Letter from the Producer XLII

[Biggs]

It's neither. Benchmarks are designed to take the graphics engine and stretch it to the absolute extremes it's capable of reaching. Then measure the framerate at those extremes. Only by stretching the computer beyond it's capacities can you measure those capacities. So basically, those are "in game graphics" but at extremes that the graphics engine was never technically designed to utilize in actual game play.

My favorite Benchmark may be the FFXI, in which it just slowly fills your screen with Tarutaru until the graphics engine is trying to draw like 500 tarutaru. It's hilarious.

Well I am in love to say the least. If its even close to possible to run it looking anything like that, I have some serious upgrades to add to my desktop in the next few weeks. Makes me sad to think thats an extreme visual, but what your saying makes sense. I have little experience with benchmarks as I ended up playing XI on the ps2, then the xbox360 (both of which do not do that game justice)

Based on what your saying though, is it possible thats what the game will look like when its at the far end of its life cycle? What I mean is, as the game begins contending with better and better software over the course of its life, won't it (for a time) keep getting better and better looking before it maxes out?