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dgVoodoo with Final Fantasy XI

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Reply 20 of 43, by Dege

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StarbugPilo wrote:

PM sent for a full account codes if you need them.

Man, if you fix this. You have my money !

I didn't check the PM yet, but hey, thanks!! 😎
I uploaded a new WIP for testing FFXI, I hope this version works properly.
I tested it on 2 different machines, so far so good, but I'm afraid my testing can't be too extensive.

See thread 'WIP versions' (I should make that sticky).

Reply 21 of 43, by Hansu

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Thank you so much for the fix.
Two small issues I've noticed.
1) When using the hardware mouse option the cursor only shows up maybe 1-2 frames on mouse movement. When not moving the mouse the cursor does not appear at all. Software mouse works fine.
2) When using the high quality font option the font quality appears worse than compressed or uncompressed.

Besides that its working great so far.
Thanks again for your work.

Reply 22 of 43, by palladin9479

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2) When using the high quality font option the font quality appears worse than compressed or uncompressed.

That's SE's fault, their "High Quality" font is stretched weirdly in the game. My suggestion is to use normal fonts and load FFXI-Viewfrom the windower forums. FFXI-View is a set of new icons and fonts that look much better then the games built in ones.

Reply 23 of 43, by Hansu

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palladin9479 wrote:

2) When using the high quality font option the font quality appears worse than compressed or uncompressed.

That's SE's fault, their "High Quality" font is stretched weirdly in the game. My suggestion is to use normal fonts and load FFXI-Viewfrom the windower forums. FFXI-View is a set of new icons and fonts that look much better then the games built in ones.

Sorry I should have been more clear. I was talking about the font in the log windows.
I am already using XI-View. Now these screenshots are gonna make me look really nitpicky, but there is a discernible difference in quality. The top image is with dgvoodoo active, the bottom off. It's not a deal-breaker or anything, just pointing out the difference.

IHwvCGp.png

Reply 24 of 43, by palladin9479

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Oh I'm here thinking your getting garbled text or something...

That's anti-aliasing that your now using from your graphics drivers. Check them and see what the default is and if there is a playonline profile and what that is set to.

Yeah since it's DX11 now all those graphics settings actually matter and since neither nVidia nor SquareEnix gives a fuck about this games graphics, the community will be the ones responsible for finding an optimal graphics profile.

Reply 25 of 43, by palladin9479

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My imgur album with screenshots after I got dgVoodoo2 working. The best thing is I now have 4x MSAA 16X AF with it already supersampling at 2X. Very pretty on a GTX 980ti

http://imgur.com/a/yYR9w

Last edited by palladin9479 on 2017-06-08, 13:05. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 26 of 43, by Chiaia

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I been wanting this to work with FFXI for years! Big thank you Dege for looking into making it work!!! Looking awesome at 1080 16/4/SS on my 960.

Reply 27 of 43, by Orchyre

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Even beyond the level of fidelity to effects this adds and the new option for optimus users, this also made this game completely playable on my GPD Win! From around 7-9fps to a steady 30 in uncrowded zones. Thank you so insanely much, will definitely be donating.

http://imgur.com/a/G8jAz

Reply 28 of 43, by JosieRevisited

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I can also confirm that this is working very well now. I can't believe Dege put together a fix so quickly for us. I will make it a priority to do some extensive playing tonight when I get home to confirm it doesn't have any problems Dege couldn't see with his limited tests.

What a difference this makes on my AW15. I thought I was going to have to drop a bunch of money on a new Gsync laptop just to be able to play this game when I travel. Instead I can just give some money to Dege for making his wrapper work.

Dege - thank you SO MUCH for helping us use your amazing wrapper.

http://imgur.com/SrPI23P
http://imgur.com/SrPI23P

Reply 29 of 43, by lolwutt

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Hansu wrote:

Thank you so much for the fix.
Two small issues I've noticed.
1) When using the hardware mouse option the cursor only shows up maybe 1-2 frames on mouse movement. When not moving the mouse the cursor does not appear at all. Software mouse works fine.

This actually messes up a lot of functionality on ashita(windower alternative) because the software mouse isn't at the same position as the hardware mouse. It's also extremely annoying to play with the software mouse if you have a good mouse and multiple instances. If this is something that can be addressed, it'd be highly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your work so far, there are hundreds if not thousands of people grabbing dgvoodoo for ffxi because of awareness raised on community sites. Dozens in my social circle alone are enjoying it, you've done a great job.

Edit: for anyone else having the same problem, there's now an ashita plugin called hardwaremouse that force renders the normal windows mouse.. looks a little out of place compared to the normal ffxi cursor but allows you to properly manipulate your UI and keep track of your cursor so worth a consideration

Reply 30 of 43, by Dege

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Thanks again for your work.Guys, thank you very much!! 😎
I love to look at the videos and screenshots!

Hansu wrote:
Thank you so much for the fix. Two small issues I've noticed. 1) When using the hardware mouse option the cursor only shows up m […]
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Thank you so much for the fix.
Two small issues I've noticed.
1) When using the hardware mouse option the cursor only shows up maybe 1-2 frames on mouse movement. When not moving the mouse the cursor does not appear at all. Software mouse works fine.
2) When using the high quality font option the font quality appears worse than compressed or uncompressed.

Besides that its working great so far.

1) I didn't check the cursor problem with FFXI but what you should know about dgVoodoo and hw cursor is: when any of the 'Stretched, keep aspesct ratio' or 'Stretched, 4:3 aspect ratio' is set as scaling mode then
the mouse cursor can't be hardware (in full screen mode) because for that scaling modes, dgVoodoo in the end applies the same physical resolution as your desktop has, so, the game window is wrong size in those scaling modes, the real mouse cursor
wouldn't map correctly to the window area. That's why dgVoodoo disables hw cursor and emulate it by software, but it's not perfect unfortunately. So, if you play FFXI with such a scaling mode then you'd better keep at the software game cursor.
2) I don't have any clue for the font issue. Maybe an alpha testing inaccuracy? 😖

lolwutt wrote:

This actually messes up a lot of functionality on ashita(windower alternative) because the software mouse isn't at the same position as the hardware mouse. It's also extremely annoying to play with the software mouse if you have a good mouse and multiple instances. If this is something that can be addressed, it'd be highly appreciated.

Hmm, I don't know. I don't know what exactly Ashita and Windower does (it fools FFXI into thinking it's running in full screen while windowed mode is requested on the D3D8 side?).
I may check them out later.

Reply 31 of 43, by lolwutt

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Just to be clear, the issues with hardware mouse not matching software are not caused by dgvoodoo. It's just that not being able to use hardware mouse with dgvoodoo results in being forced to use software mouse or not see the mouse. Being able to use hardware mouse would be ideal, but you explained why that isn't possible.

The ashita plugin hooks setcursor and forces the original mouse to draw, allowing you to keep hardware mouse. This is an adequate solution to the mouse problems for ashita users. Windower doesn't have as much of a problem because they don't use mouse to move UI elements.

Overall, I'd say dgvoodoo does everything it can be expected to and makes FFXI feel like a new game.

Reply 32 of 43, by aquasonic

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Hi Dege,

Hardware mouse doesn't work when scaling mode "unspecified" or "stretched" is enabled, which according to your post means it can work if I understand it correctly.

it effects the vanilla game, windower, and ashita -- there is a workaround now for ashita. See http://ashita.atom0s.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=188 for some information, it may help you. I do not know if this function/fix is out of the scope of dgVoodoo. You can probably PM atom0s on his forum to get any info from him if you want to implement a similar workaround or identify the issue.

"Full screen" or "Windowed" scaling doesn't seem to effect the tests.

test system:
OS: Win 10, GPU : R9 390

borderless fullscreen with windower : Hardware mouse doesn't work
borderless fullscreen without windower : Hardware mouse doesn't work
borderless window with windower : Hardware mouse doesn't work
(borderless window without windower doesn't exist, it just scales up to look like borderless fullscreen)

windowed mode without windower : Hardware mouse doesn't work
windowed mode with windower : Hardware mouse doesn't work

Tests are considered passing when the solid colored yellow mouse is always rendered when hardware mouse is enabled. you don't have to get in game, only the login menus such as the character select once d3d intializes to verify it works. Software mouse is transparent and dim by comparison, as well as non-fluid movement.

That said, software mouse on windower as mentioned before isn't a big deal. Sure it's harder to see and the game tends to move the cursor around unexpectedly compared to hardware mouse but it's still usable. I'd consider this a low priority issue since everything else works flawlessly.

I'd like to also thank you for doing a great job in getting this working, the performance gains are incredible, as well as the extra level of detail that was apparently missing this whole time and I never knew.

Reply 33 of 43, by palladin9479

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Yeah Dege the mouse thing is very minor, this does an absolutely amazing job of enhancing FFXI. Obviously it can't do much for the textures or models since those resources are static but its night and day for the animations, lighting effects and anything that's dynamically generated. Many weapon skill, job ability and spell animations pop out now and are very flashy. During combat with lots of stuff going on it's like a light show haha. Of course there is a downside, with all this extra visuals there is a hardware impact on people with old / low power graphics cards. Friend of mine runs FFXI on an older notebook with a Geforce 9600M GT with 512MB graphics memory. With normal graphics it's fine but with dgVoodoo2 working anytime someone does a flashy animation *BAM* slowdown FPS to single digits. We ended up removing it from his machine. None of that is your fault though, there is a floor to what graphics card can handle this.

Reply 34 of 43, by Smp

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Dege wrote:
OK, I fixed the issue. Tomorrow I'm going to release a new WIP just because of FFXI. […]
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OK, I fixed the issue. Tomorrow I'm going to release a new WIP just because of FFXI.

Since I'm not sure why 2.53 crashes, and just to make sure the new version doesn't crash, I give this game high priority.
It'd be nice to have any bug fixed before my free FFXI access expires. 😁

ps: I must admit, the game looks fantastic in high resolution.

Stellar Job! I have already given it the Dynamis test (battlefield with tons of monsters); and it runs stable with high-frame rates (/w maxed settings & super-sampling).

Game renders beautifully on my workstation (running ASUS R9 295X2)... by so much I will definitely be using this on both my laptop and workstation.

The FFXI forums are buzzing with talk about this beyond my expectations. Seems a lot more people wanted this; particularly for the high quality graphics improvements.

Asura.Saevel wrote:

While this isn't the graphics engine overhaul we've all wanted, it's the next best thing.

I second that. Great job Dege.

I know the setup process alone was a time sink. I will be sure to send you a donation as a token of my appreciation and I encourage others to do the same. You can't imagine how liberating it is to finally be able to do stuff like CTRL+ALT+DEL, lock the workstation, connect a monitor etc., install a browser plug-in without the game crashing anymore.

Reply 35 of 43, by JosieRevisited

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I've been hammering at it as well and haven't had one crash. Multiple instances of the game with my other accounts, connecting and disconnecting from my HDTV, turning every effect on and chainspelling everything I possibly can in the most populated zones I can - rock solid. It's really like night and day. I will never understand why these developers don't headhunt guys like Dege and put them on payroll.

We've all been giving SE our money for decade+ in many cases and they have done jack shit to help this game work on modern hardware. We should all give Dege a donation because of his amazing work and attention he's given to helping us play our game. I'm opening paypal as soon as I hit submit.

Reply 36 of 43, by Siushaga

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This is awesome work, thank you, Dege!

Can anyone tell me if there is a reason/benefit to using this with a desktop/PC? Or is this only useful for laptops that have issues with utilizing dedicated GPU because of NVIDIA Optimus and the way the game launches from a DLL?

Reply 37 of 43, by Smp

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Siushaga wrote:

Can anyone tell me if there is a reason/benefit to using this with a desktop/PC? Or is this only useful for laptops that have issues with utilizing dedicated GPU because of NVIDIA Optimus and the way the game launches from a DLL?

It's great for both.

Laptops for decent graphics and frame rates which by default aren't using the dedicated GPU.

Workstations for high graphics and effects. I got it working with ReShade with almost no effort. With frame rate re-capped to 60 fps (on Ashita using /fps 1) the game feels completely new and fluid.

Reply 38 of 43, by Siushaga

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This has been working great and the game looks beautiful while also maintaining 60fps even in crowded areas. Has anyone else noticed a major slowdown in FPS for 1-2 seconds when things like bard song buffs or AoE like Firaga are going on? It may just be due to having anisotropic filtering or anti aliasing maxed out, so I'll have mess around with lowering those settings, but would love to find a way to keep the same performance for some of these few buff/spells that seem to have issues!

Reply 39 of 43, by Smp

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Just writing to let you know this update continues to run very stable. Not had one random crash.

I think the next GPU I get for my workstation will be a non Dual-GPU (currently have R9 295X2) and gives zero benefit as its treated as Crossfire; and that is not compatible with Windowed games anyway.