Best FFXI videocard? Please post screenshots

[Aryea]

Hey everyone, I was wondering if you guys could help me do a little research. I am getting ready to upgrade my motherboard and processor in my desktop, and as a result, will need to buy a new video card. I currently have an ATI Radeon x1650, which IMO is a good card, but it's an AGP card type, so I will be looking to either buy this same card as a PCI express, or something else.

I was wondering if you guys could post a screenshot or 2 with information on what card you have. I'm trying to decide on what I should purchase. Thank you in advance!

[Snowknight26]

As long as you have something like a Radeon 9200/GeForce 5200 or better, it won't look any better that it can on max. Its all about the processor.

[Izzy]

As long as you have something like a Radeon 9200/GeForce 5200 or better, it won't look any better that it can on max. Its all about the processor.

It matters to an extent.

Hey everyone, I was wondering if you guys could help me do a little research. I am getting ready to upgrade my motherboard and processor in my desktop, and as a result, will need to buy a new video card. I currently have an ATI Radeon x1650, which IMO is a good card, but it's an AGP card type, so I will be looking to either buy this same card as a PCI express, or something else.

I was wondering if you guys could post a screenshot or 2 with information on what card you have. I'm trying to decide on what I should purchase. Thank you in advance!

- Aryea of Cerberus

Don't sign your posts.

Run Vanabench 3 on HQ mode and tell us your score.

[calinz]

What above posters said ^
and..

FFXI is only about 30% video dependent, the rest is CPU hogging. Blame it on SE's incredibly cheap work at porting the thing to PC.

Oh and this should likely be in Tech support section.

[Saisio]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...o/img_0987.jpg

Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with Radeon x1800XT

It's good enough to run 2 at max settings (1680x1050) on same computer and still cap fps when there's not 70+ people on screen.

[Aryea]

I'm sorry for posting in the wrong forum. As for the card, is the ATI Radeon x1650 a good card? I mean I feel like my graphics look fine, but I do see some screenshots ppl post that I feel look better than mine. I'm going to be upgrading to some sort of dual-core processor. Currently I'm on a PentIV 3.0Ghz processor on this computer. A friend of mine is helping me find the right motherboard/processor configuration, and said that he's having some trouble finding an AGP motherboard that works with the dual-core processors. He said I'd either have to rebuy all of my RAM, or a new video card... and I guess it's looking like the video card at this point.

I just wanted to get the best card while having to rebuy one anyway.

[Linktri]

I bought an nVidia card for Vista and suffered through a fuckton of problems. They've recently released a new set of drivers for the cards but for me, the damage has been done. I returned the nVidia card and bought an Visiontek ATI Radeon HD3870x2 1GB PCIe card at Best Buy for about 250 bucks and haven't looked back. The lag I used to get in besieged, campaign and any other high volume zone disappeared. I have the game set to max res on a 42" LCD, shadows, clipping plane and models are all set to to provide the best looking picture I can get. Absolutely zero video lag. Based on personal experience I'd say, stay the fuck away from nVidia, get a shit ton of ATI VRAM and avoid sex with llamas.

[Khrno]

I have a Core2Duo 6600 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 3870 with 512 MB. Just for testing purposes I have ran the game at the highest quality, and the 3D settings of the graphic card to Optimal Quality but the problem with that was the low performance obviously:

[spoiler:2e7czqyp]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f174/spd64/hi.jpg[/spoiler:2e7czqyp]


But then I changed it to mid-low settings in FFXI Config and to Optimal Performance for the graphics card, and this is how it looks like:

[spoiler:2e7czqyp]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f174/spd64/low.jpg[/spoiler:2e7czqyp]


It still looks just as awesome (for a 6 year old game) and performance is so much better, fps-wise in a busy Aerys camp, 18-23 fps (had 1 screenshot displaying the fps for that, but couldn't find it).

And as the above poster, I can run 2 instances of the game at the same time at capped fps with low amount of characters on screen.

[Tradition]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...o/img_0987.jpg

Is anti-aliasing off on your card? Everything's so jaggy. >_>

[Isiolia]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...o/img_0987.jpg

Is anti-aliasing off on your card? Everything's so jaggy. >_>

FFXI doesn't natively support AA, so it could be he's just running the game at the actual display resolution and not using registry tweaking.


Far as what to buy, well, the Radeon 4850 reviews popping up recently seem to be pointing at that for a nice price/performance. 8800GT/GTS are still good as well.
IMO, don't buy a card for FFXI though, since any good, current gaming card (potential driver issues aside) will run FFXI nicely.

[Aryea]

Khrno, that videocard is available only in the PCI express x16 interface, correct? My friend told me to just look for PCI express cards, but I really really like your setup. Those are beautiful screenshots.

[Izzy]

I'm sorry for posting in the wrong forum. As for the card, is the ATI Radeon x1650 a good card? I mean I feel like my graphics look fine, but I do see some screenshots ppl post that I feel look better than mine. I'm going to be upgrading to some sort of dual-core processor. Currently I'm on a PentIV 3.0Ghz processor on this computer. A friend of mine is helping me find the right motherboard/processor configuration, and said that he's having some trouble finding an AGP motherboard that works with the dual-core processors. He said I'd either have to rebuy all of my RAM, or a new video card... and I guess it's looking like the video card at this point.

I just wanted to get the best card while having to rebuy one anyway.

The card you have is perfectly fine for running FFXI. The reason everyone else's screenshots look much better is because they've tweaked their registry to higher settings.

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?f ... 2834&num=3

That is an awesome guide, check it out and jerk with your settings until you find what's best for you.

[rezn0r]

i can dual box at 1280x1024 (and could probably go higher, just never bothered) with an e6600 core2 duo & two 512mb radeon x1600 pros in crossfire, not top of the line at all at this point. any newer card is going to run the game fine, the registry tweaking (and cpu) makes a much bigger difference... as has already been said

[spoiler:kr88warm]http://www.prettyhate.net/ffxi/temp/...0_19.37.22.png[/spoiler:kr88warm]

[Shuemue]

Pointless thread unless you're going to buy the same motherboard, ram etc too. Component performance varies dramatically depending on the other shit in the case.

[Sonomaa]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157115

does overclock, not a horrible mobo, decent preformance for the 7600GT, 2g of ddr1, and core2 duo I had

handles dualboxing just fine with graphics turned to pretty, sluggish but works if triple boxing
its my secondary machine but it gets by quite well

[Snapples]

a bit off topic, but whats that addon hes using where the cursor is blue like that?

[SephYuyX]

E8400 3.0GHz, 4GB, Radeon HD 3870 512MB 256-bit GDDR4 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Running FFXI on max settings on res of 1440x900 w/ BG res of 2560x2560
Runs at 30fps np, down to 25 in crowded areas (23 in this shot), and around 20 in dyna, and that with the BG res @2560, if I lowered it, it could stay closer to 30fps with ease.

I have no idea if this looks good or not compared to other standards, but I came from playing on crap, so it looks good to me.
[spoiler:1tstmy4z]http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1...5143409ex1.jpg[/spoiler:1tstmy4z]

Khrno, can you go more indepth in what you changed? I have Vid and FFXI settings all on max for visuals rathar than performance, and I still think theres something better that can be done.

[Starr]

I 2box with graphics like this
[spoiler:39e7w4ul]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j152/VioletUK/Sea.png[/spoiler:39e7w4ul]
pretty sure it's max FFXI can go, using Radeon HD3850

[Epical]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz), 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1950XT, 1680x1050 foreground res/3360x2100 background res. 30 FPS in all places but Whitegate AH, Caedarva with DrawDistance loaded, Aery, and Odin.

[spoiler:3eule6qn]http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/1...5130444ms5.jpg[/spoiler:3eule6qn]

[rex_garuda]

Core2 Duo 3GHz E8400, BFG Geforce 8800 GT OC 512 MB, 4GB DDR2-800 RAM, WINXP sp2 latest drivers 1440X900 max settings

[spoilerkumjgpn]http://www.demols.com/kirin-breath.jpg[/spoilerkumjgpn]

I get 15-20 FPS in whitegate, but could be due to my dual-monitor setup eating resources