(Please Help) G73 on Final Fantasy XIV

Hello guys...

i need some help. i plan to buy Asus G73. and i will use it to play only 1 game. that is a MMORPG from Square Enix, Final Fantasy XIV.

the problem is, i'm having difficulties to choose, should i buy the standard version of G73 (using i7-720Q) or should i upgrade it (using i7-920XM).

i have search on the internet everywhere for about a week. there are plenty people who post their score using standard G73 i7-720 on FFXIV Benchmark. It reachs 2000-ish on High Quality (1080p) and 3500-ish on Low Quality (720p).

Can any of you (Mandrake perhaps... ^^) who own G73 with custom i7, be kind enough to help me, benchmark your customized G73 using FFXIV Benchmark on both Low and High Quality?

The download link for the benchmark is: FINAL FANTASY XIV Official Benchmark
www.finalfantasyxiv.com/media/benchmark/na/

This will help me A LOT on deciding which one to buy...because it is definitely not cheap.

FYI, FFXIV depends highly on both CPU and GPU...that's why i'm curious, how much better can i7-920 score compared to the standard i7-720.


Many-many thanks!

 

I would be very cautious mate. FFXIV needs 10.7 to run the benchmark properly. Problem is 10.7 is very unstable on a lot of peoples G73JH. I'm not sure if I would risk it, for any other game I would say go ahead.

 

That cpu upgrade wont give you any worthy boost
Your GPU is the bottleneck for FFXIV, a better CPU would have helped though if you had better GPU

In short don't waste your money, for solo play you will be fine on 1080p but when you want to do big events with many players involved you better off switching to lower resolution.

For the money you want to waste for that CPU upgrade (1000$) you can build a desktop that can tear FFXIV apart

If you get the extra money to waste get G73 for portable gaming (or even the upcoming smaller G53) and get a desktop for full graphic ff14 when you are home

a laptop will never play FF14 with max settings/1080p it just demand a lot of power.

And having a spare system to play ff14 just in case would be nice lol

 

thx...

actually, i need a laptop, not a desktop. because of my job condition right now hahaha... i'm using a macbook pro unibody right now (with 9600M GT). FYI, this macbook pro got only 914 score on Low Quality FFXIV Benchmark. but still manage to play the game (Beta Version), 720p, while being lag a bit.

i plan to sell this apple, and exchange it with G73. that's why i'm really scared wether G73 can perform well in 1080p FFXIV or not...i mean, it's a lot of money for me. lol

i find it strage though, that this G73 can easily run any hi-end game right now with its highest setting, but still cant perform well to run FFXIV in 1080. really really confused...does this mean FFXIV is THE HIGHEST demanding game right now? kick Crysis' ? ^^

 

Keep in mind that the ffxiv benchmark isn't optimized, your score is on the 'cautious' side of things... many top notch desktop computers have gotten lackluster scores.

It's funny, I'm in the EXACT same situation as you... I sold my macbook pro with the same video card for this laptop... no regrets. I personally think that it will be able to run the game at 1080p with half or the majority of the settings on high, but we'll see. If you do get the G73, can you please post your results, since you're in the XIV beta? I'm very curious about how it does perform.

 

FFXIV runs fine on 10.6

It does 1080p fairly well if you set shadows to the lowest with no AO and no DoF, as well as the in-game options except for long distance drawing.

 

I'm currently downloading the benchmark. I'll try on my G73 tonight [BIOS 209, 10.7 Catalyst, GPU @ 705/1100]

 

if i decide to buy G73, i will buy it close to the release date.

as for now... MacBook Pro Unibody (C2D 2.5GHz, 9600GT, 4GB DDR3) can run the game. While on the official score list by Square Enix, it's said that any system below 1500 wont be able to play the game. Mine with 914 score can still play it...

i'm using 720p, with DoF and AO off, BUT with all in-game effect on (dust, shadow, etc). when i use Fraps, the average fps is 20-ish.

i hope...G73 with 2000-ish score on 1080p can later really play FFXIV in 1080p with DoF+AO on and at least with average 30-ish fps. LOL

or maybe... if it wont, will the game runs much smoother if i downgrade the resolution to 1680x1050? ^^

 

1600x900 FTW! Preserve that HD aspect ratio!

 

dude...u from Jakarta? hahaha...me from Surabaya.
looking forward hearing form u...thx.

if u can, pls test it on both LOW and HIGH quality benchmark, knowing that u're using newst ati catalyst right now.

 

Here's my high and low resolution runs on a G73JH, Catalyst 10.7 driver.

Also did a high res loop almost 2 hours....no problem and scores about the same as single loop.

 

found another Indonesian here

To me, 10.7 is just stable. Last weekend, I finished Modern Warfare 2 with 'comfortable'. Tried other games too, such as Bad Company 2, the SIMS 3, Sniper, and some other games, and it's just run smooth and fine

Will post another after running the benchmark tonight

 

hi iman....did u run the FFXIV benchmark qith 10.7 driver? ^^
can u pls tell me the score on both LOW and HIGH quality?

Thx.

 

Hi, whats your e-mail ? I can give you suggestions about G73 if you want to play FFXIV on it.

 

email is on your pm, ^^
thx.

 

Yes I did. Sorry, I was too busy that night and I had my weekend on Anyer Beach.

Here's the score:
Low Res @ 3305 (Amazing FPS at 80+ FPS using FRAPS) This should be higher when FRAPS is not enabled



High Res @ 2087 (Around 40-50 FPS, fall to about 30 when alot of objects drawn)



Using Lalafell (Male) when benchmarking. No specific reason, just found that he's cute

Conclusion: You can play FFXIV comfortably using G73 -- If you dont have GSOD, ofcourse

 

Hi mcvc, Why don't you just post your suggestions so that any others will know about it rather than email it just to one person?

 

hi iman, thanks for sharing..

i kinda curious...why among all ppl that use the exact same laptop with exact same hardware, can get a 300-500 score different? i meant, yes, ppl might use a different drivers. but i still dont think it will differ that much.

iman, do u also have the same problem, about keyboard being laggy, GSOD, backlighting problem, noise problem, etc?

thx.

 

The reason why the score can differ so much is mainly because of how much certain people overclock their computers. Since G73 users usually need to have 10.6 at least to run the XIV benchmark, differing drivers probably isn't the reason.

I know when I run 800/1100 instead of 700 or 705/1100 I see a difference of about 200 in score.

 

FFXIV benchmark (and/or the Beta Version) can't be played on G73 ATI stock driver? OMG...

 

I also bought the g73 basically for ff14. For me the benchmark will not run at all on anything less then 10.7. When I upgraded the drivers and tried to run it on 10.7 it ran but GSOD within 5 minutes or so. After overclocking my GPU to 705/1100 I can run the benchmark on both high and low rez with no GSOD. I get similar scores to what were posted on this thread. What scares me is that this bench mark is only 10 minutes long. To play an MMO effectively there must be no GSOD at any point. If this thing is ganna crap out after 1-2 hours of play then its just no good in my opinion.

 

Nope. That's what has a lot of people upset, especially since some are buying it because of XIV. Who knows, someone might be able to run it on stock drivers. But the -overwhelming- majority can't.

And vismal, someone over at FFXIV core ran the benchmark looped for about 4 hours with no GSOD. I think we'll be okay, but you probably will get the odd GSOD every so often (maybe only every couple of days, if we're lucky), as long as the Asus vBios isn't updated. :/

 

If you use the OC settings, you should be ok.

 

I also bought my G73JH to play FFXIV on, just waiting for driver upgrade -_-

So far for the overclocking method I have had best luck with 10.6 drivers, haven't tired the 10.5. 10.7 will gsod half way through the run any clock settings

 

Just a helpful tip for the G73 FFXIV benchmarkers:

There are 2 virtualization options in BIOS. Disabling them gives a decent bump in performance [enough to effect benchmark scores by 100-200. using compatibility mode to turn off aero and desktop composition helps as well.

With turbo on I've gotten 3600-3700s on low, mid 2100s on high @ 98c hottest [via HWmon].

If you're having issues running the benchmark, MAKE SURE you've downloaded DirectX 9.0c. Having perused many an XIV forum, this is the most common reason for inability to run the benchmark.

 

I missed the driver notes where ATI cards are incapable of running the benchmark on anything but 10.7. Can you provide your source please?

 

I'm not sure that it's ATI cards, but the G73 itself has issues running the benchmark on stock drivers. I don't have a source other than my own experience and just about everyone (there have been a few who said it did run) that I know that has run the benchmark.

I know that doesn't sound like much of a source but it's all I can give you- if you don't believe me feel free to do a bit of research yourself.

 

Hey mindinversion which specific BIOS virtualization options are you recommending be disabled?

 

Just ran 5 benchmarks:

Stock Clocks I was getting 2020-2030 score, GPU temps got u to 90* after 4 looped runs. CPU's were hitting 70*.

5th run I did Twin Turbo and OC'd the GPU to 800/1100. Scored a 2250 and max temps only went up 1*.

All runs were done with 10.7a and on the 1080p resolution, didnt bother with the 720p. I've also never had a G/B/PSOD on my machine which I've had since Feb 9th so I'm one of the few with luck there. Not really up to experimenting with other drivers.

 

FYI, I overclock the GPU to 705/1100, 5 MHz for the GPU itself and 100 MHz for the Memory since it solves the GSOD problem. (Others could be lower or higher) Maybe due to that overclock, some will have higher score than the others.

about drivers, believe me, it could differ performance since ATI HAS PROBLEM with their driver since long time ago

Here's the answer to your questions:

1. laggy keyboard was solved by upgrading BIOS to 209
2. GSOD was solved by overclocking your GPU
3. backlighting problem? no, but you have to install app to use keyboadr backlight
4. noise problem? no, but now I have problem Creative doesn't recognize the Audio Hardware after I uninstall all of Creative's couple months ago
5. Else: perfect

I mostly use this rig for development [well, gaming for a while ]. I need the multithreading capability and the processor is excellent [at least to me]

 

If you overclock to 705/1100, Believe me, you will not have GSOD (personal experience). Once, I play games for about 6 hours (Modern Warfare2, Bad Company 2, The SIMS 3) and G73 just run fine and quite

 

My experience is the same as above. But I don't have inherent stability/GSOD issues to begin with, so I'm usually free to OC just a little bit more. I've been doing 800/1100 and 820/1100 with good results- at 820/1100 my score was in the 2300s.

 

sorry for the delayed reply
In advanced tab, disable intel virtualization technology and VT-d.

 

Thanks mindinversion. After booting into the BIOS I realized it was self evident which settings you were talking about. I have been gaming with these two features off now for the last week or so. No performance gains for me though...

Does anyone know if these features are even useful on a Home Premium copy of Windows 7? I thought all the XP virtualization components were only included in Win7 Professional.

 

I suppose they would be if you're running a virtualbox [there are several other VMware clients that aren't Windows XP mode]

 

Got it, thanks!