Direct X 10/11 Question - Answer (Translated)

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

80+ posts in and nobody's mentioned OpenGL? For shame.

Those who've said that they need to optimize the game first are right. I mean, for everyone who says "Even WoW uses DX11" there are a million people who agree that WoW looks like siht. Oh and hey look, Witcher 2 uses DX9 and it looks way better than WoW (DX11). Wonder why that is?

Optimization is everything. If you think just jumping to DX11 will suddenly improve everything, then you don't know anything about anything and should probably look up "breathing" on wikipedia before you suffocate on your ignorance. Does DX11 have more potential than DX9? Sure, but it's not a silver bullet that'll suddenly turn Crystal Tools into Frostbite.

A lot of you are also upset that FFXIV doesn't fully utilize modern technology. Well, gee, how long have hexacore processors been on the market and how many games utilize all six cores? None? Okay, how many utilize four cores? Gee, time to write angry diatribes to CryTek, Epic, and whoever else for being behind the times.

I don't know if you're playing the same Final Fantasy XIV that I'm not playing, but I can tell you that, right now, the graphics are the least of FFXIV's problems. Moving to DX11 is a relatively small step compared to everything else S-E needs to fix. I'd rather this game run on 16-bit sprites if it would fix everything wrong with it.

'Course, they'd be better off going full OpenGL since that's what PS3 uses and they could optimize for two systems at once, but that's moot until they get rid of guildleves.

[Anty]

The same PS3 version Amazon has given a 2020 pre-order release date for?
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Anywho, if this does lower the strain on my poor PC (especially when moving quickly through towns) then I hope they reconsider. My PC is about a year old with decent specification but when I'm traveling through parts of Limsa I'm scared it's going to eject itself and no amount of option tweaking seems to help... which was disappointing after about an hour of try setting, log in, le fail, log out, try another setting, repeat x10. Might be nice is some of the options weren't all or nothing too but settings (and lack of decent ingame settings menu) are another rant!

the lack of proper options and included in the game not outside really makes this a pain to customize.
And still there are too few options that really affect performance, so you have high detail or pixel heaven. But still the pixel heaven is hardware hungry.

But on the other hand... adjusting the grass density wont help... there is almost no grass.

[Anty]

80+ posts in and nobody's mentioned OpenGL? For shame.

Those who've said that they need to optimize the game first are right. I mean, for everyone who says "Even WoW uses DX11" there are a million people who agree that WoW looks like siht. Oh and hey look, Witcher 2 uses DX9 and it looks way better than WoW (DX11). Wonder why that is?

Optimization is everything. If you think just jumping to DX11 will suddenly improve everything, then you don't know anything about anything and should probably look up "breathing" on wikipedia before you suffocate on your ignorance. Does DX11 have more potential than DX9? Sure, but it's not a silver bullet that'll suddenly turn Crystal Tools into Frostbite.

A lot of you are also upset that FFXIV doesn't fully utilize modern technology. Well, gee, how long have hexacore processors been on the market and how many games utilize all six cores? None? Okay, how many utilize four cores? Gee, time to write angry diatribes to CryTek, Epic, and whoever else for being behind the times.

I don't know if you're playing the same Final Fantasy XIV that I'm not playing, but I can tell you that, right now, the graphics are the least of FFXIV's problems. Moving to DX11 is a relatively small step compared to everything else S-E needs to fix. I'd rather this game run on 16-bit sprites if it would fix everything wrong with it.

'Course, they'd be better off going full OpenGL since that's what PS3 uses and they could optimize for two systems at once, but that's moot until they get rid of guildleves.

True. If they get the dx9 version in proper shape, which should be possible, then we could have all the nice (almost all) eyecandy we would have with dx 11. I really miss real shadows everywhere. Imho with shadows the world would feel much more alive in its own way. No real shadows make the world look like plastic with spotlights all over... And its a shame since mobs, characters, etc. have such nice detail but lacking some of the most important optic features... shadows... which isnt something for dx10 or 11 only... again... if you do it right.

[Soukyuu]

80+ posts in and nobody's mentioned OpenGL? For shame.

They can't even handle DX, which is what 99% of games are programmed in. Hell, I saw doujin games that had less bugs (alt-tab crash, anyone?) and looked as good as FFXIV on medium settings.

'Course, they'd be better off going full OpenGL since that's what PS3 uses and they could optimize for two systems at once

Not to mention that would also make a linux/mac version possible -> larger target audience.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

True. If they get the dx9 version in proper shape, which should be possible, then we could have all the nice (almost all) eyecandy we would have with dx 11. I really miss real shadows everywhere. Imho with shadows the world would feel much more alive in its own way. No real shadows make the world look like plastic with spotlights all over... And its a shame since mobs, characters, etc. have such nice detail but lacking some of the most important optic features... shadows... which isnt something for dx10 or 11 only... again... if you do it right.

Exactly, and there's nothing stopping them from patching in DX11 support later. But that still leaves the very large "if" in the room of "if S-E was any good at coding." If I was in charge, I'd outsource engine optimization to Naughty Dog.

Maybe they can rename it Final Fantasy Persona XIV and have the lack of real shadows be a feature?

[Betelgeuzah]

developers should know dx9 by now and get the best out of it... ffxiv feels like its their first try with dx9

On PC, it is. Crystal tools runs and looks fine on the consoles.

[Cutriss]

On PC, it is. Crystal tools runs and looks fine on the consoles.

The Last Remnant says hello, and even with FFXI as a DX8.1 game, it's not like it's their first time in the rodeo.

Side note - good informative reads on the state of PC development at SE:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/featur...technical_.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...st_Remnant.php

[Loth]

The Last Remnant says hello, and even with FFXI as a DX8.1 game, it's not like it's their first time in the rodeo.

The version I bought of The Last Remnant is utilizing the Unreal engine.

Also, so many says for them not to spend resources on optimizing and adding features to the Crystal Tools engine, as it would cost development time for FFXIV.
I sure hope that they have a team dedicated to the engine, not for FFXIV, but for the engine as a whole, as it is being used for their current and future in-house games.
Just as popular licensing engines like Unreal and CryEngine it would stand them well to embrace the current API (2 years old come August) and not base it solely on a 2 generations, 7 year old API.

And this is just to add to the WoW posting.

While I agree that WoW is not a good looking game, their rewrinting of the code and implementation of DX11 have the potential to improve performance as tested by tom's hardware.

[Delsus]

This was posted in response to asking about support for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11, specifically. When taking into consideration the performance of the PlayStation 3 version, we currently have no plans of supporting DirectX 10/11. However, in the event that large changes or alterations take place to the graphics, or if DirectX 10/DirectX 11 continue to grow in popularity, we will begin to support them.

This is no excuse directX 10/11 are supported on all graphics cards these days that can run ffxiv well, all not supporting directX10/11 will do is shorten the lifespan of the game, and make it harder for the devs to improve the game.

DirectX10/11 will make the game run better, also in a couple of years ATI and Nvidia will stop support for Dx9 which will start to affect performance. If the game is going to be successful it needs atleast Dx10 support.

[Cutriss]

The version I bought of The Last Remnant is utilizing the Unreal engine.

And no developer is using the Unreal Engine in stock. Using UE doesn't mean you don't have to know anything about DirectX anymore.

Also, so many says for them not to spend resources on optimizing and adding features to the Crystal Tools engine, as it would cost development time for FFXIV. I sure hope that they have a team dedicated to the engine, not for FFXIV, but for the engine as a whole, as it is being used for their current and future in-house games.
Just as popular licensing engines like Unreal and CryEngine it would stand them well to embrace the current API (2 years old come August) and not base it solely on a 2 generations, 7 year old API.

Exactly. Just bite the bullet already and get the Deus Ex team to start working on Crystal Tools. DX9 is already behind the curve and Crystal Tools was designed to help SE get *ahead* of the curve.

A move to DX10 will fix a sizeable number of the problems they have now, with regards to being able to configure graphics on the fly (DX10 doesn't fix it but if they're going to move to DX10/11, they'll have a much better opportunity to fix this), Alt-Tab in fullscreen, compatibility in Vista/7, and improved performance.