Improving FFXI's Graphics

Thought I would post something I put up on Alla a while ago on here, many people complain how dated FFXI's graphics look but it's quite easy to make them look a lot nicer.

http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/finalfantasy11/ss-02.jpg

Picture above is an idea how FFXI should look on a decent pc.

To change the graphics settings you have to edit the FFXI registry settings.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Graphics

Click on start in the bottom left hand corner of windows, type regedit in the search bar and it will run, navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI
or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PlayOnlineEU\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI

Each value there is listed below (bold items are the most important).

Quote:

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0000 MIP mapping
0001 Screen resolution width (in pixels)
0002 Screen resolution height (in pixels)
0003 Background resolution width (in pixels)
0004 Background resolution height (in pixels)
0007 Music and Sound effects (0=Off, 1=On)
0011 Environmental Animation (0=Off, 1=Normal, 2=Smooth)
0017 Bump Mapping (0=Off, 1=On)
0018 Texture Compression (0=High, 1=Low, 2=Uncompressed)
0019 On-Screen Maps (0=Compressed, 1=Uncompressed)
0022 Intro Movie (0=Disabled, 1=Enabled)
0034 Window Mode (0=Full Screen, 1=Window Mode)

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Mip mapping has a kind of blur effect to background scenery, it helps to counter sparkle effect.

Values are 1-4, I have mine set to 3 currently which seems to work pretty well.

Quote:

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0001 Screen resolution width (in pixels)
0002 Screen resolution height (in pixels)

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List of normal screen modes below, whichever of these you pick you need to put into value 001 and 002 (ie. if you use 1920 x 1080 it will appear like this 001=780(1920), 002=438(1080)). Enter the amount shown in brackets using the decimal button.

Standard (4:3)

* 640 x 480
* 800 x 600
* 1024 x 768
* 1280 x 1024
* 1600 x 1200

Widescreen (16:10)

* 720 x 576
* 800 x 480
* 1280 x 768
* 1440 x 900
* 1680 x 1050
* 1920 x 1200

HDTV (16:9)

* 720 x 480
* 1280 x 720
* 1920 x 1080

If you change from one monitor type screen res (Standard (4:3), Widescreen (16:10), HDTV (16:9))to another you will have to change the aspect ratio within the FFXI menus (config>misc2) to the numbers above in brackets, if you don't everything will look distorted and stumpy. Make sure you actually have the monitor type for the screen res you are trying to use also, using 1920 x 1080 if you don't have a HDTV 16:9 monitor won't work too well.

Quote:

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0003 Background resolution width (in pixels)
0004 Background resolution height (in pixels)

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You will want to set this to double whatever settings you use for the above, so for instance.

1600 x 1200 = 3200 x 2400
1920 x 1200 = 3840 x 2400
1920 x 1080 = 3840 x 2160

If you used 1920 x 1080 then you enter 3840 and 2160 in 003 and 004.

Texture compression should always be set to 2 (uncompressed).

Assuming this is not against the rules, since it's a simple regedit that makes FFXI look a lot better.

just make sure your card can handle the resolution. Adjust resolution settings accordingly to reach an acceptable framerate--some may find they need to stay at a 1:1 ratio to maintain smooth gameplay on older cards.

After ramping up background resolution, go stand in a telepoint and /heal. Pan your camera around, change to first-person view, etc. If you notice a big framerate hit (easy to verify if you can enable a frame counter), this is what you can expect in heavily congested areas like maybe campaign, besieged, packed abyssea areas, around the Magian moogles and Port Jueno at the Abyssea NPC's.

oh god if people are still playing with default settings I feel bad for them... plz follow this guide.

Just a fair warning, always save a backup prior to editting registry keys, as those less knowledgeable in such topics can cause errors to occur on your computer. Another warning, do not use this on a stock laptop, as unless you know for sure it has been modified for gaming to begin with, most stock chipsets cannot handle higher resolutions outside the 1:1 aspect ratio. Greater than that could cause lag, and slow framerate.

Otherwise not a bad piece of info.

Make sure you're editing the decimal values and not the hexadecimal ones.

...unless you know hexadecimal really well.


Also, typically people will turn off weather effects in the game to handle higher resolutions. Weather effects have a huge impact on performance.


e: I've noticed that confluxes in abyssea murder my framerate. Is that some bad coding in the game or am I running my settings too high?

hmm thanks for this xD

Conflux and Telecrystals are the ultimate tests of if your pc or laptop can handle this change. If you tele holla and can't control your char for 20 mins... maybe this isn't the best for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Runespider

Happens for me too, I just dat swapped them out.

Conflux are 1/240/111.dat

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Becareful what you mention here.. .dat swapping can get you canned, since editting game files is a TOS violation.

Hi. I see you have data for 0-19, 22, 34...but what do the others do? I don't know what settings to change

To be honest, they still look dated with graphics bumped up past what the config tool let you set.