Yoshi-P says discussions about FFXIV on Switch and Xbox One are "Positive"

[DeaconMoore]

Not really, there's not much you can do to upgrade low spec laptops that barely run the game right now, again like I said just because someone is on a PC doesn't mean they will magically get better performance. Its not just consoles holding the PC back they are never going to tune the game exclusively for high end PCs even if the PS4 wasn't a part of the equation.



Yeah I imagine it would run at 720p with 30fps lock on Switch just fine, while still having better load times and slightly better graphics than PS3

*smh*
Laptops like consoles are cutdown PCs and is why I told people earlier to go desktop and not laptop. Desktops are also a fair bit cheaper than the equivalent laptop.

And PC only games also never fine tune their games only for the bleeding edge, they do make it an option though. And it is the consoles holding them back. PCs can be upgraded at will, consoles only when the manufacturer builds it.

Switch play at 30fps and 720p? That's pure awesomesauce, 20+ years ago -_- *sigh*

[SerLuke]

*smh*
Laptops like consoles are cutdown PCs and is why I told people earlier to go desktop and not laptop. Desktops are also a fair bit cheaper than the equivalent laptop.

And PC only games also never fine tune their games only for the bleeding edge, they do make it an option though. And it is the consoles holding them back. PCs can be upgraded at will, consoles only when the manufacturer builds it.

Switch play at 30fps and 720p? That's pure awesomesauce, 20+ years ago -_- *sigh*

Again what you tell people to buy and what reality is are two different things, people have laptops many of which are much weaker than PS4s to play this game on and that's not going to magically change because you tell people to get a desktop and the dev team still has to keep those into account. Hardware elitism is silly.

[DeaconMoore]

Again what you tell people to buy and what reality is are two different things, people have laptops many of which are much weaker than PS4s to play this game on and that's not going to magically change because you tell people to get a desktop and the dev team still has to keep those into account. Hardware elitism is silly.

Lol It isn't "hardware elitism" its cold hard reality. Or are you going to tell me PS3 limitations was never a thing? As far as people with laptops weaker than the PS4, yes the devs can leave them behind and will. More powerful laptops and desktop options are available to them and for prices no worse than what they forced ps3 holdouts to shell out. Even PC only mmos force their users to upgrade from time to time when they want to push the games capabilities.

[Sebazy]

Lol It isn't "hardware elitism" its cold hard reality. Or are you going to tell me PS3 limitations was never a thing?

The PS3 client was memory limited from day one, remember how segments of the UI needed to be cut out to get the minimal TP bars in? PS3 memory limitation right there. Don't believe me? Note how we got all these new UI elements right as the PS3 support got cut. The CPU and GPU weren't an issue, it was entirely down to that trifling 256+256mb rambus ram configuration not playing nice in a game where you can't tightly control and predict assets.

Standing in Kugane by the market board at max settings sees my PC using just over 1GB of ram, lets be super crazy generous and set aside another 1GB for the GPU for this and we've still got at least another 1GB sat free on our imaginary Switch client.

TLDR: The switch won't be anything like the boat anchor the PS3 client was and personally I'd love to see FFXIV get ported over to it.

[DeaconMoore]

The PS3 client was memory limited from day one, remember how segments of the UI needed to be cut out to get the minimal TP bars in? PS3 memory limitation right there. Don't believe me? Note how we got all these new UI elements right as the PS3 support got cut. The CPU and GPU weren't an issue, it was entirely down to that trifling 256+256mb rambus ram configuration not playing nice in a game where you can't tightly control and predict assets.

Standing in Kugane by the market board at max settings sees my PC using just over 1GB of ram, lets be super crazy generous and set aside another 1GB for the GPU for this and we've still got at least another 1GB sat free on our imaginary Switch client.

TLDR: The switch won't be anything like the boat anchor the PS3 client was and personally I'd love to see FFXIV get ported over to it.

So it'll still be an anchor just not as bad? Heh, very reassuring.

Now how about instead of standing at the marketboard with nothing more exciting going on than gil spamming, head into some mass combat on max settings. Your resource usage will balloon and your frame rates will probably drop too.

Also the size of the RAM (only 3 gigs total really? Awesome if you're living in 1999) is but one factor for performance. The amount of ram and how it is accessed and allocated as well as its speed is important to. Is it shared memory? It sounds like it is from what you describe. When a system has to share memory between its video card and main cpu *shudder* it's not a good thing for gaming. Perfectly acceptable for basic business applications though.

[Sebazy]

Now how about instead of standing at the marketboard with nothing more exciting going on than gil spamming, head into some mass combat on max settings. Your resource usage will balloon and your frame rates will probably drop too.

About the only unavoidable increase there will be CPU usage due to animation overheads. Even in Rabanastre, memory usage is in the same ballpark if not lower (I used Kugane's market board to force as many assets into memory as I could FYI, it's a complex zone with a large amount of characters around). In a theoretical Switch port both the memory and GPU usage would be scaled back very significantly through lower resolution textures and more aggressive LOD settings. In short, unless SE handle the Switch port like they did the Apple Mac port and just chuck it in a wrapper (Which is unlikely since it uses gameworks, porting to should be somewhat painless), it's not going to be a problem unless they suddenly and substantially up their production values (which isn't going to happen at this stage).

Also the size of the RAM (only 3 gigs total really? Awesome if you're living in 1999) is but one factor for performance. The amount of ram and how it is accessed and allocated as well as its speed is important to. Is it shared memory? It sounds like it is from what you describe. When a system has to share memory between its video card and main cpu *shudder* it's not a good thing for gaming. Perfectly acceptable for basic business applications though.

Ehm, I think every modern current generation console (The 3DS is the only exception that comes to my mind?) uses a unified memory architecture no? The original Xbox One has it's little ES ram segment but that's about the only variance going on here. It's also interesting to note that the PS3's memory architecture actually had comparable if not more bandwidth than the current consoles Being Rambus, I'd feel safe assuming it had awful latency though.

Don't get me wrong, I love a nice beefy PC setup as much as the next man (Currently sat infront of a 1080TI/X34A pairing) and no, I don't have a PS4/Xbox one because I'm rubbish with gamepads. Even with a PC of my setup, I'd still gladly put my money on a switch port for the convenience of it. I'd never touch Savage on it, but it'd be beautifully convenient for dailies and casual gameplay.

And yes, I do have actual experience in this field, whilst I narrowly miss the 1999 reference, I spent much of 2000-2001 porting Quake 3 to the PS2. We took that game from a 64mb footprint down to 16mb primarily through a huge amount of level optimisation and typically half sized textures and it's worth noting we actually had it running at 60 fps for much of it's development. It's a surprisingly interesting topic =(

[DeaconMoore]

Snip

Honestly you're not inspiring confidence in the Switch for me here.

I suggested mass combat to stress the system. Once you load the background into memory it shouldn't be too hard on the system. Load up a frontline with 72 players casting spells trying to kill each other in a tight space. Loading and rendering all those spell effects rather randomly being called for and players coming and going should put it through its paces.

it's not going to be a
problem unless they suddenly and substantially up their production values (which isn't going to happen at this stage)

And they have the opportunity now to up the production values to what the PS4 can handle now that the PS3 is out of the picture but:

In a theoretical Switch port
both the memory and GPU usage would be scaled back very significantly through lower resolution textures and more aggressive LOD settings.

I guess we're downgrading that potential for the switch?

I'd still gladly put my money on a switch port for the convenience of it. I'd never touch Savage on it, but it'd be beautifully
convenient for dailies and casual gameplay.

I'll bite why won't you touch savage on it? Don't think it can handle it well enough for that kind of gameplay? Please tell me it's your aversion to gamepads and not that. If it's because you don't think it can handle it, that's reason enough not to port it.

As far as the convenience of portability the switch can bring, correct me if I'm wrong as I don't have a PS3 or 4 or a recent PSP but I do recall Sony marketing being able to play your playstation 3? or 4 games on your PSP via streaming? Does that not already satisfy what you want the switch for?