Graphics Update Discussion

[reginleif-]

The one that really blew my mind is the shot of Sharlayan during foggy weather. My issue with what they've shown so far is that it can be sorta hard to tell what's changed. What I really want to see at JP fanfest is some just raw gameplay of someone running around a zone in the current graphics and the exact same video with the upgraded graphics. Or better yet, show a pre graphics update trial and that same trial post graphics update.

That fog screenshot was really beautiful. If anyone would like to look or refresh their memories: Updated Fog in Sharlayan from EU Fan Fest

Same wishes to see the new environments live, especially in the underlit areas like Ultima Thule, overlit ones like Mt. Gulg, and lush green ones like Island Sanctuary. Please show the extreme cases of environments where the lighting update is welcome for the eye ease: little light, a lot of light, a lot of a single bright color.

[mallleable]

I wonder if the crystal texture update will also apply to environments like the lvl 89 dungeon, or p9.

[DiaDeem]

It's been a very, very long time but I think they were both one single dungeon if I recall correctly.

No, AV and DD were never the same dungeon.

As for the graphical update itself, I'm just gonna quote myself:

One of my main complaints about XIV's graphics, besides lighting has always been the awful implementation of FXAA as the sole solution for antialiasing in the game, and after watching the Keynote from EU, I'm a bit concerned.

FXAA is an (ancient) post processing solution that's just not very good at handling jaggies. You know how stairs look all jagged and flickery? That's FXAA unable to properly treat the image:




This image is from the EU Fanfest keynote:


And if you take a look to the right:


The steps are a jagged mess, and so are the tracks and boards on the platform on the right side of the image. This isn't game breaking, but it's the kind of thing that once you see, you can't unsee. This is also just not enough for what's being sold to us as a major graphics update that's supposed to last for another ten years at the minimum. FXAA is 14 years old at this point time, and it's just good enough for modern games.

What we need:
- More options for native resolutions such as MSAA and TAA
- Implementation of FSR, DLSS and XeSS

Though FSR, DLSS and XeSS are meant as upscalers, their AA treatment is just vastly superior to FXAA, not to mention these upscalers are just good to have to play on higher resolutions while keeping performance.

I'm very excited for the graphical update, but the current state of AA shown in it so far is just very lacking, and I hope something can be done about it in time for release.

[DaRealSlarkShady]

Shaders are easily where the game can see the most increase in visual quality for the least amount of work-- and I'm happy to see the progress they've made with them.

Outside of a critical need for AA, I hope they also touch on the landscape shaders. Specifically, I'd like see texture bombing-- essentially randomization to break up the repeating nature of the textures. This would do wonders for a lot of the older areas, and the best part is that it's possible without having to modify any of the existing assets.

As far as dreaming goes, I've also seen some claims in this thread that ray-tracing would not fit this game for multiple aesthetic reasons, but I don't believe that is true. IMO ray-tracing would do wonders both for reflections and for global-illumination, where the bounce lighting can affect colors.

[Shougun]

Shaders are easily where the game can see the most increase in visual quality for the least amount of work-- and I'm happy to see the progress they've made with them.

Outside of a critical need for AA, I hope they also touch on the landscape shaders. Specifically, I'd like see texture bombing-- essentially randomization to break up the repeating nature of the textures. This would do wonders for a lot of the older areas, and the best part is that it's possible without having to modify any of the existing assets.

As far as dreaming goes, I've also seen some claims in this thread that ray-tracing would not fit this game for multiple aesthetic reasons, but I don't believe that is true. IMO ray-tracing would do wonders both for reflections and for global-illumination, where the bounce lighting can affect colors.

I want to see Mor Dhona with ray tracing ...haha. The new can it run Crysis moment, those reflections would be something

In general locations I'm sure it could add a lot of value (and for crystal heavy areas they can find solutions to clamp potential chaos).

[Jeeqbit]

I've also seen some claims in this thread that ray-tracing would not fit this game for multiple aesthetic reasons, but I don't believe that is true. IMO ray-tracing would do wonders both for reflections and for global-illumination, where the bounce lighting can affect colors.

Well the development panel they went over their work on lighting was at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/400283650?t=00h16m59s

Ray-tracing could require a lot of work to the game because it has been designed around the current lighting system and it means going and adjusting all their current lights.

That and would ray-tracing produce the colors that they want ie. the color scheme they have for Ahm Araeng in different weather that they worked hard on? You can see the points they made about this in slide1 and slide2.

[PEANUT]

Ooo ty! I was trying to get that to work to have the actual images pop up that I enjoyed the most! I'll try that!

YES! Improvements to weather for sure!! Especially when it comes to physics with foliage in windy areas, improvements to snow and such! I would really hope they would in the future when they drop PS4 support (consensus is they will according to most people lol) that they do something similar with character faces where they increase the polygon count on all geometry to an extent. I saw in the latest Fanfest that there is a new tech to make all the characters share the same amount of polygons for uniformity and it just conforms to each of their faces for performance stabilization. I would like to see this as well with the geometry to hopefully get more detail in the environments(again not expecting UE5 quality or miracles but improvements nonetheless). Mix that with improvements in weather and maybe enable ray-tracing if your system supports it and WOW! What a DIFFERENCE that would make!!

[PEANUT]

I read a convincing article that said this game will never support Ray Tracing and the reason is because it uses reflective lighting. What that means is that colors are decided by the lighting, so if you think that colors look washed out, it is actually because they sometimes do in real life as well due to the lighting.

For example, if you go to the character creator and look at your character's skin or eyes, you will notice they change color a lot depending on the background you choose and that is an example of the reflective lighting the game uses.

Environments are literally a different color depending on the lighting and SE spends a huge amount of development time on the lighting just to make the color look how they want. How do I know that? They did a development panel at one of the Shadowbringers fanfests where they showed how they made environments such as The Crystarium and Amh Araeng and the extensive work put into the lighting.

This extends into the gear design, where they will only use certain colors for gear because some colors, or color combinations, don't work.

So if they went with Ray Tracing to handle everything, suddenly years of work and effort put into designing the game for their lighting system would potentially have to be revisited to make it look good with Ray Tracing.

I don't mean to argue in any rude way please understand, but I think this is what they are changing? The PBR system will make it so that they don't do this anymore and instead will have a physical based renderer that interacts with lighting where they don't manually adjust colors and such to "make them look good in different lighting situations" so to speak. And if I'm true, in the future that would help for the PBR to interact with ray-traced lighting naturally to greatly improve image quality without that extra work.

[PEANUT]

I would really enjoy that as well!!!

[PEANUT]

I'm not sure how excited to be because I'll still be playing on PS4 come 7.0 and I am not sure if it will support the graphics update, and it's also difficult to justify the purchase of new hardware when I don't play much games outside XIV and the few I have for my Switch. However, I have thought about getting a PS5 for the short load in times alone. Load in times on PS4 are atrociously slow.

I will say, when I upgraded to PS5, the UI switch alone on the PS5 from the PS4 is night and day. It's sooooo smooth and fast and beautiful, I was literally like "How they heck did I play on this potato of a console this long?!?" It's definitely worth the upgrade, especially since they revamped it and it's smaller now too and doesn't take up as much room You also have a lot of time to upgrade if you choose to since 7.0 doesn't come out till I think June of next year.