hold off till 2.0, I wouldn't stress getting a new one really.

[Soukyuu]

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

Try monitoring your GPU load, if it goes down on slowdowns, then that's where the problem lies. SE has over 100k small files laying around your HDD, and HDDs suck when it comes to rapidly accessing them.

I have a 260GTX and I had this problem, it got fixed after I got a fast SSD.

FFXIV currently cannot use more than 2 cores of a CPU or more than one GFX card's capabilities.

What? Where did you get that from. My CPU load is evenly distributed on all 4 cores and as long as you play in fullscreen, you can use SLI/Crossfire (and that's not a limitation of FFXIV)

edit: only core-related problem i remember is not being able to run ffxiv on HEXAcore CPUs, but that was fixable by a custom start switch.

[Ekko]

it got fixed after I got a fast SSD.

^This, all of the slowdown were gone the day I changed to a SSD.

[Geesus]

^This, all of the slowdown were gone the day I changed to a SSD.

SS or it didn't happen. You 2 are the only 2 people I have spoken with over 2 years that say a SSD helped them with video game response. It may have helped with the bottle neck of your GPU but it's only a very expensive band aid not a true fix.

[Loth]

SS or it didn't happen. You 2 are the only 2 people I have spoken with over 2 years that say a SSD helped them with video game response. It may have helped with the bottle neck of your GPU but it's only a very expensive band aid not a true fix.

An SSD is a bandage, but a working one, there is no doubt about that.
The problem arise from the sub-system streaming data from the disk drive, and it is woefully inadequate.

The most common place to notice this is in town, where, if you are on a mechanical HDD you will notice a lot of stuttering, this is when the system is loading data, not because it is overburdened by the geometry.

I used to have a setup of two Raptor disks in Raid0 for my games drive, this had the stuttering, changing that for an SSD made it all but go away.

I agree, for FPS performance an SSD should not make a difference, however for this game it does, as it seems to halt other processes when loading data, and thus the stuttering occurs.
So, giving fast access to data via an SSD or even better a RAM drive is currently the workaround to the issue (hopefully fixed with the new engine in 2.0).

[Soukyuu]

SS or it didn't happen.

Because SS show how much more fluid the game runs on a SSD? ;x

You 2 are the only 2 people I have spoken with over 2 years that say a SSD helped them with video game response. It may have helped with the bottle neck of your GPU but it's only a very expensive band aid not a true fix.

FFXIV is an exception simply because it's has all files scattered across the HDD instead of having them packed/cached like all normal games do, which leads us to the GPU not getting the data it needs in time (= not a GPU problem) that's why you see the GPU load dropping.

You are free to believe what you want Geesus. Better yet, try it yourself.

[tymora]

The game is terribly optimized

To fix this statement...it is optimized for the system in the recommended specs, just not what people may own.
-> Little scalability with hardware.

People we're complaining that the game was using 99% of their GPU, and people are complaining that it's now not using the remaining 99% of there CPU? 99% of my brain is being used trying to see past the irony... and 99% isn't enough.

The problem is that FFXIV places an artificial limit on itself on Windows. After a certain point, no matter what you do to upgrade your system, it can no longer speed up anymore because of it.

FFXIV runs with 4 cores (so quad-core makes sense) on my system but only ~700MB of RAM - Windowed Mode + 1400x900.
The 700MB doesn't vary much over the course of a game.

The HDD issue is related to this memory usage. Keeping memory usage constant while you move around implies you are freeing up RAM all the time (which isn't bad by the way). So if you move X distance forward such that the things behind you gets removed from RAM, and then you reverse direction to move X distance, the game has to reload all the same data from the HDD which is painfully slow (small cache).

Then there is the issue where the game's self-limitations depends on the maximum resolution of other people's computers. Notice how it uses 1.5GB on systems at 1920x1080 and only 700MB at 1400x900? Given that the max memory addressing on 32 bit is 2GB (the "large address aware" flag is not set), there appears to be a maximum resolution that the engine is capable of but that max. may not be on your system. The point is that the remaining RAM that could have been used on my system, is not used.
-> The 4GB RAM recommendation is 2GB for game + 2GB for everything else. This recommendation is based on a 32 bit Windows though.
-> If the game runs too close to the 2GB limit, you'll probably crash. See this old thread - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...dressing-Limit

For memory limits:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...mits_windows_7
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...=vs.85%29.aspx