I know the game currently has limits on how much video ram it can use so will there be any possibility this can be raised and so allow higher res textures to be used in the future for ffxi?
I know you have higher res textures available already (since you've used them for xiv in many cases) and the reason they aren't in ffxi is because of those engine limitations based on tech available at launch.
The engine already allows for higher res textures to be used. But due to various other things, they can't be used everywhere. This is largely connected with why even the most modern machines don't run FFXI any better with a lot of mobs/PCs on the screen than a system bought when the game came out.
Certain textures, mainly those associated with interface elements, have been upgraded over the years. Most notably the spell/ability icons, text within the environment, and the icons beside player names, as well as the title screen buttons and logo.
Also, the FFXIV textures were updated, while they look extremely similar, they aren't the original art assets from XI directly- some details are different, not merely higher res.
The game has a very low cap on how much video ram it's allowed to use in total...i think it's a few hundred meg, increasing that would help immensely.
This is why even brand new textures they are making for new weapons are still very low res.