PC Vs. Console

I play on ps2, xbox, and PC. I started with ps2 until I got a new video card and put it on my pc, after I accidentally knocked over my ps2 it wouldnt turn on. So then I went and bought an xbox, then I fixed my ps2, so I use my 2nd account on ps2 when I need to use 3 characters at once to do assaults. Sounds stressing lol

I switch back and forth between consoles cause I wanna be comfy in my bedroom, on the couch, or needa use the internet at the same time. But for graphics, I like PC better imo, 2nd xbox, then ps2. Never got a ps3 since I rarely would ever use it.

I started on ps2, the first day it was relased in NA. I did not own a PC at the time. I purchased a pc like two years later and hooked up my ps2 controller to the pc (purchased some ps2 to usb adapter from radioshack) and I never went back to ps2. I have a ps3 currently with ffxi installed. I take my ps3 with me to play ffxi when I go places or dog sit for a friend.
<3 the save macro to server feature btw.
Just wish can have a wireless keyboard for ps3 that works for ffxi.

Please forgive me I made a mistake. I happen to be shopping for either a 9800GX2 or a 280 series cards when i made my first post. I run 3-way SLI 9800GTX setup. Sorry about the mix up. I guess i was thinking about 9800GX2 while I was posting the setup. ; ;. But in any case I have been thinking about a Quad SLI 9800GX2 setup. Like i have said a few times, FFXI isn't the only game I play.

Is it really necessary? I mean, you already have a video rig far superior to 99% of players of any game genre, why would you even consider an upgrade yet?

A new video card rig won't make it look any better, but slapping your rig up to a 40-60in HDTV w/ 120hz refresh rate, now that might be something, I don't know your A/V setup though so i can't judge i guess, and judging by the amount of dough you're willing to drop on a video card i would hope it's far superior and you don't just have that hooked up to a standard PC monitor sized LCD lol

Just my opinion, if it were my money i'd drop it in something like a new TV, A/V receiver or better surround speakers, but that's my own personal dillema lol i just upgraded from a 5.1 to a 7.1 receiver cuz i blew up my old Denon :( loved that thing but i got something better now, and i'm shopping for 2 new surround channels :X want to get some wall or ceiling mounted ones but i don't feel like cutting holes in the drywall and all that wiring ><

How is this possible? When I tried to hook a 360 controller to my PC, FFXI didn't support the Z-axis triggers.

My mistake ~ I call all intels pentiums, just an old habit thx to advertising overload....
it IS possible to unlock the fps cap on any game.... just need to be careful to keep vsync on when running fraps and you dont end up overlapping frames O o

I go for PC, But i play on PS2 and my room mate play on my PC

PC:I use 1GB ram 2.95Ghz single core old Video card it's a 2001 PC have it for over 5years. It lags but not as much and sometime d/c ramdom.
Window Vista business.

Not on final fantasy.

well thanks for ruining my fun @ @
guess i'll try that nvidia driver for ffxi see what that does, maybe fraps is fcking with me then cause i saw 35 @ @ but if 30 is the cap then 30 is the cap.... damn =(

From what I understand (correct me if i'm wrong)
If u try to unlock FPS in FFXI, you have to use a speed hack to make the game run faster than SE lets it. Which would get you banned. I remember a friend of mine telling me that. I might be mistaken, but that is what i have heard.

you need to download custom drivers for it , just go here

http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/JOYSTICK-GAMEPAD-WHEELS-and-TABLETS/MICROSOFT/Microsoft-Xbox-360-Controller-for-Windows-Driver-11-WHQL.shtml

the one i use, hope it helps

Core2 duo or quad is still basically the same as a pentium core x2or x4 though, nothing has changed dramatically with intels in recent years other than hyper threading followed by the the trend of throwing in as many cores as possible, core2 wasn't even different enough from P4's to even warrant a new pin set for them, most still ran on 775 pin sockets, the i7 cores do look nice though, but I wont be getting one any time soon.

I still call em' pentiums also, most people are smart enough to understand what i'm talking about and polite enough to not insert asinine corrections, though there are some people who are rather anal about terminology... Even though it really is still a pentium.

In all reality i wish i hadn't splurged on the quad core i have now, a dual core cpu does just as well for a lot of things i use my pc for, very rarely does the 3rd and 4th core of my cpu even get worked hard, i guess at least going for a quad when i did was future-proofing for another year or two before it's rendered obsolete tho lol

Incidentally, FFXI was written before multi-core CPU's existed in the consumer market. As such, its core engine is not multi-threaded in a way that can utilize the cores effectively. While multi-core machines contribute greatly to overall machine performance, you will be disappointed if you expect a multi-core machine to dramatically increase performance in FFXI, as most of FFXI's processing overhead will be confined to a single core.

As for the hard cap on FPS in FFXI, this is due to shoddy programming on SE's part. Originally, the PS2 could only run the game at this speed, and so SE programmed much of the game, (movement, animation speed, even recast rates) relying on this FPS as a type of universal internal clock timer. They recycled this core code when porting the PC and 360 clients. At this point, they could not raise the FPS without rewriting much of the client's timing logic, which they no longer have the programming resources to do.

That's really dumb on SE's part =( i guess they didnt think much about the future or at least release a fix or sumthn to make use of the cores, also they were thinking about moving from DX8 to DX9 but they said it was too expensive to do so >_> lol with the kind of money FFXI racks up ud think they would at least try and improve the games engine somewhat, but oh well. =/

This is why i lol'd at the dude who had all that really high end stuff in his rig, and also why I said the guy with the 1.8ghz with (7400gt?) card should run ffxi just fine lol, it hasnt evolved to gain any benefit from any newer tech since it's release. A high end PC from 2003 = a high end PC from 2008 as far as ffxi performance is concerned, which is rather pathetic.

This is also exactly why I feel that upgrading a machine if you mainly just use it for ffxi is completely pointless lol it would be nice if ffxi would evolve some with technology, sadly it doesn't because they'd rather add useless game content with so so items in most cases.

My biggest pet peeve with the ffxi engine is something very simple, it's the fact that you cannot scale font size independantly of resolution, trying to sit 6ft back from a 40inch screen and read the text is obnoxious, and on the flip side if i turn down my resolution any it becomes rather crappy looking.

It'd be nice too if they could make it look sharper, you gotta admit ffxi's graphics leaves much to be desired when looking at ANY newer games, but i understand.. ps2 limitations and also lack of resources, why they don't hire some people and adapt this game better to today's world I'll never know, it still is a fun game but if they continue to lose customers over lack of concern for consumers it's gonna be sad =/

I just can't imagine why SE would continue for so many years to ignore simple things like this, oh wait they have a cover all... PS2 limitations!

Well, sony quit producing ps2 with hard drives a while back right? Doesn't that tell ya something SE, maybe quit letting this dinosaur of a console system hold us back?? At least they never released ffxi for Atari systems we'd all be really *** then.

I think if they dropped ps2 all together and revamped the system some they may just pull in MORE business honestly rather than lose some, diehards would buy an xbox or ps3 most likely if they chose to support the ps3 "directly"

I know I would start playing ffxi again hardcore if they made it more graphically appealing, for now it's just something i log in for a couple minutes a day, craft and then turn on the ps3 or watch tv or a movie instead.

Eventually if they continue on this path of not changing with times it's going to cost them some consumers, myself and many others i know just like me already have a foot out the door so to speak. At that point i hope they are smart enough to change something rather than ignore it and give us new annoying high level only content. IMO a good buisness should change with the times even if it takes a few hits, rather than wait and become obsolete and just roll over, and hope to have a new product released by the time that happens.

I know i'd like a copy of FFXI on blu-ray for PS3. Sadly i think SE will never ever release it for ps3 bad move on their part maybe, even though xbox does have a larger consumer base it could reach i'm sure.

Not like FF XI needs several cores anyway :x It wouldn't affect performance if FF XI would have multi-core support.

Simple test, play FF XI with any "recent" (let's say an E6600) CPU at stocks speed (2.4GHz). Now overclock it @150%+ (3.6GHz+), play FF XI again => same performance.

Conclusion : even with a faster cpu, regardless of the number of core, FF XI still act the same.

And as Smurfo said "A high end PC from 2003 = a high end PC from 2008 as far as ffxi performance is concerned, which is rather pathetic."

Upgraded from P4C@3.8GHz / X800XT PE to a Q6600@3.6GHz + 8800GTS 512MB ~15% o/c => same performance.

3D Engine is gimped, and the network code as well...



They might also lose customers if FF XI PC version is more demanding hardware-wise. Lot of people in Japan got crappy PC (especially crappy GPU). Why ? Cause nobody plays FPS or 3D action game.

Even in NA/Europe some people still have crappy computer, I'm thinking about those who plays FF XI on their laptop. Some still own graphic card/chipset that doesn't even have T&L. Yeah no T&L support in 2009.

So SE prefers to keep the old engine, I think players like you leaving/stopping FF XI cause of the graphic engine are really a minority. SE just weighted pros & cons.

-Developing a new engine cost X bucks
-Keeping the old engine = Y bucks loss due to players stopping FF XI.

If X > Y : keep the old engine :x Pretty simple... All SE wants is our money, nothing else.

You know, let's be honest...on the PC version at least, if you edit the registry to beef up the background resolution the game doesn't really look that bad, at least in my opinion. Sure, it's doesn't compare to Crysis or something all snazzy jazzy, but really, does it need to? Granted, at the default the game looks like ***, but if you're playing on a PC and haven't edited the registry to clean it up that's not really S-E's fault, or the PS2's.

I mean, when I first started playing, I played this on a 1.3 GHz Amd Athalon with 1 GB of ram and a crappy 128 MB AGP video card, and the graphics were still able to be kicked up beyond the max offered by the broken config tool (note to S-E: that thing is useless). Personally, I'm glad that the game doesn't require a lot of resources, because I wouldn't be able to have Firefox, and Fraps, and Ventrilo, and Windows Media Player all running at the same time on my single-core system...and I've become quite used to having them available while I game.

My one gripe as far as continued support for the PS2 is the memory limitations imposed on us due to the limited memory resources of it, such as 80 being the hard cap for storage. They've obviously given us more storage options to work around that, but it'd be nice if FFXI had some feature available on the PC and 360 end, similar to WoW's "bag mod", that allows you to see and use all accessible storage simultaneously. That'd be cool, in my opinion, not really anything major...

PC! Cuz Windower extended macros r cool! Yea thats right i went there.
Not that i use windower though!
Cheats r bad!

and remember kids Every time you use a Lot Bot a Baby gets punched in the face.

I used the 360 for about 2 years. It was fine. Got the Red Ring of Death (luckily I had recently gotten a laptop and had downloaded ffxi on it so I could play at school ;P) Then I played on my HP + Vista laptop for a while. Eventually my laptop just started getting too hot since I would keep it on all day. After I spilled lemonade on my laptop and the keys got sticky and caused ALOT of problems with playing ffxi. I switched back to 360. I also used 360 controller on my laptop. But the macros aren't near as fast at responding than they are on my 360. If I had a desktop instead I'm sure it would help somewhat. So I play both 360 and laptop. But I prefer 360 (since I also multitask). I just have laptop to my left, and watch tv on one tv, and play ffxi on the other. ;D

Seems like SE could release a patch for the PC and put in some new textures, higher quality and more variation in mobs. I don't think that would take any re-tooling of the game mechanics but would satisfy the urge for better looks.

You read the interview where they said that they can't upgrade the servers because it would break everything? People wouldn't even be able to trade gil...

As long as FFXI runs, it will have to run on the same speed of processor/ram forever... That is going to be fun for their IT staff if the game makes it another 5 years.

I would love to see the source and post snippets of it on the daily wtf... The old MUD I use to run could handle something like 100,000 scheduled events a second with subsecond precision...

In SE's defense, FFXI was originally spec'd to be a PS2 MMO and that's it. It was never supposed to be on the PC or 360. That decision was made later, once the SE brass realized they could get much larger market share by porting it. They wanted to accomplish this without throwing more money at a large programming team, so they decided to reuse as much of the PS2 code as possible.

The original programmers of the core architecture can't be faulted for making coding assumptions based on the belief that the game would only ever run on a PS2. They likely weren't expecting the game itself to last longer than a couple years. Given the mindset they were in at the time, I think they can be forgiven.

Unfortunately, these assumptions are now so tightly built into both server and client code, that the game cannot be upgraded in any way without breaking everything.

I started on ps2 when the game first came out and then after a few years I switched to xbox360 because my ps2 died and stopped reading disks. I finally made the move from xbox to pc though and I like pc much better. My pc is alot faster than my xbox and although the graphics are really close between the two, my pc doesn't lag nearly as much as my xbox does. I still keep my xbox updated and still play it once in awhile just in case my pc ever dies, I have a quick alternate.

If they upgrade the server, it breaks the game. No ps2 limitations there. People that stupid were bound to make mistakes across the board.

Who's gonna believe that :x ? PC version been released less than 6 months after PS2 one... SE was obviously thinking about releasing the game on PC. I think they just wanted to wait & see if the PS2 release would be a success before doing so, that's it.

Take a look at PSU (been released on Console/PC the same day and have shared servers [PS2/PC] just like FF XI). PC version is clearly gimped due to PS2 limitation. Well the game runs @ 60fps (like on PS2) which is great, but areas are very smalls, and number of displayed enemy isn't that high. Textures, effects, everything is "decent" but doesn't use the full potential of an average PC.