we need a high res texture pack as an optional download

[Fhaerron]

Ah, I have mixed feelings about this. Certain types of graphics cards are better at handling that sort of thing than others, I'd rather not have to do even more research every time I upgrade my pc to make sure a specific texture pack performs as well as possible. Secondly this would be something console players would be completely locked out of. They would essentially be punished for playing on a console.

I'd rather SE just update the base graphics where they need updating (such as 2.0 gear and hairstyles) than only cater to a small portion of players who could actually use hi-res texture packs.

um what? A potatoe has more then enough vram for the textures the game has.

Also to your information updating the base graphics and hairstyle will also increase Vram required just as HD textures will be.

It's not a small portion of players, I'm pretty sure the majority has above 2Gb of Vram (2Gb Vram is ancient by now) and for those 'HD' textures will be a nice option.

As for console please read my post above.
The PS4 & PS4 Pro has 8(!)Gb of Vram, shared with 'system ram' for the CPU. This is more then enough for higher ress textures and on console you have also the option to use HD features or not, so they can just add an extra option for 'Use new improved HD textures'.

[Anatha]

Yea no, I don't know anyone with a computer powerful enough to run this game with 4k textures enabled. So believe me, none of you have anything stronger.

So yes, it's overkill and you have a lot of reading to do before you realize that. The texture work in game isnt even 1080.

[Fhaerron]

Yea no, I don't know anyone with a computer powerful enough to run this game with 4k textures enabled. So believe me, none of you have anything stronger.

So yes, it's overkill and you have a lot of reading to do before you realize that. The texture work in game isnt even 1080.

Not sure what your mean with your top sentence. You simply cannot know how anybody can run this game with 4K textures because there simply are no 4k textures.
That said I'm pretty sure that a game like XIV will do well with 4K textures on a 1070 and higher (& AMD's counterpart for it).

[Mwynn]

Not sure what your mean with your top sentence. You simply cannot know how anybody can run this game with 4K textures because there simply are no 4k textures.
That said I'm pretty sure that a game like XIV will do well with 4K textures on a 1070 and higher (& AMD's counterpart for it).

Question is... are 4K Textures really needed?
Most of the Textures are mostly in the size of 256x256 if not a bit lower, raising them to 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 would be already considered brutal.

If they did add a 4K Version of those, the Game would loose it's touch with it's Art Style, not everything looks great in 4K Texture Resolution.

Imagine if our Characters suddenly had pimples and pores to be seen in their Faces, I'd probably raise my Eyebrows but ya, if you understand...

[Fhaerron]

Question is... are 4K Textures really needed?
Most of the Textures are mostly in the size of 256x256 if not a bit lower, raising them to 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 would be already considered brutal.

If they did add a 4K Version of those, the Game would loose it's touch with it's Art Style, not everything looks great in 4K Texture Resolution.

Imagine if our Characters suddenly had pimples and pores to be seen in their Faces, I'd probably raise my Eyebrows but ya, if you understand...

Full HD would be a nice start.

I never really said 4k textures myself, I just asked for higher res textures since we have a lot of SD textures.
The 4K stuff is just replying to things other people have said.

However I'm not fully against 4k either, we should get options 720, 1080, 4K, etc.

[Alucard135]

I don't know anyone with a computer powerful enough to run this game with 4k textures enabled...

Just check the benchmark results on youtube for people using GTX1080 and getting a score of less than 9k (a score of 7k is considered extremely high). So imagine those who have SLI configuration or a 1080ti. In my case, I have a quad Titan X (Maxwell OC) configuration and use two of them in SLI. And my score was 12k. So yeah...there are A LOT of people who can run this game without breaking a sweat.

And as Fhaerron said, you need VRAM for textures and the game barely uses more than 4GB.

Most of the Textures are mostly in the size of 256x256 if not a bit lower

Most of the details are in the normal maps, which are 512x1024 and contain most of the details (you can find this information online). The diffuse maps are lower than that, which explains the horrible pixelated colors.

not everything looks great in 4K Texture Resolution.

Nope, they will look even better. Just poke around the PC community and you will probably stumble across very nice info.

[Riardon]

Meanwhile my old GTX970 can handle FFXV with the 4K textures just fine. A much much more demanding game than XIV.
XIV needs better textures. Even modders can make HD textures if SE ever allows mods in XIV.
Higher res textures are not a big deal for SE to release. There must be some weird policy behind this silly decision of not updating the game.
As for those saying they have weak machines and can't run it well nobody forces you to enable them.
Higher res textures can be an option in graphic settings with a toggle or an optional download (since they require much more space).
High Res Textures changes nothing for those with really weak machines.
And BTW there are already mods out there enabling High Res Texture for all hair styles in the game..
Just so you know that a High Res Texture pack is nothing for SE to make and release.

[Vhailor]

Just so you know that a High Res Texture pack is nothing for SE to make and release.

That's hard to say. Their graphics engine could have built-in limitations. That said, you're absolutely right in that releasing the textures themselves is easy. There's no reason to avoid doing this unless the graphics engine itself has a problem.

[Riardon]

That's hard to say. Their graphics engine could have built-in limitations. That said, you're absolutely right in that releasing the textures themselves is easy. There's no reason to avoid doing this unless the graphics engine itself has a problem.

The engine has no issues with textures. Textures are just photos loaded in the Vram of the GPU. The graphic engine of this game is upgradable as well. They already upgraded it with DX11 features.
The textures are really nothing. And like I said there are already mods with HD textures for this game. So yes it is nothing for them to make if private individuals with no access to the engine can edit some textures of the game and create HD versions of them.
The only reason they don't do it already is because they have some business policies or they just don't care or they keep it for a later expansion.
It can be done and it's done already. The textures mods are available to a very known mod website that hosts mods for others games as well.
I won't mention its name nor I will provide a link as altering the client is against the ToS. I just want to say that some guys already made HD textures for all the hairstyle for all genders and races and some other textures edits as well.

[Vhailor]

The engine has no issues with textures. Textures are just photos loaded in the Vram of the GPU. The graphic engine of this game is upgradable as well. They already upgraded it with DX11 features.

Again, as I said, it's hard to say. If SE built in poor texture cache management, for example, there could be issues - and poking around on Reddit suggests (unofficially) that XIV indeed does very little texture caching. In most of the mods you mention, my understanding is that only a small portion of the game world (hairstyle, as you mentioned) is updated. Given the small performance hit of only a few HD textures relative to re-making the entire world, this does not demonstrate we're in the free and clear.

There's a good post on Reddit by MyImoutoIsMyWaifu that's worth a read. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if ultra-high-res textures for the entire game caused performance issues far beyond what would normally be expected.