HDTV/monitor and resolution

[Kildem]

Hello everybody!
So after freaking out for months trying to install XP, uninstall 7, partitions, booting, and blablabla I almost destroyed my laptop so I arrived at one shivering conclusion.
From the site Steam, I..... digitally bought FFXI ultimate collection.
I know, just reading it makes me feel dirty, but hey, I was missing FFXI way too much to WAIT for a solution lol. (also I didn't know technology went so far to allow us to download the WHOLE frigging game!)

So everything seems to be fine, the game is windows7 compatible, it contains all the 4 expansions (but none of the add-ons).
Where is the problem then? Well, rather than a problem, we could call it an issue.
The graphics.

As the title of the thread suggests, I have an LG TV/monitor plugged to the computer via HD cable.
Well, as I run FFXI, I notice bad graphics. like, not smooth at all.
It seems like playing a bad version of spyro the dragon.
Why is this happening?
I played FFXI perfectly fine for 5 years, and with the same OLD 2001 monitor (old school).
But now that I have an HDTV/monitor and an acer aspire 5000, I admit the game looks awful. And yes, I tried to play at 1360x768, I chose 1024x1024, I raised all the parameters to the best, but no, all I get is the bad bad retrò graphics.

Any suggestion from your wise experiences?

[Firewind]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

I run the exact same setup: PC and LG HDTV and have FFXI running fine resolution-wise. What you need is to edit the registry that stores your graphical settings for FFXI.

Graphics - FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more

That page has a very good guide on how to do it. You ideally want your background resolution to be set to your HDTV's native resolution and the foreground resolution set to what ever scale your want the user interface to be. There is actually a limit to the resolution you can push for the background (which is the environment's resolution), anything higher than 1280x1024 (or 2560x2048 if you want 2x Oversampling) and you don't get a noticeable effect, but you will want to push for double your native resolution so it fits on your screen correctly anyway. The effect is simply an upscaled standard definition picture that fits your screen.

Oh and make sure to change the aspect ratio in the ingame setting.

EDIT: If you are using Steam it might not be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlinexx\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI that you need to find. Try looking in the steam folder in the regedit programme if that is so.

[Armando]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Like Firewind said, follow that link and increase your resolution.

There's three resolutions at work here. What FFXI calls the "background resolution" is the number of pixels the game is using to show you the game world. The "overlay resolution" is the size of the game window. Then there's your TV's resolution which is the number of pixels it has. If the background resolution is lower than the overlay resolution, the image of the game has to be stretched to fit the game window. Likewise, if the size of the game window is lower than the resolution of your TV, the game window has to be stretched to fit the TV.

Stretching makes an image look bad because there usually isn't a perfect fit. You can't take an image of 1360x768 resolution and make it fit in a 1920x1080 grid - multiplying 1360x768 times two gives you 2720x1536 and there's no such thing as "half a pixel." So there's some blending involved and it just looks blurry and bad. If the TV has to resize the game window so it'll fit, that also introduces lag because it takes the TV time to do the resizing.

Also, using a low resolution on a big TV/monitor is like looking at a tiny picture and zooming in until it's big enough to cover the screen. It's not going to look good.

You want the overlay resolution (the game window size) to match your TV's resolution and you want the background resolution (the size of the images of the game world) to either match the overlay resolution or be twice as big if you want to go for the x2 oversampling.

So if you have a 1080p TV (1920 x 1080), you want the Overlay Resolution to be 1920x1080 and the Background Resolution to be 1920x1080 or 3840x2160. But honestly at 1920x1080 I don't see the point of doing x2 oversampling and I'm not sure a consumer PC can handle 3840x2160 and not lag. Other than that the only thing you can do is use MIP Mapping and Bump Mapping and removing any texture compression but using the right resolution is much more important.

[Firewind]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Most PCs can handle it fine, as I stated earlier, once you start going over 2560x2048 there is no noticeable difference, it is only done past that so it fits your screen.

[Kildem]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

I'm reading the guide right now (which is a complete one I might say) but I have two questions:

Can I really make all these changes by simply going to FFXI config menu? Also, Firewind what is the folder you're talking about? What should I do once (if ever lol) I reach it?

I think I just answered myself.
I have to do all the modifies through this programm, regidit, right?

[Kailea]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

I'm reading the guide right now (which is a complete one I might say) but I have two questions:

Can I really make all these changes by simply going to FFXI config menu? Also, Firewind what is the folder you're talking about? What should I do once (if ever lol) I reach it?

I think I just answered myself.
I have to do all the modifies through this programm, regidit, right?

yes the FFXI config only lets you go so high in settings, editing the registry entries allows you to go higher, I honestly dont know why SE just does not add the higher settings in their config, they know we have been doing this since..... well about since it came out ;p

[Murphie]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Seriously, it's not a complicated change to allow.

But yes, through regedit, you'll be able to change all of those values. Just be sure that you know which values you are changing and to what.

[Kildem]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

YEAH I did it!
You're right man it's easy and wikipedia guide is very accurate!
Not only I'm playing in windowed mode, but the graphics are as smooth as baby skin lol.
Thank you guys, really thank you.

Thread can be closed!

[Kailea]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

as an example, here is what mine looks like at
Resolution 1920x1080
Background 2560x1440

[IMG] Uploaded with ImageShack.us[/IMG]

bleh stupid image shack..... screwed up the pic -.-

[Kildem]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Don't worry the picture looks smooth indeed, I personally never played FFXI pushed to the limit (I remember the old days when I used to play without shadows, without weather effects and at standard resolution lol).
But now I am playing at 1280x720 and 1280x1024 and it looks stunning (on a 21 inch monitor by the way).
Maybe this evening I'll mess it up a bit more and try even higher.
At the first modify I forgot to change hexadecimal into decimal... the resolution was like 6400x4800 lol

[Murphie]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Increasing the background to force a sort of anti-aliasing really does help the world look a hell of a lot better. Enjoy!

[Kailea]

Re: HDTV/monitor and resolution

Don't worry the picture looks smooth indeed, I personally never played FFXI pushed to the limit (I remember the old days when I used to play without shadows, without weather effects and at standard resolution lol).
But now I am playing at 1280x720 and 1280x1024 and it looks stunning (on a 21 inch monitor by the way).
Maybe this evening I'll mess it up a bit more and try even higher.
At the first modify I forgot to change hexadecimal into decimal... the resolution was like 6400x4800 lol

if your going to stick with 1280x720, try the background at 1920x1080 and see how you like that