HELP!! Horrible fps; amd 7970; benchmarked 8500+

[Studybreak]

Hope someone can help me out, I'm about at wits end! I have a decent rig, and when running the benchmark at 1920x1080 on max settings I get a score of 8579, but when I'm in game in town I'm getting 8-10 fps, and in the field 20-40 fps - NOTHING like what my benchmark score had me hoping for.

I'm running an i7/960@3.2GHz, amd 7970, 12g ram, SSD, etc. Latest catalyst 13.8 beta2 drivers. What i don't get, is how can I get such a great benchmark score, and then eat complete sh!t in game?!?! I'm about to throw in the towel and go play something else, because it's not fun walking around town at 8fps...

Help!

-------------------- benchmark results: ---------------------
FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:9/2/2013 2:33:06 AM
Score:8579
Average Framerate:83.660
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Enable HDR rendering and improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Disabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects. (LOD) : Disabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Real-time Reflections : High
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing) : FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality : High
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Self : Display
-Other NPCs : Display
Shadow Quality
-Use low-detail models on shadows. (LOD) : Disabled
-Shadow Resolution : High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading : Best
-Shadow Softening : Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering : x16
Movement Physics
-Self : Full
-Other NPCs : Full
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : Strong
-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.130708-1532)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
12279.113MB
AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series(VRAM 4095 MB) 8.17.0010.1236

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.

[Zeblade]

Ok I5 OC to 4+ I have Nv680 and AMD 7970. Been playing all day and on Dell 2560x1400 and AMD 7970. Everytime I open the sysconfig it shows 50+ all the time. Everything maxed out just no Fxaa.. I could not tell the diff on this monitor. So see if something in the background is doing something..

This is Win 8

[ZeffiX]

Oh man, I got banchmark score 8022 on 1920x1080 max setting. That score means nothing. I'm pretty sure you need a way better score to run this game with max setting.
I'm currently running on Desktop High setting. In town it would pull the fps to 30.

[Studybreak]

Overclocking to 1100/1600, where I normally play other games gives me an 11,000+ score ... no difference in the actual game. So frustrating.

--------- oc'd ---------
FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:9/2/2013 2:56:55 AM
Score:11311
Average Framerate:102.254
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Enable HDR rendering and improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Disabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects. (LOD) : Disabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Real-time Reflections : High
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing) : FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality : High
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Self : Display
-Other NPCs : Display
Shadow Quality
-Use low-detail models on shadows. (LOD) : Disabled
-Shadow Resolution : High - 2048pw
-Shadow Cascading : Best
-Shadow Softening : Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering : x16
Movement Physics
-Self : Full
-Other NPCs : Full
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : Strong
-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.130708-1532)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz
12279.113MB
AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series(VRAM 4095 MB) 8.17.0010.1236

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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http://sqex.to/ffxiv_bench_na #FFXIV Score:11311 1920x1080 Maximum Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @ 3.20GHz AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

[Sykie]

Try opening your task manager and leaving it open in the background.

[Stalkster]

#1:Are you forcing anything in CCC? Trying to force AA or AF on my card made it seem to stutter.
#2: Did you try to go back to 13.4, some report a improvement with 13.8v2 but I didn't see any difference and it made more problems on my system else where. Think it was more aimed for older cards and CF set up's.
#3:With a 7970 you shouldn't have to dumb down the settings but it's worth a try. Try AA x8 over X16, try to drop shadow res to 1024, also try to disable radial blur. It wont make much of a difference that you notice but you might see improvements.

Check #1 > Try #3 if no luck. Try #2 > #3.
Then report back.

[Studybreak]

Thanks Stalkster, alas I've tried all of that already. Only thing that helps is going to standard (desktop) and then I get a modest fps improvement, but then the game looks like crap compared to max settings... sigh.

1 - nothing forced, all app settings
2 - 13.8 is actually an improvement from 13.4, seems smoother and less stuttering; I tried the beta hoping it would improve over 13.4, but no dice in terms of fps.
3 - I'll keep playing around with settings, but with every other game I just set it to max and start playing, never had to tweak before.

One thing i noticed, it seems when I first log in I get good fps for a min or two, but then it just starts going to hell. Hope AMD keeps working on the drivers, because I love their cards and have no problems with other games.

-----------
Sykie - I'm not cpu limited, all cores never over 70%. That said, when I run the benchmark, my gpu fans speed up a bit but temp still good. In game, the gpu usage stays low and the fans never speed up. Temp never above 50'. I wonder if the damn game is even using my cards right, the benchmark sure is and looks amazing.

[Sykie]

I have seemingly the same problem as you, and simply having task manager open in the background doubles my average FPS. xD

[Thundaja]

I am running crossfire with two AMD cards and got my benchmark score of around 12,000. I am getting 36 FPS... This is just really odd lol.

[Studybreak]

Check this sh!t out - 7fps at night in Aleport, max settings. This is really driving me nuts.