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FFXIV - Computer StickyFollow

#1 Jul 02 2010 at 11:25 AM Rating: Good
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Can one of you loveli admins make a sticky in the FFXIV forums for hardware questions?

I have a feeling we are going to see more and more threads asking if certain computer builds are adequate, and if not, how to upgrade.

Edited, Jul 9th 2010 2:31pm by Darqflame Lock Thread: Completed
#2 Jul 02 2010 at 9:26 PM Rating: Decent
I second this requesst,, if for no other reason than to provide grounds for admins to lock/nuke new hardware threads as they arise. There are currently 12 threads related to hardware or benchmark issues on the front page. I would be prepared to do up a table of current benchmark scores so that people can take an objective look at what hardware is producing what results and hopefully cut down on a lot of the repetition, but it would take a fair bit of time to set up and wouldn't be worth it if it would just scroll off the page under a mountain of new, "Will this PC run XIV?" threads.
#3 Jul 03 2010 at 7:52 AM Rating: Excellent
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Get a good one going, I am sure you don't want me to just "go pick one."
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#4 Jul 03 2010 at 4:54 PM Rating: Good
This thread was created by Lamnethx, the OP is semi detailed but needs a lot of holes filled in and hasn't been updated in 2 days (perhaps the OP hasn't been on). It has a lot of detailed information in the following posts regarding part upgrades in general.

Bardalicious made this thread which has somewhat less information but links to Lamnethx's thread.

I made this thread which mostly focuses on CPU and video upgrades (the main two components) and links to a few other threads (including Lamnethx's among others).

Granted, I'm biased towards my own, but I do agree that one should be stickied. If Lamnethx is going to finish filling in the rest of the placeholders in the OP, I'd nominate that one. Otherwise, I self-nominate if that's an option, mostly because my thread pretty much answers the "What should I upgrade to?" in the OP without anyone needing to ask the question.

Edited, Jul 3rd 2010 6:55pm by Mikhalia
#5 Jul 03 2010 at 5:03 PM Rating: Good
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I believe Mikhalia's is more in depth and has more recent activity. I'd go with that one, Darq Smiley: cool If it were up to me...
#6 Jul 04 2010 at 12:54 AM Rating: Decent
Not to invalidate the work of other posters, but Bard's thread has more potential to provide information that will answer questions. There are dozens/hundreds of potential hardware combinations. We've already tried the, "ask your questions here and we'll try to help" route and it helps only a bit. And when those kinds of threads reach a certain critical mass, people stop posting their questions in them and instead start filling up the first page of the thread list with new threads. If people are filling out Bardalicious' spreadsheet and looking at the results, they can figure out on their own what they can expect their hardware to achieve in terms of performance, and if they have an upgrade in mind they can look at what other people using that hardware are seeing in terms of results.

I don't really think we need a thread teaching people how not to be technologically illiterate in the 21st century. (Okay, maybe we do, but not in the XIV boards). I think we just need a reliable place we can direct people to to do their own research and decide for themselves. Mikhalia is a far more patient person than I, but from my point of view I'm tired of answering questions on the issue. It's not that I don't want to answer them and/or be helpful, it's that answering for one person still leaves (apparently) hundreds who still can't think for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions.

This is an example of what I think would be the greatest benefit. Take a compilation of benchmark scores like that, toss in a blurb about how RAM/OS might impact scores, and let people fend for themselves. If we get in the habit of holding hands now, we're going to be doing it for months and months to come.
#7 Jul 04 2010 at 6:27 PM Rating: Good
The One and Only Aurelius wrote:
Not to invalidate the work of other posters, but Bard's thread has more potential to provide information that will answer questions. There are dozens/hundreds of potential hardware combinations. We've already tried the, "ask your questions here and we'll try to help" route and it helps only a bit. And when those kinds of threads reach a certain critical mass, people stop posting their questions in them and instead start filling up the first page of the thread list with new threads. If people are filling out Bardalicious' spreadsheet and looking at the results, they can figure out on their own what they can expect their hardware to achieve in terms of performance, and if they have an upgrade in mind they can look at what other people using that hardware are seeing in terms of results.

I don't really think we need a thread teaching people how not to be technologically illiterate in the 21st century. (Okay, maybe we do, but not in the XIV boards). I think we just need a reliable place we can direct people to to do their own research and decide for themselves. Mikhalia is a far more patient person than I, but from my point of view I'm tired of answering questions on the issue. It's not that I don't want to answer them and/or be helpful, it's that answering for one person still leaves (apparently) hundreds who still can't think for themselves and arrive at their own conclusions.


I started doing that way back in the first benchmark thread, around the end of page three. I found that maintaining it was too much work, but agree that if people enter their own information, if would be a lot easier (or if one or two people want to volunteer to skim the 10~ page long benchmark thread and put data in; not it.

I do think you rely too much on someone's ability to think for themselves based on a spreadsheet compared to telling them EXACTLY what to get. Because no matter how many times I repeat myself, "GTX200/400, Radeon 5700/5800/5900 or don't even try to play it", there're still people posting "Should I buy this computer?", followed by tech specs that indicate none of those GPUs.

I'm usually as nice as I can be about repeating myself over and over.

I do think that with that type of person, telling them exactly what to buy is likely to accomplish more than giving them a bunch of data and letting them try to decipher it. Not that such data can't hurt for comparison, but sometimes you just need to tell someone "Do this and it will work, do something else and it will not work."

The One and Only Aurelius wrote:
This is an example of what I think would be the greatest benefit. Take a compilation of benchmark scores like that, toss in a blurb about how RAM/OS might impact scores, and let people fend for themselves. If we get in the habit of holding hands now, we're going to be doing it for months and months to come.


Eh, I'm just too damn helpful when it comes to this sort of thing; I suppose that's why I've pretty much taken it upon myself to help just about everyone who are all asking the same questions.

It should be noted out that bluegartr's mods have a lot less tolerance for dumb questions. They're not quite as stringent as somethingawful forums, but it's pretty obvious that BG is a lot more likely to tell you to **** off for responding to a thread (or starting a new one) with a question that is answered in the OP or a sticky.

There's a reason that a lot of people here consider them to be "elitist", it's because they're right, and they're mean about it if you try to agrue with them.

Comparatively, there's no real discouragement around here against people who ask questions that have already been answered. There are a couple forum regulars who will tell the person who asked a dumb question that their question has already been answered, but that usually results in something along the lines of "Well can you repeat it for me because I CBA to find it and need it spelled out for me". The kneejerk reaction at that point is to get annoyed with them because eventually you get tired of repeating yourself, and then they just get all indignant with you... yeah.

Edited, Jul 4th 2010 8:28pm by Mikhalia
#8 Jul 04 2010 at 10:39 PM Rating: Decent
Mikhalia wrote:

There's a reason that a lot of people here consider them to be "elitist", it's because they're right, and they're mean about it if you try to agrue with them.

Comparatively, there's no real discouragement around here against people who ask questions that have already been answered. There are a couple forum regulars who will tell the person who asked a dumb question that their question has already been answered, but that usually results in something along the lines of "Well can you repeat it for me because I CBA to find it and need it spelled out for me". The kneejerk reaction at that point is to get annoyed with them because eventually you get tired of repeating yourself, and then they just get all indignant with you... yeah.


It doesn't help when trying to direct people to existing information is usually met with a wall of forum hippies denouncing you as mean for not just answering the question with a smile on your face.

I just think that the whole topic has been done to death. flukedrk made a threa dmonths ago to discuss hardware and people kept ******** it up with, "nonono it won't be that demanding". I made a thread pointing people to the Heaven benchmark and people kept ******** it up with "nonono it won't be that demanding." Now that people are tanking the benchmark left and right, all of a sudden it's panic time. We had one guy today start a thread asking if the laptop he had his eye on would be good enough for XIV and when I told him no, he posted specs for a budget desktop in the thread and asked about that. Then he PM'd me with the specs. Then he posted them in another one of the other hardware threads.

The information people need is out there and if you guys want to take on the task of responding to folks who CBA to find it themselves, you'll get no grief from me for it. I just think we should be teaching to fish (or slapping with fish), not setting up carts to hand out fish.
#9 Jul 04 2010 at 11:53 PM Rating: Good
The One and Only Aurelius wrote:
Mikhalia wrote:

There's a reason that a lot of people here consider them to be "elitist", it's because they're right, and they're mean about it if you try to agrue with them.

Comparatively, there's no real discouragement around here against people who ask questions that have already been answered. There are a couple forum regulars who will tell the person who asked a dumb question that their question has already been answered, but that usually results in something along the lines of "Well can you repeat it for me because I CBA to find it and need it spelled out for me". The kneejerk reaction at that point is to get annoyed with them because eventually you get tired of repeating yourself, and then they just get all indignant with you... yeah.


It doesn't help when trying to direct people to existing information is usually met with a wall of forum hippies denouncing you as mean for not just answering the question with a smile on your face.

I just think that the whole topic has been done to death. flukedrk made a threa dmonths ago to discuss hardware and people kept sh*tting it up with, "nonono it won't be that demanding". I made a thread pointing people to the Heaven benchmark and people kept sh*tting it up with "nonono it won't be that demanding." Now that people are tanking the benchmark left and right, all of a sudden it's panic time. We had one guy today start a thread asking if the laptop he had his eye on would be good enough for XIV and when I told him no, he posted specs for a budget desktop in the thread and asked about that. Then he PM'd me with the specs. Then he posted them in another one of the other hardware threads.

The information people need is out there and if you guys want to take on the task of responding to folks who CBA to find it themselves, you'll get no grief from me for it. I just think we should be teaching to fish (or slapping with fish), not setting up carts to hand out fish.


I couldn't agree more with every single word you just said.

I just wish I wasn't so damn nice when it comes to this... my two weaknesses are that I -have- to correct wrong information and that I can't -not- help someone with computer issues, if I'm able.

I admit that repeatedly answering the same exact questions over and over is getting frustrating. You'd think I'd have put "Quad Core processor and GTX 2XX/4XX or Radeon 48XX/57XX/58XX/59XX or don't bother", "No, your <$1000 laptop will NOT play XIV -at all-", and "Ignore SE's 'minimum' requirements unless you want the game to look like total ***." on a notepad file for handy reference. But for some reason I feel the need to type them out every time. As if maybe one day people will magically decide to read other posts before inciting me to repeat myself again.

"Hey guys, I know you just told the last 5 posters above me that their Athlon 64 X2 and Radeon 4200 won't run the game, but I have an Athlon 64 X2 and a Radeon 5400 so I should be fine, right?"

"Hey, I know you just told two other people that their $800 laptops won't play XIV at all, but HP has this awesome laptop on sale for only $749! It has 5.1 surround sound and a 15-in-one media reader and a 15.1" widescreen and a free one year trial for Norton Antivirus and a 3 year warranty and all this other stuff that doesn't matter, and it has a Core 2 Duo and a GT 220. It will run the game aweseome!"

I've been being so nice to everyone but I get the feeling that I can't keep it up forever. My nature won't allow me to stop though.
#10 Jul 05 2010 at 12:15 AM Rating: Good
Mikhalia wrote:
I couldn't agree more with every single word you just said.

I just wish I wasn't so damn nice when it comes to this... my two weaknesses are that I -have- to correct wrong information and that I can't -not- help someone with computer issues, if I'm able.

I admit that repeatedly answering the same exact questions over and over is getting frustrating. You'd think I'd have put "Quad Core processor and GTX 2XX/4XX or Radeon 48XX/57XX/58XX/59XX or don't bother", "No, your <$1000 laptop will NOT play XIV -at all-", and "Ignore SE's 'minimum' requirements unless you want the game to look like total ***." on a notepad file for handy reference. But for some reason I feel the need to type them out every time. As if maybe one day people will magically decide to read other posts before inciting me to repeat myself again.

"Hey guys, I know you just told the last 5 posters above me that their Athlon 64 X2 and Radeon 4200 won't run the game, but I have an Athlon 64 X2 and a Radeon 5400 so I should be fine, right?"

"Hey, I know you just told two other people that their $800 laptops won't play XIV at all, but HP has this awesome laptop on sale for only $749! It has 5.1 surround sound and a 15-in-one media reader and a 15.1" widescreen and a free one year trial for Norton Antivirus and a 3 year warranty and all this other stuff that doesn't matter, and it has a Core 2 Duo and a GT 220. It will run the game aweseome!"

I've been being so nice to everyone but I get the feeling that I can't keep it up forever. My nature won't allow me to stop though.


I think then that an appropriate solution would be to determine which thread gets the sticky treatment and then start directing people there. And if people ***** about being directed to the sticky, stick to our guns. It will take a while before people finally catch on and there will still be people who never pass up an opportunity to post their righteous indignation that the people with the answers aren't interested in repeating them ad infinitum, but the alternative is what we've got now. If I thought this would all blow over in a week or two, I wouldn't care but I expect it to continue until release, and then after release when peoples' 5 year old budget rigs are going up in flames it's going to start all over again.
#11 Jul 05 2010 at 3:54 PM Rating: Good
The One and Only Aurelius wrote:
Mikhalia wrote:
I couldn't agree more with every single word you just said.

I just wish I wasn't so damn nice when it comes to this... my two weaknesses are that I -have- to correct wrong information and that I can't -not- help someone with computer issues, if I'm able.

I admit that repeatedly answering the same exact questions over and over is getting frustrating. You'd think I'd have put "Quad Core processor and GTX 2XX/4XX or Radeon 48XX/57XX/58XX/59XX or don't bother", "No, your <$1000 laptop will NOT play XIV -at all-", and "Ignore SE's 'minimum' requirements unless you want the game to look like total ***." on a notepad file for handy reference. But for some reason I feel the need to type them out every time. As if maybe one day people will magically decide to read other posts before inciting me to repeat myself again.

"Hey guys, I know you just told the last 5 posters above me that their Athlon 64 X2 and Radeon 4200 won't run the game, but I have an Athlon 64 X2 and a Radeon 5400 so I should be fine, right?"

"Hey, I know you just told two other people that their $800 laptops won't play XIV at all, but HP has this awesome laptop on sale for only $749! It has 5.1 surround sound and a 15-in-one media reader and a 15.1" widescreen and a free one year trial for Norton Antivirus and a 3 year warranty and all this other stuff that doesn't matter, and it has a Core 2 Duo and a GT 220. It will run the game aweseome!"

I've been being so nice to everyone but I get the feeling that I can't keep it up forever. My nature won't allow me to stop though.


I think then that an appropriate solution would be to determine which thread gets the sticky treatment and then start directing people there. And if people ***** about being directed to the sticky, stick to our guns. It will take a while before people finally catch on and there will still be people who never pass up an opportunity to post their righteous indignation that the people with the answers aren't interested in repeating them ad infinitum, but the alternative is what we've got now. If I thought this would all blow over in a week or two, I wouldn't care but I expect it to continue until release, and then after release when peoples' 5 year old budget rigs are going up in flames it's going to start all over again.


I'm stating right now for the record that there are people who will disregard the advice given to them when someone tells them "That system will run the game at minimum settings, poorly, or it will not run the game at all", they will buy the game, install the game, try to run the game, and they will come here (well, 268) and post one of the following:

"OMG this game is so laggy!" "I can't get this game to work and the store won't take it back!"


...or some equivalent.

And you're right, it will start all over again.

I'm happy to give advice to someone who will listen to me and take my advice. After all, if they didn't want my advice, they wouldn't be asking me. However, I cannot be responsible for when failure to follow my advice results in failure. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person to whom this applies.

I do see a lot of people saying "Oh, your computer should be fine" because it meets the minimum requirements (barely), like that guy with the Core 2 Duo and the 8600 who got an 800 on the benchmark (he sent me a PM btw; that's a laptop) and someone told him he should be fine... no way in hell.

I mean, I get that no one likes to be told they need to go spend more than $300 to upgrade a computer to play a $50 game, but better to be honest with people than to tell them they'll be okay and set them up for a MAJOR disappointment on release day (Which is already inherently laggy due to everyone logging on at once) when they are trying to log on and play and have to keep playing the "log out and turn my settings down, log in, repeat" game and still have 5-10 FPS.
#12 Jul 06 2010 at 5:17 PM Rating: Good
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I meant to expand my thread more by suggesting some computer builds for various price ranges, but the holiday break won out for my attention span.


If one of the other threads' owners wants to use my spreadsheet, they are by all means welcome to do so. Hopefully if it is put more places it will be used more :D
#13 Jul 07 2010 at 11:28 PM Rating: Good
Lamnethx has added a lot more information to his OP and it's very detailed.

I would like to re-nominate this thread by Lamnethx for sticky instead of my own.
#14 Jul 08 2010 at 1:20 AM Rating: Decent
Mikhalia wrote:
Lamnethx has added a lot more information to his OP and it's very detailed.

I would like to re-nominate this thread by Lamnethx for sticky instead of my own.


I'm to the point now where I say pick one, sticky it, lock it, and move any new threads started to ask questions to the tech forums here. There's nothing more we can add. Every question you could imagine has been answered more times than it ever needed to be but they keep coming in. Folks need to step up and start looking out for themselves a bit more without the mandated handholding they've grown accustomed to.
#15 Jul 08 2010 at 11:01 AM Rating: Good
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I'm to the point now where I say pick one, sticky it, lock it, and move any new threads started to ask questions to the tech forums here. There's nothing more we can add. Every question you could imagine has been answered more times than it ever needed to be but they keep coming in. Folks need to step up and start looking out for themselves a bit more without the mandated handholding they've grown accustomed to.



The forum is starting to get out of hand. Just sticky a thread devoted to it, and try and funnel all the conversations into it.

Also if anyone has a better thread title that will attract more attention, or any other major areas that could be covered in the sticky, I'm very open to suggestions.
#16 Jul 08 2010 at 2:26 PM Rating: Good
Yeah, leave the sticky unlocked so that people can continue to ask the same thing over and over in the sticky instead of creting new threads. Because they're going to ask the same thing over and over regardless, might as well keep them all in one thread than have a dozen of them.

Honestly, I'd say to lock any computer related thread that isn't at least two pages in length. The ones that are 2+ pages are probably fine to leave unlocked.
#17 Jul 08 2010 at 7:25 PM Rating: Excellent
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I stickied Lammy's.
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#18 Jul 08 2010 at 7:55 PM Rating: Decent
Thanks Darq :D
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