If you're getting 29 FPS at the Whitegate AH...

[Calekor]

... how are you doing it?

Every now and then I hear people talking about how they're getting flawless performance "everywhere" and can't help but wonder what they might be running to achieve it. So this is basically a question for anyone who doesn't experience much if any slowdown whatsoever regardless of where are they are, or what they might be doing at a given time while playing FFXI, or... something close to that.

Now, I'd be the first to agree that getting 29 FPS outside the Whitegate MH, or by the Whitegate AH is probably not realistic and could certainly accept that. But let's say you're doing a capacity Einherjar with 36 people, or Dynamis with approximately the same number. Are you still able to achieve that virtually flawless 29 FPS throughout? If so, I'd be very curious to hear what kind of hardware you're running, just in terms of processor, memory, and video card. Whether you're running XP or Vista is also of mild interest, but since I'm running XP I'm somewhat less concerned about the whole Vista situation, this is NOT another "how do I increase my performance under Vista thread." Video driver version is another thing that is of interest to me, as I have tried both "specific for FFXI driver sets" that I've found with somewhat limited success.

Personally I can run the game quite well with my Core 2 Duo E8400 processor, 2 GB OCZ Reaper RAM, and my admittedly aging GeForce 7800 GT video card (but why would I need anything more than that for FFXI anyway, right?). I have been getting some fairly noticeable FPS drops during Einherjar and Dynamis however, to the point where I could almost swear my new build is running more poorly than my previous one (Previously I was running an AMD 4400+ Dual Core processor, with the rest virtually unchanged, only reason I upgraded was because my old board died).

My settings aren't too jacked up... 1024x768 resolution with the textures set to 1280X1280, mipmapping on, bump mapping off, simple shadows onry. Virtually flawless in any situation with around 20ish players, FPS drops are only truly noticeable when doing events with 30+ players, or (obviously) the Whitegate AH/MH if I linger long enough to allow the countless player models to load in.

So, as I started off by saying, if you really can get this flawless performance all the time, what are you running, what tweaks if any did you apply (set affinity to one processor? etc), what sort of settings are you using as far as game resolution / texture resolution, etc.

Or, is the cake just a lie and and should I stop worrying about this stuff since nothing these days is truly optimized for FFXI anyway?

My performance in newer games is fine and maybe it's time to just accept that PS2 limiations will always gimp FFXI's performance, but, before I do that, I at least wanted to inquire about this.

[The_OG_Nelta]

No clue. Better computer?

I get max fps standing still, i rarely drop under 20 fps during anything.
Max settings, etc

[altwight]

I believe he said post your specs if you are anywhere near it. I'm curious too. However i get FPS drops at AH Namis anything 20+ too

[drwaffles]

I'm pretty curious as well. I recently got a brand new and fairly powerful gaming PC, and even with shadows/drawdistance/weather turned off I start to drop FPS with more than about 5 people onscreen depending on the area. When I'm doing stuff with few people, however, I get a very nice constant 29.4 FPS unless there's BRD songs playing or something.

Does connection play a large role in FPS? Because my connection isn't particularly good (i.e. other characters usually run in a staggered manner rather than smoothly).

[Amele]

I'm pretty curious as well. I recently got a brand new and fairly powerful gaming PC, and even with shadows/drawdistance/weather turned off I start to drop FPS with more than about 5 people onscreen depending on the area. When I'm doing stuff with few people, however, I get a very nice constant 29.4 FPS unless there's BRD songs playing or something.

Does connection play a large role in FPS? Because my connection isn't particularly good (i.e. other characters usually run in a staggered manner rather than smoothly).

connection speed shouldn't really affect fps; although it might a little.


#1 way to improve fps is to improve your cpu.

I don't hit 29.4 everywhere, but I can't remember the last time I had a visible slow down (full shadows, weather, drawdistance at 100*, etc) - this is what I'm currently running:

QX9650 @ 4.8ghz (liquidblock etc)
nvidia 9800GX2
6GB DDR3
game files are on a 15000rpm drive


you could probably get similar performance to mine with a Q6600(with a liquid block) 3-4GB DDR2, and any mainstream current gen videocard.

I'm not sure how much the drive speed matters; XI does entirely too much disk fetching because it's basically a bad ps2 port, but I don't know whether the hard drive is the sole limiter on that or not.


*yes, some zones really go this high, try it in promyvion-mea sometime. some zones seem to go higher, but numbers over 100 haven't done anything for me, so it may be the true upper limit.

[drwaffles]

I'm using that same graphics card, so it's most likely an issue with processing speed. As people have said before, XI is a very processor-intensive game.

[Amele]

I'm using that same graphics card, so it's most likely an issue with processing speed. As people have said before, XI is a very processor-intensive game.

incidentally, which drivers are you using? you mentioned slowdown from bard songs - the old firaga problem or just a general 'too many effects happening at once' problem? I've been using 175.16 and it's been working really well.

[Reality]

When I was using my old radeon 1950XT card (same OS, vista ultimate 64bit), i was getting much higher sustained frames (whitegate AH was ~20-23 with full shadows, super-sampling via registry, etc)

I upgraded to an 8800 GTX and as we all know, Nvidia + Vista in this game kills performance compared to running it in XP, or running an ATI card in either OS

There are drivers that alleviate the problem to an extent (169.17 forceware), but you'll never get the same performance from an ATI card unfortunately, unless you revert back to windows XP

[Blabj]

I think you have to play on a laptop in the same wifi network as these:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1291/...6ca51475_o.jpg

[Ratatapa]

I had the same card as you cale and was getting like 10FPS in whitegate and dropped to 5 on each weather effects in game (256mb card)

Bought a GeForce8600 for 90$ and now i'm not lagging anywhere not even in dynamis!

[Xanthe]

Speaking of your setup Amele, I've been trying to find the post a while back where you had a few pics of it, but can't seem to find it anywhere. The one with the P182 SE.

[Darwinion]

PC Specs:
Intel dual Core E8500 running as stock (3.17 GHz I believe)
Radeon HD4850 (512Mb) (Driver 8.522.0.0)
2 Gig Ram
Vista 32 Bit Home Premium

FFXI Specs:
1024 x 768 overlay resolution (makes text easier to read. I'm getting old )
2048 x 2048 background resolution (with registry edit)
Mipmapping off
Bumpmapping off
Enviromental effects smooth
Textures/Maps uncompressed
Drawdistance in Windower set to 10.0
Weather effects on
Shadows off (the single biggest drain on FPS)
Character Models displayed slider up to maximum
Animation Frames slider up to maximum
Clipping Plane slider up to maximum


With these specs I get to run FFXI at the maximum of 29.4 FPS 95% of the time. Even at Whitegate AH it's at 29.4 FPS. I just did a Dynamis Windy run this weekend with a full alliance and again was at 29.4 FPS except when a few SMN mobs got their avatars out. It did drop to around 20-25ish at that point but still very playable. Einherjar with around 30ish people still 29.4 FPS.

Sanctuary of Zitah drops to about 22-25ish just by running through on chocobo. But that's because of the increased drawdistance I'm running at with all the densely populated trees in that zone. A busy DA can also drop to about 25ish too. Didn't see it drop to the low 20s though. Lowering the "characters displayed" slider did help to push it back towards 29.4

I've still not tried a Besieged yet. But going by the Dynamis Windy experience I'm pretty sure it will be fine.

29.4 is the maximum figure my FPS counter in Windower will display. Don't know why but so long as I see that I'm more than happy.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... shadows is the biggest drain on FPS in this game. I just switch them off altogether. They don't add anything aesthetically pleasing like drawdistance does (in my opinion). So why bother?

[drwaffles]

incidentally, which drivers are you using? you mentioned slowdown from bard songs - the old firaga problem or just a general 'too many effects happening at once' problem? I've been using 175.16 and it's been working really well.

Using driver version 7.15.11.6966, but I upgraded to that right after installing FFXI only a couple of months ago so one would assume it would still be able to handle the game fairly well. Running Q6600 @ 2.40GHz Quad CPU; it's by no means vastly expensive state-of-the-art stuff, but it should be more than enough to handle running an old game like FFXI at capped FPS without anything near maxed settings, right? Especially considering I have practically nothing else loaded onto this PC besides the bare essentials...

Like I said, I'm running FFXI with an average background resolution, shadows and weather off, all the registry settings like MIP mapping and bump mapping set for maximum performance, drawdistance untouched and still having moderate FPS issues when doing stuff with more than a single party. It's kind of annoying, because I can actually run through a zone such as Tahrongi Canyon with all the settings on high/max drawdistance in the middle of a sandstorm and get consistent 29.4 until another PC comes into the frame.

Perhaps it's an issue with Vista? From the outset, my PC (Vista pre-loaded) didn't get along with FFXI, and I'm still having a huge issue with Windower that I posted about here before (i.e. I can't change focus from the game or the whole thing closes down).

[Amele]

Using driver version 7.15.11.6966, but I upgraded to that right after installing FFXI only a couple of months ago so one would assume it would still be able to handle the game fairly well. Running Q6600 @ 2.40GHz Quad CPU; it's by no means vastly expensive state-of-the-art stuff, but it should be more than enough to handle running an old game like FFXI at capped FPS without anything near maxed settings, right? Especially considering I have practically nothing else loaded onto this PC besides the bare essentials...

Like I said, I'm running FFXI with an average background resolution, shadows and weather off, all the registry settings like MIP mapping and bump mapping set for maximum performance, drawdistance untouched and still having moderate FPS issues when doing stuff with more than a single party. It's kind of annoying, because I can actually run through a zone such as Tahrongi Canyon with all the settings on high/max drawdistance in the middle of a sandstorm and get consistent 29.4 until another PC comes into the frame.

Perhaps it's an issue with Vista? From the outset, my PC (Vista pre-loaded) didn't get along with FFXI, and I'm still having a huge issue with Windower that I posted about here before (i.e. I can't change focus from the game or the whole thing closes down).

ok, you're using 169.66. - your cpu speed is a little low (the number of cores has little to do with FFXI performance itself, it just gets it out of the way of everything else) if you haven't yet, set affinity on the POL and ffxi processes to be the only thing on a particular core. part of why I mentioned liquid cooling is because I didn't see the performance I did until I got over ~4ghz. (which is barely possibly with a QX9650 on air, and won't be at all with a Q6600 on air)

vista is more resource intensive yes, you could try switching to XP SP3.

the alt-tabbing is possibly a borked install, I have no issues on vista x64 sp1 with using windower - needs admin mode, the x64 pol, and secure desktop (not UAC; just secure desktop) disabled, but all that is in the walkthrough on windower compatibility.

When I was using my old radeon 1950XT card (same OS, vista ultimate 64bit), i was getting much higher sustained frames (whitegate AH was ~20-23 with full shadows, super-sampling via registry, etc)

I upgraded to an 8800 GTX and as we all know, Nvidia + Vista in this game kills performance compared to running it in XP, or running an ATI card in either OS

There are drivers that alleviate the problem to an extent (169.17 forceware), but you'll never get the same performance from an ATI card unfortunately, unless you revert back to windows XP

the 8000 series cards hit a software routine doing some of the TNL in this game, because nvidia (is rightly) not giving support to legacy code paths in hardware like they would with older cards. this is why for the longest time, the best cards for this game on the nvidia side were the Ti4200s and 6800GTs ...

it's a trade off really. I like nvidia performance in other games (notably COD4 for myself; but that's just one of several where it does perform to capacity) but if you built a pc just for XI then I'd say ATI all the way.

Speaking of your setup Amele, I've been trying to find the post a while back where you had a few pics of it, but can't seem to find it anywhere. The one with the P182 SE.

yeah, here; spoilered because they're kind of big.

obviously it looks a lot better in darker lighting, and this when I first built it (so it has air cooling; I added the liquid cooling later; don't have pics of that; I used this top mount for the liquid cool, although it's running red liquid instead of the blue shown in the pictures.)

the window kit is custom, so keep that in mind if you're thinking of buying one yourself, it won't have a window. I can recommend some good kits if you're ok with your dremel skills, but I wouldn't start with this case as your first custom kit, I'd be too worried about fucking it up lol

Spoiler: show

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/a...C/IMG_0172.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/a...C/IMG_0190.jpg
http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/a...C/IMG_0191.jpg

[Calekor]

Some interesting replies here, thanks to everyone who has. It's worth noting that this isn't really about "getting terrible performance" or anything like that, if anything, the most my FPS will drop to is about 24 and that's on events with 30ish people, particularly when things like bard songs fire off. I did a dynamis-bastok with 18-20 people on the weekend and things really didn't slow down at all, so it's definitely related to just the sheer number of people doings things at once.

In a way, what I'm experiencing now almost reminds me a little of how things ran when I was testing with Vista, though definitely not as bad. 30+ people on the screen seems to be the sweet spot, and I'd say it has less to do with just idle players being loaded in than it does with certain effects going off.

I have tried 169.17 (the "beta" ffxi drivers) and 175.16 (the current official ffxi drivers) drivers with no drastic change, though they may have been a little better than the 175.19 I was using beforehand (iffy, as I didn't really do any major testing one way or another with those).

Kind of interesting to hear that upgrading your video card actually helped FFXI Rata... that is about the last thing I would have guessed just since FFXI doesn't benefit from all the latest features, but it may be something to consider, especially since I've been playing some newer games lately anyway.

[drwaffles]

the alt-tabbing is possibly a borked install, I have no issues on vista x64 sp1 with using windower - needs admin mode, the x64 pol, and secure desktop (not UAC; just secure desktop) disabled, but all that is in the walkthrough on windower compatibility.

I've tried absolutely everything suggested across every FFXI board known to man to solve this problem, but nothing has worked.

[Amele]

I've tried absolutely everything suggested across every FFXI board known to man to solve this problem, but nothing has worked.

what version of vista?

[Akucaen]

Processing speed will make a bigger differences than anything. With the newer CCC you can see the total amount of GPU activity, and my Radeon 3870 never goes above 30-35% GPU usages, but POL will happily take one of my CPU cores for itself. [I run a C2D 2.66Ghz] I run my resolution at 2560x2048 (double of 1280x1024), and I get very little slowdown with the exception of few places.

One that comes to mind is Apollyon NE on the 3 gigas floor with the monkeys. If I pan my camera so I can see the middle, I tend to lag pretty bad, but if I pan it towards the edge it's not a problem. There are only a handful of spots like that for me in the game (Whitegate tends to hover between 22-29, depending on how many people are on screen).

Basically the people you're referring to are the ones with mild to insane OC'ed PCs. You'll need to go looking for a new CPU and an overclocking guide.

[Pikarya]

Advanced WindowsCare 2 System Information Detection Report

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        OpenGL Version    5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-0845)

Center Processor    
        CPU Name    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6420  @ 2.13GHz
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This is my lowest-spec'd PC in my household. And I run 28-29 FPS constant everywhere in the game on this computer. Even in 20+ Dynamis/Aery/etc. I run all settings maxed except MIP Mapping which I personally think is just pointless/fake antialiasing.

Only thing I can really note is that I DON'T use the latest drivers of Omega for a good reason. Certain drivers = certain performance from my testing with FFXI in specific. And if you check the Videocard on this PC, its nowhere near compared to some new-era cards. But this PC still runs the peak of FFXI.

Hope the info above helps or w/e. GL

[Amele]

I'd expect an X1800 to run it better than a 4870HD...

similar reason that 4200 ran it better than anything that wasn't a McBeefy 8series.