Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

[Cyprius]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Very sweet rig ... but what's the speed on those ram? Also, can your board provide XFire? Because instead of getting a whole new card in 6 to 12 months, you couuld just buy another 5850 (it'll probably hit $200 by then) and get a bigger performance than spending $300 on a whole new card and you get to retain your initial investment.

1333MHz

I was reading that RAM isn't having a major affect on gaming these days. I could be totally wrong, who knows.

I thought about going for 1600MHz or better, but these sticks were $89, so it was a good deal.

And no, this MoBo doesn't support XFire. I thought about getting a MoBo with XFire capability, but honestly this game is probably going to be the only game I'll be playing for a long, long time. I didn't want to start spending too much.

[Aeni]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

4GB Mushkin RAM (2x2)

Very sweet rig ... but what's the speed on those ram? Also, can your board provide XFire? Because instead of getting a whole new card in 6 to 12 months, you couuld just buy another 5850 (it'll probably hit $200 by then) and get a bigger performance than spending $300 on a whole new card and you get to retain your initial investment.

[Cyprius]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Build when it's finished:

Antec 200 V2 Case
i5-750 2.6GHZ
XFX Radeon 5850
OCZ ModXStream 600W PSU
Gigabyte P55-USB3 MoBo
4GB Mushkin RAM (2x2)

I exlcuded the HDD and DVD drive in the list, but I got 'em.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Thank you for putting those pics in spoiler tags Brick, I could kiss you!

[Aeni]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

That's very promising.

My build is somewhat similar in that I've got an i5-750 and an XFX 5850. I plan on OC'ing the i5-750 to about 3Ghz.

Maybe even the 5850. Prob not.

Either way, I should have a nice mix of great GFX and performance.

First of all, there's been some rumors being spread that the GPU will be getting hit harder in the release version of the game (right now, it's the CPU that's the bottleneck in many "average" rigs This doesn't mean that the minimum requirements for the CPU will go away, it's just that they hope the load balancing will be more ideal than it was in FFXI.

Secondly, I've been perusing data gathered by a few tech guys at FFXIV Core and then I've been hitting Hard OCP, 3D Guru, etc. and been data mining there as well and have come to the conclusion that many players participating in beta are not qualified to run the game. Most players are unaware that they are going to hit massive performance issues at release because the closed beta doesn't accurately reflect a lot of conditions, including a congested network. Open Beta may be the first real eye opener for these players and I can guarantee a lot of whining will start to flood in to tech support. Quite frankly, using 2-3 year old tech isn't going to cut teeth on this game and while it's not necessary, people have been saying a DX11 card SHOULD BE the base minimum for running this game.

Some additional points made was that having a quadcore processor is definitely better than a faster duocore processor and that a hexacore processor does not seem to have any noticeable performance increase over a quadcore. Other findings were that AMD processors were lagging behind Intel's at price-to-performance ratios and that there doesn't seem to be as much of a performance difference between nVidia and ATI GPUs as was first hinted at during the first phase of beta. It could mean that ATI is actively putting out better support to SE, SE being fully aware of the performance issues and re-optimizing code for ATI GPUs or both.

Anyway, a brief look at the GPUs...

1. If you got a DX11 card in either the 400 series (260+) for nVidia or 5800/5900 series (4870+/4900) from ATI, you're gtg.

2. The sweetest price-to-performance ratio card on the market right now is nVidia's GTX 460 (1GB) cards. If you are under a very tight budget, then go for ATI's 5770 cards which retails about $140. If you want a sub $100 card the only one I can recommend is ATI 4870 and you can get that from Amazon.com (ASUS model) for $99 (after $30 main-in rebate) There are no "value" cards out there right now that can run FFXIV so you're out of luck there. If you can wait, however, sometime in October or November the industry expects wide ranging price cuts (how much is up to speculation) across the board in anticipation of the new batch of Fermis and the 6000 series unveiling.

3. Make sure you have adequate power supply for these new cards. Inadequate power can lead to system instability, application crashes and possible overheating problems. The recommended minimum is currently at 450W and generally 550W for everyone else. If you're into multi-GPUs, remember to add roughly 125W for each additional card you add to your system (this is the average "load" figure for the DX11 cards)

4. Those with the "high" 4000 series (ATI) and 200/300 series (nVidia) will be pleased to note that you may put off upgrading at least for another 6-12 mos. You're not likely to gain any appreciable performance for spending less than $200 and spending between $200 and $400 is a complete and utter waste. Save that money and in a year you can get your hands on something for $200 that can trash your current card.

[Cyprius]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

That's very promising.

My build is somewhat similar in that I've got an i5-750 and an XFX 5850. I plan on OC'ing the i5-750 to about 3Ghz.

Maybe even the 5850. Prob not.

Either way, I should have a nice mix of great GFX and performance.

[Bricklayer]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Thanks TGM! I'll probably try to run some of those apps later this weekend on my new machine.

CM 690 II Plus (Asian version of Advanced)
Corsair 750HX
P7P55D-E
i5-760 2.8GHz
Coolermaster 212 Plus
OCZ 2x2GB DDR3 1600 CL8
EVGA GTX 470
WD Caviar Blue 1TB
Sony DRU-880S

Total price was approximately $1000 (converting from TWD, etc.)

Will post FFXIV Benchmark scores a little later as well.


As promised:

Low Res

High Res

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Just thought I'd post this here since so many people are tweaking or building. I thought someone might be interested in it.

How To Stress Test Your Hardware and Keep Your PC Stable - Tested

[wrongfeifong]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

watch your scores go even lower after the new benchmark release ha.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

For people who are following this thread and are unaware:

"A new version of the benchmark software is under development."

[Freelancer]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

Go on an overclocking forum like overclock.net and give them your set up and they'll teach you how to overclock step my step.

---------- Post added at 12:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 PM ----------

Also some motherboards have an auto-overclock feature, whats yours?

[DakAttack]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

I've been looking around at guides, but I can't seem to find any that make me confident I wont blow it up. Plus, I think I might need better cooling in the case. The computer seems to hover around 55C most of the time.

[Aeni]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

I'm now running GTX 460 1GB and i7 2.8GHz, and I scored a 2500. My goal was 3000, but this was the high res test. I'm sure running it on low res will add another 1000 to the score.

Would it be worth overclocking the CPU? I don't think this benchmark is as optimized as they plan for the game on release.

Benchmark has some issues and not indicative of release. i7s were meant to be OC'd so you should look up what your board can support before going that route. I think Intel UK managed to overclock an i7 to over 5 GHz but for everyone else, you can pad 10% to your current speed safely.

I was thinking of getting either an HD 5850 or the GTX 460 as well. My friend said my Q9400 should be enough provided SE didn't make the game rely on the CPU for all the gfx processing which would be baaaaad (i.e, FFXI)

[DakAttack]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

I'm now running GTX 460 1GB and i7 2.8GHz, and I scored a 2500. My goal was 3000, but this was the high res test. I'm sure running it on low res will add another 1000 to the score.

Would it be worth overclocking the CPU? I don't think this benchmark is as optimized as they plan for the game on release.

[Aeni]

Re: Guide: Building a PC to play FFXIV

okay I am kind of confused I have a PC with the following specs:

Windows Vista 64 bit
Intel Core 2 Quad (2.33 GHz, with 1333 MHz System Bus)
8 MB DDR2 SDRAM System Memory
Serial ATA (7200 RPM) 1 Terabyte Hard Drive
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 1 GB DDR2 VRAM Video Card
a 600 Watt Peak with 500 Watt Continuous RocketFish Gaming Power Supply
And a Cable Modem

Yet for some reason I continuously score as low as 1300 and as high as 1320 on the Benchmark. What am I doing wrong here?

I guess what I am asking is will FFXIV run on my machine?

(I suppose I should mention that I did just upgrade my PC today with the XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 and the 500 Watt Power Supply just for this game and am still shocked to be under the benchmark).

Yes, FFXIV will *run*, but your system is gonna struggle and do not be suprised if you lag out horribly and disconnect from the servers frequently. Your 4650 is just lower than my 4670 and I already *know* that I'll need to upgrade that. Your processor is also a bit on the slow end ... mine is a Q9400 (Intel Core 2 Quad 2.67 GHz) and it's already on the *minimum* requirements for the game.

If anyone is considering getting a GTX 460, please, please, please do yourself a favor and pay the $20-30 more to get the 1GB version, not the 768MB version. The benchmarks clearly show a difference in the results and the difference in price is nominal at best for that performance increase. Do not make a mistake of cheaping out on parts for your computer. Doing so will only be more expensive down the road.

Anyway, quick run down for my projected minimum requirements (bare minimum, because SE is already touting their recommended specs as possibly the minimum spec for avoiding problems running their game)

Processor:

Intel i5 650+, Core 2 Quad 9450+, Core 2 Extreme QX6850
AMD Phenom II X4, X6 (Unfortunately, Intel trashes AMD so badly atm)

Graphics:

Nvidia 8800 Ultra, 9800 GTX, 9800 GTX+, GTS 250
ATI HD 3870 X2, HD 4850, HD 5750; Mobile: HD 4850, HD 5850

Memory: 4GB or more


Edit 1: So, why is the requirements steep? Well, for starters, you can't emulate a PS3 on any desktop computer right now, even with top of the line parts, so keeping that in mind, in order for the game to look as good as it will be on the PS3 ... well, you'll need some muscle under the hood to speak metaphorically. In short, you wanna play this on your PC, shell out the moolah. Got no money? Wait for it to come out on the PS3 6 months from now...

Edit 2: Note that I gave minimums. If you got stuff better than what was listed, you're golden and in better shape and probably closer to SE's recommendation and should not have too much problems. Remember to prepare for release by updating drivers, firmwares and BIOS. Make sure to defrag and scan for virus etc. Do all the housecleaning beforehand so you don't have to do it when trying to install the game that will take up 15gigs of your hard drive.