FFXIV - The 7.0 Digital Foundry Analysis

For those that don't know them, Digital Foundry is an outlet that specializes in analyzing game visuals and their technology. They've been partnering with Marc Duddleson from My Life in Gaming to cover FFXIV for a few years now, and I doubt we'll ever get a more in depth analysis of XIV's visuals than what Marc has done here.

CLICK PICTURE TO WATCH (NO SPOILERS)
https://imgur.com/a1iKGZw.png

tl;dw
https://imgur.com/7DcyFSX.png

https://imgur.com/yDCARjt.png

tl;dr
https://imgur.com/ia0EPhq.png

Also, the weird over aggressive XBOX chat filter seems to have been mostly fixed.
Series X/PS5 data is from the 1440p mode (unless specified otherwise), since 4K very rarely ever hits 60fps and Marc doesn't recommend it.

Marc also has a wish list for the future from SE:
- Fix shadows changing with camera angles.
- Fix TSCMAA on consoles.
- Check/rework awkward facial expressions.
- Don't force FSR on PS4.
- Implement 80fps cap for the 120hz mode on consoles.

Apart from agreeing with him, I'd also like to add:
- Make the FSR/DLSS upscaling more transparent and offer DLSS quality levels.
- Implement FSR 2 also with quality levels.
- Have a simple On/Off toggle for the upscalers.
- Work on shadow consistency from secondary sources and on character faces.

If they need to move to DX12 to achieve this, then better start some serious work on it. They can't keep running the game on DX11 forever.

I know some people have been experiencing eye strain and have had other issues, and while I haven't experienced any of that myself, I hope this thread at least may shed some light on some of the things happening behind the scenes that may have altered your experience with the game, and how you may tweak some options to improve it. PC players (as it tends to be) have more options than console, and I'm honestly appalled at how utterly horrendous the PS4 version now looks, but even on PC, options are still not enough.

Most people here will know that I mostly love the visual update, but beyond their other projects, Creative Unit III has a responsibility to continue to work and fix the many pain points that have been discussed around.

Have a nice day everyone!
https://imgur.com/PiEf2ip.png

Hey thanks for this
I'll have to watch this later when I have time

Also, some extra thoughts (from Marc in the comment section) on DLSS that didn't make it to the video itself.

https://imgur.com/VuwEeAn.png

I saw that and I agree it's unlikely many other people, if any will do an analysis like that. Most people's commentary is a lot more shallow.

bad that they dont comment on ps5 pro (will it have a native 4k+60fps, how will the pssr perform, will they integrate some RT)

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

bad that they dont comment on ps5 pro (will it have a native 4k+60fps, how will the pssr perform, will they integrate some RT)

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I guess, nothing is known how the game will run on a PS5 pro. So there is nothing to comment about it. And features like PSSR and Raytracing must be explicitly implemented by the game. You cannot enforce them by some weird API interceptors.



Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Larirawiel

I guess, nothing is known how the game will run on a PS5 pro. So there is nothing to comment about it. And features like PSSR and Raytracing must be explicitly implemented by the game. You cannot enforce them by some weird API interceptors.



Cheers

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does the 4060/4070 run ff14 in native 4k at 60fps ?

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

does the 4060/4070 run ff14 in native 4k at 60fps ?

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Propably yes. The game is heavily CPU-limited. Even my old Radeon RX5700XT could run the game at WQHD with over 70 fps in non crowded areas. An RTX 4070 is easily capable to run games with 60 fps at UHD.


Cheers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CaedemSanguis

bad that they dont comment on ps5 pro (will it have a native 4k+60fps, how will the pssr perform, will they integrate some RT)

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There may be an update when the console is out. There's two sides to the PS5 Pro discussion. On one hand, XIV is a very CPU heavy game, and they're not upgrading that on PS5 Pro. On the other hand though, PSSR could be the key. We'll have to wait and see.

I don't know what they're looking at to say "the game has less random reflecting surfaces". I feel regularly bombarded with glinting reflections on things in a way that I never felt with the old graphics, and there are those constant fake beams of light without a source, which seemingly exist just to make sure you see reflected shine everywhere.

The inclusion of TAA is awful on console. Playing on PS5 the game now has horrible ghosting when rotating the camera, so your character, weapons and even environmental aspects ghost/duplicate.

I know it's only a small section of the video, but it boggles my mind that there are people who want realistic textures closer to what we see in the cinematic trailers. Not only because artstyle > "graphics", but because could you imagine how weird that would look next to XIV's simple, sometimes wooden animations? Or the extremely rudimentary cloth and hair physics? Realism on that level would require a total overhaul of character models and animations, and square enix couldn't even get the faces right and screwed up the expressions when adding more bones.

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Originally Posted by noumen0nn

I know it's only a small section of the video, but it boggles my mind that there are people who want realistic textures closer to what we see in the cinematic trailers. Not only because artstyle > "graphics", but because could you imagine how weird that would look next to XIV's simple, sometimes wooden animations? Or the extremely rudimentary cloth and hair physics? Realism on that level would require a total overhaul of character models and animations, and square enix couldn't even get the faces right and screwed up the expressions when adding more bones.

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I've never been fond of SE's high-graphics models they use for the trailers anyway – I always feel they make the character designs look worse even if they're better detail – and I do think they've been trying to work towards that unsuitable degree of realism in the main game for some time. Gear has become literally too detailed to display properly on the screen at a normal viewing distance without some parts of it turning into a twinkling mass of pixels, and their way of adding more texture to materials stops gear from dyeing properly. Now we get the character graphics update and it feels inaccurate to the previous character appearances in the same way the trailer models are.

Realism is not good, stylistic graphics are not bad.

Just wanted to thank OP for posting this. I wouldn't have found out about it otherwise, and it's surprisingly interesting/useful information! :)

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Originally Posted by z0na_r0sa

Just wanted to thank OP for posting this. I wouldn't have found out about it otherwise, and it's surprisingly interesting/useful information! :)

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You're welcome! Digital Foundry are one of my favorite channels, and Marc has been helping them cover XIV for a couple of years now. They cover a bunch of games and tech news too!