Graphics Card Advice

[JillyBean]

Ah ok, i was gonna refer you to a different card if you were spending money but if its free then that's a different story.
Do you happen to know the rest of your PC specs? the GTX 560 is a pretty big upgrade from the GTS240 so just wondering if your other parts my bottleneck it. Also when you upgrade, make sure to completely remove your old GPU drivers before installing the new GPU; there are some good online guides outlining the steps.

Well the new card is in and the difference is quite remarkable. One complaint I also had, but didn't mention, is that my computer would bump up to a fan level that always made me think it was working too hard (including when running the benchmark, of course). Ran the benchmark on multiple combinations (now I know what the game is SUPPOSED to look like, haha!), and my max setting/max res score more than doubled. It was 1967 with the 240 card. Below are my results for the 560 test (also includes my specs - it's a 3+ year old Dell prebuilt) Also changed the power supply from 350 to 650, just to be safe ~

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Exploration)
Tested on:3/5/2013 3:24:41 PM
Score:4181
Average Framerate:33.948
Performance:High
-Easily capable of running the game. Should perform well, even at higher resolutions.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Disabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects to increase performance. (LOD) : Disabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Smooth edges. (Anti-aliasing) : Enabled
-Increase transparent lighting quality. : Enabled
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Use low-detail models on shadows to increase performance. (LOD) : Disabled
-Display : All
-Shadow Resolution : High: 2048 pixels
-Shadow Cascading : High
-Shadow Softening : High
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : High
-Anisotropic Filtering : High
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Effects While in Motion : Display All
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : High
-Glare : Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Enable depth of field. : Enabled

System:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130104-1431)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz
8183.117MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 (VRAM 4050 MB) 9.18.0013.1407

Benchmark results do not provide any guarantee FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn will run on your system.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Website http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com
(C) 2010-2013 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.

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I'll be happy running the game at high settings, not worried about max. My current monitor's max res is 1600x900, but I've got this one on the way now^^ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236079