Any news on DX11 version?

[Achtzen]

As the title states. I haven't seen any news or updates on the progress of the dx11 version of the game. How much longer will we have to look forward to seeing this SE?

[Saccharin]

As the title states. I haven't seen any news or updates on the progress of the dx11 version of the game. How much longer will we have to look forward to seeing this SE?

Last update we got it suggested DX11 was a low priority and was scheduled to start work on after the China release. The DX9 version looks great and works well. They stated they wont be upgrading textures so there's minimal advantages to create another version of the game.

[Kerberon]

Except dx9 isnt optimized for modern systems and works the system harder for the same results.

[Shioban]

They announced that work has already begun, and internal discussions on additions such as High Resolution Textures were underway (and whether this would be a technical possibility, and the varibale limitations they'd have to impose on it).

But it's not expected to be released until the expansion or after (unless they change the schedule)

At least that's what the latest information I can find dictates.

Except dx9 isnt optimized for modern systems and works the system harder for the same results.

Not true, DX9 itself requires no more or less demand on a system based on its average manufacturing year. DX9 was a permissible choice for FFXIV 2.0 for its flexibility, strong foot-holding in the industry/average hardware basis whilst meeting the basic graphical requirements for the development of the game for the time being.

(For a game that was being rebuilt from the ground up with the expectation that it might fail again, creating a DX10/10.1/11 client was NOT a priority, as explained by the development team, the company had an unhealthy focus on graphical quality, focusing too much time and effort into finite visual fidelity rather than focusing on targets and milestones for development progression.)

However that being said, DX11 runs altogether more efficiently than DX9 although this difference isn't a massive change from DX9.

[KokonoeAiyoko]

I want DX11 so bad.

[LunarEmerald]

If they aren't upgrading the textures then what will DX11 do for the game? Help it run smoother?

[Shioban]

If they aren't upgrading the textures then what will DX11 do for the game? Help it run smoother?

They're considering adding in a High Resolution Texture Pack(s) option for FFXIV, whether this gets added to the DX11 client or as a separate patch option isn't known.
Last we heard they were in the discussion/planning/debating stages as to whether they had the actual technical capacity to do it.

MMO's have A LOT of assets to render live, consider the amount of animations, models, sounds, textures, particles and various other data constantly loading in and out of the system. Balancing between detail/performance is important, so a high-resolution texture pack would have to be approached very carefully in regards to this.

DX11 however offers the following (and more, I've only listed a few things);

Improved Performance
Improved map rendering (bump/normal/specular/parallax/vertex/displacement mapping)
Improved asset rendering pipeline
Drastically Improved Alpha Sorting
Additional components added to DX11
Considerably more expansive and robust shader systems and shader rendering
Overall Better Lighting Shadow Casting/Rendering
DX based Tesselation support
DX based DoF support
Displacement Shaders
Shader Model 5.0

Overall DX11 is considerably easier to work with and manipulate from a development stand-point, so tricking the hardware into doing what you actually want it to do is much easier than it was with DX9/10.


But basicly;
DX11 is less about "More Performance" and more about "This is easier to work with, and we get lots of new shiny tools to play with".



DX11 HAS NO ACTUAL BEARING ON THE HIGH RESOLUTION TEXTURE PACK.
Technically the texture pack could easily be done in DX9, they're just considering releasing the textures along side the DX11 client (or even bundled with it)

[TheRogueX]

I was under the impression that they weren't releasing a high-res texture pack (which is extremely disappointing)?

[Ulathskullsplitter]

I was under the impression that they weren't releasing a high-res texture pack (which is extremely disappointing)?

Yep. Exactly what i remember. They said they don't have any plans of releasing higher res textures. So i don't know where that info is coming from.

[sirroc]

Snip

They could also restrict the engine to feature level 9_3 (DX9.0c). This would allow them to use modern hardware more efficiently, as well as have one code base to update with minimal compatibility issues.

EVE:Online did this with the Rubicon expansion. CCP moved the primary game engine to DX11; while restricting the engine to 9_3 to avoid compatibility issues. While there were a few issues, the goal of moving to a modern API was successful.