New to Realm and to Game.

[Mortimer]

Hello all! I am new to the game, and new to the realm. As you can see I just started playing, but I am having technical difficulties actually playing the game. My computer graphics card does not, for some reason want to run the game very well at all. The game is choppy, super laggy, and takes almost 5 seconds for me to walk forward, target, talk to or interact with anything in the game.

I took my PC to a computer shop yesterday to find out what could be wrong, to find out my 500 dollar graphic card was fried, and most of it components are not working properly. Which is strange cause I play other MMO and online games no problem. But the tech ordered me a new card that I should get by this weekend at the latest.

I chose to be on the realm Fabul for 2 reasons. On the world select screen it was the lowest populated realm, and the other reason was the forum posts that I read on here that it seems that there are a lot of good/nice players to play with and be around. As soon as I can get into the game with my new graphics card and can really actually start playing I will be running around having adventures, and slaying every monster I see in no time.

I also hope that I can find a decent and friendly LinkShell that I can join. With what I understand I can actually join more than one (correct me if I am wrong)? I seem to be a poor muiltitasker when it comes to in game communications, so even if I can join more than one. I will only probably join one (given that you can join more than one). What I got to see of the game however, and the feel of it, I can tell it will be something I will like. I have played Final Fantasy games since I was about five yrs old (FFI on the NES) and have played all but FFVII. During my teen years I got grounded from video games for poor grades in school for a year and a half, so I missed this game when it released, and have not been able to get my hands on a copy unless I want to pay 70+ bucks for a used copy, in which I am too picky about my games, I always must have them new as I take exceptional care of them (and the fact I build a shrine to them, and offer blood sacrifices on the hour(J/K i have wierd humor)).

But I digress. I hope to meet and see a lot of people in the game very soon, and looking very forward to building a nice group of friends that I can run around with, and slay/maim/mutilate/(and possibly cause some damnation) to the worlds baddies.

~Mortimer ShadowSprite~

[Abauge_Goga]

Welcome.
Fabul may not be Fabul in the next patch since they are merging/changing servers. Keep an eye on the Lodestone for future updates.

You can join more than one linkshell that is correct.

[Naylia]

Make sure your PC cooling is adequate. FFXIV will definitely use your graphics / CPU to their fullest. Also, turn off Ambient Occlusion, and set the Draw Quality to 8 (8 = actual resolution, while 9 and 10 are actually multiples of your screen resolution).

And welcome!

[Molly_Millions]

Make sure your PC cooling is adequate. FFXIV will definitely use your graphics / CPU to their fullest. Also, turn off Ambient Occlusion, and set the Draw Quality to 8 (8 = actual resolution, while 9 and 10 are actually multiples of your screen resolution).

And welcome!

As long as we're giving performance tips, if you have a nvidia card, turn your prerendered frames to 0 via the nvidia control panel. I actually turn my drawing quality down to 6, so yeah you have to find the happy medium between performance and graphics quality in this game since it was designed for super high-end gaming pcs. As the other poster said, cooling is also a HUGE factor. Make sure your drivers are always up to date as well as their are performance improvements with most driver releases.

[Matsume]

HAI THAR MORTIMER!!

/welcome to the beginning of the end...or.. the end of the beginning!

Anyway, I have just one suggestion in regards your graphics:

You should see that, after installation, there are TWO FFXIV Launchers: one launcher which starts the game, another which goes by the name of "FFXIV Config". If you launch "FFXIV Config" you will be presented with three options, "general" "gamepad" and "something else". Open up the "General" tab and you will see under the second (i think?) tab, a few options related to "resolution", "windowed mode", and the important ones regarding this post "graphic", "background" and "shadow" details. HEre you are given a choice of 1 through 10 in which 1 corresponds to "Low" settings and 10 to "highest settings". If you drop the "graphics" tab to 3 or 4 (5 being standard), the "shadows" to 1 (lowest) and the "background to 2 or 3 (also near lowest) you should experience a whole lot less lag.

Also on the next general tab over I think there are a couple of options that affet "texture quality", you might want to bring those down low and see if it helps reduce lag as well.

Hopefully this works! Good luck, have fun, and play nice!

edit: it might be "drawing quality" and not "graphics"

[Matsume]

It should be mentioned that my above post is in reference to me playing on a laptop, and I only turn the drawing quality, shadows, and background details so low to remove the lag during primal fights, where as i will keep everythign set to standard (5) if i'm not in primal fights.

[Mortimer]

Thanks all for the replies.

I already went into the ffxivconfig icon and changed a bunch of options to some recommended settings that Square Enix had suggested on their support website before even launching the game the very first time. I do my research on graphics, settings, recommendations, etc. Before ever starting a new game. My computer is a built one, and it never gets hot, it is built for gaming. (has 5 fans in it). What I assuming that had happened is at some point my graphics card that I had (was nvidia) had burnt out a while back. But since I always run my games on the lowest functions for the games I am playing my computer was just using the basic graphics card that my brother installed into the mother board of the unit as back up. With enough components of the existing Graphics card to run the games I play. (I dont really know anything about computers personally thats just my educated guess from knowing what little I do know about computers) FFXIV is actually the first graphic intense game I have played compared to AION, RIFT, World of Warcraft, R.O.S.E, and Ragnarok Online. Begining FFXIV is just the thing that broke the camels back so to speak, and made me look into getting my computer looked at.

I appreciate all the suggestions on graphic configurations, and when my computer gets back from the shop this weekend I plan on going back in and double checking the config to make sure I didnt miss something that one of you have recommended to turn off.

Thank you for all the welcomes as well. I am a stay at home house husband so between working around the house I have been checking these forums off an on between house work related things, and did notice a few posts on realm mergers. I remember going through a Realm Merger on R.O.S.E. and its can be and exciting but sad thing. there were 6 "Dimensions" on R.O.S.E. that got condenced to 2. Maybe by the time it happens on here I will get to know some people that I can just move with. Hate starting out, and barely get to know people only to have to start out all over again getting to know people on a new World. But we will see as that time comes.

~Mortimer ShadowSprite~

[REDace0]

Another tip that could help you get more performance: run in fullscreen mode! I can actually turn my settings up from:

Anti-Aliasing 2xMSAA
General Drawing 8
Background Drawing 3
Shadows low
Textures standard
Texture Filtering low
Depth of Field and Ambient Occlusion off of course.

To:

Anti-Aliasing 4xMSAA
General Drawing 10
Background Drawing 3
Shadows low
Textures high
Texture Filtering high

if I switch to fullscreen mode from windowed, with the same resolution (1920x1200 with a Radeon HD5770). Having a browser available while playing this game can be extremely useful, especially if you're just starting out, so I recommend getting Steam if you don't already have it. Steam is pretty much the standard for digital game distribution on the PC, and provides a bunch of social and utility features. If you launch a game through Steam, even if you didn't buy it on Steam, you can launch the Steam Overlay, which has a decent web browser in it, by pressing a key combination of your choosing. I use Crtl+(Main Menu).

In any case, good luck and I hope you find some cool people to adventure with soon!

[Matsume]

Oh, and about the world merger: there curently are 18 servers or "worlds". It appears that the merger will proceed as such:

Server A+B = New Server 1
Server C+D = New Server 2
etc.

so that two entire servers of the 18 currently existing will be merged to form 9 new servers + Server 10 designated as a "recomended EU server" this way no one will be forced to lose their community/linkshells/friends.

In other words don't worry about it, worst case scenario: you get to keep your ls and friends and you meet an entire new server worth of people.

[Mortimer]

Oh, and about the world merger: there curently are 18 servers or "worlds". It appears that the merger will proceed as such:

Server A+B = New Server 1
Server C+D = New Server 2
etc.

Nice that Simplified things a lot more then. Nice that everyone will just simply be merging with a whole other World... instead of them just closing out specified realms, and leaving you to pick and choose which realm you wish to go to.