Kill the PS2 limitations end of the Dark Ages Era

[rog]

Yes, but ram is still available, regardless of what type of game is being played, unless sony specifically disabled it (such as the wii, or ds does when playing gamecube/gba games)

[Alhanelem]

Additional RAM is NOT available when you're emulating. The program expects a very specific environment (in the case of consoles) and attempting to change that will result in either 1) the program simply not utilizing it (because it doesn't know it's there) or 2) unpredictable errors/crashing.

[rog]

It definitely would not result in crashing. The first problem is easily solved.

[Swords]

Yes, but ram is still available, regardless of what type of game is being played, unless sony specifically disabled it (such as the wii, or ds does when playing gamecube/gba games)

Even the earliest consoles and computers like the Sega Genesis and Comodore 64 had a small amount of ram incorporated in it's system, so it cannot be fully disabled. But games and hardware are specifcally modeled to the specifications they were built with and designed on. The only way to truely utilize the specs from a more powerful system when emulating, is to go in and adjust FFXI's drivers and the emulating software itself to use them.

[Atomic_Skull]

This infact is why we didn't get the full DirectX upgrade we were promised what... 2 years ago? Forget when they proposed it--but they found it entailed too much and wasn't worth the resources to complete it.

Yeah, I didn't believe that excuse then and I still don't. The real reason was they just didn't want to bother or were thinking about FFXIV at the time (remember they started working on FFXIV around COP) and didn't want to "waste" development time on a game which at that time they thought would last 5 years at the most. DirectX 9 isn't that much different than DirectX 8, it's really just a refinement and extension of it. They are close enough that you can pretty much just convert the D3D calls in your code and make a few minor adjustments. It's not nearly as different as DirectX 9 vs DirectX 10.

Converting an application from DirectX 8 to DirectX 9 is not some incredibly difficult programming task. If you know anything about D3D you know this is not true.

Even if they don't do a full graphics update there are things they could do to modernize the existing client and make it work better on modern PC's without affecting PS2 support. I'll just copy past from the other thread because apparently not many people actually looked at it.

First of all, change how the resolution select works in the config. We already know that FFXI supports any resolution your graphics card is capable of so restricting the "background" setting to a maximum of 1024x1024 in the config utility doesn't make sense.

Furthermore, the whole "background/overlay" system they use is confusing to new players. They should change the "background" to be a fraction of the overlay and change the name to "Rendering resolution" with a help text that explains what it actually is. So you can select the resolution you want and then choose 1/4 1/2 2/3 and "full resolution" for rendering (this is the way FFXIV does it).

Update FFXI to DirexctX 9 already, DirectX 8 is dying and Nvidia and ATI hardly care about it. This would solve 95% of the problems FFXI has on Windows Vista and Windows 7.

60fps support. FFXI's graphics engine *does* support 60fps, there is a cutscene in COP that runs at 60 fps (the one with the demons) and the FFXI benchmark also runs at 60fps in places. So we know this is possible without having to change any of the animations for the models.

MSAA support, or rather, MSAA support that isn't really slow. At least on ATI cards if you match the overlay and background resolutions (e.g. 1280x720 for both) then forced MSAA actually works with FFXI. The problem though is that it is very slow with shadows enabled. MSAA already works with FFXI, so it's just a matter of fixing FFXI to work better with it.

Adjustable menu size. Add an option to draw the menus larger so that everything doesn't become unreadable at very high resolutions. Even if it's just "draw all menus at 2x size"

An option to restrict the width of the UI. So say if you were running the game at 1920x1080 you could restrict the width at which the UI is drawn to 1440.

Related to the above, user defined aspect ratio, or alternatively just have FFXI assume square pixels. Almost all displays these days use discrete pixels anyway. Combined with the above they would allow FFXI to work with eyefinity three monitor setups. FFXI can already run on three monitors because they simply look like a single very wide display to applications. The only problem is that FFXI is limited to 16:9 and the UI spans all three displays, so while it works it's not very useful.

None of these things would be too hard to implement. Only converting to DirectX 9 and MSAA optimization would be much work and even that might take one person a month or two.

Oh and to the above list I'd like to add "support the shoulder buttons on Xbox 360 controllers on the PC" so we can use the official drivers from Microsoft and not have to hammer the F8 key every time our computer boots.

[Atomic_Skull]

Yes, but ram is still available, regardless of what type of game is being played, unless sony specifically disabled it (such as the wii, or ds does when playing gamecube/gba games)

It's not available to PS2 games because it's emulation. The PS2 software runs inside a virtual PS2, it does not run directly on the PS3 hardware. It doesn't "know" that it's running on a software emulation of the PS2 hardware and not an actual PS2.They could change the emulation to make more RAM available (basically the PS3 would be emulating an "enhanced" PS2), but that would require Sony's cooperation and they aren't likely to do this. It would also require FFXI to support the extra RAM. It also could introduce bugs if other PS2 software tried to write into memory addresses that don't actually exist on a real PS2 but which do on the emulation.

And yes it's very possible that some PS2 games could do that. Either because it's involved in some weird hardware trick or because it doesn't actually do anything on a PS2 and was just overlooked.

[Khajit]

I find it interesting how so many people actually expect ps2 users to automatically transfer to pc. Until the HD on my ps2 died the instant SE got rid of ps2 support I would have quit the game despite the fact that I had a computer with ffxi on it.
Do you guys really think the general reaction of people on a ps2 wouldnt be "screw you" and that the 360 userbase wouldn't find something else to do as they could easily be next on the hitlist within a few more years?
Cutting off and alienating a bunch of steady customers is not a good business practice in a company.

[Karbuncle]

I find it interesting how so many people actually expect ps2 users to automatically transfer to pc. Until the HD on my ps2 died the instant SE got rid of ps2 support I would have quit the game despite the fact that I had a computer with ffxi on it.
Do you guys really think the general reaction of people on a ps2 wouldnt be "screw you" and that the 360 userbase wouldn't find something else to do as they could easily be next on the hitlist within a few more years?
Cutting off and alienating a bunch of steady customers is not a good business practice in a company.

Neither is letting a game slowly die due to an outdated system completely. With a Dead game due to frozen content because of the PS2, The profit is completely gone, Where as Dropping the PS2 would only cut part of their base.

Really look at it this way, You're arm is infected, Its going to spread to your heart and kill you, But you can remove it through surgery. You'll lose your arm, But you save your life. Are you going to lay back and die? or learn to live without your arm.

PS2 Is a diseased arm, Sooner or later it has to come off, or it'll kill the game. Maybe not now, But some day soon a decision will have to be made. It doesn't need to happen right but eventually the best "business choice" will be to lop off that arm, rather than let them die.

Its not that i don't respect your situation, I really do, because i too once played only on the PS2.

But its just a reality its holding the game back, and has been, since day one. Its not the ENTIRE reason, I never implied that, But it is a driving excuse/Reason behind a lot of past issues, and present, and will be in the future.

[Khajit]

And yet here we are in an "age" where nearly everything people hated when playing FFXI is gone. If anything your argument is a reasoning for converting FF14 into FFXI 2.0. We've been hearing screams about how the end is nigh due to limitations for at least half a decade and I'm still hearing that same old BS spouted as if anyone on ps2 or 360 honestly gives much of a crap anymore about apocalyptic prophecies. PSO has been officially dead since forever and there are servers everywhere.
Even with that doom and gloom arm infection analogy you're skipping the part where you're going to have a perfectly functioning arm for months until you reach any sort of critical mass, the idea that one can create a new body for a nominal fee( v2.0) and that SE as a company has been doing very poorly lately financially speaking so you're asking the doctor(SE) to send you to surgery(while expecting future advanced upgrades to your body that the doctor never cared about giving before) for free when the hospital is nearly bankrupt, and the fact that for an unknown( to me , I'm sure there are people employed by SE that can calculate this) amount of time you're going to actually be worse off.


You want ps2 support gone? Then convince SE to make an upgraded version of the game and let the former ps2/xbox players( use the original codes to figure out who started on ps2) have a discount on the box price(or give some sort of incentive/consolation prize to the ps2 users being left out) because the current tack in the argument just sounds like the crazy hobo's ranting about the incoming rapture whom keeps pushing back the expected date for it to happen.

IT's not to say the day wont come, however you're overestimating how many people have, may, and will quit because of ps2 limitations. If they were going to quit because of those they would have done so back when SE's excuse for everything was ps2limitations (which turned out to be lies but back then many people took it at face value). It's safer to think that if people left the game it's because they had that travesty of an expansion ACP(I only bought it because I couldn't believe that it was really as big a waste of money as I'd heard), because of the previous boxed expansion having almost every zone a 99% recycled zone while proclaiming that we had new and exciting areas to discover, stretching it out over several years to the point that people just plain got sick of even bothering to remember where they were mission wise while those that did care probably forgot several months before(and yet we dont see people petitioning to delete wotg zones and replace it with a better expansion), SE blaming the initial RMT account hackings on the players while simultaneously charging them money to get back on their own original server, the endgame linkshells ls that openly paid over $2000 for bots without repercussion, and that nonsense with the PW/AV fiasco.
If ffxi is slowly dying as claimed due to the ps2 factor is negligible and mostly ran its course out long ago.(Until around next year if SE truly hasn't found a way around anything and assuming the content we do get is good)

[Karbuncle]

I'm Don't think i underestimate anything. My Comparison was between "No players" and "No PS2" Players. They are purposefully Vague numbers.

Secondly, I never said the Only Excuse was PS2 Limitations. Which is also why i used the word "Excuse" right here:

But it is a driving excuse/Reason behind a lot of past issues, and present, and will be in the future.

Implying it might not always be the legitimate problem (as with a lot of things the old dev team said, which are now fixed), hence the word, "Excuse" and reason being used. in which case Erasing this "Excuse" might give us more progress. who can say for sure what "Excuse" they would have used if the PS2 was never an issue though? I can't. Right now their excuses are "Limited Development Resources". Which i think in itself is because of FFXIV being a flop, and most of their resources being diverted to making it not suck.

Thirdly, i did say "Eventually" the PS2 Would cause the Decline of Updates. It will. There is a actual, Factual limitation on how much the PS2 can handle, and we're getting dangerously close to it. I never said "Right now".

Fourthly, I don't understand your whole FFXIV Comparison it makes no sense based on my Current argument. Can you please explain that a bit better for me?

Fifthly, Making an "upgraded" Version as shown by you yourself Right here

Until the HD on my ps2 died the instant SE got rid of ps2 support I would have quit the game despite the fact that I had a computer with ffxi on it.

Wouldn't matter, Cause you appear to be saying "If they drop PS2 I'll quit no matter what". Hypocrisy? Or Did you forget to mention in your first post "Unless they give me half-off a new Game" Even though you appear to already have a PC with FFXI?

No one wants to just "pack up and move to FFXIV", they want FFXI to live on a few more years, They want to play and enjoy FFXI, and sooner or later the only way to do this will be to cut your loses and remove the PS2 Support, Or just let the game die and go stagnant. I'm not implying we should just be like "Hey PS2, F*ck you". I would think they would be like "in 1 year We're ending PS2 Support, PS2 Players will have the option to Download it Free on Steam" or something to the matter to move players on.

And truthfully, No one really wants it to ever come to the point where its "No more content for PS2" or "drop PS2 for content". because I'm sure a lot of people even in this thread have friends who play PS2. I know I don't want it to stop right now, But i can also see that some day in the near future its either going to be drop the PS2 (With warning!) or We'll cease any meaningful content.

I don't know which brings me to point six.

SIXTHLY, I don't wanna continue to this much Further, Last time some Ranter went deep-end with me over some quasi-offensive post Both of us got our posts deleted by GM's, Repeat {No Thanks}. I like my Account Un-banned. So respond to this, I'll quote it and make a big Smiley face for you, and we can both move on. Or someone can come and take my place and you can continue to argue with him.