Kill the PS2 limitations end of the Dark Ages Era

[JackDaniels]

Are the majority of PS2 users using 12 year old computers?? Can their computers even run microsoft word 2007?? Like.. wtf..

EDIT:
There are refurbished laptops that could run at least three ffxi clients at once that sell for at most 300 dollars. Time to upgrade! Down with ps2!

[RAIST]

I'm sure it been said but, the limitations SE has is not the PS2, its the budget put into the game, they are already stretched thin with all the additions they are working on, overhauling the game would require more artists for the graphics, more devs for the recoding, and more testing for these improvements, all of which add up to more $$$, its been said if it aint broken dont fix it, it's most of you PC users are Nazi "KILL THE PS2s!!! Heil, mein PC!!!". Really if you don't like it why do you still pay to play the game every month, obviously its not for the graphics :P

Actually, yes it IS because of the PS2. As was stated earlier, this game was coded for the PS2 environment. They later (like, 2 years later I think, forget the exact time line) created a wrapper to allow the game to be played on the PC--it was sort of emulated on the PC. Not true emulation, but the PC is more or less running the PS2 logic, while certain aspects are passed off to DirectX and such, so it's kind of 50/50 or maybe 75/25 emulation--but a large part of the core is still restricted by the original PS2 environmental support built into the game engine. They pretty much repeated the same process to stick it on the 360 several years later.

So, again as stated before, dropping PS2 support is just one piece of the puzzle. After that, they have to drop all the legacy code (and the restrictions bound to them) and generate a whole new environment for the game to run in. Wouldn't hold my breath on that happening any time soon for a game this old. Maybe once XP and DX8.1/9.0c emulation is completely dropped by Microsoft it'll happen....if FFXI is still thriving by then.

[DeadlySwordz]

indeed. i first started FFXI on ps2, then got it for XBox360, then PC. same account used on all these platforms

[Atomic_Skull]

I don't think so... you better back this up with some good references... D3D9 will work with all prior D3D versions... D3D9Ex (D3D9.1) is a different story.

DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 are seperate. That's why there is a d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll that applications call depending on whether they're using DirectX 8 or DirectX 9.

In windows 7 and Windows Vista, d3d8.dll is actually a wrapper that translates DirectX 8 functions to DirectX 9.

Application -> d3d8.dll -> d3d9.dll -> HAL -> device driver -> GPU

As opposed to Windows XP where it's:

Application -> d3d8.dll -> HAL -> device driver -> GPU

Again please back this up with some references. FFXI does not draw the 3D rendering to the frame buffer. Obviously if it did you wouldn't have separate settings for the UI/screen resolution and a 3D world resolution setting.

No really? That's exactly what I said. FFXI draws the 3D scene into an offscreen drawing surface (render to texture) which is why driver level FSAA doesn't work with FFXI as DirectX 8 can't perform FSAA on applications that don't render to the framebuffer.

[RAIST]

hehe.. not this debate over the frame buffer and render to texture method... wasn't this settled in like..... 2004?

I actually think the AA was working somewhat last time I tinkered with it ages ago, just not on the actually game components we want--seemed like my chat and such in the overlay was crisper. A lot of good that does us...lol.

[CrAZYVIC]

Check the link and compare the screenshots

http://gameguide.na.aiononline.com/a...raphics+Engine

In that link is a clear example of what can be done, with a update this elements.

Weather effects
Water Effects
Shaders
Shadows
Lights
Background detail.

All this elements can be introduced, by "Updates". Not is necesary kill the ps2 users, just work on pc/xbox360 users with this graphics update.

I play aion 2.5 and i can say guys there after since this was introduced. The diference is a lot.

Now the main reason for the devs say "Ps2 limitation is this". In japan almost all players "Hate play on pc and xbox360". In japan they love play on jp consoles. Actually the 80% by japan players play ffxi on ps3/ps2. Yes they hate play in PC and xbox360.

The devs can give us our graphic update for pc and xbox360, and keep give service to the jp guys.Kill the 70% from the ffxi population not is cool. (We have to be realistic, the JP comunity is x 2 or almost x 3 more big than America/Europe.)

Now after the graphic update, they can release the new ffxi ver on ps3 so the jp guys will be happy.

[Sudokai]

It may not be entirely possible to expand the partition size limit if its hard-coded in the system itself. A computer has something called a BIOS chip which contains all the neccessary minimal instructions to start your computer, but ultimately your computer runs off the Hard Drive. The PS2 and most game systems have something similar to a BIOS chip, however it's version contains everything it needs to work and acts independantly without the need of hardware like a Hard Drive. If the data to expand the partition is hard-coded into the chip, there is likely little that can be done to change it's parimiters.

But before anyone says it, the newest generation of consoles have worked around this issue with improved hardware such as flash data storage programmers can update the consoles OS as needed allowing greater flexability to adjust these limits.

I cannot believe how far into this i had to read before someone pointed out it's a physical limitation in the PS2 architecture.. not a memory issue. Thank you! PS2 cannot (legitimately) be updated in it's current design and treats the HDD like a mass storage device. Kudos sir, Kudos.

[RAIST]

Check the link and compare the screenshots

http://gameguide.na.aiononline.com/a...raphics+Engine

In that link is a clear example of what can be done, with a update this elements.

Weather effects
Water Effects
Shaders
Shadows
Lights
Background detail.

All this elements can be introduced, by "Updates". Not is necesary kill the ps2 users, just work on pc/xbox360 users with this graphics update.

I play aion 2.5 and i can say guys there after since this was introduced. The diference is a lot.

Now the main reason for the devs say "Ps2 limitation is this". In japan almost all players "Hate play on pc and xbox360". In japan they love play on jp consoles. Actually the 80% by japan players play ffxi on ps3/ps2. Yes they hate play in PC and xbox360.

The devs can give us our graphic update for pc and xbox360, and keep give service to the jp guys.Kill the 70% from the ffxi population not is cool. (We have to be realistic, the JP comunity is x 2 or almost x 3 more big than America/Europe.)

Now after the graphic update, they can release the new ffxi ver on ps3 so the jp guys will be happy.

Again....missing the key problem. Aion was built to run in a PC environment. Let me state that again--a PC ENVIRONMENT. FFXI was built to run in the PS2 ENVIRONMENT. As such, the engine is "hardcoded" with specific limitations based on the hardware used in the PS2. That SAME code with the SAME RESTRICTIONS exist in the code used on the other platforms because they are run through a WRAPPER (think of the virtual machine in Java). Another way to think of it, running XP Virtual machine in Win7. You are limited to the environment that the program was originally coded to run in. Doesn't matter that you are on a machine that can see and use 8GB of memory--if it is running in an XP 32bit virtual bubble, it will only access and use up to 4GB of memory.

Aion can do a heck of a lot more because it's designed with the more robust enironment of a PC to work with. FFXI was designed with the more restrictive environment in mind, so it has these restrictions built into the code itself. It doesn't matter that your hardware may have access to more resources if the game's engines can't take advantage of those extra resources. The legacy code has "soft" caps on a lot of things that can't be gotten around without dramatically changing those engines for use ONLY on those specific platforms.

So in effect, you would be rolling out a NEW FFXI specific for another platform, and could no longer create certain portions of code that could be ported directly to each platform. You would have to make the same change manually and specifically to each platform's code, instead of changing the code in the specific library once and just dropping it into the package for each platform. It wouldn't be something like the font change either--we are talking about specific limitations built into to specific command lines (like the size limit on the storage containers). You can't necessarily just drop a few lines of code directly into a ROM file, you have to edit the source and recompile. With the font change, they created a complete ROM file and saved it. If they do a big dump of files from an update into the package for PC and that contains the old font files and push that out by mistake--all they have to do is a push out a quick update to copy the updated ROM's over them. If this were to happen and a patched ROM was one that would reset the cap to 80 after they released ones for PC that lifted it to 100...imagine the riot that would spark off. They'd have to go back to the specific PC source containing the 100 cap, edit the source for the new changes, recompile, then push it out.

In short, making a custom environment for each platform (outside of the wrappers designed for each platform's support) is simply more work, and creates a larger margin of error in the update process. By keeping the core portions of the game being emulated consistent across all platforms, it greatly simplifies things, saving SE time and money in the long run. Thus, if it is something in the core of FFXI's code that can't be done on the PS2 or specifically to another platform practically/reliably (like the font change, this was is an easy thing to implement/maintain in comparison)--then SE is less inclined to implement it. That's the way it's been since 2003, and is not likely to change any time soon.

[Spero]

Bottom line is that ffxi is and always will be a ps2 game, get over it.

[hordecore]

PS2 should be recycled all over the world and make something more useful