FFXIV Beta

Hey,

I was wondering if anyone has tried running FFXIV Beta on the stock drivers and bios?? I know that the benchmark does not work until you update to 10.6/10.7 and play with the clocks, but i was curious as to whether the actual game, or Beta, would run on stock. Has anyone tried??

 

I just got into the beta yesterday and sadly no, it doesn't run on stock drivers. It runs fine for me on 10.7a though- get 25-30 fps (drops a bit in cities) with medium-high settings and 2x AA, no Ambient Occlusion.

Knowing how... individual the G73s can be, I can't say that no one can run it on stock drivers, but yeah... I can't.

Edit: Actually, after another run through and outside of the city, it seems my FPS is at about 35-40 (goes up to 50 when absolutely no one is around). That makes me think that if they solve the user-wide congestion issue in cities, we might be able to bump the Texture settings up to high with 30 fps.

 

I got Score 2052 under 1080p and Score 3473 under 720p, GPU hit 87C max, with 10.7 ATI driver.

 

Does it play smoothly on 30 fps?

 

Outside of cities and with under 15 players nearby, yes. Very smoothly.

When you go inside cities or more players are around, it can stutter a bit. I think this is more of a general beta issue than a hardware issue (especially with cities, not many don't lose framerate/stutter) though.

 

I wouldn't really go by what the benchmark says, many beta testers have confirmed that it's pretty useless for determining whether frame rates are playable in the areas they have available. Unless every single area is massively more complex than the one's they're playing in now, you'll be able to turn the candy on a 5870 fairly high. That's even before Drivers have had a chance to do some optimizing for the game, and as suggested, some of the issues with the game itself are resolved.

just like XI, Jueno was chopping whether you had a 9400M or SLI 280S lol..

 

That's definitely true. I have all of the optional settings on, other than AO and DoF, though turning Distant Land off helps a bit with the stuttering (it doesn't go away completely though). I like the way it looks so I keep DL on. I think Depth of Field makes the game look like my character needs glasses, so I keep that off.

Now that I think about it, I think I have Vertical Sync forced in the CCC... don't have time to test now, but I'll see if turning it off helps, or if I actually need it. It might not even be having any effect in the first place.

 

if Metro 2033 is any indicator for those settings, I would find it unlikely we will be able to turn those on, not that they're *really* that big of a deal anyway however.

lol, exactly!

last I checked in on the news they removed the FPS cap, so please do try!

 

Can't wait for this game to shine on my g73

 

===Thread Jack===

who has the CE on preorder?

1) Lozz

 

Duh!

*-*-*-*

 

I do! Amazon is supposed to ship it to me on release day... since I pre-ordered in the middle of July I'm hoping that'll actually happen.

And it turns out I did not have v-sync enabled, but I did have my AA forced at 4x (for Borderlands). That might help frames or at least the stuttering a bit, we'll see. But since I had AA set at 2x in the FFXIV settings, it might have overridden those settings, meaning there'd be no difference.

I wouldn't expect anything like 60 fps without having settings at low, regardless. Side note: people on beta forums reported that they did cap it again during last night's update/fix, but it is at 60 fps now.

Also, keep in mind I'm using Overdrive and have it set at 800/1100 currently- sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier. I think I might bump it up slightly to 820, I'm not sure yet. My temps have been fine- 87 C, and that's without the repaste that I plan to do today.

 

I ordered from amazon too with release day arrival. We'll see, but I'm going to say they'll run out of stock before either of our orders are gotten to. I even pre-ordered in June.

it only does that when application settings box is checked, otherwise it forces your selected settings which is 4x in this case.

eww... hopefully that doesn't make a lot of difference, but at least it's a reasonable over clock.

still better than what XI is at ... 25 FTL =.=

 

And what did you do to get rid of GSOD's, do you still have them or never had?

 

The only two GSODs I've had were on the XIV benchmark, even with an overclock. I have run the benchmark for an hour and a half without a crash though. I use 10.7a drivers, by the way.

So far so good in terms of GSODs with the beta, although I haven't played too long. I can give more of an idea of if it is GSOD prone next week maybe, it's too soon to tell.

 

For those of us in the Beta... anyone experience random crashes due to 'could not detect a directx device' error? The game runs fine, and it's not a GSOD error or anything. The game just shuts down with the above error message.

 

probaly something to do with Directx 9 and windows 7. have you tried downloading DX9.0C from MS and installing it? Shouldn't have to, but it might help.

 

Yeah, I've tried that, but thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to report the error on the Beta test site, but I can't for the life of me work out how to post a message on there!!

 

I haven't gotten any crash yet in game, but sometimes after I logout, it gives me a "stopped working" error instead of going to the main menu.

 

What drivers are you using? I'm now updating mine 10.7, see if it helps at all.

Well, after updating the game is very unstable and crashed almost right away lol.

 

I use 10.7a, and have had no problems with any game. Like I said earlier in the thread, my two GSODs have been related to the XIV benchmark, and even then I was able to run it for an hour with no crash.

Settings update: Since I figured a lot of people would gain from it, I devoted at least an hour, maybe two, just to testing out various settings on the G73. It took so long because I had to keep going from the cities to the fields (to test stuttering and what the real/max fps is respectively). You also have to exit the game to change most of the settings. For the record, I have an A1 and kept Overdrive at 800/1100.

Disabling/enabling v-sync made no fps difference, probably since I use triple buffering with. For my machine at least, it was needed too- the opening sequence in particular had a lot of screen tearing. It is... relatively minimal in game, but you'll still notice it.

Definitely need at least 2x AA; with all of the foliage around Limsa having it off really doesn't look as great. Also saw a minimal fps difference between 0 and 2x AA (about 3 frames). Disabling AA did not fix the stuttering issue either.

Not a chance that AO will be enabled- took a huge hit.

I actually didn't see a huge frame rate difference between High and Normal texture quality. I tried various combinations, of texture quality (highest to lowest options) and texture filtering (highest to lowest options, but there is no normal/medium option for it) but to keep it short and simple the result is I set texture quality at High, along with texture filtering at High, and there isn't a discernible loss of framerate. There may be slightly more stuttering in cities with texture filtering at high instead of low, but I had a hard time being sure.

Also interesting was that at those settings, 1920x1080 and 1600x900 ran at the same fps, with absolutely no stuttering difference. I'm beginning to suspect the real thing holding the system back from max settings is the CPU- it seems to be a CPU intensive game.

Hm... I don't think I forgot anything. I hope that helps someone.

Vaant, how do my results compare to yours?

 

I have the best buy model so my screen only goes up to 1600x900, but like you said it probably doesn't make any differance.

I have my GPU clocked at 705/1100 (to stop GSODs) and haven't really messed with the ingame settings much. I keep AO off, DoF on. 2Xmsaa, shadow detail high, texture quality high, and texture filtering on high.

My FPS can go anywhere from 15 up to around 35, but outside Limsa it's usually hovering around 28-30. In really crowded areas, like in the city is the only time it noticably drops.

I don't see any options for v-sync though. And I honestly haven't noticed much, if any screen tearing. I might now try overclocking my GPU to 800/1100 like you have, but i'm kind of worried since my GPU already gets to 89 degrees at 705/1100

 

I'm not sure if I would try if your GPU already gets to 89, especially if you're satisfied now. Although you could always look into repasting haha.

Ah, gotcha. So pretty similar. I go up to 45-50 -sometimes- but that is explained by the OC and the fact I forgot to mess with shadows and had them at low. Oops.

I should note that although the fps drops, it still looks pretty smooth to me, unlike with other games. The stuttering (I know, I've said it a million times) is the biggest issue, which happens no matter what.

I forced v-sync through the CCC. If you do it, just enable triple buffering with it and it really shouldn't affect your fps.

What server are you on, out of curiosity?

 

I'm on Jecht, yourself?

And, now that you've mentioned it, i'm noticing a bit of screen tearing during cut scenes, not regular gameplay though. And I agree, the game plays pretty smooth even when the fps hit the teens. Hopefully at release the game will be more optimized and run better though.

I did try OC my GPU to 800/1100 and the game wouldn't even boot, would just go back to desktop after i chose my character. So i'm playing at 750/1100 and my temps haven't gotten any hotter and I didn't even get the DirectX error either in almost 2 hours of playtime! One other thing i disabled was the sound, in the off chance that could have been causing the error, so I have a bit more testing to do, probably tomorrow.

So, how do you like the game? I only just got into the Beta (nice employee at Gamestop gave me his code) so I'm completely new lol.

 

Really? I'm on Jecht too. Don't have a username to give you currently- about to delete my Highland Hyur and give in and make a lalafell. FFX is my favorite overall of the series, but Vivi is a great character and got me hooked on the little guys. I tried to resist, though.

Even on my Hyur I hadn't done much, since I've been running around trying to wrestle my IC Diamond 7 from usps most of the day and I just got the key from fileplanet yesterday. All I got to do was test the fps, so I've had loads of fun so far haha.

So I'm new too, no worries. I need more time to get a solid opinion on the beta, though I'm pretty impressed so far.

 

Yeah I love FFX! So I had to go with Jecht, of course I think the server name should be Seymour... but I guess Jecht sounds better LOL. Anyway, my in-game name is Vaant Silverhand. I won't be on until tomorrow afternoon (EST) but it would be great if we could meet and perhaps we could try learning how the game works/plays! I did used to play FFXI, but it's been awhile and XIV is so different, even if it looks and feels so similar.

 

ugh I hate you both! no beta key for me

 

Sorry Lozz. :X if nothing else, they confirmed open beta will come eventually. If I get a key from one of the german contests/FFXIVcore I promise to give it to you, since none of my friends seem interested.

And that sounds good Vaant, I'll try to see if I they have the friending system set up in beta. If not, I'll send you a pm tomorrow... I'm on the east coast US so that time works fine for me.

 

hehe, thanks for the considerating

 

I'm going to purchase a new laptop for ffxiv, can anyone tell me if this one will do well. Processor & Memory:

* Intel® Core™ i5-450M Processor (2.4GHz)
* 3MB cache
* 8GB DDR3 SDRAM

Drives:

* 640GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* Blu-Ray ROM / DVD±RW Combo Drive

Graphics & Video:

* 15.6" High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™
* 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD5470 Graphics

Communications:

* Dell Wireless 1501 802.11g/n
* Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
* Integrated 1.3MP Webcam

Audio:

* Integrated High Definition Audio 2.2

thank you so much

 

Sorta happened upon this page for the recommended PC requirements.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Recommended System Requirements

CPU and ram are fine, the 5470 however..is insufficient.
The requirements are
Windows XP/Vista/7
Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2GHz
2GB of RAM
15GB HDD space
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 512MB or ATI Radeon HD 2900 512MB and DirectX 9.


the 2900HD is a 320 stream GPU. It also has a 700mhz core clock and 42GB more ram bandwidth than a mobility 5870.
Granted FFXIV is still in beta, so the requirements may change between now and release date, but considering the graphic demand people are seeing just in this thread, I'm thinking it will probally not.

the equivilent mobile GPU would be something like a 5730, and even then it's probally not going to run it all that great. In all Honesty, if the PC requirements are to be taken for exactly what they currnelty are, anything below a mobility 5770 or 8800M GT is not going to run the game at an acceptable level, and even that's *really* pushing it. Those two cards are still going to be outperformed by the 2900HD and 9600GT bit a little bit.

 

If I got the best buy version of this computer to play XIV and also got an external monitor down the road to play it at 1080p that wouldn't have any degredation on the performance of the laptop, right?

 

You should be perfectly fine. There should be no hit on performance using hdmi or vga output.

 

That's what logic was telling me but since I've never owned a notebook I thought I should just make sure. Thanks~

 

there won't be, but there's absolutely no reason to pick the VGA output over the HDMI if you're buying a new external monitor. I'm not sure most are made with it acutally. I've no dea why they even put one on the M17x, even displays from 5 years ago have DVI ports.

 

++++Thread Jack Jack++++

We all know its all about Star Wars the Old Republic...

They just announced space combat will be Star Wars crossed with Starfox...

How do I give them all my money right now?

+++Thread returned+++

 

The Asus Forums... you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

We must be cautious...

 

Blizzard's design team moved in? Missed that one

 

I love how when I get into beta, the current build of the game has issues with any Nvidia card and runs at less then 30 fps with everything low, and I can't even play it on my laptop till 10.8 Drivers come out WEEE dang my luck...

Funny when you see 2 GTX 280s in SLI running at 100% GPU cause the games bugged and you get 30 fps with No AA and 15 with 2x AA...

 

There, fixed it for ya!

 

so it does run in SLI? that's a relief

 

You don't compare core clocks and memory bandwidth between different architectures of cards. Core clocks and memory bandwidth affect that current architecture and have diminishing returns(heat and power output). You would compare a 5870 vs 5850 because they are the same card besides different clocks and parts disabled(badly binned 5870 turn into 5850 to salvage costs)

A lot of times, newer architectures become more efficient and do more work per clock. They don't need to up the clocks while delivering better performance and saving on power and heat.