Tutorial: Widescreen FFXI window on a 4:3 monitor

[Taj]

http://euphidime.com/aydeewa_.png

This is about the best I can get it to look with forced Antialiasing and such.

[doofy]

IIRC there were several "just deal with it" rendering differences between full-screen and windower (lack of Vsync being the most annoying one, at least for me). The ATI glitch is probably just another one, and I don't think it was something they were going to fix any time soon, if at all.

-Vyzrael (Asura)

[Zodduska]

Does this "grain" also refer to the crappy texture i see in the sky when weather effects are active?

nope, thats just one of the many old super low res textures used in FFXI stretched to be really big

another way to describe the what im referring to would be to say that it removes a lot of the artificial sparkle or shimmering effect that can be seen off in the distance in wide open zones. Basically it just smooths out rough textures.

[Meropi]

The reasons why things like FSAA and AF, etc will not work; is due to the way that the engine renders the game. FFXI renders the game as one giant texture. All polygon, mipmaps are rendered internally and then sent to the output window in the form of a single texture per frame. AF and FSAA won't work in this situation fully because of this; Since you are only working with one "real" texture in an output window.

As far as the issue with "grainy" textures in the sky and elsewhere. This is because you need to switch the textures in the "FFXI Config" to Uncompressed. This is really evident in the sky in Lufaise Meadows; which should no longer look like a quilt. Though you will still run into a few instances of it; Especially in Qufim.

Also the reason you are able to render the game at 3180x1908 might be because of the video card. When FFXI was first released the max size texture a video card could handle was 2048x2048. Now modern cards are capable of 4096x4096.

Using the double res for internal rendering results in Super Sampling. Virtually identical to how the dreamcast rendered games internally at 800x600 and then output to 640x480. Its not really FSAA but it works

Just for some other info a 4096x4096x32bit window will take up 64MB of video memory just for the window; Before FFXI loads anything. Where a 2048 texture takes up only 16MB.

[Zodduska]

Also the reason you are able to render the game at 3180x1908 might be because of the video card. When FFXI was first released the max size texture a video card could handle was 2048x2048. Now modern cards are capable of 4096x4096.

Thats what I figured. Thanks for the insight into the workings of ffxi's rendering engine. :D