nVidia 7900GTX or ATI X1900XT ? (was forum=10)Follow

If I'm buying a new computer, which is the best video card for playing FFXI? Thanks.

I heard that the SLI feature of nVidia cards have problems with FFXI, is this true?

On my old computer, whenever there's a lot of people on the screen, the framerate slows down to a crawl and it's hard to do anything. Upgrading my computer will fix these issues, right?

ATI sucks, that's all I have to say.

No, he/she did not hear wrong. They have even confirmed there are issues with Nvidia cards with bard songs and certain spells.

I have an ATI 1900xtx and I never have any issues. As a PC builder that HAD an SLI system and fought with it for over a year with FFXI, I would suggest an ATI card. I was only able to remove the lag issue with songs/spells by using a very old driver version, which then, of course, had issues with newer games.

Here is the link to the POL site where they say they have issues with NVidia cards.



edit: Oh, and I wanted to comment on how they say it is a "minor" issue. It isn't minor. My FPS would drop to around 4 during bard songs. Now, you know how often bards are singing so you can see how it made partying with a bard to be a complete pain in the *****

Edited, Sep 18th 2006 at 10:59am EDT by Jetsam

Edited, Sep 18th 2006 at 10:59am EDT by Jetsam

Lol oh yeah a "confirmed" issue, yet I've never had a problem with slow down when spells and songs are being casted..hmm..oh well. And I wouldn't so much recommened an ATI card, but buy what you want..don't let our opinions steer you towards one or the other, because someone (previous poster for example) will always try to "prove someone wrong" to say their advice is better, so honestly, it's up to you OP.

Nvidia I've never had problems with. ATI I, and many other had plenty of problems with, FFXI was built on and for use with Nvidia cards from what I remember 4 years ago..the best way to avoid seeing those animations (if they give you trouble) is simply using in-game filters.

Thanks for the replies, espcially from Jetsam Scholar.

That link to POL has some pretty old information. The 7800 has now been replaced by the 7900, and the 7600 is the new lower priced nVidia card. Does the same bug happen on the newer cards?

I heard that all the ATI cards kind of suck except for the new X1900XT which is also the most expensive card. But it's also supposed to be a pretty good card! I might just get a single nVidia 7900GT which is the most affordable solution that still looks pretty powerful.

Most of the new gaming computers seem to have nVidia cards, so maybe nVidia is a safer choice for other games besides FFXI.

It's so complicated :(

The issues is odd in that it doesn't strike everyone. You can google "nvidia ffxi lag" and you will probably see many posts, some including mine, as we tried to figure out what was going on. I must have tried 100's of drivers over months of searching. Eventually, after being so frustrated one evening, I went to NewEgg and bought the best ATI card I could find and a new Mobo... my two 6800 Ultras are sitting in my closet until I put them in a spare system.

I am not, by any means, a fanboy of either ATI or NVidia. I have had equal quality with both cards, and I have used both over the years. Until FFXI + Nvidia, I had never had a problem with Nvidia.

My suggestion is for ATI if FFXI is going to be the main game you play. When using the right driver, namely one POL states you should, you shouldn't have any trouble.

Also, using filters doesn't work. Bard songs still cause lag, even if all you see is the character model shimmer (which is what happens when you turn off the affects). And seriously, who wants to play a game where you don't even see half the fun affects?? You can replace the spell dats with ones that do not cause problems (Firaga was HORRIBLE), but again, who wants to spend time changing dats?

I can only speak from my experience and suggest ATI. But, as Mistress Theonehio has said, it really is up to you.

I can suggest that if you order online, that Tigerdirect never questioned any of my returns. If you did get a card and had issues with it, I know they would accept it back for a replacement without any hassle. New Egg is probably the same, but I have never experienced the return process with them.

What are the "in-game Effects filters"? How should I set them for an older computer setup?

Doing more research, and I discovered that the ATI X1900XT is noisy, and I hate a loud computer, so I guess I'll have to go with nVidia. Is the 7900GTX worth the premium price over the 7900GT?

Or maybe I should wait a few weeks until the new ATI X1950XT is available. Supposedly it has a quieter fan and it has the ultimate performance. Probably overkill for FFXI, but maybe some better MMORPG is in my future. I think that Age of Conan will be the FFXI killer.

It's not an issue with SLI so much as it is an issue with the newer drivers and cards, and it's extremely annoying.



I don't see why you're mocking him for pointing out that SE has finally confirmed this issue. If you are using a card that is compatible with the 66.93 driver, it would be very easy for you to avoid this problem.




Unfortunately, those of who are using newer cards have cards that are not compatible with the 66.93 drivers.

If you are using a newer card (ie, GeForce 7 series) and still mange to avoid this slowdown, I'm sure that the rest of us would love to hear how you've done it, so please post your system specs and drivers so that we can learn from you. :)

This is something that has been discussed many, many times on these and other forums:

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/game-setup-tweeking-optimizing-q/60622-dropping-1-2fps-bard-song-animations.html?highlight=Nvidia
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=9784
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=29&mid=114135696490882784


It's a VERY annoying problem, as you might well imagine, given how often there are bards/certain magic spells/certain job abilities being used, causing this horrible FPS slowdown. Personally, I'm not willing to spend more on a new video card, as the setup I have works very well for all other games, and that would be so wasteful.

If I were in the market to buy a new card and FFXI were the game that I played the vast majority of the time, I'd probably go with the x1900xt. If I played a lot of other games, I would probably use Google to find benchmarks from reliable sites (such as anandtech.com) to help me choose the best card. To say something like, "ATI is crap" or "Nvidia is garbage" is just idiotic. There have been times when one clearly won out over the other, but this generation, they both seem to have done quite well.

FFXI was designed to use the DirectX API, there for both ATI and Nvidia cards are equally good in this respect.

ATI has had some problems with their drivers in the past, like 6 years ago. Since then their drivers have improved much, and are at least on par with nvidia's drivers. Anyone complaining of driver issues with ATI needs to return to the year 2006.

It is true that the FFXI box has NVIDIA writen all over it, but all this means is that nvidia had a part in helping SE make FFXI run as well as it can on the PC. This probably include some NVIDIA specific features, but nothing noticable.

These days both NVIDIA and ati release very good cards that are about onpar with each other. This hasnt always been the case, and people refuse to give up their biases. Choose whatever card you want, and I assure you that you will be happy with your purchase.

An issue such as that one could simply be caused by substandard components used in certain batches of the card. Your card in this case was not the offending batch(es). Heat is a killer of computer componets, so substandard parts can be affected by heat much more readily than higher quality parts.

I used to beleive the Nvidia logo on the box too ;;

Even though the FFXI box has the Nvidia logo slapped on it there were/are several problems their cards had with this game. Mostly relating to major slowdowns when bard spells or summons were cast. Different drivers sets proved to be slightly better performing for different generations of cards and it was a matter of finding the best for card/driver.

ATI is the most reliable choice for FFXI for that reason alone.

Hellboy, while you might have had a bad experience with an ATI card the vast majority of people do not. I'm sure there's people out there who've had a shocking time with Nvidia cards, but in the same breath there's the other 99% of people who haven't had a problem.

Basically anything with as much grunt as an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is going to be more than enough to play this game to the maximum potential of your graphics card so what you should be looking at is what else you're going to be playing on the card. Beyond the issue mentioned at the start of this post you're not going to find much benifit either way with the two cards mentioned.

To the OP I'm sorry to say no: chances are a new card will not fix your lag issues completely, there's always going to be slowdowns in the very busy areas.