[Dev] Overtaxation of PC Hardware

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Some posts here give me headache.
It doesn't make sense that FFXIV is not optimized because of PS3 limitations, guys.

PS3 is SLOWER than PCs nowadays, which would mean that if it runs bad on PC, it will run even worse on the PS3. That was the first reason why they pushed the PS3 release back, they failed to make it run on a PS3 even with extremely reduced textures (yay PS3 limitations). This doesn't mean the PC version has to lose graphics options. That's why they're called "options" - they're optional. They can include advanced optimization features not possible on a PS3 and make them PC-only.

That doesn't work any different from multiplatform C code - you just set ifdefs so that certain code only gets included for the windows version, for example. They already did it when they built the PC version and a PS3 version which had limited texture resolution compared to the PC version, so they can do it with other things too. They really should.

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The bigger question is going to be how bad is it coded now compared to how much they have to change in order to get the game running correctly.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

PS3 is SLOWER than PCs nowadays, which would mean that if it runs bad on PC, it will run even worse on the PS3.

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I took you for a smarter person.

1- PS3 is overall slower than a quite small fraction of the PCs out there.
2- Every PS3 out there performs the same as another, a console engine can be exhaustively optimized for it and it pays off for every person who owns that console. What do you optimize a PC game engine for? There are tons of possible hardware combinations. The only certain thing is the deeper you go into particular optimizations for a certain combination of hardware, the more you will get diminished returns overall.

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Originally Posted by Ilean

1- PS3 is overall slower than a quite small fraction of the PCs out there.

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Let me re-phrase that: slower because devs usually can't use it's full potential since it's a different system even for a console. Just look at games stuttering on the PS3 despite not being that graphically intensive (some need for speed game had this, afaik) or PS3 games having lower graphic quality than XBOX ones which is, afaik not the case normally, just because devs didn't write code for the PS3 but ported it because it was easier.

Still, I don't think it's only a small fraction of PCs that are faster than the PS3. PS3 is a powerful console, but how do you plan to compare it to PCs? By cores only, it wins, but there are many problems with parallelizing a program so sometimes raw power works better. I'd say a decent quadcore beats the cell in power, but not in flexibility.

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2- Every PS3 out there performs the same as another, a console engine can be exhaustively optimized for it and it pays off for every person who owns that console. What do you optimize a PC game engine for? There are tons of possible hardware combinations. The only certain thing is the deeper you go into particular optimizations for a certain combination of hardware, the more you will get diminished returns overall.

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Most people who game have a DX11 capable GPU, others have at least a DX10 GPU. Only a small fraction is still stuck on DX9 only, so it is worth it. You can see what not optimizing does, if your PC can play FFXIV on high settings, then you can play other games almost maxed out without problems.

Even if they don't add DX10/11 features in the PC version, there still has to be room for other optimizations else i don't really understand where the whole processing power gets used.

Talking about PS3 optimizations now is useless, they can't even make a version that runs on the PS3 at all, so there is nothing to optimize.

And no need to get offensive there.

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Originally Posted by Elkwood

The bigger question is going to be how bad is it coded now compared to how much they have to change in order to get the game running correctly.

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Well it was them who coded it, so it's their mess they have to clean up. It might be easier to rewrite some sections of code than optimize the existent one. It's up to them to decide that, we don't have the source code nor are we getting paid to get the work done.

Personally, I think they might consider doing something about it after they get the game to the point it's worth paying for. Optimization will help more people to play the game, especially those with slower systems, but it's going to take a while to implement the fixes

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Most people who game have a DX11 capable GPU, others have at least a DX10 GPU. Only a small fraction is still stuck on DX9 only, so it is worth it. You can see what not optimizing does, if your PC can play FFXIV on high settings, then you can play other games almost maxed out without problems.

Even if they don't add DX10/11 features in the PC version, there still has to be room for other optimizations else i don't really understand where the whole processing power gets used.

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I agree, and wish they hadn't bothered with DX9, only the highest end DX9 cards can run the game half decently, and 80 bucks will get you a DX11 card that performs better.

And yup, there are tons of optimizations they can implement on the current engine, DX9 is not a performance blocker.

Well on the bright side, SE has found a way to make toast and play a game on the same machine

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Originally Posted by Shinjuki

Well on the bright side, SE has found a way to make toast and play a game on the same machine

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You know the toaster would work better if run in full screen with Crossfire / SLI, just stick it right between the graphics cards, it will cook evenly on both sides.
You could even make grilled cheese with these http://www.toastabags.com/ (caution auto-playing video on that site)

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Well it was them who coded it, so it's their mess they have to clean up. It might be easier to rewrite some sections of code than optimize the existent one. It's up to them to decide that, we don't have the source code nor are we getting paid to get the work done.

Personally, I think they might consider doing something about it after they get the game to the point it's worth paying for. Optimization will help more people to play the game, especially those with slower systems, but it's going to take a while to implement the fixes

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I understand it was them or their interns who coded it, I was wondering out loud in that post how badly it is coded is all.

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Originally Posted by Elkwood

I understand it was them or their interns who coded it, I was wondering out loud in that post how badly it is coded is all.

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IMO if they wanted to design a game engine they should have stolen a few guys from companies like Crytek or Unreal to lead on the PC branch. The kind of people who already know what works and what doesn't.

Not really the same situation, but FFXI didnt run that well on the PC when it first released (weather effects slowdown, etc.) yet ran great on PS2 (albeit with jaggies). Even had certain effects the PC version was missing for some reason (swords had a polished sheen to them, same with bucklers).

Either way its good that they are working on optimizing the PC version, and i'm sure the PS3 version will be just fine since they are supposed to be using lower quality textures for it...or at least thats what was said earlier on.

EDIT: I dunno about Crytek. They can bring the graphics, but the first Crysis was really badly optimized.

Crysis 1 wasn't badly optimized, they simply made the mistake of aiming at latest-gen hardware for it.

Also XI was really a straight port from the PS2 version so it was running on CPU power, barely touching the GPU.