The guy told me about another korean sandbox mmo I hadn't heard of called black desert. Might be worth checking out as well.

Benchmark is up.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/

5500 on max settings 1920x1080, CPU OC'd to 4.4ghz. Benchmark doesn't seem to use SLI.

I set it to maximum 1920 x 1080 and got a 7946 or "EXTREMELY HIGH" performance.

Game still looks great. Gameplay doesn't seem to have changed at all though.

I think I need to ditch the SLI and just get a single higher tier card. SLI is so inconsistent and most developers don't really seem to care enough about it to optimize games for it.

That's exactly the reason I went with a single card. Seems that the benchmark is a bit more graphics dominant since u have a better processor. I'm running a slightly overclocked 670 and it seems to be kicking ass. Although it does run kind of hot sometimes.

Had to delete previous post because I didn't want it showing until I was able to make this forum member only. I don't feel like typing everything out again, so I'll just say this:

Been playing the beta. Feels like a completely different game from 1.0. Basically what the game should have been from the start. Everything is much more fluid and responsive. But it does use the "traditional" MMO questing and combat. With side stuff thrown in like Fates which are basically dynamic events and you still get leve quests.

If you don't mind the traditional MMO systems and like Final Fantasy, then it might be worth a second look. I'll be playing the first free 30 days at launch to see what end game is like.

is it still those quest hub crystal things?
how about the crafting system, it was annoying having t find someone to repair my shit after 30 mins

is combat faster? ui better? lag better? job system still? diminishing xp returns?

a lot of us are considering going back but we need to see improvements.

For the quests they're like they are in WoW. They're scattered around the different maps, you just talk to NPCs to get the quests and it's usually your typical kill x of y or gather x of y quests. They're the primary form of leveling and you usually get gear upgrades, food, or potions from them.

Then out in the zones they'll have a bunch of different fates going on scattered throughout the zone which are pretty much like rifts in Rift. A bunch of mobs will swarm in or an NM will pop and you just tag shit to get credit for the event.

There's not really a claim system anymore. It's similar to GW2 where you get exp and quest credit for just doing damage to a mob even if somebody else started attacking it first.There is no diminishing returns on exp.

Jump is in the game now so you don't have to waste a ton of time walking around terrain. So far only Gridania and the surrounding areas are in beta, but everything looks completely different.

You still get gear damage but it doesn't damage very fast at all and you can repair them at various NPCs that are usually in all the main camps. You just pay a gil fee. As for crafting, I haven't tried it out yet, but from what I heard it's also a lot better.

You still have the leve quests too that were in 1.0, but unlike in 1.0 they're more of side content rather than your main form of leveling. The regular quests are there for that. But the leve quests can be obtained from the main camps and are level appropriate for the area. You can do 3 leves every 9 hours.

Combat is a lot more responsive and faster paced then it was in 1.0. Think SWTOR's combat and it's pretty close to what this game is now, though maybe a little slower.

The class system is basically the same as it was in 1.0, but they also have jobs which you can do a quest at level 30 to unlock. So say you level Lancer up to 30, you'll be able to do a quest to unlock Dragoon. Marauder unlocks Warrior, Pugilist unlocks Monk, Archer I think is Bard, Conjurer is Black Mage, and so on. They're also adding some new jobs in before release like Summoner. And they said they'll be adding more jobs like Samurai, Ninja, and Thief after release.

They're supposed to have player housing and guild housing at release I believe. You'll be able to buy chocobo stables for you house to breed and raise chocobos. I think they also said you're gonna be able to get different armors for you chocobos.

The UI is a ton better. It a lot more fluid and easy to use like you would expect an MMO UI to be these days. You can move windows and parts of the UI around freely to customize it the way you want.

PvP isn't in beta so far, but they said it would be in at release. I'm not exactly sure what they're planning to do with it, but it will be instanced for sure. I think they said they're gonna have instanced games like CTF and the like, and then also a whole zone for PvP. But they said they won't ever add open world PvP as it doesn't fit FF.

sounds like a nice improvement i'll check it out whenever i get into the beta.