Low frame rates on Gaming PC

[Negotiator]

P4 ran just fine, but now I have the same stutter problem. Sometimes it's really smooth when I cap the frames to 60 even in crowded city hubs. Uncapped it's 60-80+fps and 40fps in crowds. Sometimes it dips to 5 or less fps in random areas that are not even crowded, and if I'm lucky the game wont crash, but it usually does when it gets like that.
Seems like this is happening to a lot of people with many different setups.

ATI 7870xt (tried 13.6b and 13.8b) both stutter. Moreso when on 13.6.
i5 3670 stock
8gb 1600 ddr3
7200 rpm hdd.
fresh install of win7 64bit and game.

[Negotiator]

quick update. I locked it to 30fps and it's not stuttering anymore. Guess I'll do this until they fix it. Have not ran into the extreme fps drop yet, but not alot of people on atm to congest the server.

[Jojoroku]

Phenom 955 quad
HD 6850
win 7 64bit

I microstutter every few seconds and yet it seems only when I move my character. I can rotate my camera around perfectly, but once I take a step my character skips a beat.

[Railven]

Crossfire Radeon User here:

System:
Intel Core i7 2600k @ 4.3Ghz
2xRadeon HD 7970 @ 1050/1525 @ 1.2v
Windows 8 64bit
Catalyst 13.6 Beta2

FFXIV Settings:
PC-Maximum
2560x1440

I uninstalled 13.8 Beta2 due to reasons with other games. I found no issues returning to 13.6 Beta2. I get 60-70% Load on both cards, and >50 FPS in most areas (of course areas with lots of players I become CPU bottle-necked so FPS drops into the upper 30s.)

The best CFX method I found is Optimize 1x1, AFR-Friendly works too but I found it had more flickering and Default is almost useless.

Create a profile for FFIX:
Right click your desktop
Click AMD Catalyst Control Center
Click Gaming > 3D Application Settings
In the new window click the +Add Buton
In the new window find your "ffxiv.exe" it will vary depending where you installed it
Once you got the profile made, on the very bottom you will see the option: CrossfireX Mode. Select "Optimize 1x1"
Save Profile, Launch game (make sure it is in Fullscreen, CFX only works properly in Full screen.)

Enjoy decent GPU Load and Frame Rate.

Images to help:
AMD CCC Profile:
http://i.imgur.com/gls3G2b.png

FFXIV no CPU Bottleneck:
http://i.imgur.com/aJUIXaO.jpg

FFXIV CPU Bottleneck:
http://i.imgur.com/9nXvDH6.jpg

Hope this helps the Radeon users. If you use Catalyst 13.8 Beta2 you'll have the Frame Pacing Option, On/Off shouldn't make a difference but then again I had to stop using that driver since it doesn't work with some of my games.

[catch22atplay]

Just because both GPU's are being utilized does not mean SLI or Crossfire is working correctly. Take SWToR as an example. You can get sli to work but performance is the same as 1 vid card. You can get sli to work in most games that don't support sli. But again it'll perform like a vid card. The newer ffxiv benchmark did support SLI and scores almost doubled. Currently in early release i've tried sli and disabling sli and both perform the exact same. So no SLI is not currently working correctly.

FPS isn't bad and the lowest i've seen was like 28fps. Which isn't actually all that good either. Average is still above 60fps. Utilizing 1 or 2 560ti's is the exact same. 1920x1080 max settings but fxaa disabled as i'm using smaa instead. When they get SLI working i'd expect a low in the 50's.

[Railven]

Just because both GPU's are being utilized does not mean SLI or Crossfire is working correctly. Take SWToR as an example. You can get sli to work but performance is the same as 1 vid card. You can get sli to work in most games that don't support sli. But again it'll perform like a vid card. The newer ffxiv benchmark did support SLI and scores almost doubled. Currently in early release i've tried sli and disabling sli and both perform the exact same. So no SLI is not currently working correctly.

FPS isn't bad and the lowest i've seen was like 28fps. Which isn't actually all that good either. Average is still above 60fps. Utilizing 1 or 2 560ti's is the exact same. 1920x1080 max settings but fxaa disabled as i'm using smaa instead. When they get SLI working i'd expect a low in the 50's.

Okay, so let me take two screen shots with and without CFX.

With CFX (Maximum Settings/1440p/No-V-sync):
http://i.imgur.com/qISUYxH.jpg

Without CFX (Maximum Settings/1440p/No-V-sync):
http://i.imgur.com/M4EeBO0.jpg

With CFX: ~62.8
Without CFX: ~46.8

Scaling Difference: ~62.8/46.8 == ~33% Scaling in this one screen shot.

Not to mention better minimums.

I can't answer for SLI, but I can definitely confirm CFX is working with Catalyst 13.6 Beta2. I actually can't play with one card since it becomes a stuttering mess.

[S03lm]

I am also getting a stutter on an AMD 7700.

[Railven]

I should have just done this to remove any CPU Bottle-necking:

Without CFX = ~90 FPS:
http://i.imgur.com/oCpexEF.jpg

With CFX = ~1750 FPS:
http://i.imgur.com/gMjYQrF.jpg

Scaling Difference: 175/90 == ~95% Scaling when CPU bottle-neck removed.

Yeah, sorry, this pretty much confirms CFX is working "properly."

[jerethdagryphon]

x4 955 blk @3,2
8gb 1333 corsair ram
7970 xfx black

so another powerful machine getting just average 28-30 fps ... oh and i get constant game crashes not due to pc

[Astralen]

Got a 17k score in the Benchmark and expected smooth 60fps across the board, except in cities where most MMOs have trouble displaying high framerate due to many PCs and NPCs which all have unique textures and so forth. I'm mostly at 60fps but do get drops here and there (down to 35-45) which I cannot explain. Tried forcing Maximum Power in NVCLP but that didn't help (otherwise running Adaptive which does not stress the cards as much).

Did some tests with MSI AB and SLI does work but the GPUs are being utilised up to 50% power.

i3570k @ 4.4GHz
GTX680 SLI
12GB RAM
Maximum settings, Vsync enabled
Fullscreen (due to SLI)