Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

[Gman]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Well, you've certainly got my number. I'm all about the 1337 PC gaming action, what with my sub-$400 year-old Dell Small Business laptop and my seven year old converted-to-media-PC box that I had to upgrade in order to keep FFXI from chugging. And as any true gamer knows, Ubuntu Linux is truly THE BEST operating system for all the latest and greatest games. I don't know why I even bother buying games on WiiWare, PSN, for Wii, PS2, PSP, older consoles, or why I'd ever want to get a 3DS. They all pale in comparison to the gaming power of my PC, which has an excellent library of games like


uh


well apparently I have some Kenta Cho games installed. Now that will keep you amused in an airport!

/stuffI'vecertainlymentionedinthepastcoupleweeks

Why would you say "or whatever it is that PS3 users do with their consoles" if you have one? You know what to do with it

---------- Post added at 08:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

If you're not going to read the subject matter, at least read the title of the thread.

I read both before posting. Anything else?

[Mhurron]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Not everyone wants to game on a PC

If you're not going to read the subject matter, at least read the title of the thread.

[Feba]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Not everyone wants to game on a PC

Well, you've certainly got my number. I'm all about the 1337 PC gaming action, what with my sub-$400 year-old Dell Small Business laptop and my seven year old converted-to-media-PC box that I had to upgrade in order to keep FFXI from chugging. And as any true gamer knows, Ubuntu Linux is truly THE BEST operating system for all the latest and greatest games. I don't know why I even bother buying games on WiiWare, PSN, for Wii, PS2, PSP, older consoles, or why I'd ever want to get a 3DS. They all pale in comparison to the gaming power of my PC, which has an excellent library of games like


uh


well apparently I have some Kenta Cho games installed. Now that will keep you amused in an airport!

/stuffI'vecertainlymentionedinthepastcoupleweeks

[DakAttack]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Even though it's a benchmark, it probably isn't the best tool to use to gauge how well your computer will play the game. So far the scores have varied wildly between people with similar computing power. I doubt SE would develop a game that could only run decently on a fraction of computers that are equipped well enough to handle it.

[Gman]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

That's just not true though. GTA4, for example, seems to be well under these specs, while looking better than the PS3 version.

We don't know what sort of requirements FF14 will have. They could well be above what you have. They could also be well under it, depending on how much SE wants to target people with less powerful computers, and how late into development they were planning for the 360 (or even if they still are).

If the specs are too high, then your rig would need upgrading; if the specs are lower, then your rig could be a waste of hundreds of dollars. I'd also remind people who want to buy a computer for FF14 that even if it's released by Holiday this year (not necessarily a given, considering problems with alpha and depending on how long they want to beta) you will almost certainly find that computers will continue their inevitable price drops thanks to Moore's Law. An FFXIV-capable computer could cost $800 today, but be $550 by the time you actually need it. And of course the Holiday season will bring sales; especially Black Friday.

I'm not going to knock the price effectiveness of buying a PC vs. a PS3-- chances are FFXIV will find things like windowing, teamspeak/vent, screenshots, and so on that just don't work the same if at all on a PS3 just as useful as they were in FFXI. But if you absolutely have to play FFXIV right out of the gate, get the PS3 now, and buy a PC later on when the system specs are well understood, the various hardware bugs are well known (hi2u FFXI nVidia fuckups), and there are actually guides to window to and endgame guilds to VOIP on. They're not FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE etc. anymore; you can pick up a new PS3 for $300. In the above scenario, $300 for a PS3 you KNOW can play FFXIV, and then later getting a PC to replace it for $500 adds up to the same $800 cost; except the PC is a sure thing now, and suddenly you have a PS3 that you can use to play other games, Blu-Ray Disks, cure cancer, play with adult toys on camera, or whatever it is that PS3 users do with their consoles. For bonus points, you can buy one used from a store (amazon, gamestop, local stores all good bets) or off Craigslist/eBay and save even more money. Insert joke about TGM having a warehouse of PS3 hardware revisions here. But it's way too premature to be buying a PC for FF14 yet.

You come off as a bit condescending towards console owners. Not everyone wants to game on a PC- I know its hard to believe. Your advice is sound though- no point in building a PC NOW to play FFXIV in Q4, especially when we don't know the official specs.

[Feba]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Thank you, Feba. That's the kind of constructive criticism I would've like to have seen in the second post.

I'm not here to provide criticism, I'm here to provide advice, and that was in the second post in ample quantity. I didn't explain each and every little reason, but it's the same message: It's too early to buy a PC purely for FF14. Be patient.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Thank you, Feba. That's the kind of constructive criticism I would've like to have seen in the second post.

[Feba]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

That's just not true though. GTA4, for example, seems to be well under these specs, while looking better than the PS3 version.

We don't know what sort of requirements FF14 will have. They could well be above what you have. They could also be well under it, depending on how much SE wants to target people with less powerful computers, and how late into development they were planning for the 360 (or even if they still are).

If the specs are too high, then your rig would need upgrading; if the specs are lower, then your rig could be a waste of hundreds of dollars. I'd also remind people who want to buy a computer for FF14 that even if it's released by Holiday this year (not necessarily a given, considering problems with alpha and depending on how long they want to beta) you will almost certainly find that computers will continue their inevitable price drops thanks to Moore's Law. An FFXIV-capable computer could cost $800 today, but be $550 by the time you actually need it. And of course the Holiday season will bring sales; especially Black Friday.

I'm not going to knock the price effectiveness of buying a PC vs. a PS3-- chances are FFXIV will find things like windowing, teamspeak/vent, screenshots, and so on that just don't work the same if at all on a PS3 just as useful as they were in FFXI. But if you absolutely have to play FFXIV right out of the gate, get the PS3 now, and buy a PC later on when the system specs are well understood, the various hardware bugs are well known (hi2u FFXI nVidia fuckups), and there are actually guides to window to and endgame guilds to VOIP on. They're not FIVE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE etc. anymore; you can pick up a new PS3 for $300. In the above scenario, $300 for a PS3 you KNOW can play FFXIV, and then later getting a PC to replace it for $500 adds up to the same $800 cost; except the PC is a sure thing now, and suddenly you have a PS3 that you can use to play other games, Blu-Ray Disks, cure cancer, play with adult toys on camera, or whatever it is that PS3 users do with their consoles. For bonus points, you can buy one used from a store (amazon, gamestop, local stores all good bets) or off Craigslist/eBay and save even more money. Insert joke about TGM having a warehouse of PS3 hardware revisions here. But it's way too premature to be buying a PC for FF14 yet.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

I can always count on you to give constructive criticism. Then what I'll change it to is:

"Making a rig that will play FFXIV at a decent resolution without completely sucking. I'm using the specs of the PS3 as a reference point, but a PC will need to be rated higher because a console's architecture is made specifically for gaming."

[Feba]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

so what I'm attempting to do is to create a rig that will run equivalently to what the PS3 is rated at.

And this is pretty much why your approach is flawed from the get-go. Console graphics and PC graphics are pretty far apart. Consoles can get away with having relatively lower specs, because the software is fine tuned to run on exactly that hardware. The PS2 has a 299 MHz CPU. FFXI's minimum requirements are an 800MHz CPU. Things simply don't line up like that.

A real guide for building a PC to play FFXIV:
1- Read up on how to build your own PC, how components work together and so on.
2- Save some money
3- Wait for SE to actually release the required specs for FF14's final product.

[WishMaster3K]

September 8, 2010-
After being a deadbeat OP for about 2 months, I'm back from the dead /excitement. I guess I need to troll through 15+ pages of content (holy shit, you guys really made me proud /tear) so I can post some thoughts here, but I have a long bus ride ahead of me, so that won't be too much of a problem.

July 6, 2010-
There's been a ton of info and this thread has had a lot more contributed than I would've thought. I'll try my best to update this by Wednesday night. Thank you all for contributing

June 23, 2010 -
The purpose of this post is to show how to build an affordable rig for the running of Final Fantasy XIV. Also know that while Moore's Law is definitely a factor, never buying a PC for fear of being outdated is counter-productive. Of course what you buy today will be eclipsed by something better down the road; such is the beast that is Technology. What I'm hoping to give readers is a frame of reference of what a decent/affordable gaming rig looks like today. Quite honestly, this PC can run Crysis at an acceptable (1600 x 1050) resolution with moderate effects. FURTHERMORE, let me also state that I will recommend keeping an eye on these components and not buying them today, because in 6 months or so, these prices will drop.

Please keep in mind that this tower will be able to run most games that have come out in the past year at 1920 x 1080 without problem, and with most, if not all, effects.

After building the rig on Newegg, please be aware that this will cost about $800 or so dollars, and includes ONLY THE COMPONENTS THAT PHYSICALLY GO IN THE CASE. That means I have not budgeted for monitors, printers, controllers, keyboards, mice, etc

Many of us who have been coddled on FFXI don't have the PCs required to run FFXIV at a decent framerate. If the cost of entry and the daunting task of building your own PC is too much, I fully recommend getting the PS3 version.

Also, the more eyes I have to help, the better. I am not admitting to being perfect, so I will gladly accept criticism and changes and modify the first post to reflect those updates and give credit. This post isn't for a flame war; It's to help people join in and play a game we're all excited about. I am familiar with the Newegg process of doing things, for a number of reasons that are highly personal and probably won't be the same for everyone. Feel free to shop around the net (IE, at TigerDirect) and craft your own bundle.

- - - - - - - - -

The only two CPU games in town are Intel and AMD, and you're honestly on your own in those fields. Everyone has an opinion of what they prefer, but I prefer AMD for price as opposed to Intel for performance. Besides, I'm running a 3.4 GHz AM3 processor and according to the benchmark, I've gotten damn good scores (the game looks gorgeous with my rig).

Hardware for PC build
For anyone who has never built a PC, this is how I research parts:

- I personally start the PC search with a CPU.
- Once I have a CPU, I look for a graphics card based on my needs.
- A case that'll hold the GPU
- Then I look for a motherboard that will support it all in a nice harmony.
- After that, I choose RAM for the motherboard
- Then a Power Supply based on the needs of my motherboard's pin layout and my GPU's power needs
- An optical drive of some sort
- A Hard Drive with whatever budget is left

The very first PC I built I researched for over 2 weeks. And I had an unlimited budget. Even now, I'm still adding components.

CPU
With an asking price of $136, the AMD Phenom II X4 940 is hugely popular on Newegg with over 1700 reviews. It's clocked at 3.0GHz, but with the right research, you can bring the clock speed to the 3.5 GHz range. I won't put the OC Bug in anyone's head, but please be aware that the pin layout (socket type) is AM2+, and it is rated at 125W. With 512 KB of L2-cache between the cores, it is closely comparable to the Cell Processor in a PC environment.

GPU
I'm going to come out and say that it's hard to pick a GPU, which is why there are so many. Most PC GPUs have to deal with other things going on in the PC, so I feel that getting a GPU with only 256MB of RAM isn't going to cut it, especially for 1080p gaming (then again, I may be wrong, so any feedback is appreciated). I have found 5 GPUs that all do different things, but all look sufficient, so I'll do my best to discuss them.

All Graphics cards listed require a PCI Express 2.0 slot

Here is the link to the 5-Card Comparison page.

Even though the XFX card is the only one with GDDR5 memory, it has a 128 bit arrangement as opposed to 256 bit. The "best" card out of that list is the EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+, so I will put that on the "list" I am compiling.

Case
As a PC that has the intention of being "Affordable" (as far as gaming PCs go), form factor is also important. For this purpose, I am recommending the Thermaltake LANBOX Lite VF6000BNS Black. When I was first going to build my rig, I did a TON of research on this case, but I opted against it because I wanted the expandability and potential to do water cooling in the future. But regardless, this is a solid case with great reviews across the internet.

To use this case effectively, the HDD mount must be removed so that the GTX will fit in the case, and the HDD must be mounted instead by (I will double check this) where the Floppy Drive would normally go. Also, there is limited space for a large Heat Sink, so there isn't much potential for Overclocking.

One of the benefits is that many of the pieces are modular, meaning that the pieces may be put on the various chassis components, and put into the case when mounted,

Motherboard
These three motherboards are pretty much identical, and while I personally love the ASUS BIOS, the Gigabyte mobo has excellent reviews.

RAM
For RAM, I recommend G. Skill. The Mobo supports either 1066 MHz or 800Mhz, and the two options I recommend are:
- 800 MHz 4 GB
- 1066 MHz 4 GB

For a difference of $20, the choice is up to you, but for this build, I will go for the 800 MHz component.

Power Supply Unit
The PSU I'm recommending is "modular", meaning that you only need to include as many power connectors as you need. This is great for airflow and wire management, and is essential in a case like the Thermaltake. The PSU is the OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W.

Hard Drive
The mobo comes with two SATA cables, which is just enough for an optical drive and a hard drive. Because we're building this case on a budget, I am going to recommend a 320GB Hard drive. This price is flexible by a couple of dollars based on budget, so you may downgrade to 250, or upgrade to 500, 750 or 1TB.

The HDD I'm choosing is the Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAKS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache. I feel that 7200 RPM is a good spot for speed (anything slower is ridiculous and anything faster is way too expensive), and the 16MB of cache is good for transferring large and small files. Future upgrades would be a Solid State Drive for ridiculous load times on programs and games.

Optical Drive
Even though I stated that I am attempting to build a budget PC comparible to a PS3 for gaming, I can't in good faith recommend a BD-ROM drive. I say this because they are terrible at reading DVDs, and almost all PC games come on DVDs these days. There are BD-ROM drives on Newegg in the $50-75 range, but I have never "needed" a BD-ROM drive on my PC.

Therefore, I will recommend the optical drive that I use and continue to be impressed by. The Sony Optiarc Black is a great drive and can handle anything I throw at it.

Conculsion
The way the build is now, I have a price tag of $755. This does not include shipping, tax, or a monitor, because those things are variables. Also, I am hoping that the majority of you who are reading this either on Dreams in Vanadiel - Final Fantasy XI or The Tao of Ren are in possession of a monitor already.

A Run down of the prices:

$140 Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit
$130 EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB
$70 GIGABYTE Micro ATX Motherboard
$70 Thermaltake LANBOX Lite
$90 G. Skill 4GB RAM
$55 OCZ 500W Modular PSU
$50 320GB Western Digital 7200RPM HDD
$25 Sony DVD/CD Burner
$126 AMD Phenom II x4 Black Edition 3.0GHz Quad Core

Final Comments
Based on components from various friends of mine, this rig should score at least 2500 on the benchmark that was released Mid-June 2010.

Credits
Newegg - Being a resource for a shopping list and being easy to navigate
Odude - Proofreading
Posters before June 23rd - Comments that made me rethink the aim of this post
Aeni - Shit load of info
TGM - Shit load of info