R3+7970M+FFXIV=Low Performance?

So I've upgraded my 580M to the 7970M thinking it was going to be a huge boost in performance. So far running benchmarks it does show a nice increase. But when I load up FFXIV and play, I noticed I'm running around at about half the FPS. I know the game is poorly optimized, but with my 580M I was able to have just about everything maxed out. While out killing mobs I'd get between 45-60 FPS. With my 7970M I'm getting between 25-35 FPS. In town they both seem to be about the same, running between 30-50 FPS. I've read that this game is somewhat CPU bound also, which I am planning on upgrading to a 2920 or 2960 CPU in the future.

My main concern is why the 7970M is half the power of the 580M for this game. Perhaps its a driver issue? I'm running the 12.7 beta drivers right now. I guess I'll revert back and see if it'll help.

Edit: Ok, so I reverted back to the Dell drivers. For some reason had a ton of issues and had to do 2 system restores before the errors went away. Finally got the stock Dell drivers installed and opened up the game. I'm now up to around 40-55 FPS in the open world. So it appears to be a driver issue. I'm still nowhere near where this card should be. With the benchmarks and performance in other games, I should be able to cruise around at 60 FPS without any issues. I will mess around with the other drivers and see if there is a sweet spot with one of them. Hopefully official drivers will fix this, or it looks like I might be selling both my 7970Ms and going for a 680M+2920/2960 CPU.....

 

did you add the game in the high performance list so enduro actually uses the 7970 instead of integrated? Or have you tried using FN + F7 to change the card?

 

I'm running soley on the 7970M. Have had the iGPU disabled since I had my 580M installed. It appears to be driver related. Hopefully things get squared away with official drivers. At least with the stock Dell drivers I am able to play the game. I'm going to mess around in CCC to see if any of the settings are affecting the gameplay. Although I don't know much about CCC and what each setting actually affects, but google is my buddy.

On a side note, I have noticed that the colors are way more vibrant with the 7970M compared to my 580M. Almost like having an RGB screen.

 

Hmm...did you make sure to install the Intel driver before the AMD driver?

 

Once again, the iGPU is disabled. I am soley running off the dGPU. Did you read the update I posted in the OP? It appears to be a driver issue with AMD. The stock Dell drivers bring back closer to what I had with my 580M. I'm going to try out the other drivers and find the one that works best. I'm also going to mess around in CCC to see if any of the settings is causing some problems.

But to answer your question. Yes, I installed the intel drivers first. That was back in March when I first got my system. I didn't reinstall it because all I had to do was uninstall my old nVidia drivers and install my AMD. Before you ask, yes I did do a complete uninstall, cleaned the registry, deleted all folders (even the hidden ones), and ran driver sweeper in safe mode.

 

A little update.

I've tried out the different drivers and they all seem to be pretty on par with each other. I did a clean install of 12.7 and logged in. My FPS were back up to what I guess is normal (35-50 FPS depending on if in town or out of town) which is about what I would get with my 580M. A little disappointing seeing as how this GPU is suppose to be worlds ahead of the 580M. Perhaps FFXIV is more CPU bound then GPU?

A strange thing is once I logged out and adjusted some settings, when I go back into the game my FPS are down to 10-20 FPS. Even a reboot wont fix this. It seems as though it's running off the iGPU, but I have that disabled, everything states the 7970M is on (MSI Afterburner, HWiNFO, my GPU gadget), I'm even able to OC and see the clocks adjust ingame through the MSI OSD. I do notice that if I log out the game, my GPU gadget shows the temp is about 5-10C lower then normal. Perhaps I'm having some Enduro issues even with the iGPU disabled in the BIOS. And yes, I did try the FN+F7 and reboot, but no help.

I went back and did a clean install of 12.5 modded, then installed 12.7 over it. So far seems ok, just played for a few min. I gave it an OC, then dropped it back down to stock clocks. Doing that made the game drop to around 10 FPS. I did another OC, and the FPS jumped back up to 40+. I'll see how things go tomorrow if I actually have a few hours to play.

Perhaps this card just isn't a beast for this game as I was hoping it would be .....

 

Mine seems to be struggling as well, the weird part is my Desktop runs it like butter and they both scored almost the same on the benchmark so something is not optimized for the 7970m me thinks. I guess we can hope that AMD releases a fix in some drivers in the future.

EDIT: Checked the AMD forums and they released the 13.8 beta 2 drivers 5 days ago and claim they improve Final Fantasy performance so I will give those a try.

EDIT 2: Nope, no difference. If I run it with settings on Laptop (High) then it sits capped at 60 fps and does not move, at all....if I set it to maximum then it just falls on it's face, not really sure what it changes to cause this. If I run windowed and look at my GPU it does not seem to be using it very much :S so I just have to assume poor optimization.

 

I like this one as this gave me a laugh when I saw it and was hoping for a third question to really make it hilarious. I'm guessing that edited part wasn't seen which led to the question being asked again.


@SkylineLvr, aside from the FFXIV FPS problem, how's the general overall performance of the 7970M upgrade over the 580M? How much better are the colors if we quantify it? Got an R3 coming in and deciding if upgrading the card to a 7970M would be well worth it, aside form this particular problem with FFXIV of course.

Hope AMD gets to add a fix to this in upcoming drives.

 

Just a quick question... did you make sure to install the Intel driver before the AMD driver? xDDDDDDD

Seriously, I would just wait for the next revision of drivers or try older versions.

 

SkylineLvr

Can you try to run Final Fantasy XIV benchmark

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)

I attach my scores:

default:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:8/24/2013 9:03:17 AM
Score:12519
Average Framerate:114.744
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

all maxed up:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:8/24/2013 9:09:39 AM
Score:6980
Average Framerate:58.949
Performance:Very High
-Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.

cheers

 

SkylineLvr

Can you try to run Final Fantasy XIV benchmark

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)


My system:

System:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.130708-1532)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM CPU @ 2.20GHz
32749.859MB
AMD Radeon HD 7970M(VRAM 4095 MB) 8.17.0010.1191


I attach my scores:

default:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:8/24/2013 9:03:17 AM
Score:12519
Average Framerate:114.744
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

Screen Size: 1280x720
Screen Mode: Windowed
Graphics Presets: High (Laptop)
General
-Enable HDR rendering and improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Enabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects. (LOD) : Enabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Real-time Reflections : Off
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing) : FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality : Normal
-Grass Quality : Normal
Shadows
-Self : Display
-Other NPCs : Display
Shadow Quality
-Use low-detail models on shadows. (LOD) : Enabled
-Shadow Resolution : Normal - 1024p
-Shadow Cascading : Best
-Shadow Softening : Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering : x4
Movement Physics
-Self : Full
-Other NPCs : Full
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : Weak
-Glare : Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Enable depth of field. : Enabled


all maxed up:

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:8/24/2013 9:09:39 AM
Score:6980
Average Framerate:58.949
Performance:Very High
-Easily capable of running the game. Should perform exceptionally well, even at higher resolutions.

Screen Size: 1920x1080
Screen Mode: Full Screen
Graphics Presets: Maximum
General
-Enable HDR rendering and improve overall graphic quality. : Enabled
-Disable rendering of objects when not visible. (Occlusion Culling) : Disabled
-Use low-detail models on distant objects. (LOD) : Disabled
-Cache LOD data only when necessary. (LOD Streaming) : Disabled
-Real-time Reflections : High
-Edge Smoothing (Anti-aliasing) : FXAA
-Transparent Lighting Quality : High
-Grass Quality : High
Shadows
-Self : Display
-Other NPCs : Display
Shadow Quality
-Use low-detail models on shadows. (LOD) : Disabled
-Shadow Resolution : High - 2048p
-Shadow Cascading : Best
-Shadow Softening : Strong
Texture Detail
-Texture Filtering : Anisotropic
-Anisotropic Filtering : x16
Movement Physics
-Self : Full
-Other NPCs : Full
Effects
-Naturally darken the edges of the screen. (Limb Darkening) : Enabled
-Blur the graphics around an object in motion. (Radial Blur) : Enabled
-Screen Space Ambient Occlusion : Strong
-Glare : Normal
Cinematic Cutscenes
-Enable depth of field. : Enabled



cheers

 

I've noticed FF runs a little strange. In the benchmark at all maximum settings 1920x1080 I scored over 10000 with my 780m. In game I get anywhere from 50fps to 100fps. I believe it may just be a software issue no drivers optimized for the game yet as it's still very new.

 

I get this crazy lag jump thing when I run on max settings that does not happen on Laptop (high). The FPS does not really change at all but it gets laggy, not really sure how to describe it :S I am just giving it time for AMD and or Square to make some adjustments.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)
Tested on:9/5/2013 6:15:58 PM
Score:7395
Average Framerate:61.875
Performance:Extremely High
-Easily capable of running the game on the highest setting