how about my PC stats?

[Egg_Shen]

1500+ XP athlon
512MB 266mhz DDR RAM
60gig 7200rpm HD
Geforce 2 400 MX *** crappy vid card
1700-1800 low res benchmark 141 3dMark2003

is this enough to run the game at meduim graphics level?

would just upgrading the vid card be a big increase in performace? for example

1500+ XP athlon
512MB 266mhz DDR RAM
60gig 7200rpm HD
9600XT vid card *****upgrade

any advise?:handsdown

[Tukka]

Yeah, you want to get a new graphics card.

My system was the same as yours, except I had/have a Athlon XP 1700+, and a GeForce3 Ti200. I upgraded to a RADEON 9700 Pro and saw a huge leap in performance.

I could play okay with the graphics card, but if I was playing in a crowded area, it was definitely hindering of my performance from the choppiness. This game's user interface can feel unresponsive even when you have good frame rates... when you start to get just a little bit of graphics lag, it can become so frustrating you may want to pull your hair out. I was also playing at middle resolution, which, in my opinion, makes the game look horrible... the aliasing (or "jaggies") are everywhere and makes it look like everything is vibrating/jiggling. Just looks terrible.

After I upgraded, I could bump up the resolution which made for a vast improvement in the game's appearance (there is still some aliasing, but not nearly as prevalent or annoying), plus the frame rates were much better... it takes a very crowded area as opposed to a slightly crowded area for my frame rates to suffer much now. Also, under my old system, I had to turn off weather effects like rain and sandstorms, ect. because that would absolute kill the game's performance... with the RADEON, weather does not seem to make any discernable impact on frame rates.

You can download Vana'Diel Bench 2 here (http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/benchmark.html) to get an idea of how your system will perform.

Here are my results from benchmarking the game before and after the upgrades:

Before
Low Res Score: 2369
High Res Score: 1571

After:
Low Res: Haven't tested yet
High Res Score: 3542

So yeah, it'll be worth it for you to make that upgrade.

Edit:

The above numbers came from the benchmark I ran right before and after I upgraded, and recorded.

I decided to run the low res benchmark to see what it was, but was surprised to find that it was lower than the high res score. I ran the high res test again and it scored around 3000.

Turns out the latest ATI drivers don't seem to be the best performance-wise for FF11. I rolled back from the 3/15/2004 drivers to the ones released on 2/9/2004 and I benchmarked the following numbers:

Low Res Score: 4323
High Res Score: 4004

However, in the low res test the image quality was noticably worse under the older drivers. In the high res test, I didn't notice a difference in quality between the two sets of drivers.

[Sk0pe]

I have the same graphics card. Don't hate! :p

Still works well for having built it 4 years ago!

[Moses1]

Originally posted by Egg_Shen
1500+ XP athlon
512MB 266mhz DDR RAM
60gig 7200rpm HD
Geforce 2 400 MX *** crappy vid card
1700-1800 low res benchmark 141 3dMark2003

is this enough to run the game at meduim graphics level?

would just upgrading the vid card be a big increase in performace? for example

1500+ XP athlon
512MB 266mhz DDR RAM
60gig 7200rpm HD
9600XT vid card *****upgrade

any advise?:handsdown

Is it PCI or AGP?

[Sk0pe]

AGP will give you best results!

[Moses1]

Originally posted by Sk0pe
AGP will give you best results!



I cant use AGP:(

[Sk0pe]

Did you fry that part of the mobo or wha?

[Egg_Shen]

Originally posted by Sk0pe
I have the same graphics card. Don't hate! :p

Still works well for having built it 4 years ago! are you taking about the geforce 2 400 MX? you are using it for FF-XI? how does it run?

[frisbee]

My processor isn't even up to the requirement. I have a P3 733, and I have a Geforce FX 5200 regular

I also am running Dialup. But I do have 512 MB of Ram which helps some.

But the point is, my gaming experience is usually pretty good.

Some spots in Qufim (where 40 people are fighting worms) and at the entrance of the Jungle outside of Kazham it is laggy for me, but most of the rest of the game is pretty excellent.

Oh, and my score wasn't even a 1700 on the Test. But, then again some people have higher standards than me, but for me it's fine.

[Sk0pe]

My score on the original benchmark was 1800! WOOHOO!

It runs very nice until I hit the Auction House or an area with a lot of PCs battling.

I have weather effects off, medium-low sky resolution, normal tree animation [or whatever that option is] and my resolution is 1024x----.

It's been a while since I've changed the settings, as you can tell - I'm happy with how it performs.

This is on a system with the following:
1.01 ghz AMD Athlon with graphite mod
233 mhz FSB [?]
512 MB PC 2100 RAM
64 MB GeForce 2 MX 400

[Dux]

I had a nVidiea 5200 and I had everything on full detail and once I turned the weather off only a small amount of slow down was noticed in busy areas or large explosiosn going off.

Whilst your graphics card does make an impact on gameplay, I find that the 9800 Pro I have is not 200 UK Pounds better than the 40 pounds graphics card that came with my PC.

Yes the 9800 Pro is better (and it should have been the amount it cost) but even a 128Mb nVidia 5200 was more than adequate to play the game with 99.99% of the time so don't get sucked into the "Must Have The Best Graphics Card Ever" trap.

[Egg_Shen]

NEW BENCHMARKS

hey guys I have an update

Nvidia drivers 56.64

1673 L 845 H:(



Nvidia drivers 45.23 <-- old drivers work way better!!!

2081 L 1260 H:)