FFXI Finally In High Quality Graphics

Thanks to some posts and some friends I managed to set up the default stuff, but I'm getting some odd behaviour.

If I try to launch the game from Windower... it won't work. When I press Play game seems to be launching but then it goes back to POL as if it crashed while trying to launch.

If I try to launch vanilla game, it works perfectly.


Shouldn't this hint that my problem is not with the DGvoodoo settings but something related to windower? What could it be though? :o

Ok so this is what I've done

1) Download DGVoodoo and place it in a folder of choice (didn't download _43 and _47 since I had em already)
2) Changed some settings on DGVoodoo following what a friend is using
3) Changed so the conf file gets created in the same folder where DGvoodoo is
4) Save settings, close DGvoodoo, then I took the d3d8.dll file from the MS subfolder and placed it into POL

Now if I try to launch the game with windower I get this strange behaviour which I didn't see mentioned in any of the 13 previous pages.
It seems the game is about to launch fullscreen, but then I see a POL loading screen again, as if the game just crashed and returned to POL (but without any real crash that I can see)

If I try to launch the game WITHOUT windower, it launches just fine, and I can alt+tab without crashing o.o
ALT+CTRL+DEL or inserting a secondary HDMI cable still makes the game go back to POL, but without a full crash.


So from this I get that some of the thigns I did were fine, but then again some is not.
What could I have possibly done wrong? Why does it work without windower but it doesn't with it?


Edit:
When I get back home I deed to doublecheck that I executed DGvoodoo with Admin rights

I ran into every single type of aforementioned problems: crashing after character selection, lack of VRAM, distorted text/fonts, but I managed to fix every one of those problems by reading these pages.

My laptop is very old (2012), but still somewhat decent to play FF11. dgVoodoo2 did noticeably enhance the visual performance of the game, especially when it comes to spellcasting and magic effects.

I wish however I had a high-end machine to run the game in 4k/60FPS like our friend from a few pages ago did in Al'Taieu. That looks absolutely stunning. It's amazing that a game from 2003 can look this cool.

Thanks to some useful PMs and some postdigging I managed to make it work finally! \o/
Some comments that have already been said but regardless:

A) There's something different about the colour palette. It's much more vivid, and especially stuff that's supposed to be blue-dark or transparent/multishaded is incredibly better. The sky at night is fantastic, especially in the WotG areas

B) "glowing" things (crystals, warpers, Avatars' aura) are so much better!

C) Didn't notice a particular performance boost, still can't hold 60fps in highly populated areas, but overall it seems indeed a bit more solid. No particularly noticeable difference in my system. The big pro for me is not having to bother anymore with HDMI cable secondary monitor connection crashing the game etc

The strange issue about lighting suddenly changing at specific time (which started with windower 4.3 for me, not occurring with Vanilla) is sadly still there, but I guess this is no surprise, probably depends on the windower 5 hook which got adapted to 4.3. Wonder what causes it to be fair, most people seem to not even notice anyway so I guess it's not a big deal.



Couple of questions now
1) As strange as it sounds I liked SE's HD font better than XIview's font. What exactely is the reason why it's not currently useable with DGvoodoo and will it ever be possible to solve this?
2) Are there some options in the FFXIconfig that you guys suggest to disable? Like I dunno, the FFXI graphics stabilization option (what even is its purpose?) or the mip mapping?

I believe turning off any mipmapping/anti-aliasing will help you greatly. As far as XIView fonts, I'm able to use them just fine w/ dgvoodoo

Yeah XIview fonts work fine if you set font to "uncompressed" on FFXIconfig.
I was talking about SE's HD font which atm doesn't work with DGvoodoo and I was wondering what's causing this and if there will ever be a way to solve it because I liked that font more than XIview's

Sorry original sentence that you quoted was a bit unclear, I edited my original post.

I am not sure if anyone can help me, but I will seek help. After digging through this post, and trying many suggestions I cannot seem to get this to work at all. After launching POL and going into the game, it crashes immediately once I click Play. The machine that the game is played on is this:

Macbook Pro 2011 (8,1)
4GB Ram
Intel i5 2.4GHZ
Intel Graphics 3000

Is there any issues when its this video card vs another dedicated video card? Ive left most of the default settings, and changed VRAM to everything from 1024 down to 256 with no luck. Removed watermark checks. Ensured the Config folder pointed to PlayOnline folder. Dlls in the right spot. Any help would be appreciated!

Just to make sure, you have all these three files in your POL folder?

dgVoodooCpl.exe
dgVoodoo.conf
D3D8.dll


Are you sure you configured DGvoodoo the right way? (plenty of screenshots/suggestions over these pages)

Yup. All 3 are there. I am thinking that there has to be some exact setting I am missing for my system to work with this. I am just taking my time messing with each one, re-launching and seeing if it works. Its painful, but I am not unwilling to make it work. Just had hoped someone else had found the solution.

Out of curiosity have you tested if vanilla game launches with DGvoodoo?

Yes, it does. I have launched it without windower and it works swell

I think the main question here is: can you expect a significant improvement in graphics just by running dgVoodoo2 in such dated specs? Because, truth be told, if this machine could Super Sample and keep that at a constant FPS, this would be very impressive already. Without a dedicated video card, it would be very difficult for you to force MSAA / AF or maintain higher frame rates.

Personally, I don't think you did anything wrong. But I think your computer might not handle the setting you're trying to input.

Another question: does your Intel HD 3000 card even process DirectX 11 to begin with? https://communities.intel.com/thread/41940 This might be the reason why you're crashing after you hit PLAY or right after entering character selection, even after adjusting your VRAM settings. When you try to log in Fullscreen mode, no windower, no dgVoodoo, I bet you don't crash, right?

From what I understood, when you use dgVoodoo2, the code is being "converted" to DirectX 11, but if your card can't process DX11, then...

Well, I didn't have high hopes to begin with when I started this process because I knew it was running with the Intel 3000. That's really too bad! I mean, I can run dual instances of the game with Windower, though its a little laggy depending on the area. I have a newer laptop I also run the game on, that is running this beautifully. Oh well! Thanks for the prompt replies!

Would have to ask dege on the Vogons forum, it likely has to do with how SE is handling the format in memory. In order to get dgVoodoo2 to work with FFXI dege had to write some code to handle multiple texture formats.


I would disable graphics stabilization, it was meant for running FFXI vanilla on newer systems and dgVoodoo is taking care of most of that. Mipmaping is a way of dynamically scaling textures so that distant ones look blurred and less pixelated, typically want it in the middle. If you have SuperSampling turned on in Windower and are running at a modern resolution then you have no need for MSAA so set it to app-driven. Aniostropic filtering on the other hand is really nice for FFXI so you can force 8x or 16x.

Thanks Saevel.
Guess the reason why F11 (Forceambientlighting) isn't working is the same as the Font thing then.

These are my current settings, if you got any suggestions they're welcome.
So far it's working nice!








Ah also, cross-posting.
For who was wondering about the constant slowdowns I was getting which didn't get solved since after I setup DGvoodoo, I think I found the culprit.
It's findall
If I unload it no slowdown at all, if I load it back up I get constant 0fps slowdowns quite frequently.

If someone else has been having such issues since last patch, you might want to check Findall.

Sechs there is a slight configuration problem with your dgVoodoo2. You need to set the config folder location cause right now it's loading the config in

D:\Giochi\FFXI Stuff\Software\dgVoodoo

And I don't think that is your PlayOnlineViewer folder.

Start up the dgVoodoo2 control panel from inside your PlayOnlineViewer and then click the .\ button to add that folder. You can click on the drop down to get a full list of the folders that dgVoodoo2 has a config for.

Yeah screenshot was taken from the old folder I was keeping DGvoodoo before (back when it was failing on attempt to load FFXI).
Paths are fine, I got the 3 necessary files in the right folder and DGvoodoo is working just great ;)

Your settings are solid except you might want to have it set to windowed mode instead of full screen as windower normally sets it to windowed.

I have placed all the files into the correct locations and unblocked them, I have also created a config file in the pol folder.

My problem is that when the game loads up it does not display my character, Has anyone had or created this problem and know a solution to fix this.

I run on Win 7 x64
GPU: Nvidia GTX 770

I am also using the same setting as the above post with the exception of running in windowed mode.

As discussed several times, if it's not loaded models then your using the wrong version. 2.54 has a problem displaying models inside FFXI, 2.54WIP35 has a workaround / fix that properly displays models inside FFXI.

Ty Saevel i just put wip35 on and it now works fine

Yeah I fell into that mistake as well Lewyo.
Czeph passed us 2.54 version, not the wip35 one! :P
Lucky for us that problem had a fast and easy solution

On the first page someone gives links and directions

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/50992/ffxi-finally-in-high-quality-graphics#3267081

Anyone no longer getting benefits from this since the update? My FPS is now very low and alt tabbing has a lag :/

I've noticed the same thing. The performance seems worse than before.

Good to know someone else is. This is only the 2nd time i played since the update since the first time was very terrible but having same extreme lag problem. even with 1-2 boxes instead of 3.

Tri boxed earlier with zero differences. Check your filters and content.

But did you have any lag or sorts before even using dgvoodoo? the program is def still working (no more random crashes on initial log in cntr+alt+delete) but not to the extreme it was pre version update. I have all my graphics and such turned on, because dgvoodoo allowed me to and i loved it. But not im back to no graphics ffxi

No, never outside of normal server side network lag.


How many instances are you running and are you using separate configs for them? If you aren't or don't know the answer, then that is your problem. If I was to have a mule or three logged in and in an area where there are multiple sparkly WS's or effects happening, then the GPU would be strained to render it all with Super-Sampling and such turned on. Your mules need to have filters set to not show stuff happening outside of party and make sure you have shadows turned to normal of off, FFXI sucks at doing shadows.

I had terrible lag and such before using dg but I still multiboxed. I had all graphics turned off and all filters on though. When I initially used dg it was amazing and allowed me to play all 3 characters with full graphics on (just to test my limits), however I disabled them for my mules afterwords cause of fear of overheating my system. I even did a successful 3 box full graphics run in omen with no problems. But now I'm just playing like I was before dg, laggy. I'm try the simple thing and just redownload it soon.