<I'm Back!>

I decided today after weeks of looking at my 14 collectors edition box to come back to the game. I started a new character on the Lindblum server since my last one was only level 6 or something. I keep hearing/reading about all the improvements that are being made to the game and it always seemed to be a game that wasn't a huge time sink like 11.

Looking for a job, possibly going for another degree etc has strained my playtime in 11 and 14 from what I remember you could get stuff done in a much shorter period of time. I'm really just looking to enjoy the new changes, look forward to new patches, and hopefully get to a point where I'm comfortable with the game before it changes too much.

So I'll be around, very optimistic about enjoying the game more so than I did the first time, which I didn't completely hate it in the first place. I'm from the Quetz server on 11 with the same name.

I also forgot how much this game kills my video card... I'm going to get a new one soon, but for now I have a 9800GTX+, still playing around with settings that help it not get so hot. Although I'm used to 11 which barely even registered that it was running lol.

Edit: kinda already posted some of this under the patch thread, but figured I'd make a thread on the Lindblum forums to say hi to everyone on the server.

I would say turn off all shadows, and put back ground detail at 1. Then start from there if you need to degrade the other detail feature or if you can crank it up a bit.

9800GTX+ is safe up to 105 Celsius.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_9800_gtx_plus_us.html

I would say as long as it's around 85C max for continuous use it's fine. My 570s get up yo 85 in GPU heavy areas with all settings maxed out. Also, make sure you clean out any dust bunnies that may build up in the fan shroud. Buy some compressed air and clean it out. Lastly, having case fans helps keep a steady airflow. Hope this helps!

The command "/display main off", which hides the main weapon/tool of people not in action, really helps the framerate in cities, like Uldah.

Thanks for the tips! I had evga precision up the time I was logged in yesterday to check out where my card was at. Standing around idle in Gridania my card was up in the lower 80's with the GPU at 70% use, peaked at 91 with 100% use sustained for a period of time, and that was with everything pretty much left as is from the initial game settings. So I'm gonna mess around with the settings like you were saying and see what I get moving from area to area and what not, should work out fine. I also blew out my entire case last month and it's stayed nice and clean. I've got an antec 1200 and put on the optional side fan for the graphics cards.

Thanks for the display tip too, I had seen something about that in the patch notes, that should probably really help running around the city and what not when you don't need your weapon.

Another thing, what resolution do you play at? Windowed or Fullscreen? It's funny because windowed actually taxes your card more (in my experience). Do you also have your GPU fan maxed out?

I've been playing in 1280x720 windowed mode, and during my test my GPU fan was maxed and I turned up my case fans a bit to help airflow.

I turned down my settings to General Drawing Quality - 5, Background Drawing Quality 3, Shadow Detail - Lowest, Texture Quality -Standard, Texture Filtering - Low... I was getting readings of temps in the high 60's low 70's, which I was much more comfortable with than the temps at default settings.

The room I play in is also a little on the warm side seeing as how it's summer time. I'm probably going to invest in a new card soon so right now it's just more so finding some settings that work with this card that don't tax it too much until I get one that can handle the game a bit better. I think I've found a decent spot though, and can probably take the settings up a bit higher if I keep the fan speed high.

This is one of the low priced bang for your buck cards available right now, $170 after a MIR (Mail In Rebate), you'll be able to play with most settings near max at that resolution.
http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeForce-PCI-Express-Graphics-01G-P3-1460-KR/dp/B0050I1PHO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1313244387&sr=1-1

I compared a bunch of cards in the 400-500 series and the one you recommended was the one I ended up going with, for the price and what you get out of it the card is certainly a good deal. Should be here next week sometime.

I did the same thing before I recommended it :) Amazon had the best deal on it. Also more power to you if you live in a state where they don't charge tax. Also, what are the rest of your system specs?

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core i5 Lynnfield quadcore 2.67 GHz
4 GB Corsair dominator ram
OCZ Vertex 2 90GB SSD
Asus P7P55 WS Super Computer motherboard
Corsair 750W PSU
Antec 1200 case
5TB of space between other data only drives

It gets a 6.9 right now on the Windows experience with that score coming from the video card, although the next stop would be the primary disk at 7.1 then the processor and ram each got 7.3.

The card will be a welcome improvement to the system for sure.

Nice, no bottleneck worries then :) just wanted to make sure on that.

If you're curious mine's here: http://www.modsrigs.com/detail.aspx?buildid=27643

Very nice, I've always been interested in a liquid cooled system, I think if I had gone with an i7, or in the future when I do, I'll probably go with liquid cooling. I'd also eventually like to run SLI.

Next time I'm going to make sure I have a little more money to invest and do some more research on the board/ram specifically. I'd have to look it up again to explain it exactly but my board only supports dual channel ram, but only supports a single dim per channel with 1600 ram with XMP turned on or something like that. So for that reason I'm staying with 4gb in the current system and really only upgrading things that can easily translate to an entierley new system like video cards, PSU, HDD's etc.

I also need to get a blu-ray drive, especially with this card having an HDMI output and my TV being right near my case, don't need a regular blu-ray player with that setup.

That case also looks like it's a pretty decent size, the 1200 I have isn't small by any means but it might get a bit tight with too many more components jammed in it.

get a corsair 800d case or haf-x. as for WC i would like to do a custom loop but its a pain to do. get the new h100 by corsair. sweet WC kit zero upkeep

+1 to the Corsair H100, that thing is a beast.
The Corsair Obsidian 800D is an alright case, Haf-X is awesome. For me, I went with the Thermaltake Steel Full Tower Armor+ , just loved the way it looks and the giant size.

man i knew someone with that name on palemecia server. was that you? havent seen that person in a bit

Yes that was me, had said I was going to Selbina with some RL friends who ended up quitting. . ./sigh.

oh ok that sucks you still have your character on palemecia dont you? come back on there.

Would require starting from scratch xD

depends if your still a low level person. then i would but its all up to you.

Levels don't matter, I'd return if it meant I'd have a group to play with and linkshell lol. would be more concerned about my items xD both NM and +2/+3s xD lol,

yeah that would be a big one the items and gil

Yooo aremyse wut up foo, its murdax from 11

Lol wth, everyone popping up!
This thread completely de-railed >.> sorry OP!
Did you end up getting anything?

lol, this was just a fun thread anyway so I don't mind.

I did however get my new card, and it runs great. I completely forgot to check my PSU to see if it would work but it has plenty of amps on the 12 volt rail to handle the card and 4 6-pin PCI-E connectors so it handles it just fine.

I haven't played 14 on it yet but I ran the benchmark test and it came in about 5000 on the 720 test, which is a lot better than it did with my last card. On the lowest fan speed, 40%, the thing idles at 33 degrees in which my last card at 55% speed it idled at 45.

Very happy with the card so far, going to play some 14 tonight and mess around with settings to find a good balance. Also very happy with 14 so far, glad I came back.

You should be able to max everything out or almost at least. I can max everything out on my GF's PC with a EVGA GTX 460 SCC (Minus Ambient Occlusion and Depth of Field), I have an OCed i7 930 on her PC though so that helps also.

I'm going to play around with setting some more but with what I put on it already, which is a bit more than standard the card is handling it very well. I'm sure I could get away with going near max settings at this resolution, or just bump up the settings and resolution a little and be happy with it.

Either way though, the game already looks a ton better than what it did, and it's one less thing to think about and I can just enjoy the game.

I would try Overclocking the card, use this page and go to Graphics > 500 Series: http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp (You got the EVGA card right??, also if you did don't forget to register it within 30days to activate your warranty!!!! If you did get evga I would ask you use my affiliate code if you haven't registered yet xD BX9KZAC44Q)

Find the card you have then try tuning up the settings on MSI afterburner.