Tutorial: Widescreen FFXI window on a 4:3 monitor

[Zodduska]

the idea

I've been using a smaller ffxi window res than my full screen res for a long time with windower because it was annoying to not have FFXI in a true window. The other day I was looking at the empty space to the right of my window (I keep it in the upper left corner) and realised.. "hey! if I stretch the window across that would make a pretty good widescreen resolution" but just stretching the window would degrade the quality.

widescreen (16:9, 15:9) is IMHO superior to 4:3 because it gives you a bigger field of view, and ffxi has built in settings to accommodate it.

this guide is along the same lines as many hardcore fps players using fov commands for over a decade to give them an advantage, except here we can expand the actual window


how to do it

first enter regedit

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/6889/runsm4.jpg
backup image: http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/9406/runsm4ih7.jpg
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7103/regeditir4.jpg
backup image: http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/2859 ... ir4fg0.jpg

find this set of keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEni x\FinalFantasyXI

now, take a look at strings 0001-0004, the numbers in ( )s are the X and Y resolutions for ffxi's 3D resolution and Overlay Resolution

right click on each one and click "modify" then check the "Decimal" radio button. you will see the "Value data:" change to the number that corresponds to the resolution you are setting:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7201/registryiz7.jpg
backup image: http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/2442 ... iz7hf5.jpg

for example, if you want the Overlay and 3d to be 1024x768 you would input:

0001 1024
0002 768
0003 1024
0004 768

in the screenshot I am using 1590x954 (15:9) as my ffxi resolution
my desktop is 1600x1200 on a 21" Trinitron

most people probably use a smaller or bigger resolution so I can show you how to figure out what widescreen res to use if you wanted to try this:

example if you are using 1280x960 desktop
take your X resolution, 1280 in this example

subtract 10 pixels, this is to keep it inside a real window
so 1270
divide this by 15
comes out to 84.66666667
multiply this by 9
which is 762, your new Y resolution

update

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.

keep this in mind when calculating your resolution, if the Y res comes out with a decimal you need to adjust the X res until it is a whole number.
Thanks for the heads up GSDragoon.

so 1270x762 gives you a 15:9 resolution window that extends all the way across your desktop, if you want 16:9 you first divide by 16 instead of 15


The second part would be editing the windower.ini file, this should be right inside your current windower folder.

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4418/inikq6.jpg
backup image: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/2392/inikq6wz3.jpg

right click >> open or double click

see this?

[Windower Settings]

#Version may be NA, JP, or EU
Language=NA

#Defines the window size, for fullscreen, set to the size of your desktop
#Standard resolutions are 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, etc.
X Resolution=1590
Y Resolution=954

change the X and Y resolutions to the ones you set in the registry, save and close.

one last thing, at first everyone will look like they spent a year working in Krispy Kream so you need to change the Background Aspect Ratio setting in Config > Misc. 2 within ffxi

set it to whichever you used to figure out your window resolution and everything will look perfect.

and if anyone trys this.. thats it, enjoy!

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/7651/ss1sq7.th.jpg

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/2852/ss2kg5.th.jpg

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/9160/wgdq8.th.jpg

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/407/mhes5.th.jpg

update: As others have pointed out in this thread you can achieve a FSAA effect by using higher 3d resolution than Window size.. in several other FFXI registry guides ive seen people say 2048 was the limit.. well I just doubled the X and Y res ive been using for 0003 and 0004 in the registry and it is working and looking great..
3180x1908

the smoothness of double res:
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/3...oothrd2.th.jpg

[SephYuyX]

More info on other FFXI reg edits:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?f ... 2834&num=3

Take note of the MIP and Fake Antialiasing parts.

[Cubana]

There's a much easier way to do all of this.
http://themogtoolz.free.fr/

[Jackyl]

could buy a widescreen monitor >.>

[Correction]

somewhat old news:

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13207

[Zodduska]

There's a much easier way to do all of this.
http://themogtoolz.free.fr/

true but it already seems pretty simple to me, and the less shady apps installed the better, IMHO.

really this guide is focused on the widescreen factor for those who have been using a smaller window than fullscreen already, there is a few other guides ive seen that explain how to set custom resolutions and im including that info here only to make it easy for everyone.

could buy a widescreen monitor >.>

long live CRT

[Gere]

Lol you bought a Zune.

[Zodduska]

Lol you bought a Zune.

and Shure E4C >> RSA Tomahawk >> ALO Jumbo Cryo Mini to Mini interconnect to go with it.

[Jackyl]

could buy a widescreen monitor >.>

long live CRT

Actually, there's the Sony FW900 ^^ It's a beautiful 24" widescreen CRT; I used that for the longest time until it finally died then I went to the darkside and got the 30" dell WS LCD.

[Cubana]

There's a much easier way to do all of this.
http://themogtoolz.free.fr/

true but it already seems pretty simple to me, and the less shady apps installed the better, IMHO.

really this guide is focused on the widescreen factor for those who have been using a smaller window than fullscreen already, there is a few other guides ive seen that explain how to set custom resolutions and im including that info here only to make it easy for everyone.

could buy a widescreen monitor >.>

long live CRT

I've run that program through many virus tests. There's nothing shady about it. You run it once and it edits the registry to your specifications. It's muuuch easier than doing it manually and you can set the resolution to anything you want. As a result you can "emulate" a widescreen version of the game on a non-widescreen monitor. You can also set the background resolution to 2048X2048 for extra crisp graphics. That setting makes FFXI look more 3D as there is very little pixelation occurring around the outline of objects. Here is an example of what my game looks like after using mogtoolz (not 56k friendly):

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/7492 ... 012um0.jpg

[vegetaa]

I've run that program through many virus tests. There's nothing shady about it.

You have to understand that your antivirus won't see shit, if the program is doing a "format c:" at start. Antivirus don't detect bad behaviours from random programs, they just detect virii and such. 2 different things. I don't doubt this app is prefectly legit though...just explaining you that you could someday have bad surprises, when trusting your AV too much.

Oh and I wish I could think of a pun : Cubana, AV...

[Zodduska]

yeah. sorry I didnt mean to imply that this program was a virus / keylogger, im just stating that in general its best to avoid any extra apps when you can do something simply by either using the standard ffxiconfig or making a quick and easy regedit.

[Norelco]

Zod, how'd you get that color scheme for winXP? It's pretty neat.

[Cubana]

I've run that program through many virus tests. There's nothing shady about it.

You have to understand that your antivirus won't see shit, if the program is doing a "format c:" at start. Antivirus don't detect bad behaviours from random programs, they just detect virii and such. 2 different things. I don't doubt this app is prefectly legit though...just explaining you that you could someday have bad surprises, when trusting your AV too much.

Oh and I wish I could think of a pun : Cubana, AV...

lol that is a good a pun and... I didn't know that about programs. Thanks for the heads up. As of now nothing has gone wrong. Ran the program like 6 months ago and everything has been fine since.

Edit: Zodduska no worries, I didn't take your comment as implying that the program was a virus/keylogger

Edit2: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/44294818/ <--- I use that windows theme. It's pretty nice and the taskbar is much like the OP's.

[Zodduska]

Zod, how'd you get that color scheme for winXP? It's pretty neat.

it's the... lol.. official zune theme :D
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=75078

[Juib]

i dislike zune but that theme is sweet. i was looking for a black desktop theme...ty for link ^^

[Eticket]

I'm pretty sure the windower.ini file updates the registry settings automatically. I usually just go into regedit to update background res and mip etc

[Codernaut]

I have a widescreen monitor, and FFXIConfig doesn't give me any widescreen background resolutions. Recently I went and made the change manually in the registry and it's made a huge difference in the crispness of my images.

For example: the ubiquitous, fugly, and fuzzy forest-floor texture now looks ugly and crisp.

I highly suggest anyone running in widescreen (unless you somehow magically have the proper settings available), or anyone running at a resolution higher than what the game's config program supports, make this change.

[BRP]

Hmm, nice, I'm going to look into this.

Maybe this should be stickied in the Screenshot/ect forum? I know this is going to come up again... hell, I was going to make a thread about it soon.

[Taj]

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