Can I play FFXI

[dani1977]

I am hoping some computer savory folks can help me, because I just don't understand. I recently bought a Gateway T-1628 it has Vista Home premium (32 bit).
I want to play Final Fantasy xi. I went to the official site and it has a program that assess your system to see if you can play it. It gave me a score of 2999 which ranked me right in the middle saying... "We assume that your computer can run FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows enjoyably with the default settings. If your video card exceeds the recommended system requirements, we recommend that you increase the resolution of FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows. FINAL FANTASY XI might run just as smoothly as in low resolution mode. " The video card list at the site doesn't have my video card listed. I have no idea what series my card is in. I have searched online and can't figure it out either. The laptop played Sims2 with 2 expansions and at times the graphics went funky. I don't want to buy FFXI just to find out it doesn't play after all. Is FFXI graphic intense? More so than Sims2? The game and laptop specs are below. I appreciate any help/advice given.

The Recommended game specs
Operating System:Windows® XP Professional
CPU:Intel® Pentium®4 processor
Memory:256 MBGraphics Card:NVIDIA® GeForce FXTM series or GeForce 6 series
Sound CardirectX®8.1 compatible sound cardHard Drive Space:9.5 GB free hard disk space

New Laptop Specs
Processor AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2
Processor Speed 2.0GHz (1280 x 800)
System Bus 1600MHz
Cache Memory 512KB + 512KB at die Level 2
System Memory (RAM) 3GB
DDR2 Hard Drive Type SATA (5400 rpm)
Hard Drive Size 250GB
Optical Drive Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Optical Drive Speeds 2x DVD+R DL; 2x DVD-R DL; 8x8x8 DVD+RW; 8x6x8 DVD-RW; 5x DVD-RAM; 24x16x24 CD-RW Direct-Disc Labeling Yes Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, digital media card reader
Graphics ATI RADEON X1270
Video Memory Up to 256MB HyperMemory

[Lionheart]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Well based off of your system specs yes, you can run it. I'm not sure how good that ATI card is, but ATI is supported by FFXI so I imagine you should be fine. As far as graphics go, FFXI probably has much better graphics than the Sims. I haven't played the Sims so I don't know for sure but just look at some videos online and you can see what the graphics are like.

[Thoris]

Re: Can I play FFXI

it should play. You should download the Benchmark program from playonline.com

[dani1977]

Re: Can I play FFXI

I'm sorry I don't understand. Are you saying it will run but the graphics maybe bad? If graphics are bad, doesn't that mean it can't run? Or I can play fine it just won't be as pretty as it looks on my brothers Xbox? Do graphics matter in game play? ... Sorry if these are silly questions, but I just don't understand the coorelation between game play and the graphics card.
______________________________
I did run the benchmark program...

It gave me a score of 2999 which ranked me right in the middle saying... "We assume that your computer can run FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows enjoyably with the default settings. If your video card exceeds the recommended system requirements, we recommend that you increase the resolution of FINAL FANTASY XI for Windows. FINAL FANTASY XI might run just as smoothly as in low resolution mode. "

If they do more game updates will that number decrease?

[Tickmeoff]

Re: Can I play FFXI

It will run just fine, but it wont look as pretty as it could.

[Lionheart]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Like I said, I don’t know what kind of graphics card that is, but I imagine the game would run fine on low if not better settings. Also, I don’t think that the 360 really looked very good in the first place, at least when I played it. I run it on my PC with maxed settings and a registry edit to make things even more smoothed out, so my opinion is probably biased having played the PC version since release.

Also Thoris, if you read over what he said he obviously got the benchmark, hence why he listed his benchmark score. What confuses me is why he would come here and ask how his computer will run it after running the benchmark. The benchmark tries to congest your pc with a lot of 3d effects and characters to see how it would run under stress in a congested area, so take the score you got and read what the description says for that score. It pretty much answered your question to begin with.

[dani1977]

Re: Can I play FFXI

I appreciate the imput. I have a bit of fear because years ago I wanted to play COH on my old pc and it wasn't good enough graphic card. My character didn't even show up in the game (couldn't see it). I just don't want that to happen with FFXI after buying the game and subscription.

The Benchmark says it is not a guarantee, so I figured I would take it to others who may have had expierences. I am getting mixed reviews at different forums.

[Lionheart]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Do any of the graphics on the benchmark look weird or appear to be missing? I.e. character, trees etc. If not, then your graphics card should load objects.

[dani1977]

Re: Can I play FFXI

No it actually looked pretty good. A little slow in some spots, it didn't look like the 360, but it didn't look glitchy and it didn't appear things weren't loading.

[Lionheart]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Yeah, most computers will have slow points actually, because the purpose of the benchmark is to bog down your system to see how well it can preform with lot's of stuff going on. The only time you will probably run into that much stuff in game is in a town or a large raid.

[dani1977]

Re: Can I play FFXI

hmmm ok cool. I'm going to go for it then. Thanks!

[Lionheart]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Np, good luck, though I imagine it will run just fine.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Comparison of ATI graphics processing units - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The X1270 is an onboard video chipset, not that different from the X1250. It's somewhat low-end, but much newer than FFXI really needs.

You're being overly cautious about this, really. I got very good high-resolution performance on an extremely old Radeon 8500. I do note the max fill rate is only 1600 MT/s, but you're still better off than those with cheap GeForce 4 and 5 cards. You should have no real difficulty performing well at the maximum resolutions you can set in the FFXI config tool. You're only likely to run into problems pushing past those maximums by hand-editing the registry.

Edit: You are in the performance area where it'll be useful to know about the in-game option to suppress weather effects. This is in the second menu, under Config > Misc. You can leave weather effects on normally, but may want to switch them off if you're doing something where speed is critical.

[Kuro]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Edit: You are in the performance area where it'll be useful to know about the in-game option to suppress weather effects. This is in the second menu, under Config > Misc. You can leave weather effects on normally, but may want to switch them off if you're doing something where speed is critical.

Also want to disable weather effects when sandstorms pick up in some zones. Even with a avarage spec computer the sandstorm effects have a habit of draining prcessing power.

[dani1977]

Re: Can I play FFXI

Thanks for everybodies input. I will end up getting the game Tues, so maybe ya'll will see me around I'm excited now.