FFXIV Hardware Requirements

[Purrrfect]

They have some 64gb units for less than double the price of that 32. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820139133

I don't have any ssd experience so can't help otherwise, but 5 eggs is usually a good sign.

[levish]

the V+ series is good, the regular V series is poopy. there is good reason why some are cheaper than others. You get what you pay for atm.

The V+ is a pretty good deal on great storage

[Celeras]

I'm worried here. Would my single Western Digital Caviar Black be a good enough HDD for FFXIV? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-319-_-Product I'm not worried about any of my other hardware.

Lol. SSDs are great and all.. but to be honest they're a total waste of money as anything but an OS drive. If you go big enough/buy a second SSD to add programs/games, you're paying an arm and a leg. And as far as gaming performance is concerned, that money would be better spent almost anywhere else.

Your HDD won't have any effect on your FPS in the game, only the time it takes to initially load up. If you're really concerned about a few seconds of load time in an MMO... I don't know how to respond.

[Deadgye]

If you're really concerned about a few seconds of load time in an MMO... I don't know how to respond.

Fafnir says hi.

Seriously though, those few seconds really add up. In FPS they can mean the difference between life and death. And in an MMO there are hundreds of things being loaded all the time. Remember whitegate or jeuno from XI?

Personally, I wouldn't recommend going over a 60gb at current prices. If you hunt you can find a decent 60gb for 130. That size gets you your OS, and 1-3 games usually.

[Waraji]

Fafnir says hi.

Don't you mean carbuncle, ohwait.

[bluefan]

Your HDD won't have any effect on your FPS in the game, only the time it takes to initially load up. If you're really concerned about a few seconds of load time in an MMO... I don't know how to respond.

Untrue, to an extent.

Especially for a seamless style MMO, like WoW. I've gone through about 6 different hard drives with my time with WoW. There is a noticeable difference with a standard 7200rpm drive, paired in RAID0, Raptor, Velociraptor or a SSD.

I'm just speaking from personal experience. My fast loading times saved my butt more times then I can remember, especially in PvP situations.

[Celeras]

Again, there are zero in-game FPS differences between HDDs, if anybody says otherwise they're lieing or misinformed. Saying your HDD loadtime saved you in PvP is a pretty lulzy statement.

And wtf, Fafnir doesn't load off your HDD and nothing in an FPS is going to pop in during a game based on your HDD other than the map at the very start of the match.

[sruon]

Anyone that plays 14 alpha has probably noticed the stuttering while loading files :/

[Kalisa]

Regardless of all the bickering about whether HDDs matter, which is simply amounting to nuh-uh ya-huh you're wrong no I'm not at this point in time....

MMOs are fantastically hard on HDDs. It's worth getting something with some quality behind it instead of getting whatever gets you the most GB per dollar. I don't think anyone is suggesting that HDDs are one of the first-line bottlenecks for an MMO (before video, CPU, RAM)... nor do I think anyone is claiming MMOs need the load times of a SSD.

...but honestly, if you run up to the Auction House during a disk defrag and then run up to the Auction House without one running, you'll see a difference while the server tells you "k load a hume male, now load face 2A, now load a weskit, now load some errant pants, now load some zenith mitts, now load a wizard's petasos, now load that awesome modded dark staff you put in--ok NOW you can display him! Now load a mithra, now load face 7B, now load an osode, now load a turban..."

[Squeaky]

We'll have to see how the alpha and beta performs. It'll make me figure out if I need a new computer or not. I really want to go SSD, but the cost just doesn't seem worth it yet.

[Agito]

Now i'm really worried that my 7200 RPM Hard Drive won't be good enough for FFXIV. Maybe i'll just get another caviar black and put the two in Raid:0.

[bluefan]

Again, there are zero in-game FPS differences between HDDs, if anybody says otherwise they're lieing or misinformed. Saying your HDD loadtime saved you in PvP is a pretty lulzy statement.

I can give you a perfect example on how it's saved me in a PvP situation. In WoW, the Alterac Valley battleground, you have a trinket that can teleport you back into your respective base. When you do, you're hit with a loading screen. If you have a slow hard drive, you'll be standing there for a few more seconds, doing nothing. Early on, I was always dead upon arrival with my old hard drives, when the enemy had our base.

Saying the HDD has no merit in performance for a MMO is a more lulzy statement. You're literally telling me I should focus my money more on other components and get a cheapo 5400rpm. Promise me it won't make my gameplay stutter?

This isn't misinformation. It's from personal experience and from other PC enthusiast MMO players.

Now i'm really worried that my 7200 RPM Hard Drive won't be good enough for FFXIV. Maybe i'll just get another caviar black and put the two in Raid:0.

Well, I would honestly wait and see. RAID0 is great, as it offers a huge performance boost, but it's risky. I've had my past RAID0 set ups go boom on me more then once, and when it happens, goodbye stored data. My current set up is running a Velociraptor 150GB, and 2 caviar green 1TB as storage.

[Celeras]

...but honestly, if you run up to the Auction House during a disk defrag and then run up to the Auction House without one running, you'll see a difference while the server tells you "k load a hume male, now load face 2A, now load a weskit, now load some errant pants, now load some zenith mitts, now load a wizard's petasos, now load that awesome modded dark staff you put in--ok NOW you can display him! Now load a mithra, now load face 7B, now load an osode, now load a turban..."

For fucks sake, this is 100% false. Anything that is being loaded at the auction house is done via memory, not HDD.

I can give you a perfect example on how it's saved me in a PvP situation. In WoW, the Alterac Valley battleground, you have a trinket that can teleport you back into your respective base. When you do, you're hit with a loading screen. If you have a slow hard drive, you'll be standing there for a few more seconds, doing nothing. Early on, I was always dead upon arrival with my old hard drives, when the enemy had our base.

Also memory. Everything is loaded when you join the map. When you teleport, you're ported instantly. I've never had a load screen using the trinket. [edit] That I can remember anyway, been a long fk'in time. If it is an actual load screen, then sure an SSD could shave a few hundreds of a second off. Surely you're not suggesting that's relevant to the conversation?

[bluefan]

For fucks sake, this is 100% false. Anything that is being loaded at the auction house is done via memory, not HDD.



Also memory. Everything is loaded when you join the map. When you teleport, you're ported instantly. I've never had a load screen using the trinket.

Put your hard drive next to your ear ffs. Not everything is stored into memory. Files are constantly being read from the hard drive and then put onto memory.

And no, Blizzard may have changed it, but teleporting in AV had load screens. Haven't touched the game in over a year, so I dunno if there still is one, but I know for a fact there used to be. And you could easily hear the hard drives clicking and whirring when you did.

And how is it not relevant? I said it's saved me a buncha times in a PvP situation, where those half a second counts.

[Celeras]

Because it's irrelevant to your game performance/FPS as I said initially. Completely, 100% unaffected.

As far not everything being in the memory, the vast majority of it is. The portion that's not is loaded there before you'd ever need it. There will almost never be a situation where anything has to be read from the HDD to pop on your screen. Upgrading such hardware based on the fact that it might happen sometime is insignificant.

[bluefan]

Because it's irrelevant to your game performance/FPS as I said initially. Completely, 100% unaffected.

Still false. It's completely relevant to keeping a stutter free gameplay. I used to run a FPS counter when I played WoW, and that stutter effect from reading off the hard drive killed the FPS. Even if for only a moment. If I have to pay to be stutter free, I will. As will many others.

As far not everything being in the memory, the vast majority of it is. The portion that's not is loaded there before you'd ever need it. There will almost never be a situation where anything has to be read from the HDD to pop on your screen. Upgrading such hardware based on the fact that it might happen sometime is insignificant.

It depends on how the game is developed. Being seamless, I can't see the entire game being pre-loaded onto memory. Not even WoW does this. That game only loads the current area you're in into the memory, and when you start transitioning to another, you can hear your hard drive seeking. Things on your screen are constantly changing, especially in the more common areas for people to gather.

By your logic, you should be completely fine with a 5400rpm drive then. Because as you say, it won't put a dent into your FPS, in any scenario.

[Waraji]

If I have to pay to be stutter free, I will. As will many others.

This would be the best argument most enthusiast & high-end PC gamers will counter with in today's market.

[Pikarya]

I cache 15GB of WoW into my memory all the time. I don't know what you guys are talking about.

[Celeras]

Still false. It's completely relevant to keeping a stutter free gameplay. I used to run a FPS counter when I played WoW, and that stutter effect from reading off the hard drive killed the FPS. Even if for only a moment. If I have to pay to be stutter free, I will. As will many others.

Now you're just making things up, so I have nothing else to say. When I say it has zero effect on FPS, I mean it. In-game performance is completely unchanged by your HDD. If you're stupid enough to believe the contrary, you deserve to waste your money.

[edit] And on a side note, WoW uses zone lines identical to FFXI. They're just done in the background, long before you ever need them.

[Amastacia]

Even though there exist technicalities (e.g. loading the metric fuckton of models at an AH when first zoning in... since the cache of model data is flushed when zoning) where an SSD has an impact on in-game performance, at the end of the day Celeras is right that an SSD as a gaming drive is largely a wasted expenditure.

If you have loose cash, there really isn't any reason not to use an SSD for a gaming drive, but in terms of money well spent, it's pretty far down towards the bottom of the list. It's a tremendous improvement for an OS drive (especially if you also install productivity apps on it), but after that there are better choices for cash outlay assuming that cash is a reasonably finite resource.

If someone had money out the ying-yang, I'd probably point them towards a Sandforce-based SSD (believe OCZ is the most likely culprit to find a decent Sandforce drive) or an Intel drive. For either, and the latter especially, I'd also recommend waiting for Q4 of this calendar year if possible, as Intel should be releasing an update to their drives. Indilinx drives aren't bad by a longshot, but given how cost-inefficient SSDs are to start with, you might as well shell out a bit more for drives that are faster in the real world. And to those folks, I would also recommend wiring that money to me instead of spending it on an SSD for gaming, since I can obviously put it to better use than them.