FFXIV Performance

[airesso]

Old Config
AMD Phenom II x4 OC to 3.35GHZ
GTS 250
8GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Slow 1.5TB Drive
I ran the benchmark with my old config and scored a 1500 low, just barely the bare minimum. So I decided to upgrade to a GTX 470. With the GTX my score climbed to ~2100.

I couldn't figure out what was holding me back so I got a SSD and OC'd the GTX quite a bit and only got to ~2300.

When I run the tests with afterburner open I notice that my video card utilization is around 35% with peaks as high as %60. My cpu is about 85% with peaks hitting 100% on all 4 cores. Any suggestion on how to improve my performance?

Current config
AMD Phenom II x4 OC to 3.35GHZ
GTX 470 OC's to 780
8GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
40GB Intel SSD

 

[jerreece]

Your numbers suggest the CPU has become a limiting factor and may be slowing down data transfer to the GPU itself. Never played FFXIV myself (nor any of the older FF games). Apparently it's multi-core aware and CPU intensive.

What resolution do you play at? Gaming at a higher resolution may actually have some benefit, as the CPU workload doesn't really change. So your GPU would actually be used more if your resolution was higher. *shrug*

 

[airesso]

What resolution do you play at? Gaming at a higher resolution may actually have some benefit, as the CPU workload doesn't really change. So your GPU would actually be used more if your resolution was higher. *shrug*

I tend to max out my resolution which is only 1600x900 so nothing too crazy. I kind had a feeling so I'm going to try picking up a hexa-core AMD in the next day or so and see if that has a decent performance gain.

 

[airesso]

what is your actual in game FPS? I can't understand how your original rig could not give you solid in game FPS

With no AA, 2/3rd window buffer size, textures shading on low and shadow quality on low I'd get about 15-25fps with dips as low as 5fps and as high as 45 if I stared at a wall. With the GTX I get about 25-30fps, but still have dips of 10fps when I'm running. Much better if I'm staying in an area.

 

[airesso]

Well I think I have another idea. It looks like my PSU is severely under rated. We're talking 12v@17a and 12v@20a rails, so with the card pulling at least 30 amps it's under powered, or I connect it to both rails (since it has 2 6-pin connectors) and I leave the rest of the components with 0-6amps to work with.

I'll post my results when I get my new PSU.

 

[Petey1013]

Game is super demanding, graphically really nice. Can you OC your proc anymore? It's pretty CPU intensive, loves i5/i7s

 

[airesso]

Game is super demanding, graphically really nice. Can you OC your proc anymore? It's pretty CPU intensive, loves i5/i7s

Looks like it was the power supply! Tossed in the new power supply (single 12v rail 54a) and ran the benchmark again. This was with my CPU oc'd to 3.9ghz and my GTX overclocked slightly. Scored a 4763, quite an improvement.

Oh also, this is with a hexa core. My score was only like a 3100 with the x6 3.2ghz before the PSU switch, and overclocking anything caused it to drop down to ~2100 because of a lack of power.

Also I found out my case has some awesome HDD lights rigged up on the front of it. Apparently they never had enough power to light up brightly enough to make me take notice!

 

[Petey1013]

Damn, glad you got it all figured out! Definitely a jump in score.

Just goes to show you how important a good PSU is. Now, get a good cooler if you don't have one already and OC the hell out of that CPU and watch your score climb!

 

[airesso]

Damn, glad you got it all figured out! Definitely a jump in score.

Just goes to show you how important a good PSU is. Now, get a good cooler if you don't have one already and OC the hell out of that CPU and watch your score climb!

Yeah I've been trying. I'm able to get it from 3.2 to 3.9 pretty stable, but its at 1.475 volts. Not sure if I want to push that 1.5volt line to get it up to 4.0. Still I'm impressed with the 1090t

 

[deweycd]

Congrats on the improvements.