New Font

[ffxititanplayer]

The new font is freaking ugly, its all blocky and pixelly, i know its a small gripe but does anyone agree on this?

[Tsukino_Kaji]

It's smooth and perfect. Turn up your graphics.

[Atomic_Skull]

Now they just need to fix the buff icons so they aren't blurry blobs.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Now they just need to fix the buff icons so they aren't blurry blobs.Mine are just fine, turn up your resolution.

[Atomic_Skull]

Mine are just fine, turn up your resolution.

Running at 1600x900 / 3200x1800 and buff icons are still blurry blobs because they're scaled 2x with bilinear filtering no matter what resolution you use. They need to either double their resolution or simply not use filtering on them (2x scaling without filtering would be fine)

The new font is still too low resolution, it's certainly better than the old font but they really needed to bump it up to 3x the resolution of the old font instead of 2x

[RAIST]

My icons andtext arejust fine full screen at my LCD's native 1920/1080 resolution (1:1 FFXI Config, NOT super sampled, and AA/AF NOT forced, set to Application Controlled on both).

This is looking more and more like an issue with the combination of monitor, card, and software being used. There was another thread with a screen shot to show the fuzzy edges--and it was perfectly clear on both my laptop and my PC. Both are running ATI cards, both displays are 96 DPI (think the laptop was ~.24 pitch and PC is .26) and the pic had no fuzziness when I pulled it up.

[RAIST]

The more I look into this, the more I think it is an issue with the rendering on individual machines. This was an update to make it an "HD" compatible font---as in 1080p. Windows defaults to 96DPI for translating pixels to display size on your screen (ie, it more or less assumes to represent 1inch, it thinks it takes 96 pixels). This may not be correct depending on your dot pitch and resolution ratios. you can see some of the more common pitches here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_pitch
(has a link to a calculator too if you don't have the specs of your particular monitor)

1920/1080 at 23 inches comes out almost exactly to 96DPI. 1920/1200 at 23/24 inches is pretty close too. So, people with native 1920/XXXX resolutions on 22-24 inch monitors are likely very close (if not spot on) on with the actual resolution of the fonts and such, and thus are not experiencing the fuzziness some of you guys are experiencing.

You can kinda see how it can skew things if you go to the advanced properties of your display settings (right click blank spot of desktop). On the General tab you will see a setting for DPI. Change it to custom and you will see a ruler. Hold a real ruler up to it to see if the measurements are off. If so, then you have a "non-standard" dot pitch set (as far as windows, and likely your drivers are concerned). You can drag the ruller left/right to adjust the DPI to match your actual dot pitch.

IDK if adjusting the DPI translation there will clean up the font issues or not--as it has more to do with how Windows renders things like documents and pictures--but it is something someone could try I guess (I'm right at 96DPI natively, so have no need to tinker with it myslef).

[Atomic_Skull]

I guess on a normal sized monitor you might not see it but on a 46 inch monitor it's pretty obvious that there is some pixilation in the dark outline around the fonts. You can only see it if the letters are against a bright background. It's still much better than the old font however.

Windows font settings won't have any effect on FFXI at all because the "font" used on character names are just textures displayed on a polygon billboard floating over your character. FFXI doesn't use windows services for things like that, in fact it doesn't use windows services at all, everything it does is internal to the application. The core of the game is the same source code as the PS2 version but compiled to intel/windows with wrappers to interface it to D3D, windows networking and keyboard and gamepad input.

Note that this is NOT an excuse for the game to perform as badly as it does on modern hardware. Many applications are written this way and don't have performance problems like FFXI does. In theory the core code of FFXI should be agnostic about what platform it's running on so maybe the wrappers need optimization?

[RAIST]

lol 46" monitor? That may well be your problem if the screen resolution isn't ramped up to compensate and avoid the stretching. That brings to mind holding a newspaper up to your nose--you'll see the dots that make up the picture.

The situation with Windows DPI is just a way to illustrate the issue more than anything... like I said I doubted it would do anything for the game as it pertains to how windows will render documents and such, but if someone wanted to tinker with it, feel free.

The fact that a SS of the issue comes out perfectly clear on some people's systems while blurry on others is proof enough it isn't an issue with the data provided by the game so much as the way that data is making it to the screen. So it is more an issue with the system as a whole and less with the game.

[Atomic_Skull]

lol 46" monitor? That may well be your problem if the screen resolution isn't ramped up to compensate and avoid the stretching.

Running it in a 1600x900 window on the desktop so nothing is being stretched.


The fact that a SS of the issue comes out perfectly clear on some people's systems while blurry on others is proof enough it isn't an issue with the data provided by the game so much as the way that data is making it to the screen. So it is more an issue with the system as a whole and less with the game.

I've seen the same issue on three different PCs, one with an HD4850 and a core 2 quad, one with an 9800 GTX and core 2 duo, and on my main PC (i7 860 + HD5850). core 2 is running XP and the core 2 quad and i7 are running Windows 7. Same exact thing on every one, the font shows visible pixel edges if you look at it under the correct circumstances. The problem is that they merely doubled the resolution of the font, that's not enough to ensure a textel to screen pixel ratio of 1:1 or less.

Basically the problem is this: When the fonts are at maximum size one pixel in the font texture = more than one screen pixel (unless you are running the game at a low resolution like 640x480). They needed to have tripled or quadrupled the font resolution to prevent this from happening.

Increasing the resolution that FFXI runs at will not make this problem better, it actually makes it worse because the higher the resolution the game runs at the more screen pixels each pixel in the font texture uses, making the pixels even more visible. Just cranking up FFXI resolution won't magically make the font better any more than it will make any other texture the game uses better. It actually makes the pixels in the textures more visible not less visible.

[RAIST]

What is the dot pitch and native resolution of that 46" monitor? And the dot pitch/size of the other systems' monitors? That is what I am talking about with the stretching. If there is a large enough gap between the pixels, you may be more prone to see the stair-stepping because of the bigger gaps. A 46" with 3840/2160 actual pixels will render naturally like a 23" at 1920/1080--same size pixels. But if you stretch it to full screen, then you are stretching the pixels. Likewise, if it has anything less than 3840/2160 actual pixels, then each dot is bigger and thus it is getting stretched--same number of pixels are rendered, but each pixel is larger then it is on a 23" with 1920/1080 pixels. Going from around 100 dots per inch to around 50 gives you a bigger pixel to look at, so any imperfections would be more pronounced. Essentially, it is the same analogy of holding the newspaper closer.

The game's output is the same across all systems--but it is rendered differently on each screen. If all the screens of those systems you are talking about have roughly the same pixel count and gaps between pixels, then they will all likely have the same issues at the same resolutions (or relative ratios to size/DPI differences).

As I stated ealier... the ones with a resolution rendering the game around the 96 DPI range (likely the size of the font) don't appear to be seeing this issue.

[Mirage]

I think the font looks nice up close, but it is kinda harder to read a bit further away than the old font was. Running at a windowed resolution of 1600x1000 pixels now.

The suggestions to increase the resolution aren't really too helpful if you're on a computer where this isn't an option. I'm not saying old computers should hold back the development of new features, but there should probably be an option to select the old or the new font for those who have problems with the new one.

[RAIST]

Yeah.. I've always wanted a sort of generic hi/low or VGA/HD setting for the graphics options...kinda like what they TRIED to do with 14 with the psuedo 720p/1080p modes.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Running it in a 1600x900 window on the desktop so nothing is being stretched.Only? Where's the other 1k in your resolution? lol

[Glamdring]

I vote rendering in WingDings 2, anyone?

[Atomic_Skull]

What is the dot pitch and native resolution of that 46" monitor? And the dot pitch/size of the other systems' monitors? That is what I am talking about with the stretching. If there is a large enough gap between the pixels, you may be more prone to see the stair-stepping because of the bigger gaps. A 46" with 3840/2160 actual pixels will render naturally like a 23" at 1920/1080--same size pixels. But if you stretch it to full screen, then you are stretching the pixels. Likewise, if it has anything less than 3840/2160 actual pixels, then each dot is bigger and thus it is getting stretched--same number of pixels are rendered, but each pixel is larger then it is on a 23" with 1920/1080 pixels. Going from around 100 dots per inch to around 50 gives you a bigger pixel to look at, so any imperfections would be more pronounced. Essentially, it is the same analogy of holding the newspaper closer.

The game's output is the same across all systems--but it is rendered differently on each screen. If all the screens of those systems you are talking about have roughly the same pixel count and gaps between pixels, then they will all likely have the same issues at the same resolutions (or relative ratios to size/DPI differences).

As I stated ealier... the ones with a resolution rendering the game around the 96 DPI range (likely the size of the font) don't appear to be seeing this issue.


DPI is irrelevant because I'm talking about textels not actual screen pixels. I don't think you really understand what I'm talking about here.

[Atomic_Skull]

Only? Where's the other 1k in your resolution? lol

/sigh

1600x900 overlay, 3200x1800 background.

I thought that would be obvious.

[RAIST]

yes it does matter if the pixels are larger. When the dots and the gaps between them are larger, you are more likely to see the rough edges. Draw 8 pixels in a row at one size/spacing, then draw 8 more at double the size/spacing and see the difference:

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

0--0--0--0--0--0--0--0

Edit:had to edit to use hashes for the spacing, as the html was removing the extra space and it wasn't accurately showing the effect

Same bit map, but twice the size.

Another analogy, take a 4 x 6 photo and blow it up to 8 x 10---if you don't resample it to a higher pixel count, you are loosing quality.

No matter what, you are dealing with the same pixel count, but physically stretching it across a larger surface area. Unless you forked out the $30-50k (or however much they are costing now) for a Quad-HD (2160p), you are still dealing with roughly a 2 megapixel image but stretching it to 46", going from 90-96 dots per inch (the little o's) to 50-53 dots per inch (the bigger 0's). When you do this, you are physically stretching the size of each pixel and rough edges are going to be more apparent.