So are consoles holding back this game?

[Bishop81]

/sigh

I'm probably wasting my time ... the PS3 isn't holding back things like HD textures.

We have parallax mapping and (poorly done) tessellation with DX11 even with the PS3 being still supported.

Unless missing a feature will hurt gameplay, the PS3 isn't holding an feature back.

[Colorful]

/sigh

I'm probably wasting my time ... the PS3 isn't holding back things like HD textures.

We have parallax mapping and (poorly done) tessellation with DX11 even with the PS3 being still supported.

Unless missing a feature will hurt gameplay, the PS3 isn't holding an feature back.

Then what is honestly? There's nothing stopping them releasing the HD textures for PC exclusively. Could it be that they want to keep PS4 and PC visually similar? If so, then consoles are holding FFXIV back a teeny bit, but they more than make up for it with the extra subs they bring in for future content...

I do want an answer from Yoshida, or someone on the team about HD textures. Surely they didn't just up and delete all the assets after releasing the content?

[Bishop81]

Then what is honestly? There's nothing stopping them releasing the HD textures for PC exclusively. Could it be that they want to keep PS4 and PC visually similar? If so, then consoles are holding FFXIV back a teeny bit, but they more than make up for it with the extra subs they bring in for future content...

I do want an answer from Yoshida, or someone on the team about HD textures. Surely they didn't just up and delete all the assets after releasing the content?

The PS4 has as much memory as your typical PC so it can't be that.

Why? I don't know. Maybe they want to keep load times down - for ALL platforms; PC hard drives aren't much faster than those in consoles.

And seriously, before HD textures, it would be nice if they actually have mip-mapping for a ton of textures like the floor of the Alex boss with the tanks.

[sirDarts]

/sigh

I'm probably wasting my time ... the PS3 isn't holding back things like HD textures.

We have parallax mapping and (poorly done) tessellation with DX11 even with the PS3 being still supported.

Unless missing a feature will hurt gameplay, the PS3 isn't holding an feature back.

Actually some features are confirmed to be held back due to PS3 limitations, like for example TP bars for the party.

[Colorful]

The PS4 has as much memory as your typical PC so it can't be that.

Why? I don't know. Maybe they want to keep load times down - for ALL platforms; PC hard drives aren't much faster than those in consoles.

And seriously, before HD textures, it would be nice if they actually have mip-mapping for a ton of textures like the floor of the Alex boss with the tanks.

Doesn't VRAM handle the streaming of textures? A modern high end GPU has 4 GB+ of VRAM, HD textures would take 2, maybe 3 at most.

Actually some features are confirmed to be held back due to PS3 limitations, like for example TP bars for the party.

They found a work around for 3.1 though, and that's just displaying the bar without any numbers iirc.

[Bishop81]

Doesn't VRAM handle the streaming of textures? A modern high end GPU has 4 GB+ of VRAM, HD textures would take 2, maybe 3 at most.

But where do those textures load from? Yupe, hard disk.

[Colorful]

snip

HDDs can transfer around 40MB/s+ (theoretically it could go higher, but other things play into it), that's much more than enough to move the texture to the VRAM (I don't know much about this, but I figure that's how it works). If a HDD can handle the likes of Metro Last Light at 4k (the textures in that game are amazing) why can't it take FFXIV? You might throw in the "it's a multiplayer game, it has to load every individual player" which is true, but to my knowledge it caps out and only loads more after you move away from the people you're close to. I'm not asking for mind blowing textures, just something that doesn't look like someone smeared **** and threw it into the game, or pixel art. I specifically remember a Roe in the Crystal Tower quest line that had a chest piece that looks like it's textures could have come out of Minecraft, or at least a part of it. There's also problems like this, which ruins the aesthetic of the area imho.

[Bishop81]

HDDs can transfer around 40MB/s+ (theoretically it could go higher, but other things play into it), that's much more than enough to move the texture to the VRAM (I don't know much about this, but I figure that's how it works). If a HDD can handle the likes of Metro Last Light at 4k (the textures in that game are amazing) why can't it take FFXIV? You might throw in the "it's a multiplayer game, it has to load every individual player" which is true, but to my knowledge it caps out and only loads more after you move away from the people you're close to. I'm not asking for mind blowing textures, just something that doesn't look like someone smeared **** and threw it into the game, or pixel art. I specifically remember a Roe in the Crystal Tower quest line that had a chest piece that looks like it's textures could have come out of Minecraft, or at least a part of it. There's also problems like this, which ruins the aesthetic of the area imho.

40MiB/s is very slow if you are trying to fill 2GiB of VRAM - 51.2 secs, that is nearly a minute. Heck, even if you kept textures to 1 GiB, it would be 25.6 secs. Imagine a 25 sec+ load screen.

I don't know about Metro Last Light but if you look at games like Bloodborne ... the load times are atrocious.

Adding mip-maps to every texture would increase the memory load by 33.3%, if they can't even afford that ...

[Colorful]

40MiB/s is very slow if you are trying to fill 2GiB of VRAM - 51.2 secs, that is nearly a minute. Heck, even if you kept textures to 1 GiB, it would be 25.6 secs. Imagine a 25 sec+ load screen.

I don't know about Metro Last Light but if you look at games like Bloodborne ... the load times are atrocious.

Adding mip-maps to every texture would increase the memory load by 33.3%, if they can't even afford that ...

I'm going to have to assume Bloodborne's insane load times are tied to either the game being made horribly, or a limitation elsewhere on the PS4. You can easily use an SSD with a PS4, and yet the load times are still atrocious as you put it, barely beating out the HDD. Long longing has been an issue with consoles for ages now, on a HDD I can load up a heavily modded Skyrim with 2k textures within 10-20 seconds, can't say the same for a lot of console games.

[Cheraa]

I think that SE will stop the PS3 Support with 4.0 and not during the HW Addon. Wouldn't make sense anyway. PS3 got HW and there for SquareEnix has to support it until it ends.
It would make sense, too for a next Expansion if SE plans to overwork the zone, to get rid of most of their loading screens with PS3 gone.
I would like to see at least that there are only Loading screens for entering a Major City and for entering the Adventure Zones of Uldah, Limsa, Grindania and Ishgard.
Would mean, if I move out of Uldah, i will get a loading screen and after it I can move freely from south, to north, to west and so on Thanalan without any Loadings.