Note: If you want a REAL idea of what the changes can be like, go do Syrcus Tower

@Vayshen

10 күн бұрын

Dude, I just did the first wing of CT last night and I almost couldn't recognize it. It looks so much better and atmospheric now.

@snogard106

10 күн бұрын

Amon is broken tho so don't do CT yet lol

@WeskAlber

10 күн бұрын

@@snogard106 They fixed this long ago

The lighting updates are SUCH a game changer among the many major improvements. The first time I stepped into the Crystal Tower raids after the update I was in complete awe at how much the atmosphere changed. Thanks for putting these together and so carefully mimicking your camera angles as close as the original!

If you want to see a dramatic change due to the lighting engine updates, visit Mor Dhona during the "gloom" weather condition. In the old version, the gloom makes the sky all purple and full of glowy purple special effects. When you see it in the new version, that purple light gets reflected all over the walls of the town, and you realize, yes, this is how it should have looked all along.

it felt kind of subtle at first when i started Dawntrail, but after playing for a while now it's really apparent how much the lighting in particular has improved. the shadows and highlights on everything are just gorgeous now. the new textures are also fantastic but the lighting alone makes me sooo happy. love the video!!

@arryn786

9 күн бұрын

Yeah it’s quite noticeable in this video that everywhere seemed to have a particular ‘haze’ effect over it in terms of lighting which has been lifted in the update.

I cant stop admiring the textures of my Xaela's scales. They look so good

@connor2191

14 күн бұрын

FR they look so pretty now :D

Me, a detail-oriented nerd, has been walking through DT like "ooooh look at the rocks-trees-sky-textures-metal-cloth-render distance-sunrise-random improved thing" as I go through new and existing areas. This was a cool comparison to see side-by-side!

The only way I can think to describe the changes is that it's exactly how XIV looks when I *think* about XIV. And I love that.

great video, made clear that a loooot of textures weren't touched.. It's mostly a lighting upgrade with few textures made better and a lot kept the same.

@nightplaymc

14 күн бұрын

Yes and as they have stated already, there will be more upgrades coming with patches. They said not everything will be immediately changed or upgraded on launch same as with double dyes. They expect to be done adding double dyes by 7.4 and didn't give a specific patch for the graphics update

@Zakjuh

14 күн бұрын

a lot of textures and shaders were touched, though. just not all. i'm hoping they'll keep on working on it

@ngwoo

14 күн бұрын

A handful of things look worse too. Screen space reflections are basically gone in the new version. Shiny floors no longer look shiny and water looks terrible.

@Zakjuh

14 күн бұрын

@@ngwoo Water looks better though. Shiny floors still exist, but it's in DT areas, so probably an error in conversion with older areas.

@laerwen

14 күн бұрын

A lot of things WERE touched, and quite a few were not. They did explain that they'd do more over time.

Thank you very much for the time spent in creating very similar shots and day/time/weather conditions, also thanks for the 1440p resolution as well!

I think the biggest graphical change has to be Wesk's paissa minion

@WeskAlber

13 күн бұрын

Look, I'm an FF9 boy. I need to rep Zidane a LITTLE BIT

@avamoxy8774

13 күн бұрын

@@WeskAlber LOL

Texture work in clothing in cutscenes is where I have noticed the graphic update the most. Lighting on metal is also vastly improved such as on armor

lol at 28:30 that’s my Au’ra, I recognized you and was trying to say hi but I didn’t know you were filming footage for this vid 😅

@WeskAlber

14 күн бұрын

oh, well hi lol

Thanks for all the work you put into, not just showing the changes, but preserving the record of them. Now we can point the sprouts to this video and go, "Back in my day..."

me : can't wait for weskalber guides! weskalber : rocks.

Good to see Wesk's mewing worked out, also boy is ffxiv a old game some of the old zones really needed the update.

They should've put some bloom on crystals, they look rather flat without it

I was in the Ala Mhigan Quarter yesterday for NG+ and I just idled for a bit. A few feet away and above my character, there was a flag waving in the wind, and the "sun"light hit it from a diagonal angle, casting a shadow on the surrounding area and NPCs near it. Now, I'm not sure if this is new per se, but I'm used to the pre-7.0 shadows being like 5 FPS. In this case, the shadow's silhouette dynamically changed with the movement of the billowing flag, changing how it projected on the ground, the NPCs and the objects near it in real time. Not a big deal for modern games, of course. But it is something I hadn't really seen before in XIV. Not that I recall.

Did the ground plant and bush foliage increase across all expansion zones or am i trippin?

@hope_youhaveagoodday

14 күн бұрын

It did! They mention increasing the foliage generation everywhere when previewing the graphical update

Hey there Wesk! Thanks for all your hard work on the guides. I check them out frequently for the best tips and if a class is right for me. I'm new to the game so they are very handy. Will you be doing a lvl 1-19 for the viper class? Been waiting for it to see if that will be my class or the Dark Knight :D

One question here, did you have that one resolution set to 100 or 99? Have they fixed that quirk yet?

4:06 Uplander has fungames on their tomestone?

What is the music that starts at 17:30? It is amazing

@Lokamim

13 күн бұрын

Hall of Worship from FF Tactics, also plays after finishing Orbonne Monastery alliance

Hey bro, are you gonna do some leveling skills guide like in previous expantions?

@WeskAlber

13 күн бұрын

Have I ever said I'm not?

@dollz4495

12 күн бұрын

@@WeskAlber King 🙇‍♂️

Shame that the crystals in mor dhona no longer have that bloom effect

7:49 what happened to the crystal effects? Looks so much worse now.

Thanks for the video! I noticed an improvement, of course, but this side by side comparison shows how drastic these changes have been (and I daresay it's for the better, a lot). Toto-Rak is an interesting one. I always had the feeling the new version is kind of a teaser for the graphical update, considering how much better it already looked after the rework. It's so pretty... for a slimy spider infested dungeon. :D I wonder about further improvements for NPCs with unique faces and all. Tried to check them out in cutscenes but really wasn't sure if e.g. Aymeric or the Alliance Leaders already got their personal face lift. They all look better because they are all affected by better lighting and shaders and whatever was changed, but they are still quite a bit away from Handsome Squidward Roe in Dawntrail. (I also think I've seen some artifacts in Aymeric's face in the eye region, so there is that.) But who knows if this style is what they're actually going for for all of them. Of course it's a bit more obvious with the Pixel Exarch in Shb. He's still patiently waiting in line it seems. :D Either way I'm excited to see how this game will look like once all updates are complete!

I was impressed, and then I saw Il Mheg and I was FLOORED. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous!

Am I being gaslit here? People acting like this is the second coming, and I’m here checking if I have the graphics update turned on…

Great way to do this. Unfortunately I struggle to see the actual differences lol (beyond certain things like “crystal now more crystaly and no longer dull,” etc.), but I do know they are there (my “special eyes” interfering no doubt). When I pick a spot and *really* look, it becomes easier to tell. Gridania especially, my favorite place to chill.

@WeskAlber

14 күн бұрын

A lot of stuff is brighter, even aside from lightning differences. Accents like the crystarium courtyard also very different

@acefire0005

14 күн бұрын

@@WeskAlber Sounds like great reasons to simply wander around and study little areas I like. Thanks for the effort making this. Much appreciated!

Just like mounts shift a bit depending on direction you go.... Player movement animations need a similar update

I'm not even a graphics guy, and I was honestly surprised how good everything looked. I wasn't expecting much of a difference at all.

Its like they just deleted that washed out filter. 12:44 the way light falls off looks near CGI in some shots 17:23 look at that ground 23:27 lakelands trees dont look like pixel soup anymore Also, sheathed ultimate weapons finally don't look gross lol

Your character looked a lot like wesker more now than before 😂 Any idea to upgrade your youtube profile picture maybe?

I wish they would let us chose how many players can be on screen at the same time before they fade out. Or let us fade out the players in our hitbox instead of ones further away. It looks so empty when players are swarming your character. Maybe some sort of system like they have for fading out people around quest NPC's but centered around the player.

Not really to do with the old zones, but i love all the extra detail in the new zones. Extra plants etc really fills the space.

19:26 to 20:08 Is it just me or Resident Evil Vibes lol.

This graphical update is the sort of case where as I'm playing casually, I'm thinking "This looks nice. A little touched up here and there, nothing too crazy. A good little polish." Then I see it side-by-side with old footage and go "Holy SHIT."

Wow your paissa minion underwent the biggest change I think!

You do God’s work

Some of it looks much better, but others.. I feel like the atmosphere was completely changed. Like the crystals no longer glowing. The bloom being taken down is fine and all but all of the glow seems to have been stripped. Also the hardwood floors lost their gloss. Kind of sad. Guess the floor polisher quit haha. Overall though, the game looks wonderful still. It’s amazing how well it holds despite it’s age. Sure, it’s not anywhere close to FF16 or even FF15 but it doesn’t need to be. I know they’re not done yet, so I’m hopeful they’ll touch up some of it later. Also happy to say the game actually seems to run better for me now? DLSS probably has a hand in that though. It’s great stuff either way. Now if only the dps duty que wasn’t a massive hurdle to get through so I can actually get into DT content. I’m so close… Please…

7:52 The difference here is insane, especially the rock texture.

@Zakjuh

12 күн бұрын

Agreed. I hope they put that crystalline shader they use for aetherytes for the crystals there, though.

I feel like this video doesnt do justice to the graphical update :/ Or I just think the update did too much ? but I'm in Idyllshire rn and with the rain...... chef kiss! I know most of the changes are lighting / shadows / metal textures / reflections on ice for example, like it's said Syrcus Tower I was blown away lol. But when it rains, my god i can spend 5 minutes rotating the camera to see all that glow hmmmmmm

Anyone else waiting for the 1-100 guide for VPR and PCT? 😅

A lot of them are higher fidelity now, but with way less care for the atmosphere. You can tell that the lighting was placed by hand before, and you can tell that the new replacements were done mostly algorithmically, which is sort of what I was afraid of. It looks like one of those AI remasters where the quality went up, but the artistry and vibes of a lot of places got erased. Some real standouts that benefited a ton. Some of the Heavensward ruins look way better for instance. I think Sharlayan benefited a lot from the shadows too, and some of the canopy shadows in some of the forest locations look a lot better. Some of the crystals I'm kind of mixed on. Yes, they look much sharper and more crystalline. At the same time, the soft glow used to disguise this. They look more detailed now, but they look like more detailed video game models to me, and it actually kind of takes me out of it. Across the board, a lot of artistic decisions basically got erased. Gridania used to be really soft and shady - now it's harsh sun and sharp shadows all over the place, and it feels a lot less sleepy and peaceful. Even its aetheryte - it's higher fidelity for sure, but I'm not sure that turning its pleasant dull glow into glass was actually an improvement to the vibes. Limsa's grey fog was rooted in a graphics limitation, but it also contributed to the vibe of Limsa - it's a foggy harbor city. The Black Mage room just looks worse. Previously, it was lit as if the orange lights were casting a really atmospheric warm orange glow into a shadowy room. Now the candles seem weird in a room that is pretty well-lit and the orange torches just look out of place - little orange point lights in a room already pretty filled with cooler light. Similarly, the Limsa pillar looks terrible. It was clearly lit with care before to make the whole pillar stand out. Now the lighting looks really haphazard. The gold in the ground in front of the Crystal Tower looks dull from a lot of angles now. Is it more realistic? Sure. That's what gold looks like. Does it actually look better? I'm not sure. I'll take artistry and vibes over realism most of the time, so I'm a little disappointed in this, just like all the other mostly-automated game remasters we've seen recently.

@Zakjuh

Күн бұрын

uhhh

Foliage, crystals, lighting, and global illumination methinks>

While everything looks good but Elpis's skybox suffered a lot. It was unique for its zone but now it's just the same clear skies as other zones. I haven't set my foot yet. Maybe the one you recorded was a variation and the original sky still remains.

@WeskAlber

14 күн бұрын

I believe weather and time play a part.

My favorite part is the color change of the whole game. Before it was so grey I found it unbearable and used Nvidia filter, now I don't need to :D

Crystal Exarch arms still looks goofy in those cutscenes

@Zakjuh

14 күн бұрын

Crystal Exarch (and a lot of custom NPCs) were not updated. Varis, Zenos, Gaius, Venat, etc. All still old. The only new thing they might have is eyes, hair and mouths, which seem to just have gotten a global replacement. (In cases where the eyes and hair were already used by players.)

@laerwen

14 күн бұрын

Give them time.

So like playing with an ENB

It really strikes me just how blue aetherites are now. Like yeah no shit they're blue, but like they are beautiful.

@andreadigney6247

14 күн бұрын

yeah the crystal textures are HUGELY improved. They look amazing.

nooo,, my pc meybe explode with this graphic :(

10:40 I always hated this dungeon because everything had a washed out, paper-cutout look to it. This new lighting makes everything look like it's actually 3D.

The devs put a lot of heart in it and it shows. My major likes were the water looking more realistic and less like mercury (that's not an easy feat) and the choice for mystical horizons, blurred the right way instead of a clear line between land/sea and the sky.

From this I think most of the changes boiled down to "blurry thing is not blurry."

I mean kinda pointless comparison since the time of day varies dramatically

I have grief with how they handled details in this update, any scene with foliage makes me lose a ton of frames and it is annoying that there is no setting for having piss poor foliage. There were a couple instances where a cutscene involving a lot of Tullioyali cutizens was a 15fps powerpoint because of some details. It definitely soured the experience

Wish they didn't change some facial features structurally like mouths, my character is completely different and now looks like a porcelain doll it makes me really sad

@Shakzor1

14 күн бұрын

that's why we got a free fantasia (obtainable in Ul'Dah, north of the market boards)

What update? Looks only crystal things they did lol

@WeskAlber

14 күн бұрын

There's a lot of other updates in here, while also showing many areas mostly the same.

Mor Dhona has lost so much esoteric charm :( Most differences are so small that I could barely tell a difference in the video, apart from lighting and some color warmth tweaks. But I've been genuinely wondering in-game if anything older than Endwalker had been touched at all, before I saw this. So far, I'm quite disappointed tbh. Most changes range from pointless to barely noticeable at all, to me. Many areas feel lifeless suddenly, but then again, I haven't been able to tell in-game so maybe not a big deal.

@laerwen

14 күн бұрын

Mor Dhona no longer looks like the textures are painted on. I think it's one of the most changed zones in the game. All the crystal looks real!