Opinion: What graphics card should I purchase?

[Attikus]

Basically, this thread started with me assuming that i needed a better graphics card to get better performance out of ffxi. Thanks to Amele's post, i now understand a little more about how the graphics in ffxi work.

With my settings (specifically 2048x2048 BG resolution), i run about 2-3 FPS in dynamis/whitegate Auction House, 5-10 FPS in whitegate/exp parties/gods/high populated areas, 10-20 FPS in large, open areas where there's lots to render, and 21-29 FPS in smaller, unpopulated, less "busy" graphics-wise areas.

I also established my CPU is not being overused, when my computer idles (without ffxi up). I'm not having virus problems, and norton doesnt appear to be slowing me down.

So today I logged on and dropped my BG resolution to 1024x1024. i lowered shadows from high to medium. Here are my results:

Whitegate: ranged from 11-20 FPS. Noticeable imrpovement
Whitegate Auction House: 11-15 FPS. Noticeable improvement
Wide, open ended areas: 21-29 FPS (usually 25+). Improvement
EXP parties/gods: Not tested.
Dynamis: ::To be edited soon, about to start::
CPU usage with ffxi running: holding constant at 50-60%. Ill edit if that changes during fighting in dynamis.

I want to test EXP parties/Gods with this BG resolution of 1024x1024 to see what imrpovement i get. I also want to go back to 2048x2048 and check my CPU usage while thats up.

So far it seems that this is an issue of my computer setup being innadequate for these ffxi settings i wish to run. After the I finish up with these tests, id like to return to talking hardware if hardware is the solution to my problem.

Also, Amele, if its okau tp run my BG resolution at a 2:1 ratio to my foreground resolution, should my computer be able to handle a BG resolution of up to 3200x2400? (Foreground resolution is 1600x1200)

[Cephius]

I think it's pretty safe to say now that an old video card is your issue. Refer to my previous post about the 8800GT. Assuming the driver issues have been sorted out, you should be happy with the increase in GPU power.

[Attikus]

is there anywhere on my PC that i can monitor how much of my GPU% is being used (like how i can view in task manager how much of my CPU is being used)

[Amele]

is there anywhere on my PC that i can monitor how much of my GPU% is being used (like how i can view in task manager how much of my CPU is being used)

what card are you using? depending on model there may be a utility that will help you.

[Attikus]

Nvidia GeForce 6800.

Okay, so some results from Dynamis.

running 1024x1024 BG resolution, my FPS held steady around 5-10, rarely exceeding 10, occassionaly dipping below 5 (lowest I saw was 1.5 during the mega bosses in Beaucadine.) CPU held steady inbetween 50-65%, occassionaly hitting 70+, and a few times i saw it hit 90%, and one time 100% (eeerk!)

switching back to Bastok Markets [s], this time trying to run a BG resolution of 3200x2400 (double my foreground resolution, ratio of 2:1, thought id try it) with shadows on medium. Heres the results:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ick/badFPS.jpg

As you'll notice, the first thing at the top is the FPS. The second thing is where my CPU repeatedly capped out at 100%. Also, notice how the radar shows nearly no one in the immediate area with me. So this is a low populated zone, where there wasnt a lot for the game to render.

Does my CPU repeatedly hitting 100% like that mean its time for me to upgrade my processor if i want to keep playing FFXI on these high settings?

[Amele]

improving your CPU would help your performance yes; for benchmark purposes my Opteron185 runs at approximately 20% load (on one core) while I idle in lower jeuno right now.

depending on your system, you might need to get a new motherboard to improve your cpu though; at which point you're talking a new system entirely pretty much. I'm guessing you have a core2duo (low-end?) though, so you might be able to go pretty high.


some things you can do to help the load balancing; you can set FFXI to one core (affinity should be an option for running processes on your system, since you have a dual core machine) and set the affinity of everything else you commonly run while playing to the other core.

another (relatively small) change is to stop rendering shadows.

your graphics card is plenty for the settings you're trying to run at though you might want to try a more recent forceware release. I had good luck with 162.18 (july ~ish release) and some people have reported that 169.17 is a good release too (current is 169.21 but it apparently sucks for XP)

[Calina]

dident read whole thread but if this was alrdy posted sorry

if u looking for nvidia go with go with 7950 currently best card that works properly with FFXI 8X00 all seem to have problems with FFXI even the newer8600's witch arent better then the 7950 other then that they can run DX10 and if u on XP that dosent matter anyway

was around 250$ this time last year when i got mine should be way less now and its a great card i run FFXI at 2048x2048 witch is the cap i can confirm that much i played with it at 4096x4096 for months then set it to 2048x2048 and saw no difference

try and get BFG 7950 GT OC there are other factory overclocked versions of it but not as high

over if u dont wanna play FFXI and have the cash wait till 8950's come out if there not alrdy cuase they will be best cards for same price 8800's are goin for now

[levish]

Does my CPU repeatedly hitting 100% like that mean its time for me to upgrade my processor if i want to keep playing FFXI on these high settings?

What it means is shadows cost A LOT of cpu time, turn off shadows and watch your useage plummet.

I run a
Core 2 Duo @ 3,600 mhz
4GB pc6400 mhz Ram
8800GTS 640mb
3x hdds with: OS on drive 1, FFXI on drive 2 and swapfile on drive 3 (fastest access time drive)
1680x1050 with 2048x2048 background res

etc etc ...

Shadows on = lag
Shadows off = lag whats that?

[snibe]

so basically you will need a high end CPU to run a nice background res with high shadows on and even though because this game is like a emulator.. it may not be all that good. Seems like a waste of money unless you are just loaded with cash. That's too bad I enjoy the way the game looks with high shadows.

[Amele]

so basically you will need a high end CPU to run a nice background res with high shadows on and even though because this game is like a emulator.. it may not be all that good. Seems like a waste of money unless you are just loaded with cash. That's too bad I enjoy the way the game looks with high shadows.

it was a good investment for me; but then my primary gaming platform is the PC; so I needed high end equipment to play new games anyway.

nice thing is that FFXI doesn't care about quad core (dual core is enough - which I recommend since it gives you your pc back for when you tab out of XI) and you can get a good entry level dual core for around 200$ now. (I could probably build a full dual core tower for 600$ now that would be basically fully featured.)


to the above: my 8800GTS runs much better than my 7900's did (both of them.) it's cooler and more stable overclocked. it did cost more but if you're expecting to keep the card for several years, I'd recommend either an 8800GTS if you can get a good deal or an 8800GT. it'll do dx10 when you want to play that new killer app in a year or two and it's a cooler card than a 7950 would be (although more power hungry, make sure you have enough power to give it.)

[levish]

so basically you will need a high end CPU to run a nice background res with high shadows on and even though because this game is like a emulator.. it may not be all that good. Seems like a waste of money unless you are just loaded with cash. That's too bad I enjoy the way the game looks with high shadows.

You can't buy a processor fast enough to make high shadows + high resolutions playablly fast unfortunately

I havent' had access to the cooling needed to hit 4.0+ ghz but I assume it's not too much better than 3.6 ghz, upcoming Penryn's are supposed to have enough headroom to hit 4.5-5.0 ghz on exotic cooling but that doesn't mean much when you have 100-200 models worth of shadows to handle in the case of the Whitegate Auction house.

Again even if you crank up processor performance 2x (in my case 3.6 ghz -> 7ghz) you would end up going from 10 FPS to 15 FPS at the auction house is still so meh, whats needed is a more efficient way to handle either the sheer number of models onscreen or the way shadows are done.

IMO neither is going to happen since it's part of that engine re-write we dream about and SE pretty much said "lolz no wai!"

[Attikus]

What about medium shadows? Do they take as much of a toll (or nearly as much) as high shadows do? I'd like to play with at least these so i have some sense of depth perception other than my distance plugin.

[Attikus]

Sorry for the double post, I could not edit in quotes (I suck at html >.>)

depending on your system, you might need to get a new motherboard to improve your cpu though; at which point you're talking a new system entirely pretty much. I'm guessing you have a core2duo (low-end?) though, so you might be able to go pretty high.

Is there a way I can tell what motherboard I have without cracking open my system?

some things you can do to help the load balancing; you can set FFXI to one core (affinity should be an option for running processes on your system, since you have a dual core machine) and set the affinity of everything else you commonly run while playing to the other core.

Can you give me a more detailed explanation on how to do this?

another (relatively small) change is to stop rendering shadows.

Same as my previous post, will medium shadows be okay? Can my system at least handle that?

your graphics card is plenty for the settings you're trying to run at though you might want to try a more recent forceware release. I had good luck with 162.18 (july ~ish release) and some people have reported that 169.17 is a good release too (current is 169.21 but it apparently sucks for XP)

Where can I get a forceware release? I'm not too technologically savy. ~_~

EDIT: Found my forceware version. I'm runnning 169.17.

[levish]

What about medium shadows? Do they take as much of a toll (or nearly as much) as high shadows do? I'd like to play with at least these so i have some sense of depth perception other than my distance plugin.

I play with them on always (full) other then when I'm doing something timing critical and just live with less stable fps.

i.e.
LS events = full off
Really great XP Parties = full off
Farming solo? = full on
Sucky XP party? = full on (might as well make them look pretty despite sucking)

[Amele]

so basically you will need a high end CPU to run a nice background res with high shadows on and even though because this game is like a emulator.. it may not be all that good. Seems like a waste of money unless you are just loaded with cash. That's too bad I enjoy the way the game looks with high shadows.

You can't buy a processor fast enough to make high shadows + high resolutions playablly fast unfortunately

you're on a penryn? which.

I'm surprised that you're stating what you're stating - I don't have issues with my settings (I'll benchmark it tonight for you) and I'm on an Opteron and not a core2duo.

what is the rest of your system, gpu drivers, and your exact settings? and do you drop anywhere besides whitegate AH? (if you're only dropping at whitegate AH I wouldn't complain much.)

[Grandcross]

I don't know why, but 3840 x 2400 background res is faster than 2048x2048 for me. Usually picking a multiple of my screen
resolution makes my game run faster.

My system:
C2D [email protected]
4GB 800mhz DDR2 ram (XP only can see 3.1GB of this)
8800GTX KO

I'm playing @ 1920 x 1200, usually in between 25-29fps. Drawdistance and mob distance set to 20. Shawdows on high. FPS drops when 12+ people on the screen but usually never lower than 15. Much better than my old P4 system where if there was too many people around, mobs would become invisible (always happened on Fafnir, Dynamis Lord). Whitegate AH is laggy but every its much laggier (word?) on my xbox. Also no lag when I see FiragaIII or Ballads.

[Don Katsu]

I think the question would be... do you have a PCI E or AGP slot?

[levish]

so basically you will need a high end CPU to run a nice background res with high shadows on and even though because this game is like a emulator.. it may not be all that good. Seems like a waste of money unless you are just loaded with cash. That's too bad I enjoy the way the game looks with high shadows.

You can't buy a processor fast enough to make high shadows + high resolutions playablly fast unfortunately

you're on a penryn? which.

I'm surprised that you're stating what you're stating - I don't have issues with my settings (I'll benchmark it tonight for you) and I'm on an Opteron and not a core2duo.

what is the rest of your system, gpu drivers, and your exact settings? and do you drop anywhere besides whitegate AH? (if you're only dropping at whitegate AH I wouldn't complain much.)

There is only one Yorkfield at the moment and I am not using it (only comes in mega buck XE flavor and I learned my lesson with the FX60), I have a plain jane C2D 6700 o/c'd to 3600mhz

GPU Drivers I've tried a variety of them and the latest is 169.17
res 1680x1050
background 2048x2048
mip set to 5
DD/MB set to 5

nothing running but ffxi, avg, firewall
windows set to max performance mode

runs fine in a normal party, in anything larger than that or with more people on screen need to turn off shadows, at which point only bard songs really cause any additional trouble.

[Avanarius]

There is only one Yorkfield at the moment and I am not using it (only comes in mega buck XE flavor and I learned my lesson with the FX60), I have a plain jane C2D 6700 o/c'd to 3600mhz

I can't get my e6600 over 3.4 ;_;

[levish]

There is only one Yorkfield at the moment and I am not using it (only comes in mega buck XE flavor and I learned my lesson with the FX60), I have a plain jane C2D 6700 o/c'd to 3600mhz

I can't get my e6600 over 3.4 ;_;

If it's any consolation getting to 3.6 or 3.8 will not make a hueg like xbox difference

can't really tell a difference from 3.2 either since when it goes into slideshow mode getting 1-2 more fps is still sucky