FFXIV: Dawntrail Graphical Update Comparison
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- Dawntrail came with a hefty graphical upgrade! Some places are extremely different, with some others looking about the same. Here is a mishmash of different areas from every expansion that I thought might make good comparisons, or were suggested in my Discord!
I will go through every expansion in order, with a bit of spoilers at the end for the Endwalker section. Unfortunately there was just some areas I felt really needed to be shown... Thinking more on it I probably should have checked a certain Shadowbringers area too. Little late for that!
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#FFXIV #Dawntrail #graphics
Note: If you want a REAL idea of what the changes can be like, go do Syrcus Tower
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.
Amon is broken tho so don't do CT yet lol
@@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!
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!!
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.
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.
I cant stop admiring the textures of my Xaela's scales. They look so good
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.
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
a lot of textures and shaders were touched, though.
just not all. i'm hoping they'll keep on working on it
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.
@@ngwoo Water looks better though.
Shiny floors still exist, but it's in DT areas, so probably an error in conversion with older areas.
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!
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
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…
Ty for taking the time to make this video! I love the graphical update and have been excited for it for a long time, for a game that has been out for over 14 years it DESPERATELY needed it. As a long term FF14 player and overall FF fan(been playing 14 since 2010 during it's initial 1.0 release) I just hope they continue to make quality improvements. I personally hope that they continue to update graphical capabilities, maybe such as increasing the polygon count on environments similar to how they did so for all character faces and such, as well as ray-tracing options for hardware than can support it, improvements in weather, dynamic skybox, improved animations/physics and so much more to keep the game going since they committed to another 10-year plan for the game and in a few short years we're gonna be getting the next-gen consoles(PS6/Nextbox) so this game needs to keep up graphically, etc.
Good to see Wesk's mewing worked out, also boy is ffxiv a old game some of the old zones really needed the update.
I think the biggest graphical change has to be Wesk's paissa minion
Look, I'm an FF9 boy. I need to rep Zidane a LITTLE BIT
@@WeskAlber LOL
me : can't wait for weskalber guides!
weskalber : rocks.
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.
uhhh
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 😅
oh, well hi lol
They should've put some bloom on crystals, they look rather flat without it
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..."
Did the ground plant and bush foliage increase across all expansion zones or am i trippin?
It did! They mention increasing the foliage generation everywhere when previewing the graphical update
things that shocked me overall was the mount tilting animation and dynamic grasses
Shame that the crystals in mor dhona no longer have that bloom effect
i love going to base omicron in ultima thule and moving my camera so the light hits the floor, the reflections are so nice lmao
7:49 what happened to the crystal effects? Looks so much worse now.
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.
A lot of stuff is brighter, even aside from lightning differences. Accents like the crystarium courtyard also very different
@@WeskAlber Sounds like great reasons to simply wander around and study little areas I like. Thanks for the effort making this. Much appreciated!
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.
I was impressed, and then I saw Il Mheg and I was FLOORED. The flowers are absolutely gorgeous!
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.
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!
10:39 What is the name of this piano theme?
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
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.
Just like mounts shift a bit depending on direction you go.... Player movement animations need a similar update
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.
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
4:06 Uplander has fungames on their tomestone?
Wow your paissa minion underwent the biggest change I think!
19:26 to 20:08 Is it just me or Resident Evil Vibes lol.
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.
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."
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.
Agreed. I hope they put that crystalline shader they use for aetherytes for the crystals there, though.
Anyone else waiting for the 1-100 guide for VPR and PCT? 😅
Your character looked a lot like wesker more now than before 😂
Any idea to upgrade your youtube profile picture maybe?
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
Foliage, crystals, lighting, and global illumination methinks>
i notices that they heavily turned down the polish reflection on the stone floors. i dont like that...
I mean kinda pointless comparison since the time of day varies dramatically
One question here, did you have that one resolution set to 100 or 99? Have they fixed that quirk yet?
From this I think most of the changes boiled down to "blurry thing is not blurry."
You do God’s work
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
It really strikes me just how blue aetherites are now. Like yeah no shit they're blue, but like they are beautiful.
yeah the crystal textures are HUGELY improved. They look amazing.
What is the music that starts at 17:30? It is amazing
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?
Have I ever said I'm not?
@@WeskAlber King 🙇♂️
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
i think I know this cutscene you mentioned. my fps also tanked during that part.
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.
I believe weather and time play a part.
Crystal Exarch arms still looks goofy in those cutscenes
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.)
Give them time.
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.
So like playing with an ENB
nooo,, my pc meybe explode with this graphic :(
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
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
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.
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!