Is it just me, or does 2.0 look like it was a LOWER graphical quality than 1.0?

[Meta]

You're out of your mind if you think 2.0 looks worse.

Stand under a tree or a ledge in the current version. What happens? Nothing, because the game's "lighting" system is a joke.


See how the trees are casting shadows on your character and the enemy?




2.0 makes 1.0 look like a high-def FFXI, an artifact of last-generation console graphics. The fact that they can get the game to look this good on low-end hardware is astounding.

[Judge_Xero]

From the interviews with Yoshi, I thought it was basically this:
1) Looks good on low end machines, through optimization, controlling the number rendered NPC's, tricks to make something appear more detailed than it is.
2) High End Machines - OMFG, and OMFG look at all the NPC's I can render at the same time.

Make sure to save up some $$$ and grab yourself a 27" 2560X1440 Monitor.

[Biggs]

No .
NO .


It makes ABSOLUTLEY no sense to post an UNFOUNDED concern about something that has been addressed MULTIPLE TIMES
AND IT HAPPENS CONSTANTLY ON THESE FORUMS.

Welcome to the official FF Forums my friend: where the hell have you been lol?

[HiirNoivl]

2.0 makes 1.0 look like a high-def FFXI, an artifact of last-generation console graphics. The fact that they can get the game to look this good on low-end hardware is astounding.

Reiny just posted Yoshi's explanation of how he does it.

------
Mr. Yoshida in the end started playing with the Core i5 laptop.
Y: This is low rendering settings. The frame rate is lower but the texture remains. It's something like this. In the further tree's shadow, there is actually a secret where, when you approach, you can see detailed features, when further away, it displays with lower resolution. Can say this for Playstation3 version as well, but when looking at a still state you won’t be able to tell the difference between the High and Low quality. When you concentrate while moving, you may say “Oh the LOD (The polygon changes depending on distance) is different” but that’s about it. We are also making adjustments so the LOD naturally changes. Textures resolution may drop but is most likely equal.

Wouldn’t be hard when lots of players gather for stuff like popular content?
Y: For me I have it set to High Quality at all times but it’s possible to turn off other players shadow to make it lighter or or for myself keep the high model but setup for everything else to LOW or nearby settings to middle or low to make it lighter. We made it so you don’t have to go out to title screen to do this and can make adjustments on that spot. Also lots of contents are instanced in FFXIV 2.0 so when encountering contents such as large scale PVP there might be times where it gets heavy for a bit but not to a point where you get fed up with. Right now the the settings are made so even if you drop the quality or frame rate of nearby characters to preserve your graphics at same time to show as much players possible, so you don’t need to replace your PC.

Mr. Yoshida playing with the PC. Per Mr. Yoshida this PC is actually the one project manager is using in reality.
Will it run with onboard graphics card?
Y: It will depend on the onboard card. However the requirement for graphics chip isn’t that high, if you can turn off different settings it will run, that is the concept. But lots of players will take screenshot of them as Final Fantasy so I don’t want the quality of the images to be lower than what Final Fantasy should be so I’m keeping that in mind.

So the environment doesn’t require Core 2 QUAD or GTS 250 like current?
Y: I will announce the lowest operating environment before the alpha test so please wait until then. We will also prepare a new benchmark software where you can feel the game. We will show more drastic images so please look forward to the updates.

Response - Tag so this post shows up on Sumlimen tracker

TL;DR -- Lower end PCs will be able to calibrate their clients to preserve a higher quality on all the things that the player feels they want higher quality on.

[Mishakai]

I vividly recall somewhere Yoshi or someone else mentioning that the gfx engine was being redone so that it would run better on a wider variety of hardware, however, at it's highest settings would actually be more demanding than 1.X.

Kinda screams dx11 to me...

[Katie]

That's not 2.0...

It's a video of a video of Alpha... /sigh

[TaalAzura]

That's not 2.0...

It's a video of a video of Alpha... /sigh

Don't forget the screenshots, and nice post edit.

[Ruisu]

Aside from gear/mobs, the graphics of this game are below par. 2.0 looks much better, drawing distance, shadowing, etc.

To say that it's a downgrade is rather shallow.

[TaalAzura]

Aside from gear/mobs, the graphics of this game are below par. 2.0 looks much better, drawing distance, shadowing, etc.

To say that it's a downgrade is rather shallow.

Artistically it's better (more or less) but actual texture quality seems to have gone down is what I'm referring to.

[Ruisu]

Artistically it's better (more or less) but actual texture quality seems to have gone down is what I'm referring to.

Honestly, if the quality is consistent (unlike the current engine), I don't mind it being lower. I'd rather have alright textures than really good textures up close, and really really bad textures in the distance.