UI updates and Graphics adjustments-

[wish12oz]

I would like to start off by saying thanks for all the improvements so far and the continued work on updating the UI and graphics, even though the graphics update was really just adding to FFXI Config something you could do inside the registry already, lol.

Anyway! I would like to suggest something for the next graphics update that could be worked on. Inside the config menu inside the game itself, under Misc. 2, there is an option called clipping plane. Turned all the way down, it looks like this:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/c1.jpg

Turned all the way up it looks like this:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/c2.jpg

I really think it would be a great improvement to the game if you could expand on the distance the clipping plane will render by about 10x the distance. The game is 10 years old now, and any half decent PC should easily be able to handle it if the game could render much more vast distances. And the option is there already to turn it up/down to meet each PC's individual capabilities anyway, so I don't think there should be much of a problem. Giving you something more along the lines of this would be awesome:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c243/r5n/c3.jpg


*Disclaimer, I found these SS's randomly online and it gave me this idea, I did not take these or have anything to do with the construction of the images.

[Concerned4FFxi]

Sure would be sweet if they decided to do that

[Krashport]

Very nice, I agree with the OP.

[Lokithor]

*Disclaimer, I found these SS's randomly online and it gave me this idea, I did not take these or have anything to do with the construction of the images.

LOL!! You're not fooling anyone, you know. Especially when the character in the screen shot matches your icon. ;)

[Dazusu]

LOL!! You're not fooling anyone, you know. Especially when the character in the screen shot matches your icon. ;)

You just got 100% won.

[Tsuneo]

It is him. I don't know why he's acting like it's not.

[wish12oz]

LOL!! You're not fooling anyone, you know. Especially when the character in the screen shot matches your icon. ;)

This would of totally been good investigativeness, but something like 30% of all characters are mithras, and 80% of mithras are that face.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

This would of totally been good investigativeness, but something like 30% of all characters are mithras, and 80% of mithras are that face.

You'd also have been less obvious without the disclaimer.

[Dazusu]

Can't we just ban 'em already for using third-party tools?

[Dragonlord]

Can't we just ban 'em already for using third-party tools?

Some one shouldn't have to rely on third party tools to increase a clipper plane. This is a simple fix.

Also, "innocent until proven guilty". There's no name on the picture and therefore no proof.

[Atomic_Skull]

*Disclaimer, I found these SS's randomly online and it gave me this idea, I did not take these or have anything to do with the construction of the images.

Tried numerous image searches and didn't find those anywhere except the ones you uploaded to photobucket.

[wish12oz]

I was gonna say something to keep the drama going to get people to keep posting in my thread so it stays on top and gathers more attention, but meh....

[Dazusu]

Also, "innocent until proven guilty". There's no name on the picture and therefore no proof.

Clearly you've never been on the receiving end of the Square-Enix courtroom. They are judge, jury and executioner. You don't get a say in it :-)

[Camiie]

Geez people, shut up about the screenshots and get back on topic, because this is a great suggestion. Yes SE should see what they can do to massively increase the draw distance and make whatever tweaks they can to make it work well without bogging down our way-too-nice-and-new-to-not-run-this-game-flawlessly-at-max-settings-PCs.

[Hercule]

Find another screenshots :p
This is the exact same place, without then with improvement

Without:
http://img7.hostingpics.net/pics/761794Before.jpg
With:
http://img7.hostingpics.net/pics/190967After.jpg

Please SE we need this ingame option!!! :(

And people complaining about graphics mods, its so 2003 we are in 2012, games like Skyrim beat every selling chart mainly cause of mods

[Dazusu]

In all seriousness, I don't think this is anything to do with graphics card/computer strength.

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view (where there are buildings, forests and other obstacles in real life) there has to be a limit to the view to give the effect of expansion.

Stand on a hill overlooking valleys, your view is rarely infinite due to dust, clouds, fog, mist, etc.

Plus,if you absolutely must see the entire zone taking away the feeling of exploration and expansion (inb4 "I've seen every zone and know where it leads"), there are two examples by consumers of third-party programs proving just how easy it is to do on a PC.

[Eri]

In all seriousness, I don't think this is anything to do with graphics card/computer strength.

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view (where there are buildings, forests and other obstacles in real life) there has to be a limit to the view to give the effect of expansion.

Stand on a hill overlooking valleys, your view is rarely infinite due to dust, clouds, fog, mist, etc.

Plus,if you absolutely must see the entire zone taking away the feeling of exploration and expansion (inb4 "I've seen every zone and know where it leads"), there are two examples by consumers of third-party programs proving just how easy it is to do on a PC.

My 'Clipping Limit' in RL ain't as bad as FFXI is. Pc and Xbox can handle it so ye i'd like it :P Don't care about Ps2 ...... buy a PC or an Xbox seriously >_>

[Dazusu]

I don't care about PS2 in the slightest - or Xbox. I play on PC.

[wish12oz]

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view

I could almost agree with this, if the game wasn't as old as it is, some things, like the spine in meriph, are just weird looking and it totally ruins the feel of the game for me. In dynamis, or like Caedarva, I don't mind the current distance since they're obviously intended to be like that. But for vast brightly lite areas I just can't agree.

[Divinius]

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect. Just like real life, the distance you can see is not meant to be infinite. As there is a lot less in the game to obstruct your view (where there are buildings, forests and other obstacles in real life) there has to be a limit to the view to give the effect of expansion.
This is a bit of a ridiculous statement. As others have said, unless you are in a smoke-filled room, your view distance is far better in reality than it is in FFXI.

Besides, a view-distance "fog" and a "clipping plane" are two different things. Personally, I hate both, but at least the former is more realistic-looking than the latter (and the former is usually used to hide the latter). In places like Meriphataud, the clipping plane just makes the landscape look stupid, as in the above pictures.

And for the people commenting on the 3rd-party tools that may or may not have been used to generate the "improved" images, all this does is act as another prime example of why so many people use said 3rd-party tools to enhance their game experience. Here's something that a 3rd-party tool allows you to do that doesn't affect "fairness" in any way, and should not require a 3rd-party tool to do. Stuff like this is exactly the type of thing that should be high on SE's list of graphics enhancements needed to bring the game closer to the standards of the current decade.

[Kaisha]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Genexi2/FFXI/wut.jpg

[wish12oz]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.


If they let you render more of the background those caves and stuff won't need fixed!

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Find another screenshots :p
This is the exact same place, without then with improvement

Without:
http://img7.hostingpics.net/pics/761794Before.jpg
With:
http://img7.hostingpics.net/pics/190967After.jpg

Please SE we need this ingame option!!! :(

And people complaining about graphics mods, its so 2003 we are in 2012, games like Skyrim beat every selling chart mainly cause of modsExcept the time of day, weather and angle are all different.

[Dart]

I could almost agree with this, if the game wasn't as old as it is, some things, like the spine in meriph, are just weird looking and it totally ruins the feel of the game for me. In dynamis, or like Caedarva, I don't mind the current distance since they're obviously intended to be like that. But for vast brightly lite areas I just can't agree.

quiet you dirty cheater!

[Dazusu]

All games have a render limit. Even the most recent ones (granted further than FFXI - but their 'areas' are either infinite, or a lot larger than FFXI). If you can see an entire zone from one position - it takes out the sense of exploration/space.

That's the problem. FFXI's zones are tiny in comparison, seeing the entire zone does nothing for the game experience.

Just my opinion, they could always expand the render, doesn't mean people have to use it. I'd be one that doesn't.

[Zhronne]

They could incorporate some of the new stuff they programmed for the X360 version. Water, texture filtering and the fake bump-mapping are all much better in the X360 version, not forgetting that in the character select screen you're in widescreen (if you have a widescreen display of course)

[Reiterpallasch]

I think we should start a fund to get Dazusu glasses, since I'm pretty sure all but the blindest of the blind can see a mother @#$%ing mountain that is more than 200 feet in front of them.

lol @ the reasons he doesn't want this though. People like him are likely the reason we'll never get such improvements in the first place.

[Merton9999]

And people complaining about graphics mods, its so 2003 we are in 2012, games like Skyrim beat every selling chart mainly cause of mods

Skyrim is what I thought of immediately upon reading the OP. Although the environments aren't as imaginative as the ones in FFXI, I've always loved the scope and sheer vastness of what I'm looking at.

The OP is a great suggestion. I couldn't care less how the images were made.

[Waldrich]

Except the time of day, weather and angle are all different.

DISLIKE BUTTON GO!.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Skyrim is what I thought of immediately upon reading the OP. Although the environments aren't as imaginative as the ones in FFXI, I've always loved the scope and sheer vastness of what I'm looking at.

The OP is a great suggestion. I couldn't care less how the images were made.

There is a difference between a single-player game and an MMO.

[wish12oz]

I like that my thread is being bumped again!

[Zhronne]

let's bump it again then!

[Teraniku]

While I agree about the clipping plane, let's go all out and have them update the DirectX Wrapper that the game runs under. While I would prefer either a DirectX 10 or 11 update just upping it to 9 would solve a lot of issues with newer graphics cards and would allow for shiny water on PC and XBox.

[Alhanelem]

The clipping limit is for aesthetic effect.It is a performance setting- just not one anyone really needs to turn down anymore.

The only problem with using tools to push back the clipping plane is it also pushes back the fog. And in some areas at least, the fog is therefor visual effect, not just to mask detail loss in the distance.

[wildsprite]

some are saying DX10 support would be a bad idea, actually windows XP which is the only currently supported version of windows that doesn't support DX10, and it loses official support in April unless MS does something to change this, once XP is nolonger supported DX10 nolonger seems like a bad idea, till then I say atleast give us full DX9c support and hey if you really want to why not give us DX10 support as an option for systems that can handle it

[Camiie]

Widows XP Limitations!

[Midorikaze]

While I agree about the clipping plane, let's go all out and have them update the DirectX Wrapper that the game runs under. While I would prefer either a DirectX 10 or 11 update just upping it to 9 would solve a lot of issues with newer graphics cards and would allow for shiny water on PC and XBox. Yes, yes thank you, I tire of staring at clear jello (La Theine), or black tar (Port Bastok says hi) XD

[Venat]

Yeah your talking about draw distence. FFXI is very poor on that cus its based on something 10 years ago.
Its important for them to do this. Its almost more important if they redid the zones in HD and then did this.

[odericko]

I'm all for reducing the clipping pane.

[Alhanelem]

I'm all for reducing the clipping pane.
You mean increasing it. You can already reduce it. ;p

[BST]

Square Enix, Please make this happen!

[Hercule]

And if in bonus we can get new new "High Resolution" textures, it could be amazing! <3

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

windows XP which is the only currently supported version of windows that doesn't support DX10, and it loses official support in April

April of 2014.

[Fruppi]

I'd be very happy already if they make it so the game doesnt crash with Geforce 680 without having to turn off weather and shadows..Please SE fix that.

[wildsprite]

April of 2014. yeah okay I got my date a year off >.< to be fair there are many sites already announcing its doom as though it is april of this year though, full DX9c support should be implemented, upgrading to full DX9c would fix a lot of issues with the graphics in this game, it makes little sense not to since DX8 is old and outdated, it can't show water properly, it cant even do full screen without crashing if something tries to steal focus, DX9c and some previous versions(cant remember the numbers) can

[Alhanelem]

DX9c and some previous versions(cant remember the numbers) can Well actually, this problem still happened in the old version of FFXIV, which did use DX 9.0c...

[wildsprite]

Well actually, this problem still happened in the old version of FFXIV, which did use DX 9.0c...
if that is the case they implemented it wrong because many games use DX9c and some earlier versions in full screen and don't crash when focus on the game is lost

[Alhanelem]

if that is the case they implemented it wrong because many games use DX9c and some earlier versions in full screen and don't crash when focus on the game is lost
One of the many reasons the game was rebuilt from the ground up lol.

The new one doesn't do that anymore, thankfully.

[wildsprite]

One of the many reasons the game was rebuilt from the ground up lol.

The new one doesn't do that anymore, thankfully.
good to hear, I like having a game fullscreen, but my system all too many times tries to steal focus at the most inopportune times

[Laraul]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36932874/Web%20Images/img_20120514_053312.jpg

This is an image I took of me playing with the clipping distance set to "off the scale" and as you can easily see in the upper right, the cloud textures appear in below the tips of the mountains in the distance. This is probably why they have left the clipping distance where it is, so these graphical issues don't crop up.

[Laraul]

While I agree about the clipping plane, let's go all out and have them update the DirectX Wrapper that the game runs under. While I would prefer either a DirectX 10 or 11 update just upping it to 9 would solve a lot of issues with newer graphics cards and would allow for shiny water on PC and XBox.

What issues with newer graphic cards? Who has graphic issues with this game? Why would think that D3D8 prevents the game from having "shiny water" already?

[Camiie]

What issues with newer graphic cards? Who has graphic issues with this game? Why would think that D3D8 prevents the game from having "shiny water" already?

Every now and then newer cards will have issues with the game. The Geforce 660 series did recently. New drivers sometimes don't support outdated games well, and you can't always dial back to older versions. Also, some graphic effects like those involving more realistic water, simply aren't supported under older versions of DirectX.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

as you can easily see in the upper right, the cloud textures appear in below the tips of the mountains in the distance.

I wouldn't call that a problem.

[Mirage]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/36932874/Web%20Images/img_20120514_053312.jpg

This is an image I took of me playing with the clipping distance set to "off the scale" and as you can easily see in the upper right, the cloud textures appear in below the tips of the mountains in the distance. This is probably why they have left the clipping distance where it is, so these graphical issues don't crop up.

Actually, I hope an official increased draw distance would sort that out. It might be much easier to solve that issue when you've got access to the game's source code,than it is to fix it when you reverse engineer it and practically hack (even if it's a pretty benign hack) the game.

In either case, it is a very slight problem, and it doesn't occur until you increase it past 2x normal draw distance. Another issue though, is that environmental fog effects also are tied to the draw distance, so it would change that as well. That is however also something I hope SE would be able to fix in an official update.

[Demon6324236]

Another issue though, is that environmental fog effects also are tied to the draw distance, so it would change that as well. That is however also something I hope SE would be able to fix in an official update.Not sure if its the same as what you are referring to, but if you turn down your Clipping Plane inside of Alzadaal Undersea Ruins to the lowest possible, you can barley see where your going at all, everything is so dark in the area its hard to navigate. Thats something that seems fairly problematic, because I only tried doing it since I was having lag problems inside of Nyzul and Salvage, however being unable to see where I am going is not exactly helping in the end.

[Mirage]

THat's probably the same thing, yeah. It seems like all effects that are fog-like are tied to the drawdistance, and as a result, the fog appears thinner the longer draw distance you have, and thicker the lower draw distance you have. It is a bit unfortunate, really, but I guess that was the most efficient way to program that effect when keeping the PS2 in mind.

[Yrusama]

My 'Clipping Limit' in RL ain't as bad as FFXI is. Pc and Xbox can handle it so ye i'd like it :P Don't care about Ps2 ...... buy a PC or an Xbox seriously >_>

My uncle once drove my cousins and I several miles into a desert after taking a wrong turn. We were on a straight road most of the time, driving towards some distant mountains. The mountains were so far that they never seemed to get closer (grow larger in my vision), even after 10-20 minutes. They were much farther than Castle Oztroja (shown in Hercule's pic). If SE tries to claim the "distance of visibility is accurate", they've clearly never been in a flat region bigger than a couple of kilometers.

[Yrusama]

While they're at it, they could go and fix the ever present floating cave entrances you see in quite a few zones when there's a clean line-of-sight to one courtesy of the clipping plane being so short.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/Genexi2/FFXI/wut.jpg

You know, it's funny. I never had this problem a long time ago, but lately it's a glaring eyesore when I visit Valkurm. Why do those render and not the mountains?

XIV 1.0 had a related graphical issue. The Stealth ability gives the player partial transparency (like Invis in XI), but for some PCs the game couldn't handle opacity less than 100% on some features so they just didn't render. This resulted in images where the character's lips would not appear, exposing the gums and teeth and giving people nightmares. Other instances involved characters whose eyes were missing, and in my case a facial scar turned into a gaping crevasse on my face, revealing my head's hollowness (lol). I don't think this will be a problem in ARR, though.

[Mirage]

Nightmarefuel Fantasy 14.