Thread: can someone explain the whole 1.0 graphics > 2.0?

I remember 1.0. I think 2.0 looks considerably better. And unlike 1.0, you can change the graphic settings and resolution in game on the fly. In 1.0, if you wanted to do this, you had to exit the game, run the game config utility, relaunch the game. This really stunk. And if you ran full screen mode and alt-tabbed, pressed the window key, or did anything that caused the game to loose focus, the game would exit. A game released in 2010 should not function this way. Although the game allowed you to run it in a bordered non-sizable window. It was so awkward that a third party tool (WindowerXIV) was released.

2.0 uses the same textures as 1.0 for characters. 1.0 had a few awful textures for the environment (the ground). The game also used some very ugly environmental texture mipmapping. It was very noticeable in towns. Setting the Graphics Quality option to 9 or 10 help remedy this efect, to this but doing so resulted in a large performance hit. Most players felt it was simply not worth it, and stuck with setting "8" or lower.

1.0 had much more complex movement animations. It also had animation lock. Reversing direction would cause your avatar to stop, lean as she turned around, and slowly start running the opposite direction. It looked nice while being INCREDIBLY ANNOYING! I remember this most with Ifrit (Hard). I can only imagine if a fight like Titan existed in 1.0.

Weapon skill animations we're more elaborate in 1.0. But w/ the animation lock, they could be annoying to execute. Sure they looked nice, but not being able to move or execute anything else until the animation completed was a pain.

I did make a video of the "Spirits Within" and "Rage of Halone" weapons skills, slowed down 50%. Interesting to look at, if you'd like. It's short too.