[Ichifay]

Just a random thought after seeing pics of characters from older final fantasy games - why aren't the capes/mantles or whatever for the Back actually shown on the character? I think it'd make individual characters look a lot cooler.

I can just imagine a DRK in AF with a black flowing cape...that's just awesome!

[Icemage]

Capes eat up ridiculous amounts of processing power. Not worth the visual boost, which is why they were never implemented in the first place (and why most MMORPGs don't - at least the smart ones).


Icemage

[Guren]

capes dont take that much... and also capes would be a good idea. nice thought. rate up :D

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Guren

capes dont take that much... and also capes would be a good idea. nice thought. rate up :D

If you want them to actually look like capes, they do. If you just want flat pieces of cardboard stapled to the back of your character, that's different.


Icemage

[Aeni]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Capes eat up ridiculous amounts of processing power. Not worth the visual boost, which is why they were never implemented in the first place (and why most MMORPGs don't - at least the smart ones).


Icemage

Uhh ... this isn't a valid reason anymore. Yes, maybe back in 1998, but definitely in 2006 there's almost no reason for developers to not include a few enhancements into the game (If anything, allow it as an option under graphical settings) You realize it's not the CPU that's doing the graphical processing, right? Today's GPU is so much more powerful than even what was available a year ago.

The correct reason should be that the PS2 is utter crap as a gaming machine to play today's hottest graphical titles. The promise that the PS2 was to be the most powerful gaming machine for 5 or 6 years back in the days went up in smoke in a scant year after its release when ATI and nVidia released better and faster graphics cards along with better support for the more popular graphical libraries and when Intel and AMD both announced work in going to SMP (Recently available in packages known as dual cores)

Today's PC is miles ahead of the PS2, which is barely hitting its 5th anniversary. I don't see PS3 being anything superior either considering the Xbox 360 didn't impress me at all (Next years PC rig should easily eclipse that console)

So in short, maybe not in the current form of FFXI, but I don't see why not give this option to current PC/XBox 360 users either.

[sevenpointflaw]

Originally Posted by Aeni

Uhh ... this isn't a valid reason anymore. Yes, maybe back in 1998, but definitely in 2006 there's almost no reason for developers to not include a few enhancements into the game (If anything, allow it as an option under graphical settings) You realize it's not the CPU that's doing the graphical processing, right? Today's GPU is so much more powerful than even what was available a year ago.

In a well programed game, the GPU handles the majority of the graphics. This is not the case with FFXI however, which has the majority of the graphics handled by the CPU. As SE has made it fairly clear they won't support PC-specific anything beyond the minimum required to actually run the game in a near-PS2 compatability, they won't move the core of the processing requirements to the GPU.

[Icemage]

In PC-only games, sure, you could put in flowing capes and not really notice much of a performance hit. But FFXI is built as cross-platform. You can't make stuff "only" for one version without increasing development complexity, something that S-E has been loathe to do (for good reason).

Not all of the computations can be pushed onto a GPU. Remember, capes are cloth, and to look realistic they have to "billow" in the wind or when you move. That's not just animation - that's linked collision physics, which is a pain in the butt to do right, and uses up a lot of processing power. You might do some shortcut animation simulations, but then you'd have people complaining that all capes move in the same way (at which point you probably might as well not have them in the first place).

The fact of the matter is that capes are very hard to make look realistic, since they incorporate both physics and shadows. Yes, current-gen PC titles can handle them... barely. But they're not easy to do, and as I said - lots of processing required for a bit of eye candy.

I'd much, much rather see that processing power go in to displaying, say, more players on the screen, or more enemies. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of seeing people vanish in front of my eyes in Besieged if I'm not directly targetting them. That's a way better use of computational power in my mind.


Icemage

[Feba]

You realize it's not the CPU that's doing the graphical processing, right? Today's GPU is so much more powerful than even what was available a year ago.

As stated above, this is sadly not the case with FFXI.


You could most likely go out tommorow, get a GPU 100$ more than the one you have now, and notice very little real different while playing FFXI.

FFXI not only takes a lot of CPU power, but it eats up everything that you have availble. This is extremely noticible by windower users, by the huge lag it can create on your PC if it's a slower model.


FFXI needs a lot of improvement on it's graphics, both in looks, and in efficiency.

[Guren]

Originally Posted by Icemage

If you want them to actually look like capes, they do. If you just want flat pieces of cardboard stapled to the back of your character, that's different.


Icemage

SE could make capes look like capes easily... this isnt ps1 or n64 anymore lol

[Feba]

Guren, I don't think you understand how incredibly unsuited FFXI is for displaying capes, especially in a realistic sense. If capes were made real, they would have to work like an ADDITIONAL .dat on a character model, which would take more power, more memory, more HDD, they would be extremely static, and also would probably look very stupid with many armors.

[seq]

because it'll load up your PC's RAM?
i feel someone will jump up and say the old "PS2 limitation".

edit:
XBox got improved graphics, why not PC too? PS2 limitations?

[BurningPanther]

I don't know from adam about the hardware required to make capes feasible, but I know it would be a great addition... if it could be pulled off.

[Gentoo]

Originally Posted by seq

because it'll load up your PC's RAM?
i feel someone will jump up and say the old "PS2 limitation".
edit:
XBox got improved graphics, why not PC too? PS2 limitations?

Cloth physics are not RAM intensive, but processor intensive.

PS2 limitation!
The PS2 is one of the bottlenecks. So are older PC's -- which I'm betting make up a pretty significant portion of SE FFXI customer base. The bottleneck platforms, I suspect, aren't the real problem; I doubt the engine that drives FFXI even has cloth physics built into it.

The XBox version got enhance drawing graphics because because Microsoft partnered with SE (*cough*sponsored*cough*) to bring FFXI to the 360 so Microsoft would have a MMO for their console with a strong brand.
[and probably because SE needed some way to entice 360 owners to a mature MMOG].

On the surface, I can't really get terribly excited about capes. No offense Ichifay, just not one of those features that floats my boat. None-the-less, as Burning Panther mentioned, if SE were to some how pull off implimenting the feature (preferably with a toggle setting), I have to admit it would be cool.

I also have to admit, there are bigger fish to fry.

[Feba]

If SE wanted to improve graphics, they should start by increasing draw distance. Enable AA/AF, increase maximum size (without needing reg editing), all that fun stuff.

next, changing sky graphics to be like TAU zones, doesn't matter if you have weather on/off.

After that, it starts getting more complicated. Stuff like increasing amount of players/monsters on screen, making the graphics more efficent (and let's admit, even with a top of the line system, ffxi uses way more than it should have to), and after that you get into the huge stuff, such as changing the GUI, or even upgrading the quality of .dats

[Caspian]

I never realized that ffxi had a bad GUI until I saw a friend play WoW. I don't care for the game, but you can tell it was made for PC. Not necessarily a change that needs to be made, I still have no problem using it as is, but WoW's is nice.