GeForce GTS 250 and FFXI will it work?

[Roscobel]

Anyone using this vid card for FFXI? (GeForce GTS 250)
Will it run it without the 7fps annoyance?
FFXI and newer Nvidia cards (and Vista) aren't that compatible, as most of you know. The system running is a Core2Quad with currently a 8400 card. Running very bad with multple people. How will the GTS 250 do? Anyone have experience? Or a good alternative to get 29 fps during campaign and such, should be possible on current systems no? I know its CPU based and PS2 etc. etc. but which card will run it good nowadays?

[Avanarius]

You might have been told before, and you seem to realize it's highly cpu based so a graphic card upgrade might not be the best solution you're looking for.

The models shown on screen (or particularly the textures on the models) are entirely rendered by the cpu and the gpu does nothing for this so a graphics card upgrade will likely not even solve your problem.

FFXI depends on the configuration of your system and your cpu speed. If you get 30fps walking around in town with no character models on screen, but again you get 21fps with character models, this is a symptom of too many cpu cycles being used, and can be resolved in only a few limited ways:

1. install windows xp
2. overclock cpu
3. buy faster cpu (although a q6600 shouldn't get that much lag though ff isn't multithreaded.)
4. clean your system up

If this is not the case, and you don't get 30 fps with no character models on screen (or a small amount), then you have a driver conflict.

The only thing the gpu helps with in FFXI is draw distance, and any card past the 7600gt should be able to increase the draw distance past the maximum default in FFXI without lag.

[Roscobel]

Thanks for the reply. I also had that in mind. But because i've read the 8x00 series have the most problems i thought maybe ill go for a slightly newer one. But i doubt it will fix it aswell. Because the problem is indeed somewhere else and not at completely at the graphic card. But perhaps someone has the GTS 250 (or a 9800 card) and could share their opinion about it? Oh and yea it's going down with the more characters shown on screen, otherwise its 29.9fps so you're right. Thanks for the info.

Just used the benchmark 3 and it gave me a score of 4700. No lag. Ingame i only have severe frame problems with campaign/ah/dynamis/big parties and such. Most people do. But it becomes unplayable. A well known issue, especially with the Nvidia sets.

Does CUDA have any effect on FFXI? That takes away from your CPU right? So that could help no?

[Olo401]

The GTS250 is a rebadged 9800GTX+, if that helps find the correct driver.

And I believe the shell holder of my LS uses a GTS250 with Vista. I'll see if he can take a look here & give you some pointers.

[Avanarius]

Just used the benchmark 3 and it gave me a score of 4700. No lag. Ingame i only have severe frame problems with campaign/ah/dynamis/big parties and such. Most people do. But it becomes unplayable. A well known issue, especially with the Nvidia sets.

4700 sounds pretty low imo, sounds like a driver conflict.....

What quadcore do you have? Can you overclock it?

Depending on what quadcore, you should be shooting for 6000+, ideally 8000 if you want minimal lag in large scale events.

I'd also like to point out that I've never honestly been able to maintain 30 fps with shadows set to full and full character models. I always have to drop one or the other to maintain 30....That's just the limitation of the game.

[Roscobel]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.40 GHZ
3 GB Ram
Vista 32b
Currently a GeForce 8400

Not sure if i can overclock it, not familiar with overlocking. But i guess it should be doable?

[fishstix]

If you can spend a little more, I'd go with the gtx 260 instead. While it's just speculation, it'll be a good step up for when FFXIV comes out, if you're going to play that. And check your powersupply, if it's of good quality/sufficient wattage.

Reading over the post again, when I played, my system was an AMD phenom II x4 940 @ 3ghz, 4gb ram, vista 64, and the same geforce 8400 gs. When I built my computer, I was going for a stopgap -cheap- video card but didn't realize it didn't even come with a fan. I took apart an old heatsink/fan setup and hooked that fan up to the 8400's heatsink. That improved graphics and stability at 29fps~ I could even 2box without major noticable difference. It ran well, but not at the supersized background resolution. I had to tone that down to 1024x1024.

What drivers/settings are you using? Any system intensive background programs running? I didn't use the newest drivers, but one recommended on this board, one that was -made- for ffxi support a while back.

[Roscobel]

I went for the Radeon HD 4870, hope it's good.

[Roscobel]

Getting close to 6500 with the new card in benchmark3

[Bockage]

I just put in a GeForce GTX 275 and it has no issues with FFXI so far. I'm using 32 bit vista as well. I have not tested it in campaign yet, but it does hold up well in salvage so far.

Edit: Just tried benchmark 3 and came in at 7950.