My FFXI looks like it's on an atari.

[Khajit]

I must fix this problem immediately. What can I do to well... make ffxi look as shiny as possible on this thing?
Here's the link to the model and you can look at the specs there too.
Asus - Laptop with Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor - Red - U81A-RBBDRD05

[Tythera]

Open the registry, go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnline US\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI

Change 0001 and 0003 to 556 in hex (1366 in decimal)
Change 0002 and 0004 to 300 in hex (768 in decimal)

That alone should help a lot depending on your current settings, provided the onboard video can handle it.

[Alishe]

Change your background res on windower to be double your normal res and it should look way better. Basically same thing Tythera said except with out having to change the registry files manually.

Click the advance options on the Windower GUI and the options for Background Resolution are right there for you. If you run @800x600 make your background 1600x1200. The default setting is 512x512 which looks awful.

[Khajit]

Thanks for the help. it looks much better now.

[bungiefan]

Why do you want to set your background resolution to anything higher than your monitor resolution? You're just making your GPU work harder only to downscale the image back to what your monitor resolution is. You're losing all the quality you are adding to it. There's no reason to set the resolution higher than your monitor supports, as it can't display that detail.

Also, overlay resolution sets how big the window is that your game displays in, and those pixels just get stretched. If you play at fullscreen, it switches your monitor resolution, and still downscales.

[Alishe]

Why do you want to set your background resolution to anything higher than your monitor resolution? You're just making your GPU work harder only to downscale the image back to what your monitor resolution is. You're losing all the quality you are adding to it. There's no reason to set the resolution higher than your monitor supports, as it can't display that detail.

Also, overlay resolution sets how big the window is that your game displays in, and those pixels just get stretched. If you play at fullscreen, it switches your monitor resolution, and still downscales.

I don't know about you, but my monitor supports higher than 1600x1200. Who plays in full screen?

[Kaisha]

Why do you want to set your background resolution to anything higher than your monitor resolution? You're just making your GPU work harder only to downscale the image back to what your monitor resolution is. You're losing all the quality you are adding to it. There's no reason to set the resolution higher than your monitor supports, as it can't display that detail.

It forces the GPU to do some subpixel aliasing, which helps make up for the complete lack of anti-aliasing in FFXI. Makes it smoother looking.

[Omniyoji]

Here's a good example:

1360x768:

Spoiler: show

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...7-47-43-92.jpg

2720x1536:

Spoiler: show

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...1-15-05-34.jpg

Big difference.

[Wulfgang]

Open the registry, go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnline US\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI

Change 0001 and 0003 to 556 in hex (1366 in decimal)
Change 0002 and 0004 to 300 in hex (768 in decimal)

That alone should help a lot depending on your current settings, provided the onboard video can handle it.

I followed this advice just to see what would happen, now I can't load POL to FFXI screen. Does anyone know what the default settings were? Stupid to not write them down before changing.

My POL error says: "Terminated as error occurred in FINAL FANTASY XI. Failed to initialize Direct 3D. Please check that this computer has the required specifications to run FINAL FANTASY XI. (-1)."

[Wulfgang]

My screen just went to this:

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...807_011311.png

From this:

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...807_011321.png

[bungiefan]

Here's a good example:

1360x768:

Spoiler: show

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...7-47-43-92.jpg

2720x1536:

Spoiler: show

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...1-15-05-34.jpg

Big difference.

OK, the AA thing makes sense. Just never bothered since I mainly play on PS2, and my PC refuses to run more than 3-5 FPS in non-party combat even at lowest possible settings. I put $75 into my computer to upgrade from the GeForce MX4000 school gave me with the computer to the Radeon 9600 Pro, and then SE broke the game from running smoothly on my machine, so I refuse to upgrade again just to play one game.

Sure it looks pretty, but I'm fine with PS2 quality.

I don't know about you, but my monitor supports higher than 1600x1200. Who plays in full screen?

I was trying to cover the bases in case he played fullscreen or windowed. I generally only play at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 windowed. My monitors run at 1280x1024 and 1680x1050. I've done 640x480 a few times trying to boost my FPS, to no avail.

Can't force AA with the card drivers huh? I'll remember the AA explanation in the future. I've just got experience with the video modes of TVs and HDTVs, and rescaling wasn't really worth much on those in my experience. I figured it was about the same for computers.

[Olo401]

You want to ideally have the background res set to twice the highest possible width setting - i.e. if your max screen res is 1024x768, set the background res to 2048 (800 hex). This might cause a noticeable slowdown in your graphic performance tho, especially on a laptop, so you can stick with just 1024 (400 hex). Foreground should always be equal to your max screen width.

[Tythera]

I followed this advice just to see what would happen, now I can't load POL to FFXI screen. Does anyone know what the default settings were? Stupid to not write them down before changing.

My POL error says: "Terminated as error occurred in FINAL FANTASY XI. Failed to initialize Direct 3D. Please check that this computer has the required specifications to run FINAL FANTASY XI. (-1)."

What desktop resolution are you running? What I had suggested was for his specific laptop.

[Hixxy]

When i try pressing the Import Current settings on the advanced launcher GUI it says "The registry key does not exist"

[Hixxy]

gah dont worry fixed it

[Baelorn]

FFXI Calculator <- perfectly safe, been using it for years

Download, Open, FFXI Settings tab and choose from the defaults or mess around until you find a setting that works for you. As a bonus you now have an awesome FFXI tool too

http://i557.photobucket.com/albums/s...lcsettings.png