Ffxiv Graphic Overhaul

[Joke Grinman]

FinalFantasy 14 is readying up to release its massive Dawntrail expansion and 7.0 update this July, featuring a gorgeous graphical overhaul that shows how far the MMO has come since its rebirth over 10 years ago.

Publisher Square Enix released a trailer to show off the game's fancy graphics update that's coming alongside the next expansion, where we can see improved lighting, overhauled textures, and vastly more detailed materials. Some Jobs appear to be enjoying new animations too. See for yourself below.

The above trailer gives us a pretty beefy idea of what Final Fantasy 14 will look later this year as the camera sweeps through big landscapes and zooms into finer character details. The Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail benchmark will be available tomorrow, April 14, so you can see how well your PC can run the hefty improvements.

Dawntrail is certainly a looker from everything we've seen so far, but producer Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida also jumped on a livestream to emphasize just how dramatic the changes will be. The side-by-side comparisons begin at roughly the 2-hour mark or you can find a quick embedded clip below that compares the same environment from 6.58 to the improved version in 7.0.

Yoshida previously expressed regret over how the game lit darker-skinned characters, acknowledging the MMO was "bad" at displaying certain skin tones properly. This upcoming update aims to rectify such criticisms, but we won't know how it shakes out until Dawntrail sets sail this summer. Things are certainly looking up, though.

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

The critically acclaimed MMO is set to launch its next expansion this summer, Dawntrail, and alongside a brand new region to explore, two new Jobs, and the beginning of a new adventure to experience, Final Fantasy 14 will be receiving its first major graphics update in 10 years.

It's an exciting prospect, and Square Enix has already showcased some of the changes players can expect to arrive with the overhaul, but according to Naoki Yoshida, the update has multiple purposes than simply making the game look up-to-date with the modern generation.

"When players would see the graphics updates, they would realize that Final Fantasy 14 will still push on and it will still continue driving forward to the future and take on new challenges," Yoshida said in the latest Play magazine (via GamesRadar). "And in that regard, I think it would give players a sense of ease so they would not need to worry about that."

Yoshida also confirmed that the main decision behind the overhaul was to entice new players, though most importantly, younger players who are just getting into the game who would otherwise be put off by the original, older graphics.

"...the important thing with MMOs is that we need to constantly get new players in, otherwise the overall scale of our game would shrink," he explained. "I also thought the graphics update is really important to get the younger generation into Final Fantasy 14. So by implementing the graphics updates, we can actually improve the appeal for 14 to those types of players."

In addition, Yoshida finds that the update will not only appeal to new players but also be a welcoming challenge for the development team who have been using older technology since A Realm Reborn launched in 2013. The director hopes that the newer features on hand for his fellow developers will allow them to also "advance their career".

Dawntrail is the next Final Fantasy 14 expansion pack planned for release later this summer. While Final Fantasy 14's new Pictomancer and Viper jobs, playable female Hrothgar, and the new zones, dungeons, and raids in Tural are exciting, one of the biggest changes coming in Dawntrail is the massive graphics overhaul.

During the last Fan Festival in Japan, players got a good look at the character models for each playable race in Final Fantasy 14, and what they are going to look like after this graphics update. It revealed side-by-side examples of every different player character model, from Midlander Hyur to Hrothgar, showing how much they will all be changing. While some, like the male Lalafell, have only minor changes, examples like the female Elezen and Au Ra show some impressive improvements.

When I learned my favorite time-sink MMO, Final Fantasy XIV, was getting a graphics overhaul with the new Dawntrail expansion, I decided I needed to find out exactly what hardware would give me the best experience with the updated textures.

Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is the 7th iteration of the Square Enix MMO, though the 1.0 version of the game is no longer playable, and for good reason. However, the revamped 2.0 base game and five subsequent expansions are all still playable. And as the 7.0 iteration begins its post-launch life cycle, we're looking at the hefty graphic update that came alongside the Dawntrail launch.

While I would have loved to test absolutely every possible system I could get my hands on, I decided to stick to the more common configuration options out of deference to you, dear readers. I'm not writing for an audience made up exclusively of my own clones, after all.

So we're pitting the PlayStation 5 graphics against the Nvidia RTX 4080 and the RTX 4060 to see just what platform has the best graphics. To keep things as close to repeatable as possible, I ran the same level 85 dungeon, "The Skydeep Cenote," on the same character, on the same job, with the same party of NPC companions. Outside of a benchmark, this is as close as I could get to scientific evaluation of the game.

Sony's PlayStation 5 may have older hardware compared to brand new gaming PCs, but the 3.5 GHz AMD Zen 2 processor, 10.3 teraflop RDNA 2 graphics card, and 16GB of memory still manage to provide a seamless gaming experience. Sure, you may be capped at a 120Hz refresh rate, but most games don't manage to push that number that high.

The graphics update for FFXIV: Dawntrail is mainly centered around character hair and face textures, the appearance of skin and hair on characters, the appearance of metallic material on specific gear, the appearance of fog, the appearance of water and waves, the appearance of distant terrain, soft shadows, shadows used in the background of some cutscenes, and changes in lighting due to the passage of time. So, a lot of the tweaks are subtle, but when you take a moment to look at characters in closeups, it becomes obvious how much more detail is captured in the 7.0 graphics update.

I used the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9) for my RTX 4080 laptop. With an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor, Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU, and 32GB of memory the Pro 7i should be more than powerful enough to handle a game that re-launched in 2013. And it is, don't get me wrong. The game plays smoothly even with the graphics settings toggled to Desktop (High) settings, though I primarily played with the Laptop (High) preset enabled on the Legion Pro 7i.

I used the Dell XPS 14 OLED as my RTX 4060 machine. With an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H, Nvidia RTX 4060 GPU, and 32GB of memory, the Dell XPS 14 may not be a gaming laptop, but it can do some basic gaming. One thing I noticed with the XPS 14 was that I had to toggle my graphics settings down to the Laptop (Standard) preset to avoid some stuttering, especially as the laptop got hotter after a lot of use or in high-traffic areas where server connection issues could easily crop up.

Everyone is going to game on the platform they like best, whether that's a fully future-proof desktop PC with an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU, a premium laptop with a discrete graphics card like the XPS 14, a high-end gaming laptop with an RTX 4080 like the Legion Pro 7i, a PS5, or even a MacBook Pro.

But if, like me, you have options, it's always good to know what the best version of a game is. And for Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, you can't beat the combination of top-tier graphics and low price-point of the PlayStation 5. After all, a $499 console is a bargain compared to a $3,000+ gaming laptop or custom desktop PC. And despite the extra power of the RTX 4080 in the Legion Pro 7i (Gen 9), there isn't much visible difference between the 4080 and the PS5's RDNA 2 GPU.

A former lab gremlin for Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, and Tech Radar; Madeline has escaped the labs to join Laptop Mag as a Staff Writer. With over a decade of experience writing about tech and gaming, she may actually know a thing or two. Sometimes. When she isn't writing about the latest laptops and AI software, Madeline likes to throw herself into the ocean as a PADI scuba diving instructor and underwater photography enthusiast."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Madeline RicchiutoSocial Links NavigationStaff WriterA former lab gremlin for Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, and Tech Radar; Madeline has escaped the labs to join Laptop Mag as a Staff Writer. With over a decade of experience writing about tech and gaming, she may actually know a thing or two. Sometimes. When she isn't writing about the latest laptops and AI software, Madeline likes to throw herself into the ocean as a PADI scuba diving instructor and underwater photography enthusiast.

Final Fantasy XIV has been around for more than ten years, and the game has received a ton of new content during this timeline. However, one thing that has stayed the same throughout this time was its graphics or visuals. Even though the industry has moved on a couple of generations, the famous MMO still hasn't received a major graphics overhaul.

However, developers revealed that the game would eventually get a graphics update when they announced their 10-year road map. And this update will most likely come out with what Square Enix has planned for 2023. Finally, more than a year after the initial announcement, fans have finally gotten new information regarding this upcoming graphics overhaul. Let us dig deeper to find out what is changing and when it is coming out.

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