DT Benchmark Speculation

Any guesses? I think the SHB came out like 4 months before the Xpac. Maybe Feb or March?

I would assume it's close because people will also want to know if they need to upgrade their systems to get to a level a good performance in their set ups. I know min and recommended specs were released, however, you won't know you're happy with how the game is playing in your system until you get a chance to test it.

They'll prolly announce it with the official release date, the where and when, tf knows, look to any up coming live letters or video game events. (Current speculation with most is a July release for DT)

As far as release date, I wouldn't expect it until after the next moogle event at the earliest. Beyond that, I feel like people will be spending more time with character create on this one. The new graphics should be in place for it so it's the best time to get a real feeling for what to expect for your WoL.

I assume the graphics update is going to delay it somewhat, they haven't shown enough for it to be anywhere near done any time soon.

I feel like because of the graphics update like others have said it would end up delaying some things. I want to assume maybe a month or two before the release of DT but who knows.

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Originally Posted by Ath192

Any guesses? I think the SHB came out like 4 months before the Xpac. Maybe Feb or March?

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1 month before.

Endwalker Benchmark: 11th July 2021
Endwalker Release: 7th December, 2021 (5 months)

Shadowbringers Benchmark: 24th May 2019
Shadowbringers Release: 2nd July 2019 (1 month ish)

Stormblood Benchmark: 1st May 2017
Stormblood Release: 20th June 2017 (1 month ish)

Heavensward Benchmark: 27th April 2015
Heavensward Release: 23rd June 2015 (1-2 months ish)

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

I assume the graphics update is going to delay it somewhat, they haven't shown enough for it to be anywhere near done any time soon.

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No, they already announced at NA FanFest that the graphics update wouldn't be finished by DT launch and that they'd be going back and updating the rest of things as they went along. There's a lot of assets to process.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

No, they already announced at NA FanFest that the graphics update wouldn't be finished by DT launch and that they'd be going back and updating the rest of things as they went along. There's a lot of assets to process.

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My interpretation of it was they will release the Graphics Update in patches, maybe 1 expansion updated per patch like with Duty Support (old areas revamped, old NPCs revamped). This is the sort of thing we should be expecting, not all the graphics to be different on release.

yeah updates comming out in waves
they even said "Racial gear will have the updated texture"
so not all gear at launch will have updated graphics
and that will piss people off for awhile

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Originally Posted by Duskane

yeah updates comming out in waves
they even said "Racial gear will have the updated texture"
so not all gear at launch will have updated graphics
and that will piss people off for awhile

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And then, by the time they're done updating the graphics for the entire game, they will need to be updated again! LOL

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Originally Posted by Macleod

And then, by the time they're done updating the graphics for the entire game, they will need to be updated again! LOL

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Must be why they said "the first graphical update". They know the truth.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Must be why they said "the first graphical update". They know the truth.

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They say it like that because they already said the update will be rolled out in separate 'stages'. 'First update' will only be affecting Dawntrail stuff as well as a bunch of 'fundamental' thing that will apply retroactively, which will include things like grass rendering and character models. And then they will have separate updates to, well, update graphics in earlier expansions, which I imagine will include areas and gear primarily.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

They say it like that because they already said the update will be rolled out in separate 'stages'. 'First update' will only be affecting Dawntrail stuff as well as a bunch of 'fundamental' thing that will apply retroactively, which will include things like grass rendering and character models. And then they will have separate updates to, well, update graphics in earlier expansions, which I imagine will include areas and gear primarily.

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I disagree. While the first update will be rolled out over many patches, the way they presented it, they fully expect there to be another graphical update in the future. That could be in 4 years, 8 years, or whenever.

DT benchmark would fry my current laptop.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1 month before.
(listed timings)

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Not to contradict your information - it's accurate to my knowledge (mostly; some of the dates I have are some small number of days off, but I was grabbing info from Googling, so I could've gotten some incorrect dates)

but the pattern I remember noticing is that it's about 2 months after the final Fanfest, starting with Stormblood

Endwalker final (and only named-as-such) Fanfest: 14th May 2021
Endwalker Benchmark: 11th July 2021 (about 2 months)

Shadowbringers Final Fanfest: 22nd March 2019
Shadowbringers Benchmark: 24th May 2019 (about 2 months)

Stormblood Final Fanfest: 18th Feb 2017
Stormblood Benchmark: 1st May 2017 (about 2.5 months)

Heavensward Release: 20th Dec 2014
Heavensward Benchmark: 27th April 2015 (about 4 months)

No clue which pattern is more likely to be what they follow here

My guess would be the 2 months, if only because stretching out the benchmark, job action trailer, and media tour makes sense when we have this longer period of time between final fanfest and expac launch

but as people have said, graphics update could delay it and push it much closer to the expac launch

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

1 month before.

Endwalker Benchmark: 11th July 2021
Endwalker Release: 7th December, 2021 (5 months)

Shadowbringers Benchmark: 24th May 2019
Shadowbringers Release: 2nd July 2019 (1 month ish)

Stormblood Benchmark: 1st May 2017
Stormblood Release: 20th June 2017 (1 month ish)

Heavensward Benchmark: 27th April 2015
Heavensward Release: 23rd June 2015 (1-2 months ish)

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Sheesh, did the Endwalker benchmark really come out 5 months before Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by Embran

Sheesh, did the Endwalker benchmark really come out 5 months before Endwalker?

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Endwalker itself was delayed multiple times.

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Originally Posted by Embran

Sheesh, did the Endwalker benchmark really come out 5 months before Endwalker?

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There is clear historical evidence of discussion of the benchmark 5 months before, but that period of time they were still feeling the effects of covid delays on their plans.

The past Benchmarks were all mildly pointless really, as if your PC could run ARR it can still more or less run EW... It was more of just an additional trailer than anything.

But for a change with DT's graphics update, there's an actual technical reason to use the Benchmark so I do hope we get it well before launch so people don't get last minute surprises with a higher system requirements.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

The past Benchmarks were all mildly pointless really, as if your PC could run ARR it can still more or less run EW...

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Not true.

Going into Stormblood, they dropped support for PS3. As this occured, they increased the amount of NPCs in the background in dungeons. For example, you had enemies fighting in the background in Doma Castle, Ala Mhigo and Ghimlyt Dark. This was too much for my laptop to handle so I had to buy a PC to handle it. Sure, I could still play the game, but if I entered a Stormblood dungeon the FPS was too low.

Going into Shadowbringers, they ended support for 32-bit computers. It was still possible to play with them, but could potentially run into crashes if it handled something that expected it to be a 64-bit machine. The benchmark probably wouldn't have caught that, but I don't know. They finished this off by dropping support for an older version of TLS more recently.

The benchmark release probably create a big surge of hype (in this case even more so because of the graphics update), so it wouldn't make sense to release it too long before the actual expansion: there's no point in creating hype that will deflate before it can help drive sales.

Endwalker's 5 month delay between benchmark and release was probably an outlier.

So I think we can expect it in May at the earliest.