Why does my text look like ass?(pics

[Yashin]

Hey i just got the PC version of FFXI and my text/starting screen look like a pixely mess...Im running this on a PCI-E 6600GT at 1024x768 on both res at higest settings

[Yashin]

http://gif.250free.com/pol2005052102112182.JPG

Its qualty is a little less since i dont have adobe photoshop installed yet and had to save it on ms paint but that ls text plain sucks...

http://gif.250free.com/pol20050521202093676.JPG

Thats just plain...what the hell?

[Feenicks]

Looks fine to me, whats your problem?

[JU571N]

Mine looks like that too (9800pro). Everything in game looks fine, though.

[Kafeen]

Originally posted by Feenicks
Looks fine to me, whats your problem? There's no Chains of Promethia logo.

[Feenicks]

Could be that he hasn't installed Promathia yet ...
At a second glance I can see that the Zilart logo looks a bit chunky but I still don't really see what's up with the in-game text.

[Metrou]

Set your overlay to higher resolution in FFXI config and your text will be more clear (like Starving Artists') it will also much smaller.

[fuz]

It's probably the method they used to create transparancies, they likely set a single indexed color instead of an alpha channel, showing a lot of aliasing when the image is stretched. Sort of like how *.gif transparancy sucks.

FFXI obviously doesn't use rendered text like you see in a word processor, but a small image file per letter that is streched--which looks pretty horrible on a computer monitor. If you moved in from TV, the low rez and analog conversion hide jaggies by bluring everything.

So I doubt there is a real fix for it.

You can use a psudo super-sampling anti-alising by setting your Background Resolution higher than your Overlay Graphics Resolution which will smooth it out. Of course, your computer and VGA card need to be pretty recent if you want to run at settings like that.

[Yashin]

Originally posted by Kafeen
There's no Chains of Promethia logo.

Yeah i dont have CoP for PC yet, but imma get it...some year...

Yeah i have been playing with different res and i finnaly found one that makes the text looks better...so yeah...

[Balgas]

What I want to know is why the textures in the game are so large, blotchy, washed out, and hurtful to look at. When I first started playing, I didn't mind them so much, but after a while I would dread having to look at the same boring, eye-straining textures.

If the textures weren't so horrible I might consider coming back. :)

[Feenicks]

Simple explanation for that - FFXI is a PS2 game ported to PC.

[Rychiar]

There is nothing wrong with the ingame gfx... Look at my pics of the game running on a TV and the second set running at 1600x1200 with 2048x2048 on background.

http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=526623#post526623

It would be hard pressed to have it look any better.

[Balgas]

The scenery textures still look horrible. It's not something that tweaking your computer can fix. Square-Enix would need to scrap and remake them in order to fit to my liking. :p

[neighbortaru]

Originally posted by Feenicks
Simple explanation for that - FFXI is a PS2 game ported to PC.
Correction, it's a game designed to play on both PS2 and PC; with PS2 being the lowest common denominator.

[Feenicks]

Close enough.

[Macht]

Originally posted by neighbortaru
Correction, it's a game designed to play on both PS2 and PC; with PS2 being the lowest common denominator.

The game is designed for both yes, but the coding is backgrounded to the PS2 system. Technically the game runs faster on the PS2 then it will on the PC even if the PC was to be set equal to that of the PS2. It's the design of the coding and how it pipes through the data on such a small data transfer line but huge bandwidth that the PS2 provides.

The more detailed means more data that has to be piped through which is slower performance for the PS2. Game qualities or quality of anything is based to the lowest common denominator the company is expecting the consumer to possibly be using.

After all it's usually bad practice for a company to demand the customers to pay more on unrelated aspects unless the customers demand to. However since online gaming is getting more popular more players are demanding stuff of higher quality so the companies are starting to try and deliver. As a result the players are going to have to be sure to have very good and very fast internet connections or else they won't enjoy the experience.

[neighbortaru]

Huh Macht? Did you just repeat what I wrote, but in a longer and more detailed fashion?

[TheGrandMom]

Basically the game was made for the PS2 and the PC version is an afterthought. The coding for the game is built around the PS2 architecture. That's why people piss and moan about the graphics. So the final line is that FFXI is a PS2 game first and a PC port second.

[fuz]

I don't think it was designed for both. The really odd rendering system for PC sort of points in the direction it was PS2 first, then an ass-backward (and highly inefficient) emulator was setup for PC.

The high bandwith of the PS2 doesn't really matter a lot on PC since PCs have so much more RAM.

PS2 has what... 16MB? So of course it needs high bandwith to constantly swap textures. It can't fit them all into RAM so it doesn't render everything complete in the first pass. As an example the PS2 will render 1 frame with 50% textures, next has the other 50%. Put them up on the screen at 1/30 of a second together and everything looks fine.

But on the PC side, caching is a way to lower bandwith requirements--which artificially boosts bandwith by making the data flow more efficient. So actual throughput of streaming data on PC isn't much worse since PCs don't rely as much on the HDD (by far the slowest thing in both PS2 and PC) as much. Processors with L1, L2, and even L3 cache also help relieve bandwith saturation with low bus speeds.

[Yashin]

No it has 32 MBs...

[Macht]

Originally posted by fuz
I don't think it was designed for both. The really odd rendering system for PC sort of points in the direction it was PS2 first, then an ass-backward (and highly inefficient) emulator was setup for PC.

The high bandwith of the PS2 doesn't really matter a lot on PC since PCs have so much more RAM.

PS2 has what... 16MB? So of course it needs high bandwith to constantly swap textures. It can't fit them all into RAM so it doesn't render everything complete in the first pass. As an example the PS2 will render 1 frame with 50% textures, next has the other 50%. Put them up on the screen at 1/30 of a second together and everything looks fine.

But on the PC side, caching is a way to lower bandwith requirements--which artificially boosts bandwith by making the data flow more efficient. So actual throughput of streaming data on PC isn't much worse since PCs don't rely as much on the HDD (by far the slowest thing in both PS2 and PC) as much. Processors with L1, L2, and even L3 cache also help relieve bandwith saturation with low bus speeds.

He just about explained it better then I did.

[Rychiar]

Other than what was said is true, but I will add this. Setting this game to a certain way looks better than most of MMORPG's out today. All you have to do is play around with it.

It still looks great even if you cant run it at its highest settings. The overall feel of the world is very large as in characters and environments. You actually feel like you are in a world in itself. Much in the same way as EQ2, but I honestly cant stand the way the gfx are done in a clay manner.

Lineage 2 looks better with FFXI as a close second. WOW just flat out sucks imo. Anyway I have gotten off topic and might have created some hate here, but just play and work with it. It will look great with the right settings.

[fuz]

I think it was 16MB Frame buffer and 16MB system memory... but whatever, even my 2 year old PC has 512MB of system RAM and 128MB VGA card.

FFXI graphics are not really bad, because the designs from the artists have been consistenly good, despite the poor quality rendering engine--which is admittedly, very old.

FFXI also has a lot of different things on screen at once, so it's not like Doom3 or Unreal which can have just a few models at really high quality. Most MMOs have to sacrifice alot of graphical detail to afford the processing power for the number of individual things going on, so there really aren't many that look truly cutting edge in terms of render quality.

As has been said in 3D artist circles, good texturing (even low res) can cover up poor 3D work, but no amount of polygons and fancy lighting will cover for poor design. I think EQ2 suffers from the latter quite a bit; great 3D engine, but I can't stand the art direction. Looks like it was made by the same people that put 20" chrome wheels and unpainted aero kits on a banged up 80's civic. FFXI is more towards the other spectrum--especially the newest equipment designs showing lots of intricate art (looks like it was pulled from FFXII, if you've seen the screens).