Tutorial: Widescreen FFXI window on a 4:3 monitor

[Miji]

It's funny how people can hold ill feelings toward an MP3 player.

[dilbert]

There's also a really neat Registry key for MIP Mapping that you can set higher than 1, it smoothes things out a lot.

Explain.

[Ravenlokk]

I think we need a new forum section for tweaking FF visuals!

If SE wont do shit and give FFXI a facelift to keep up with the times- lets do it ourselves^_^.

regedit = win

[Odd]

There's also a really neat Registry key for MIP Mapping that you can set higher than 1, it smoothes things out a lot.

Explain.

i think its the first one, i recall someone recommended setting it to 4

[Snowknight26]

Set it to 16 (10h) for best results.

[Elesirdur]

Set it to 16 (10h) for best results.

The mipmapping?

[Chupunpupun]

I don't like mipmapping....everything looks so blurry at 4 and 2 and 1.....It makes me feel like my glasses aren't strong enough. I'll stick with 0.

[Gere]

It's funny how people can hold ill feelings toward an MP3 player.

I don't hold ill feeling toward it, I just find it to be a second rate product that's chock full of DRM (incompatible DRM at that).

[Zodduska]

It's funny how people can hold ill feelings toward an MP3 player.

I don't hold ill feeling toward it, I just find it to be a second rate product that's chock full of DRM (incompatible DRM at that).

I dont want this thread to degrade into a PMP fanboy debate.
if anyone is interested in bettering their knowledge on the subject and possibly putting a big hit on their wallets check out http://www.head-fi.org
or you can PM me.

Thanks for the info about the MIP settings, I'll try it out.

[GSDragoon]

There's also a really neat Registry key for MIP Mapping that you can set higher than 1, it smoothes things out a lot.

Explain.

If I'm even remotly correct, mipmapping replaces the textures from a distance with ones at a lower resolution. This increases the amount a video memory you need (not much in today's standards for FFXI), but is supposted to be faster. Then you use anisotropic filtering to smoothen out the textures. Well, bilinear, trilinear or anisotropic filtering, depending on your video card settings.

EDIT: actually, Rivatuner(awesome program) is telling me I'm using 74MB of video memory just sitting in whitegate with mipmapping set to 2 and 4x anisotropic filtering.


EDIT2: mip mapping 4 is too blurry for me. I think 2 looks nice.

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4...apping2sc6.jpg

[Reality]

mip mapping basically just blends textures together so they aren't pixelated
anisotropic filtering sharpens textures that you're viewing at a distance, so you're not seeing textures near you appearing sharp and ones further away losing detail

i'm not sure exactly how AF works, it's either sharpening the distant textures, or increasing their resolution

[Epical]

Alright, someone (coughTajcough) needs to make a little guide on how to increase in-game graphics for those of us who are using like 1% of our PC's graphical power with FFXI. The only thing I was ever shown what to do was the 2048x2048 background res to increase something or other. To be honest, I don't really see a large difference. =(

Kain has a good start.

[GSDragoon]

mip mapping basically just blends textures together so they aren't pixelated
anisotropic filtering sharpens textures that you're viewing at a distance, so you're not seeing textures near you appearing sharp and ones further away losing detail

i'm not sure exactly how AF works, it's either sharpening the distant textures, or increasing their resolution

AF = anisotropic filtering




As far as using AF, For nvidia cards anyways, it either does nothing(just started messing with it today) or you can't change it on the fly in FFXI. Because I was making changes while in game and I didn't notice any difference. In fact, I couldn't tell any difference when forcing even 16xAF in the control pannel. Forcing mipmapped textures to none, bilnear or trilinear filtering didn't seem to make any difference either. Maybe because I'm running 1024x768 only(1015x608 for widescreen mode).

Oh, and in your guide, I suggest you mention that if you get a decimal number, you really can't have that. You need to change the x resolution a bit to make sure you get a whole number or else it gets blurry. Like when you change the window size. One pixel difference and it looks like crap.

I'm loving this widescreen though. This is the best I could get.
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/935...litymy0.th.jpg

mipmapping 2, 1015x608 window, 2030x1216 textures and 16xAF + drawdistance.

[Reality]

just thought i'd clear something up

i know anisotropic filtering = AF, i just figured i'd abbreviate it when i used the term further along in my post

when i stated i don't know how it works, i meant technically, i don't know what it's doing to the textures, but i know what the final result (visually) after it's applied, looks like

and also, afaik (at least with ATI cards), FFXI doesn't use any of your GPU's capabilities
you can test this easily if you're running a dual monitor setup (which I am, 2 19" widescreen LCDs), open up CCC and leave the overdrive tab opened on your secondary screen
start up FFXI
notice that once POL exits and the game enters windowed or fullscreen mode, the 2D clock speeds do not increase to 3D speeds, which means that the card doesn't recognize this as a 3D application

[GSDragoon]

and also, afaik (at least with ATI cards), FFXI doesn't use any of your GPU's capabilities
you can test this easily if you're running a dual monitor setup (which I am, 2 19" widescreen LCDs), open up CCC and leave the overdrive tab opened on your secondary screen
start up FFXI
notice that once POL exits and the game enters windowed or fullscreen mode, the 2D clock speeds do not increase to 3D speeds, which means that the card doesn't recognize this as a 3D application

This is an old pic with lower settings, but I wanted to see what happenes when I stress out the computer(10 fps). In whitegate with HQ shadows.

http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/6...led1cj0.th.jpg

As soon as I launch POL.exe/windower, it already goes into 3D mode for me.(the fan speed kicks up). You can also see that hardware acceleration goes from 0 to 1. What I always find funny, is that the GPU is yawning. It only goes up a few degrees. So sad that this game is so CPU dependant. I'm begining to wonder if this game even supports AF. Guess the only way to tell, would be to take screenshots of the exact same screen using no AF and another with it maxed out.

[Zodduska]

I'm begining to wonder if this game even supports AF. Guess the only way to tell, would be to take screenshots of the exact same screen using no AF and another with it maxed out.

Yeah it does, the most noticeable effect is that it removes a lot of the "grain" in the distance, it's really apparent in Tahrongi Canyon for instance.

and it is required to restart the game to apply it.

[Reality]

strange how nvidia cards seem to enter 3D mode with FFXi, however ATI cards do not

[Reality]

ati cards do indeed switch to 3D clock speeds with FFXI, however only when playing without use of windower, hmm..

[Street]

I'm begining to wonder if this game even supports AF. Guess the only way to tell, would be to take screenshots of the exact same screen using no AF and another with it maxed out.

Yeah it does, the most noticeable effect is that it removes a lot of the "grain" in the distance, it's really apparent in Tahrongi Canyon for instance.

and it is required to restart the game to apply it.

I'm not too familiar with it, as i just recently upgraded my pc to run at "full settings" whatever that means.

Does this "grain" also refer to the crappy texture i see in the sky when weather effects are active? (i'm using a 1950 pro and windower at 1920x1080 2k x 2k bg)

[Sonomaa]

ati cards do indeed switch to 3D clock speeds with FFXI, however only when playing without use of windower, hmm..

this merits some research