Voidwatch, the Xbox360 and its issues/bugs.

[Robmelee]

What if you turn most of the effects off from the config? would that alleviate the issue some what it shouldn't have to load them if not displaying them.

I've tried this already as I'm sure a number of other Xbox 360 players have tried this as well, to no avail. At the end of the day it all results to how the system handles its memory dump. PC's generally can handle memory dumps continuously. Problem with the Xbox 360. Like other poster's have indicated the Xbox 360 console is capped at certain number of memory (512MB) and the way its program to dump data to put it simply leaving out the technical jargon, isnt at the acceptable rate that FFXI can reasonably be handled (on a spaming level or JA's, WS's, etc). For example When you have a 18 man alliance constantly spamming there abilities in a tight space on a 360 system thats a constant flow of data coming in and out, in and out. Lets just say that day flow is at number of 1000 and its Threshold level is 512, so if the flow of data (new vs old) can't keep up with the threshold. That always results to systematic crash, thus resulting to Xbox 360 freezes. Sure enough, one can disable all animations but that only delays the inevitable by maybe 1 or 2 more battles.

This is the reason why Xbox 360 players have to zone or re-log (every 1 or 2 VoidWatch! battles) to force a dump of data in the RAM, to avoid 360 system freezes.

The PC does not have this problem because the PC constantly flows the current data both (new and old) and then flushes it right out instantaneously, this process occurs at a much faster rate than Xbox 360's.

Xbox 360 does flush the data, but a a much slower rate, so as more new data comes in and as the old data remains, always results to system crash if not zoning or logging at the apporpriate points in between mutiple runs of VoidWatch! battles.

I sincerely hope the Square Enix Development Team will have sustainable solution to this Xbox 360 problem in the very near future, hopefully by the March 2012 Version Update like the Producer's said as possible projection date.

I play on both PC and Xbox 360, but I prefer playing on 360 for now due to my PC being a crappy one.

[Eric]

All of you should just get a PC and an xbox (or ps2) controller adapter. This is one of the many reasons why I think MMOs shouldn't be made for consoles.

I run FFXI at a 1600x900 resolution(overlay and background) at a constant 29.5 FPS. It looks better and performs better than FFXI for Xbox 360. This is with a 2-year-old 14'' laptop. It's not even a gaming laptop.

It's not out of the question to recommend upgrading your PC. Not only will you be able to play FFXI on it, but it will do better at handling your everyday computer needs.

EDIT: OH GOD I just tried playing FFXI on xbox and there was already a big framerate drop just stepping outside from my mog house into port windurst. The graphics quality was terrible too.

I don't see how anyone would prefer this to hooking a PC up to a TV via HDMI.

[Camate]

Greetings!

There was another update from Yoji Fujito in regards to the Xbox 360 freezing issue during Voidwatch that I would like to share with you all.

Thank you very much for your patience.
I’d like to report that we are in our final adjustment phase for the program fixes of the areas that are causing the freezing issue.

Currently, we’ve run our tests and the edited program is displaying the behavior that we envisioned.
However, there are still some bugs that are left, similar to what was expressed in Producer Tanaka’s previous comment.

We are at the point where we would really like to prepare a Xbox 360 version test server and have everyone check this out, but the test server is setup for the Windows versions and it is not possible.
Since the Xbox 360 version functions with a system that is similar to the Windows version, we will apply the same treatment to the Windows version and monitor the situation. Since the Windows version itself has a large amount of effects that consume a lot of memory, this should also lighten this up as well.
Also, this current issue has to do with effect textures, so it will be possible to fix this without affecting the specs if this bug occurs.

We would really appreciate it if everyone who tests the game on the test server could keep an eye out for this and send in reports.

Things to observe:
All effects. Below are examples:

• Effects when players use weapon skills, magic, and abilities
• Effects when enemies use their abilities
• Effects displayed in cut scenes
• Effects from item and equipment usage

What to look for:

• Texture glitches
• Freezing (effect data corruption or editing program bug)

In the case that any of the above problems occur, please let us know with a detailed bug report what happened and in what case it happened.

Also, once everything is running properly on the test server we will applying the edit program to a version update in the near future.

Thank you all very much for your cooperation and support.

[saevel]

That's more a problem with XI's network code. It doesn't handshake on a lot of stuff, so if you miss the packet that says "Load this object up", it never double-checks that you received, so you're forced to either log, or run out of range of the entity to make the server resend it.

At any rate, I'm curious if that problem with the 360 is related to the problem where prolonged visits to a single zone start making FFXI jitter badly non-stop after a few hours. I used to have bad performance late into LS abyssea runs during its primetime, which tend to result in zoning out taking over 15 seconds to commence.

FFXI use's UDP on ports 50000+ to communicate with the world servers. UDP by it's nature is state-less, meaning no packet acknowledgement or session information. It also happens to be faster by requiring less processing and having less administrative overhead. UDP's used for things where missing packets won't result in a failure, things like VoIP and VTC connections.

[Kaisha]

Greetings!

There was another update from Yoji Fujito in regards to the Xbox 360 freezing issue during Voidwatch that I would like to share with you all.

I'm curious if this 'fix' addresses one of the ancient bugs I've seen from time to time, where a manticore's breath attack will come out as a series of glitched looking squares.

Also curious if a byproduct of it will reduce severe lag on special effects like 10+ people smacking a mob when it has a spikes effect up.

FFXI use's UDP on ports 50000+ to communicate with the world servers. UDP by it's nature is state-less, meaning no packet acknowledgement or session information. It also happens to be faster by requiring less processing and having less administrative overhead. UDP's used for things where missing packets won't result in a failure, things like VoIP and VTC connections.

I know how UDP operates, but it doesn't excuse that there's zero checks done regularly to ensure all entities in the area are as expected.

[Sarick]

I know how UDP operates, but it doesn't excuse that there's zero checks done regularly to ensure all entities in the area are as expected.

This could be helped if SE had a /resend for zone data.

[saevel]

I know how UDP operates, but it doesn't excuse that there's zero checks done regularly to ensure all entities in the area are as expected.

Umm apparently you don't. The entire purpose of UDP is fire and forget, if data is lost ohh well it'll be sent again eventually. If the UDP datagram is lost, then there is on way for the client to know it didn't receive it and thus ask for it again. It's session-less, there is no SYN/ACK nor FIN packets to indicate the opening and closing of connections, the game programmers have to incorporate that themselves. Using some form of packet checking would defeat the entire purpose of UDP, might as well use TCP and let the network handle lost packets for you.

In short, it's impossible for a client to check data it doesn't know about. As far as it's concerned those aren't supposed to be there because the server hasn't told it that they are there.

[Camate]

Howdy!

I’d just like to give another update on the status of the Xbox 360 freeze issue.
We have performed tests with the editing program applied to the Windows version and a number of minute problems have been eliminated. As such, we will be implementing the current editing program into the game during this month’s version update.

We would like to keep a close watch on this even after the version update, so if you see any problems, please be sure to let us know!

[Duzell]

Howdy!

I’d just like to give another update on the status of the Xbox 360 freeze issue.
We have performed tests with the editing program applied to the Windows version and a number of minute problems have been eliminated. As such, we will be implementing the current editing program into the game during this month’s version update.

We would like to keep a close watch on this even after the version update, so if you see any problems, please be sure to let us know!

I know mirosoft is not going to allow you to set up a test server since there still upset FFXI doesnt need gold membership, but are the dev team able to set up 360s locally and hook them directly into the test server for testing purposes or are the poor hapless 360 users guniee pigs for each update and they go live without testing on every platform?

[Kraggy]

I know mirosoft is not going to allow you to set up a test server since there still upset FFXI doesnt need gold membership, but are the dev team able to set up 360s locally and hook them directly into the test server for testing purposes or are the poor hapless 360 users guniee pigs for each update and they go live without testing on every platform?

You seem to be equating the publicly available Test Server and internal QA testing. M$'s dislike of the former doesn't mean the latter doesn't exist.