Final Fantasy 14 OPEN beta for alienware USERS

Well your specs in your sig far exceed the stated system requirements so I'm sure you'll be able to get some good performance out of it. Remember, they are working on patches all the time - just because they haven't released an optimisation to beta doesn't mean it won't be available on launch day.

 

My FFXIV performance was suffering a lot at 1920x1200 max details (except the 3 unchecked boxes for ambient occlusion and the other two) when I was using ATI 10.8 drivers.

After installing Dell's beta drivers, my FPS almost doubled.

Now, my 620m with single 5870 runs 45-60 fps all the time outside of the city, and about 20-25 inside of the city. Sometimes dropping to 15 inside city if there are a lot of people.

I was testing in Uldah, so I'm not sure of the other cities.

M17x
620m
5870 single

 

thats odd....i get lke 20fps on 1080p settings and a OC 5850...which is odd for my specs because people with lower specs seem to have a better outcome

 

Stop worrying too much for this Beta already, the issues should be well known now and i have seen it varies from area and city to city. It's not very consistent at all and the driver behaviour might be faulty aswell. I think there are some setting s not saved correctly, and that's why you get all the time different results aswell. Let's just wait and see how things develop outside of Beta for now.

Edit: So, played like an hour now and even the game staggers and is stuttering when running from place to place, the game is playable and you can do fighting and crafting and whatever you like just fine. But well with such a low send and receive ratio as i do S:35 R:265, i shouldn't question too much into it. Game looks great nonetheless and is even with the lag quite fun. Without the mentioned issues i'm sure the game will keep me attracted for a long long time.

 

Even on low it looks great, but I'm just finding it horribly laggy to be able to enjoy the beta. Currently playing with 900p rez on all low settings. Its barely playable with 30 fps in some areas and lower in cities.

I'll still probably buy the game though. It's final fantasy after all.

 

After the most recent game patch I'm crashing again once logged in...

Crash occurs after logging in, and clicking "Start" button.
Is anyone else experiencing this?


(CF 5870 with new VBIOS and 8.763 drivers)

 

Either they are doing maintenance or with the update they screwed the Beta driver. 1. issue should give no message at all, just a clean exit. 2. issue should give the well known FFXIV.exe has stopped working or something which we had with previous drivers, but on FFXIVBoot.exe already. Currently, as of writing this, the servers are up and running and i'm able to login properly with official reference drivers 10.8.

Might have to try the Beta driver once again since people say it works smoother, but last time i had the beta driver installed, i got the 2. issue with it.

Edit: Just installed the dell beta driver 8.763 and the game runs atleast. But not 45-60fps, looks almost the same as 10.8 ref cat. Sometimes i really have to wonder what i am really doing, i mean i run an open beta of a game with a dell beta driver with a beta vbios on a more or less beta system j/k

 

I think i have good news for FFXIV users on CrossFireX as of quoted out of the 10.9 Catalyst Release Notes which i hope solves my problem i have with FFXIV Open Beta:

The mobility driver should be up aswell in a few hours, as the desktop version of 10.9 cat has already been released. Gonna try that maybe tomorrow if i get the time.

[Edit: Link removed, there will be no CAT 10.9 for Mobile GPU's this month, read next page for the quote]

Here the 10.9 CAP (Catalyst Application Profiles), already up:
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/920...ion_profiles/10-9_ATICatalyst_AppProfiles.exe

 

Gonna have to try these out when they release. Nice find Grim.

 

hope you guys report back with results running FF14 (the game itself) on the M15x.

i might Wait till SB is out on The new Alienwares to get mine.

 

Uh lol? How could i have missed that in the release notes:

Well that sucks... I'm gonna try the modded inf that is posted on guru3d and see how that performs.

So, no Cat 10.9 Mobility this month, pretty bad!

 

I ended up switching from the Dell Beta drivers (with beta VBIOS) to the official Catalyst 10.8 drivers and felt that there was an improvement to performance. Hopefully a combination of the live client and the next catalyst release leads to a much improved experience.

It took me a while to get into the swing of FFXIV but now I'm actually looking forward to starting the game this week.

I had much more fun once I'd set up my PS3 controller to play the game using the MotionInJoy drivers shown in this YouTube clip. I still prefer a keyboard and mouse setup for an MMO but given the UI in FFXIV, gameplay with a controller is really quite intuitive here.

 

It is made for the ps3 controller, actually i'm using the xbox pad, but only because i can't use the ps3 pad with bluetooth... I'll sit out atleast the inital week, which will be crowded anyway, don't want to join huge login lines or experience bad connections or whatnot. Also since i messed enough with the Beta and all the different drivers from 10.6 up to 10.9a, i'm still a bit worried if anything major changes or if we have to wait for 10.10 and then the game will still throttle or doing bad scaling. I have to be patient for a while, i just wanna see that the game WILL play at it's best performance with my given setup.

 

Hello, does anyone know whether or not FFXIV will support XFire 5870s? I understand that the beta only runs on the master card but I heard the real game might have XFire support. I am considering exchanging for Nvidia GTX 285 SLI if the game supports that. Not too impressed with the performance on the benchmark and beta with 5870. Thanks for your help!

 

Hmm, Beta Game Version, Beta Driver, Beta VBIOS, Beta System, not much to expect there... Also Benchmark ran pretty good for being inaccurate and on Single GPU with NVIDIA logo displayed 2000 on HIGH!

But you know what would be cool, since everything is slowly fading out that BETA syndrome:

Buy the game, find out, let us know, thanks in advance

PS: The game will be out tomorrow, so Beta has ended.

 

Hahahaha. Thanks for your reply Grim. I have already installed all three dell updates for the M17x bios and video drivers and I'm crossing my fingers that the real game will indeed run well on Xfire. Seems like the latest updates are well timed for the release of the FFXIV or maybe it's a coincidence? I'd hate to trade a nearly perfectly working system for Nvidia GTX 285 SLI which haven't been tested yet.

 

I've tested far too many drivers and wasted lot of time not playing the beta for real, modding and changing settings. If someone got the game and is able to run GPU-Z in the background, check the 2 GPU's for its load and ingame with a fps counter for atleast 15-30 minutes, that's all i need to know.

Coincidence, it's just a slightly updated beta driver which got out of QS now, and SOME games have been improved, i would not count FFXIV into it, but i'm up for a surprise and if the final build of FFXIV is handling the ati gpu's better now... It's killing me honestly ^^

 

woo hoo collectors edition is in and its installing right now , will post my findings shortly

 

Enjoy Downloading Patches

Grims Tip: Look for the metainfo folders, 2, one for the client itself, and one for the game api (if it's the same folder as in the beta, there it was C:\Users\Karrfer\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV Beta Version\downloads\ffxiv-beta) use uTorrent to load up the all torrents in those 2 folders, specify the download folder and download the patch files, if the updater is still p2p based.

 

yes that is exactly what I'm waiting for right now . I had to uninstall the beta completely for it to install correctly.

 

got it up and running seems to run decent at 1200p but its very choppy on in game cut scenes but gameplay is at 30 in city outside it might be higher like 40 but so far its not that fluid depending on whats going on in game.

 

Ya im holding off on this game. I didnt like how the beta played, and I'm gonna wait until some proper reviews and benchmarks are out, maybe wait for a few patches too...

 

Yeah i'm sure they have to even work more to sort out their issues from the beta, if those are still present. I also wait atleast for the standard edition to be released.

Also Killiandros has got the game already, and i think he's on all the latest drivers, vbios and bios. I asked him about some tests he could do when he finds time for it. We'll see, and maybe we even have to wait for 10.10 CAT or a hotfix, i'm curious and nervous all over the board to start into it.

 

The biggest benefit of the Collector's Edition (in my opinion) was having a head start on play. The extra stuff, barring the security token, is only really worthwhile if you're a rabid fan who wants the CE for those things.

After downloading the update to live patch for nearly 9 hours last night I got up and running and have to say I find it much smoother than beta.

There's no stuttering during gameplay that I've noticed yet so that's promising - although there is some launch lag from the servers at times. (To be expected).

Additionally, I think a lot of people will be happy to note that there is now an option in the official client configuration to enable the Hardware Mouse cursor which makes a massive difference if you use the keyboard/mouse combo. (I've been having more fun using a PS3 controller instead).

I ended up on Rabanastre so if anyone else is around, feel free to look me up - Killi Andoros.

I'll be running tests for you later tonight Grim and I'll post results/observations/driver details here.

 

Ah nice to hear you were able to enjoy the start a little then, how was the connection ratio ingame, all green now, low ratio? like send 35/ receive 400 or better like that?

No stuttering when running around in city or on field?

Also i really appreciate the testing i gave you instructions for, very anxious about it. But take your time, to cover and put all the information together nicely.

Thanks for the update Killi, good luck, but more importantly, try to enjoy.

 

No worries, happy to help where I can. I'm enjoying the game but am looking for something 'more' to do in the gaps between storyline quests and the short supply of daily guildleves.

Not sure what you mean with the connection ratio - how do I determine that in-game? Let me know and I'll put that up.

Have included some information below so let me know if you want to see anything else.

Drivers/Settings:

BIOS: Dell Beta VBIOS
Driver: Official ATI Catalyst 10.8 (8.762-100803a-103697C-ATI)
Resolution: 1920x1200 Fullscreen
Multisampling: 4x MSAA
Shadow detail: Standard
Texture quality: High
Texture filtering: Highest

Triple Buffering is checked.
Catalyst AI is set to Advanced.
Crossfire is enabled.​

My observations and FPS:

Gameplay seemed smooth to me - although there's still server lag. (Eg, very slight and occasional rubberbanding and walking into areas it sometimes takes a few seconds for NPC's to appear on-screen).

There was also some screen tearing during the opening (rendered) cinematic but the in-game cutscenes were all fine.

Edit: Alt+tabbing out of fullscreen will still crash your client back to the desktop...

I must have done something wrong to measure FPS with RadeonPro because it showed an unwavering 240 during the opening cinematic and was locked at 999 during the short playtest I ran. Thoughts?​

GPU-Z:

Log files are attached below for analysis. I had them running for the entire short test I ran - about a minute of the opening cinematic (the one from the main menu before you create/select a character). Then, for another minute or so running from the fisherman's guild in Limsa Lominsa to Camp Bearded Rock. I'm not sure if this period is indicative enough so let me know if you need me to run it longer and I can upload again.​

 

Yeah i'd love to see the log files Too bad you forgot them hihi

And yeah, ALT-Tab crashes the game, was already in beta like that, there is a windower around, but not sure if it uses CrossFire Support.

Yep the period would be indicative enough, but also too bad the fps counter did not work properly, does fraps work now with FFXIV, didn't in the beta?

 

Guys, me and a friend have had a total opposite ( bad) experience for the first 2 days, especially the 2nd (23rd sept).

To start off, i am on Mx17R2, specs in sig, and i am on the latest Dell driver/Vbios/Bios.

I'd like to first just say, im a huge advocate and fan of the FF series and i have played FFXI previously, so this is by no means bashing the game, however sharing my bad experience for those who are still holding off the game, may be in your interest to wait it out for a while atleast until the following issues hopefully clear up.

I've been really looking forward to FFXIV, but so far unfortunately i'm quite dissappointed, Open beta was actually much smoother for me.
Having said that, I am in Gysahl server which is more crowded and congested than several other servers from what i recall when i first joined up. So there is a major lag happening there, i suppose somewhat expected but it really is killing the experience totally.

I have tried FRAPS, im no expert at it, but i think it's clear enough to see its recording an average score of 10 throughout the gameplay and this is out in the wilds where it's not as bad as in city. This however does seem to be affected alot by the lag, because i tried bumping graphics settings up and down, windowed mode, full screen mode, low res/high res, same result, same experience even with CrossFire enabled in CCC(seems to me there is no support for it). But so, yeah the server is horrible. Do let me know if i am misunderstanding the tool or need to try something different.

They do have a maintenance scheduled for today, so i will be checking it after that and i can let you guys know how it goes.

Moving on though, i have noticed many issues lag and bug related, to give you an idea:

• Quite often, i find i can't claim a mob even though it's standing right there unclaimed, and at times i cant engage even when it's engaged by my own party, giving me a message saying i can't engage for some reason.
• Chat log & Menu - Still is laggy, it may have improved a bit when i tried it first day, i suppose the increased lag on 2nd day made it much worse.
• Mob difficulty status (color by their name) does not always show up, so at times you have no clue what you're going up against.
• Levequest mobs at times don't have the leve symbol on top of them to indicate they're leve mobs which makes it that much more confusing.
• Also levequest mobs at some stage, i think 1st day were showing as an orange color instead of red which added more to the confusion, though on the 2nd day i think it may have been fixed.
• The land is vast which is great, but the mobs are a few and there are too many people claiming them (esp in the initial camps) making it real hard to be able to exp on anything.
• Lag is so horrible, i often find the whole battle finished before it started. Can't easily engage in time and battle system is quite unresponsive as a result of the lag.
• I'm still having to tab my way through to a mob which is extremely frustrating, unless if there a command i am unaware of, i'll have to check that.
• Initiating/finishing a leve can at times take few minutes.. (at times i'd have to /sit to wait it out)
• The rank up system is still a bit funny to me, seems to be quite random and kinda annoying, you can get through couple of mobs without much skill ups, at other times it would be randomly high. I can't quite see a pattern. Also real tough mobs outside of leves give crap all exp.

Having said all this, I think this game has ALOT of potential and can easily surpass it's predecessor. The graphics/visuals are stunning, the map is massive with lots to explore and adventure, the soundtrack/themes are great, the battle system is more fun and interactive. I just hope its the shock of the intial stages of release/load. I did hear from bunch of people that FFXI and WoW in their initial stages where horrible if not worse. Things Will clear up with time, hopefully they do a good job of polishing it up because as it stands now it was almost unbearable for me.

Grim, if you wanted me to try anything in specific, send me clear instructions and can do so.

Peace.

 

wow, great post Gennosuke I am experiencing all the same problems and feel like playing really badly but its just unbearable at times I just logged out right now because the server is so slow to play and the UI is also very slow, I could have waited a week for this but I purchased the CE edition because i was hoping the bugs from the beta would be gone, and a broken crossfire profile, should have waited

 

Apologies! I tried uploading them directly in the forum via "Manage Attachments" and it looked like they attached successfully...

FRAPS works although the results were somewhat underwhelming:

Opening cinematic: Steady 30FPS
Limsa Lominsa: 20-26
Camp Bearded Rock: 18-22​

GPU-Z sensor logs, take 2: Rapidshare download link

Agree with Gennosuke's observations but the live client has been a smoother experience for me graphically.

The biggest issue for me is the server lag though - the "mob is already engaged message," swapping equipment sometimes forces me to wait anything from several seconds to a minute before my character model reappears with the new equipment on and walking into areas that stay empty for a while then all of a sudden NPC's and other characters appear.

I've never played Final Fantasy XI but compared to other online games I've played at launch, this has been very good.

 

Heya CUELLARM,
I know what you mean, kinda beats the purpose of an early start if it's not playable eh..

On the bright side though, you get the onion helm, and as fugly as it is, i think its a great item to have, reducing your death weakness time by 50% is a big difference, knocking it down from 3 mins to 1.5 min, very nice to have . I can see myself dying quite a bit esp. with no death penalties.. lol.

 

Thanks Gennosuke and Killiandros.

From what it looks like you still get low FPS and from what i observed from the GPU-Z logs, both the cards are still not scaling completly and we still might have to wait for a proper driver, i hope 10.10 will fix this, you can see it from the GPU-Load.

Why such low fps, why not 100% scaling... The game would definetly run so much better... I'm looking forward for now and hope ATI or Dell can provide a solution for this soon.

Killi, if you can post these issues into the 8.763 Driver thread that's stickied in the M17x forum, just click edit, copy paste i guess, it would be atleast "noticed" by Dell i guess and they can try to sort out that issue, if possible, or let ATI know, but i'm sure they are aware of that problem.

 

With their minimal servers and population per server quota I expect the same things to happen as they did in FFXI. Most, if not all, the problems you are experiencing are really due to server load. SE is purposely doing this as they are doing it in FFXI, for game balance as they want to believe. It's very unfortunate they skimp on servers as the lesson should have been learn years and years ago, if not their own game then others like WOW. FFXIV is like a updated FFXI, to me, and yet the most important factors like servers, balance, items are severely lacking.

I highly doubt they have enough time between beta and release to actually address many of the issues found let alone balance the jobs. There's a interview in Game Informer magazine if you guys are interested.

I would wait for patches and fixes but I like to registered the names I want before they are taken

 

yes it is haha, i see everyone strolling around with them on lol. I haven't even used my voucher yet for the onion helm, ill check it out today. yeah I played last night died and was wondering what was going on my character was just laying there.....return option . But im still very excited about the game and they did some maintenance last night so ill log in right now check it out, but hit me up if your on the besaid server my name is Kohokz Jur

 

It's a bit strange actually, my friend seems to report better performance on his end and im sure neither his pc nor his connection are any better and he is getting the same ping/latency, this leads to me believe it may partially have to with my game settings, perhaps network related, upnp? not sure.

As for registering names, to be honest, this was an issue back in FFXI, but not so much in FFXIV simply because now you need to have first and last name, and the chances of someone taking both names is pretty slim unless if you're going for some celeb name or somethin
there's endless combinations you can have between first and last. so i Twouldn't worry too much about that.

 

yeah, just keep in mind, you will need to have the item registered prior to creating your char, so if you have already created a char, i suggest you stop now before progressing with him any further, delete the char, register item and recreate the char afterwards, you'll have it ingame.
Also if you have FFXIII, that also grants you another item, as well played who are still on FFXI get a different item too.

That sounds good, though unfortunately im on gysahl! That seems to be the oceanic server, hence me choosing it (being in NZ). My name is Gennosuke Kouga.

Though as an update, i have installed the latest update on FFXIV and logged in last night, still going horrible for me. At this stage, sadly i think i have no interest logging in and playing anymore with the current performance. Too agonizing.
Instead im just gonna try fiddling around with settings and see if it gets me anywhere.. Hoping for a patch real soon.

 

yes played this morning and it was running alot better than before, but we do need a patch and a proper crossfire profile or a driver that supports this game.

 

Comfort, the HD5870 users are right behind with the same scaling issues.

I tried 10.9a once and they scaled way better, nice gpu load on both cards around 95%, and high temps, but after like 5 minutes, performance dropped by 50% and the cards cooled down again and performance was staggering. Don't know if that would be also a thermal throttling issue.

It's cool though from what info i got so far, i think i'll join the party nonetheless next week, looks like it's still better than the beta, thanks guys

 

Join the party might be a good idea.

 

Ok i think there is something horribly wrong going for me. I am getting 5 FPS now.
I asked others who are running on lower specs machines and they are getting anywhere from 20-40 FPS. This is hugely dissappointing..

Is it is just me or anyone else experiencing this?

I am really annoyed with this. At the moment, im not sure what to think anymore, is this is Machine related, network related, settings related.

I have bumped all the graphics down, to no avail.
Have fiddled with all the network related settings/firewall/apps/firmware, to no avail.

Can others please share their experience and any suggestions if possible?
Thanks..

 

running the FFXIV benchmark now gave me 690 score on low -.-

Anyway, after doing a complete shut down and start up seems to have mostly fixed it.. FPS jumped up from 5 to about 15 - 20 in town. and i suspect itll be higher outside, not quite what i was hoping for but thats somewhat expected.

Doing benchmark now however gave me a score of 2600 as opposed to 3200 when i did the benchmark 1-2 months ago.

So something not quite right there either.

 

have you played lately, the gameplay has been improved with the servers, if you play on odd times its really awesome but if thats if it fits your schedule, so far really enjoying the game gonna tweak my settings today see if my system can hold up.

 

For those interested in testing FFXIV with the latest ATI 10.9a driver, you might want to take a peek into this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-ati-10-9-catalyst-drivers-5.html#post6743860

I'm gonna join wednesday. On which servers are you guys, i have not decided yet where to go

I would glady receive tips, settings and feedback with these drivers, so i can brace myself ^^

 

Thanks Grimfan, I will try to get them installed when i get a chance and post back my experience. I think we need to keep trying w/e to get it to a satisfactory state, atm other players with lower desktop specs are getting up to double what i'm on (20 - 40 FPS) which is rather dissappointing.
Also Crossfire isn't quite there yet although i heard some managed to get it going, will be checking it soon.

Good to hear your jumping aboard! I'm on Gysahl server, if you and anyone else join there, give me a buzz/add me to friend list, we can get rolling! =)
Name is Gennosuke Kouga

Peace!

 

Yep Cuellarm, it seems to have improved a bit, The UI lag has improved which is good but it still has quite a way to go i reckon. Also the inventory is a bit laggy still, but it does seem like it's improving overall, it is becoming more enjoyable for sure so that's cool.
I think i do kinda play on the odd times being on the Oceanic timezone.

how's your FPS going ingame? Done an FFXIV benchmark lately?
Would be good to know what's to be expected for all of us here.

Actually we should probably have a new thread since the open beta is over. and post our experiences and benchmarks there.

 

^That would be great