:) great game only one prob :)

[Feba]

Re: great game only one prob

I assume SE didn't *need* to, they decided to upgrade the graphics (while not going to DX10 because they didn't want to lose their legacy clients in a puff of rage), and decided they might as well knock this out now.

It would probably be easier for SE to take a sans-plugin windower, modify it for their own purposes, and release it as a temporary solution. I doubt the owners would be able to sue SE, and I doubt they'd want to. That said, I'm certain SE has a windowed mode of FFXI for their own purposes, they just never released it out of mislead hacking concerns or (more likely imo) laziness.

[Mhurron]

Re: great game only one prob

I assume SE didn't *need* to

Talk to some GeForce owners and you'll probably change your mind that they didn't need to do something drastic. Graphics performance issues were only going to be exasperated by windowing it without fixing whatever happens there.

Pentium D, 2GB ram and a GeForce 8600GT and the game ran better on a Sempron 2500+, 1GB ram and an ATI X1600.

And temporary solutions have a bad habit of becoming permanent once they're put into play. A temporary solution is a bad solution.

[Feba]

Re: great game only one prob

Talk to some GeForce owners and you'll probably change your mind that they didn't need to do something drastic.

Hey, I used to play on an MX440. It has problems, but it's not THAT drastic.

[Edelweiss]

Re: great game only one prob

I would just buy a Iphone or a Sidekick lol look up FFXI information on the web why you are play lol I am kidding but I would so do that if could.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: great game only one prob

I would assume that S-E ported FFXI to PC using some sort of PS2->PC porting framework--and it's probably some aging, never-been-completely-stable one, filled with patches for the patches and untold number of bugs.

Most likely, they were looking into updating the framework to begin with (probably bought it from its original devs or decided to pay up a king's ransom for the vendor to update it). The decision to put add a windowed mode probably just had good(bad?) timing; it's a logical time/place to do the work. Unfortunately for the players, that means the windowed mode roll out probably is tied to the major client update for Divine Soldiers of Altana (WotG), and won't be released until that expansion is out.

Oh, and I doubt S-E wanted to spend the money to upgrade that framework just for FFXI; most likely the company just wanted a more modern cross platform framework for their next MMORPG, which they probably had originally planned to be PS3 first...

Disclaimer: Everything I wrote in this post is wild speculation.

[Feba]

Re: great game only one prob

What I think is weird is that FFXI is in DX8... I'm sure that made teh xbox port easier, but wouldn't the PS2 version have used OpenGL? I can't imagine Sony using DX APIs for the PS2.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: great game only one prob

What I think is weird is that FFXI is in DX8... I'm sure that made teh xbox port easier, but wouldn't the PS2 version have used OpenGL? I can't imagine Sony using DX APIs for the PS2.

After searching for some time, I found no credible evidence that Sony's PS2 OS supported OpenGL natively. Found one casual reference which says PS3 uses OpenGL, "unlike the PlayStation and PlayStation 2", as a sidebar to an article from way back. Also found in EETimes another reference to the use of proprietary (graphic) API's in PS1 and PS2.

When I said "framework", I meant in part the software wrapper (or an "adapter", to hipper devs) which would translate calls to Sony's (presumably) proprietary graphic API into DirectX calls. This kind of framework would have been some pretty expensive software, since PS2 has extensive capability for procedural graphics with two co-processors (one full-time, one part-time) with large local memory in the CPU unit to generate data for feeding to the Graphic Synthesizer (which is the GPU, I'd assume).

Also, given how abnormal that architecture of VU0+VU1->Graphic Synthesizer must have been at the time, Sony probably couldn't have use the existing OpenGL even if it wanted to, back when its engineers were developing the PS2.


More disclaimer: Computer graphic is so not my strong point. >_>; Don't quote me on how PS2 cranks out its graphics.

[Amele]

Re: great game only one prob

they rebuilt the graphics calls for PC, which is why whenever there was a strictly graphics issue, it only occurred on one platform or the other (now it's PC/Xbox vs PS2; since PC/xbox both use dx8).

dx is used for alot more than just graphics though, and based on the wording SE used, it doesn't sound like an opportunistic graphics upgrade.

the game load should be a little less and the frame rates a little smoother for most players once this is done, but the overall quality of the graphics is 99% likely to stay the same, unless SE has been quietly working on a graphics overhaul for the last two years without telling us. (something they've said they don't want to do because it would require forking the file base in addition to the compiled code.)

and the windower Dev team could and possibly would sue if SE just ripped their implementation (the basic concept is pretty straightforward but the specific implementation they chose is not) that code is copyrighted and is legally developed, whether or not it violates SE's ToS has no bearing on the legal case that they could make.

I also doubt SE has a release code version of FFXI with windowed mode, for their purposes, they only need a client inside a debugging virtual machine.

The issue with nvidia cards has always been newer cards, feba, not older ones (it's related to the graphics calls that SE chose and the specifics of how they implemented, they did *something* very weird with song/spell effects.)

[Waylander]

Re: great game only one prob

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[Mhurron]

Re: great game only one prob

The issue with nvidia cards has always been newer cards, feba, not older ones (it's related to the graphics calls that SE chose and the specifics of how they implemented, they did *something* very weird with song/spell effects.)

It's much worse with 8 series cards. 2-3 people on the screen = stuttering and horrible lag.

It works fine on ATI cards, there's a problem with nVidia and how they implement whatever FFXI is doing. It should be fixed if the DX9 update is done properly as each DX standard leaves less and less room for creativity on the end of the implementer as far as what the final result has to be.

[InuTrunks]

Re: great game only one prob

Wasn't FFXI coded spef. to work with nVidia cards?

It works fine on ATI cards, there's a problem with nVidia and how they implement whatever FFXI is doing.

[Mhurron]

Re: great game only one prob

Wasn't FFXI coded spef. to work with nVidia cards?

nVidia is a sponsor and supposedly this means their engineers are available to SE to make it run the best on nVidia's cards, but ATI's cards don't have these problems. Like I said I had a X1600 that could do the 2048x2048 background with AA+AF set to 2x or 4x and that ran a whole lot better then the 8600GT which can't do any AA or AF and has to be set lower then the 2048x2048 background to be playable unless I am the only thing in the zone.

[Amele]

Re: great game only one prob

newer ATI's have issues too, it's just not always as pronounced.

the primary problem stems from some idiosyncratic issue with how SE implemented the calls for anything involving particles (basically spell/song effects) that ATI drivers just ride over better - mostly.

I have a friend who ditched his ATI for an nvidia specifically because it had problems.

my nvidia cards (even in SLI) work just fine.

[Master Grimm]

Re: great game only one prob

You people are lucky to play this game. I Cant' For 3 reasons.
1. I can't get a job yet
2. My grandmothers paranoid so I can't use a credit card
3. Play online dosent have any Prepaid cards. THEY NEED PREPAID CARDS LIKE XBox live
So don't complain about the game if you'r lucky enough to play it..

[InuTrunks]

Re: great game only one prob

You people are lucky to play this game. I Cant' For 3 reasons.

1. I can't get a job yet
2. My grandmothers paranoid so I can't use a credit card
3. Play online dosent have any Prepaid cards. THEY NEED PREPAID CARDS LIKE XBox live
So don't complain about the game if you'r lucky enough to play it..

1) If you're 15, you can get a job, which leads me to believe you might be younger then 13, then you shouldn't be playing this game anyway, infact, it's against the rules.

2-3) The game has been in session for just over 5 years, they do not need pre-paid cards, there is no sense for them. If you don't want to get a credit card, then just goto your local gas station, and apply for a "pre-paid visa" and just put 13.00 on it (may have to start at 25, not sure).

And, we do have a right to complain, we're a paying customer. The world dosn't work like that, sorry kiddo.