Final Fantasy XIV news

[elaniel]

It doesn't seem like the laptop will be worth anything (£50 most it seems as the cable is busted and webcam doesn't work, it's falling apart it seems.)

I may have to buy a Dell and spend about £600 I guess. Don't want to spend that much, but if I want to play....

Maybe if I get an upgradable Dell laptop (non-integrated graphics card?) that would work for me?

It's just I kind of need the laptop for work as well, and getting two in one would be beneficial to me.

[vwilsonuk]

I may have to buy a Dell and spend about £600 I guess. Don't want to spend that much, but if I want to play.... It's just I kind of need the laptop for work as well, and getting two in one would be beneficial to me.

Well a PS3 won't cost £600. That's why I'll be waiting for the PS3 release (if I do decide to play, that is). There's not much sense in spending £600 to play a game six months earlier - that's £100 a month. That's more than council tax.

[elaniel]

Well I kinda need a new laptop/PC anyway thinking about it. I'll think about it, no point making an irrational decision at the moment

[abigsmurf]

Sadly upgradable laptops don't really exist.

There are some with replaceable graphics but they're so expensive, you may as well just get a top of the range one.

Gaming laptops, unless you spend megabucks, are a series of compromises really.

I'd be willing to bet you could build a budget gaming PC that will outperform any laptop under £1000 for ~£450

On the laptop front, this is around the best you'll get for <&#163;600:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/222512

And this is the level of gaming performance you'll get:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

[elaniel]

Thanks for the reply, and apologies for taking the thread so far off topic. I'm going to have a think about it tomorrow, and see where it stands. I know it's silly for only 6 months play advance. If there was confirmation that we get the special edition on PS3 as well, I would probably wait. However thinking about it more and more, I really need a new computer, so it's just a matter if it will be one I order for gaming, or just for the stuff I really need it to do. (As I rarely play PC games anyway)

I'm not really PC literate, so it may come down to me trying to get some advice and possibly getting someone to build one for me, or get a Dell recommended to me.

[Number45]

Make sure all of your drivers are up to date. It's no guarantee, but it might improve things.

So many MMOs get the performance side wrong, WoW is the benchmark for that as far as I'm concerned - you absolutely NEED to allow as many people as possible access to these games.

[elaniel]

I updated the drivers yesterday, no joy.

I've settled on getting a new PC now. I've posted in the PC section about my looking for a new PC. Don't want to clog up this thread any more with my laptop issues.

Cheers for the help though!

[abigsmurf]

Make sure all of your drivers are up to date. It's no guarantee, but it might improve things.

So many MMOs get the performance side wrong, WoW is the benchmark for that as far as I'm concerned - you absolutely NEED to allow as many people as possible access to these games.

WoW's requirements were relatively intensive at the time of release, especially when it came to RAM requirements (too little ram = HDD thrashing when raiding). It's only the fact it's 6 years old that makes it so universally accessible now.

[Number45]

I think RAM is always going to be a sticking point when you have a requirement to load so much in at once - unless you're going to instance everything that's a concession that I think you have to make.

RAM is the easiest (And often cheapest) thing to upgrade as well.

[shafropuff]

I haven't used a PC in forever and all my gaming is done on my bootcamp partition but I get a score of 850 or so on the benchmark -_-

I've been planing to get the new Mac Mini but can someone tell me if its specs would be decent to run the game on a windows partition?

Here the specs:
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory
NVIDIA GeForce 320M

[mikewl]

Beta client is now up for those in the beta, slow as hell as to be expected.

[mikewl]

I haven't used a PC in forever and all my gaming is done on my bootcamp partition but I get a score of 850 or so on the benchmark -_-

I've been planing to get the new Mac Mini but can someone tell me if its specs would be decent to run the game on a windows partition?

Here the specs:
2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB memory
NVIDIA GeForce 320M

I would take a guess that the Mac Mini would struggle, though the CPU and Memory would probably be ok, I have no idea on the graphics card though.

[abigsmurf]

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-320M.28701.0.html

Here's the benchmark for the CPU for other games.

However I've done some reading and it seems the 320M gets a benchmark score of around 800 (1000 is the minimum require for the game to be playable according to Square).

Unless the final retail game has a lot more graphical options to turn down. I wouldn't expect good frame rates.

[shafropuff]

Damn seems about the same as my iMac. I wish I had room for a damned desktop, I hated playing XI on laptop so thats out of the question.

I'm gonna look into upgrading my brothers desktop but its a good 3 years old. I can't imagine life without OSX at the moment so I don't wanna get a PC after I sell my Macs lol

[abigsmurf]

Few people in the beta saying there are more graphics options now although it seems to be relating to the AA and depth of field effects.

Is the beta on standard "There is a beta, I am in it" NDA clauses?