New Gaming PC Build Questions

I'm building a new PC for the first time in like 6-years and given my budget, I've opted for a I9-13900K, and a 3090 Ti. However, I have 2 questions:

1.) Has anyone noticed any issues or special settings changed that are necessary for Windows 11 for FFXI? (I currently play on Windows 10 and use dgVoodoo. Performance issues, including framerate drops, do occur at about 10 characters simultaneously).
2.) Has anyone noticed issues multi-boxing or multi-tasking given that there is a mix of P and E cores on this kind of processor? I don't know what to expect from "efficient cores", personally.

Some points:
I'm going with an ASRock Z790 ITX motherboard, which has 2 DDR5 DIMM slots, letting me put up to 96GB of RAM. My primary use-cases are gaming (modern and old), programming/virtual machines and some CAD work in Fusion 360/KICAD/Sketchup, etc.

Thanks.

I've never had to do anything special for Xi on win11. Game doesn't use enough cpu to matter which cores you're running off of either but for games where it does matter I use project lasso to create cpu sets

That said I'm using a X3D processor. Intel is probably better at working with Microsoft to get their scheduling working without extra help.

Holy crap. I didn't know how much I needed Project Lasso in my life. I'm definitely going to figure out where my performance bottlenecks are with this. Thanks for sharing it!

U Motherboard good and cpu and gbu
But what u ram and ssd hdd ?

And in benchmark test pc build best 1 is MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk WiFi Gaming dragon and ram Vengeance DDR5 6600mt or 7800mt and C16 2x32GB supports OC and xmp
Or Dominator DDR5 6600mt and up C16 2x32GB supports OC and xmp
And SSD T1 M.2 Gaming SSD, up to 6600MB/s or 7500mb/s supports OC and xmp
For /c buy 1 and /d buy 1 that help u to transfer big files from d to c take 30 second or from c to d or copy past

And
UGREEN Ethernet Cable cat8 or up with shielding and performance supports 2,000MHz bandwidth and data transmission up to 40Gbps

Wut.

Gpu scheduling can cause issues on some builds, FFXI not sure other games yes.

Disabling Kernal emulation I believe it is will give you a 5-10% fps boost in other games

Added link
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/options-to-optimize-gaming-performance-in-windows-11-a255f612-2949-4373-a566-ff6f3f474613

It's worth mentioning for other people as I see people make this mistake all the time in custom builds where they buy expensive ram and don't use the profile for the ram like xmp for Intel

I came across this while searching for the core isolation article
Can't vouch for the authenticity shamelessly posting here to look through later
https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-11-disable-gaming-performance/

What would that XMP profile be? Is that a manual setting in the BIOS? Does it get as technical as overclocking and voltage tweaks?

It is a setting in the BIOS. It is not technical in the sense of lots of manual tweaks (it is overclocking the memory). Normally it is simply a drop down and you select the XMP(Intel)\EXPO(AMD) for the speed and CAS settings you want.


Even if you buy a prebuilt PC, you should still check the XMP\EXPO settings in the BIOS. It is not that uncommon for this to not be configured or misconfigured.

Very well said.
It's not uncommon for bios to be reset and for someone to forget to turn it back on. I like to bring it up anytime someone discusses PC builds or new builds at work. You would be surprised how many people forget this even in the IT field. Chances are there are some of you reading this right now. It is not a gotcha, this is a the more you know.

I run 12 instances of FFXI/windower.
2x PCs that are identical except one is an i910th gen with the 3090ti, other is a thread ripper with a 3090ti.
I will sometimes get wierd stuff on the intel cpu. Mainly my characters will zone in somewhere and the entire zone will be pitch dark black. On the same PC i get gs and windower messages popping saying not enough memory.
I never have ANY of those problems on my threadripper even with running OBS and streaming on it.
however, on every single benchmark for some reason my intel deck gets higher scores. the two pcs are identical in every way except the AMD vs Intel CPUs and XI/Windower are both installed on my nvme.2's.

edit: the i9 10th gen also does better on FFXIV benchmark and I get higher FPS on some modern games.

edit 2: why aren't you getting a 4000 series instead of the 3090?
I would switch to AMD on your CPU, use the money saved to upgrade the GPU to a 4000 series.
think the 4080 kicks the ***out of the 3090 even before considering all the other A.I bells and whistles it comes with.

I second going for the 4000 series. Cards are cooler, more efficient, and draw less power. Plus extra features as mentioned.

Size is a factor as well; 3090 don't fit in a lot of standard cases.

Did you use the memory patch? Takes the game ram from 2gb 4gb?
I don't have a link readily available

I've had no issues at all running on Windows 11. As mentioned before, you are going to want to make sure that your XMP profile is enabled in the BIOS. Other than that, make sure DirectPlay is enabled in the "Turn Windows Features On or Off" dialog. Nowadays I believe it is enabled by default but on some earlier builds of Windows 11 it was not.

4000 series has been dogshit value per dollar since its inception. If you're spending $1300 on a gpu you may as well spend the extra 200-300 on a 4090 and get the best. In many games the difference between a 3090ti and 4080 is 10% or less @4k/1440p (if you're gaming at 1080p on one of these cards idk what the *** you're doing). 4090 is the only card that leads every other choice by a *** load but you're paying the price. Gpu pricing is currently so *** that buying anything other than halo products is getting less for your money.

I agree the entire 40 series is just terrible right now, I'm recommending people skip it entirely. Plenty of 30 series cards available for cheap.

I guess I was lucky (or unlucky). I bought this 3090Ti on 03/29/2022, the DAY they were released. A month later, GPU taxes were removed on imports to the USA, so my $2000 3090Ti became $1400-$1500 and it's been dropping in price every since. I wasn't comfortable selling it for a loss, so I just kept it in the box unopened. I've just been waiting for the right deals on other components.

Regarding size, Yes, my 3090Ti is huge, but it can be deshrouded very easily (and have Noctua fans put in place to shorten it's overall length from 358mm to 317mm, 14"->12.5"). This should fit in an NCASE M1 Evo or DAN-C4 Case quite nicely.

Regard power consumption, my 3090Ti is spec'ed to consumer 450W and while the 4090-series seems to consume up to 600W.

I have had great success with buying power supplies that are about 20% more power output than I need, especially because I never shutoff my PC. Ever. (Also, the Titanium / Platinum / Gold power-efficiency of some PSUs is a nice little performance bonus).

Because I'm building in Small Form Factor (ITX motherboard), SFX power-supplies greater than 1000W are rare (I think Corsair V1100 and V1300 are the only SFX PSUs at 1100W and 1300W respectively). So, I think I'm OK with the 3090Ti for now. (Also, I think some 4000-series cards had adapter problems and were causing fires? I'm too risk-averse to be an early adopter of bleeding edge tech. It's easier on my wallet to let someone else work out the bugs).

Could you explain the memory patch? I'd never heard of this.

It just makes pol.exe LAA

WinNT 32 bit programs by default only use 31 bits worth of address space, giving them only 2GB of maximum effective memory. This is something that's been around since at least Windows NT 4.0 (maybe 3.5). The LAA Patch program just toggles a flag in the executable that lets modern Windows OS's not emulate that ancient 31 bit behavior and instead allow for full 4GB of application memory.

How does one apply this patch to the pol.exe? I did some cursory googling and find examples for other games.

any LAA patcher works, you just direct it to pol.exe. there's one specifically for XI out there somewhere but it doesn't do anything different

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/56318/possible-blackscreen-fix-when-using-config-plugin/

4090 didn't exist at the time and 5090 will be out in six months. (and melting 12pins)

Simple enough

We probably have a year before 5090

November probably announcing Intel 14 gen though

yeah I did. the thornby one.
I should probably re-do it. I had issues with reshade and deleted a bunch of stuff to get my graphics and visuals back in order. Maybe I reset the 4gb thing by mistake. thanks for reminding me.

Supply side: GPU prices are probably going to skyrocket again next year with the new restrictions/sanctions the US just put on China last week.
Nvida being worth a trillion USD now doesnt help either.
(from 134 USD/PS in Jan 2023 to 415sh today)

OR
Demand side:
GPU prices will plummet, regardless of the sector and industrial economics and forces, because on macro global scale, this recession is cutting deep, but slowly. The pain isn't as obvious as it was in 2008, but its far worse.
If 2008 was a heart attack or stroke, this is terminal cancer spreading silently. aint no one going to be upgrading their GPUs if they can't afford rent or heat.

Demand 2.0:
Boom of A.I and all the disruption its causing and Nvidia's position across all of it, as well as the need for their GPU's, might be more of a potent force to see demand increase drastically, even during a recession.
(i'm of the above opinion, 2.0 will probably be the reality.)
During recessions massive disruptive forces cause everyone to cut costs and be more lean. A.I is at the forefront of enabling leaner, more efficient and cost-effective organizations. Anyone in the game will need to do things cheaper to stay relevant.
I literally just came out of a board meeting and my chairman refused to give me budget for hiring some Project managers and said "can't you just buy some A.I offshelf/whitelable to do this for your org?"

The 4090 has a terrible value, the fact that the rest of the 40xx line has even worse value doesn't change that. The best term I've heard used for what nVidia is doing is "Malicious Segmentation".

There is no such thing as "future proof", manufacturers are very good at convincing you to move the money from your pocket into theirs. Consumers need to instead come up with a set of requirements and use cases, determine if current hardware meets those, then reevaluate every couple of years. Purchasing decisions need to be based on those requirements and use cases not "buy the best every few years". HW manufactures have keyed in on people using that strategy and have position their products to maximize revenue extraction from the consumer, aka you.

Currently the 6700XT seems to be the best mid range value card as AMD hasn't released a 7600XT yet, though this fall should see some other SKU's coming out. nVidia might readjust it's pricing structure around that time as currently it's absolutely terrible with every 40x unit marked up an entire tier.

I'm expecting prices to crash as GPU sales have been terrible this year.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/jpr-q1-2023-aib-report-jpr

Something lots of people get confused, TSMC is not China, or rather not the China we think of. Taiwan, the location of the worlds largest chip manufacturer TSMC, is a separate country then mainland China. So while they have factories in China, they export through Taiwan, the same way Samsung exports through South Korea. NVidia / AMD / etc.. selling consumer GPU's to the US markets won't be effected by the recent bans. What will be effected is nVidia / AMD / etc.. selling stuff to China, specifically nVidia as they make products that accelerate AI related algorithms. Since all these folks use TSMC as their chip manufacturer, TSMC may see lower demand for it's extremely expensive next generation fabrication process.