ACT Setup Guide (Updated for 7.2)

This article will guide you through setting up ACT and making sure the exceptions it needs are created properly so it can run without any issues!

Getting Started

Start by downloading ACT Here. You want the setup file at the top. It will prompt you to select a folder you wish to save it to, the default is just fine but if you want to save it to a different drive or just create a folder inside your XIV folder you can.

As of 7.2 it's better to not run the installer or any programs as admin. If you use anything as admin, you need to add other programs as well or they will not be able to communicate with eachother. But it's preferrable to keep them all without administrator mode.

Firewall Exceptions

When Dawntrail launches and deucalion injection being the default recommended setting this is no longer necessary, as there are no issues with firewalls using it. If by any reason you cannot use deucalion injection, proceed to set these up just in case.

Open your start menu and type "Firewall with Advanced Security" and select it. Right click "Inbound Rules" and click "New rule":

Once here, click the "Program" rule at the top and proceed to find the ACT executable as you did earlier and select it:

After the correct file is selected, just click proceed, leave all the boxes checked and name it accordingly. Once that's finished, do the exact same thing for the X86 ACT executable. This is how both should look once you're done:

If you still run into issues even with the inbound rules, do the same steps above for the "Outbound Rules" section. If it still fails, try turning off any firewalls while doing this setup.

Act Wizard Setup

Once you run ACT for the first time, you'll be prompted if you want to continue as an administrator, click "Yes" so the program opens. It then will prompt you to run the setup wizard, do so and click on "Next".

Make sure the correct parsing plugin is selected the number on the plugin shouldn't change but it can change occasionally, so make sure the name is correct when installing it. Click on "Download/Enable Plugin" button on the right side and let it finish setting up.

You will be prompted with a question if ACT will be used for Final Fantasy XIV, click yes and proceed with the next step, check the box that says "Auto-load recently changed log files" as seen below and proceed with the "Next" button once again:

Make sure the "Auto Version Check" is selected and click on the close button at the bottom right.

Setting up the Overlay Plugin

Now for the fun part, setting up the Overlay for your ACT parser. Navigate to the "Plugins" tab and at the top right there should be a button called "Get Plugins" select that and let the plugin list load:

Navigate to find Overlay Plugin click "Download and Enable" at the bottom right and let it install. Keep in mind that the installation process may take a while, but once it is finished you should be prompted with the message below:

Once that's done, you should be able to select the Overlayplugin.dll window in your ACT, like this:

You can also enable an Overlay Plugin functionality that handles ending encounters instead of relying on ACT to do so. What that means is it will prevent long cutscenes or forced downtime in encounters to end your combat in ACT prematurely. It does not affect the log file itself, it is mostly for the overlay meter to properly display DPS values on any fights with said issues.

Information on how to set this up is Here.

Now, you will want to add a preset skin for your DPS meter. Here you can pick whichever one you like best, I will be going with MopiMopi because that's what I prefer to use, but all of the skins are great and it's all personal preference!

From this point, you can look up how to customize a meter in any way you want and even add background images to them. Since this is a guide just for setting up ACT to work with our website, I will be skipping this step.

Updated for 7.2.

Deucalion is now necessary to make ACT function.

Since it is necessary and automatically added, there is no setup necessary for injection anymore.

Testing and troubleshooting

You should be good to go, but to make sure everything works, we'll go into the game and test. Just find a striking dummy and if everything went well, it should show your damage being registered in the overlay of your choice:

If for some reason nothing gets registered, double check to see if your connection is working by going to the FFXIV ACT Plugin tab in and clicking on "Test Game Connection":

If everything is properly set up, you will get a prompt at the bottom right of your screen showing you it was successful.

If any other issues show up, or you'd like to set up additional plugins, I recommend going to the ACT Discord server, they're very helpful and there are tons of resources for whichever issues you may run into.

Here's a link to their Discord Server.

Contact Us

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If you have any support questions, please reach out to our support team at [email protected].