▫️Final Fantasy XVI

[dapper cape]

nope haha

[unique swift]

I'm sure you will get it soon

[dapper cape]

yea in a few hours

[fading veldt]

Enjoy people!

[dapper cape]

I got the key

[wispy patrol]

did they, uh, forget to remove that

[unique swift]

It's for the dlc I guess?

[wispy patrol]

mm maybe yeah

strange wording i guess

plus i have all the dlc

what was the verdict for the demo's hdr? defaults are fine?

[unique swift]

I like brightness 2 and UI 5

Musa hates it but he hates everything lately it seems, lol

[wispy patrol]

heh

no gamma mismatch, right?

[unique swift]

Essentialy brightness slider is gamma, the game is fixed pw 300 nits

No gamma mismatch

If you want lower pw you can use Pumbo shader, but that looks bad imo

[mellow void]

Yeah otherwise it uses windows calibration

[unique swift]

Makes midtones too dim

[unique swift]

Yeah that too

[mellow void]

For me I played with default settings

[ocean ether]

i think its somewhere slightly above 250

just based on looking at the graph at least

not actually looking at the code

its prob shader model 6 which is a pain in the ass to deal with

[unique swift]

Defaults are fine I guess, but I like shadows close to the SDR reference (100-120 nits ) as possible

[mellow void]

Apparently the game is made with HDR in mind, they even reccomended it for players in interviews which is unusual. So in my mine whatever the default is is intended.

[wispy patrol]

niice

[mellow void]

Personally I don't subscribe to the idea HDR is should match SDR for the most part. So that doesn't matter to me lol.

[unique swift]

It's how the movies / TV shows do it, and I also have been running SDR at 100 nits for years now, SDR equivalent of 200 nits or above looks way to bright to me

[unique swift]

Not to mention unless the game has perfect black levels all the time it's just makes stuff look washed out

[mellow void]

Yeah but movies and TV are much more limited than games.

[ocean ether]

the problem is

they have to had been in a bright room when they were testing the hdr

[unique swift]

Limited how?

[ocean ether]

cause its for sure too bright for a dark room

[mellow void]

To me the fact SDR needs to compress to a visible range means hdr should look more different and not just brighter hdr.

[unique swift]

Oh boy, I have to look for that video again

[mellow void]

I disagree there, I played the whole game in a dark room.

[mellow void]

Well it depends on how much color is captured not how much raw data is there.

Games have that range, movies only capture some of it.

[unique swift]

@mellow void https://youtu.be/bYS-P2bF2TQ

[ocean ether]

reee house of the dragon too dark

never watched it but ive seen the complaints

[unique swift]

That's correct
But if the SDR content is mastered to 100 -120 nits, then HDR should be SDR but unclamped

[mellow void]

Maybe with film that's easier, but I think games that's unnessecary.

[unique swift]

not brighter overall, just brighter where it should be

[ocean ether]

thats how I like it at least

[mellow void]

When I watch stuff I expect a sunny day to look like a sunny day for example.

[ocean ether]

depends on whether HDR is the "hero" grade

how different it should look i mean

[mellow void]

That's part of it, I think for film that's harder.

I don't even see that degree of range in photography.

[unique swift]

It's bit more complicated than that
It looks fine as long as A) you watch it in the dark room and B) your display doesn't crush shadows or has any static brightness limiters
So essentially it's unwatchable for the 90% of the audience, lol
it's less of a problem with how they graded it and more with not taking in the account how folks will see it

[mellow void]

To me HDR should look like a window, not just bonus SDR.

I think bonus SDR is a very technical way to do it.

[unique swift]

Yes, but the problem is that games scale brightness linearly in HDR, so if you like bright day look like a bright day you will also have a dark night looking like a bright night
Everything gets brighter

[mellow void]

Works, functional, but not very interesting.

[ocean ether]

you could have a bright day look like a bright day and dark night look like a dark night in hdr properly but the sdr would probably look blown out to shit

[mellow void]

That scenario is more a matter of exposure than anything.

[ocean ether]

unless you did the color grading twice

and I think pretty much every game dev seems to just do everything in sdr and do the bare minimum to make sure that hdr works afterwards

[mellow void]

Yeah the problem can be balance. Like making a UI when SDR resolutions are still common (Ps3 era)

[unique swift]

most SDR grades kinda do tbh

[ocean ether]

SDR just needs to be treated 2nd to hdr tbh

[mellow void]

Agreed, but I think if HDR is the primary it would universally look different than SDR. Cause you don't need to try as hard to control range.

[dapper cape]

I had time to boot up the game and test/play through the intro again yay! It runs great no issues, I can't really decide between 2/5 or 5/5 HDR. I have to see more of the game/locations to decide.

[unique swift]

That's also not true, maybe the film/video doesn't have infinite range, but even older film stocks have a shitload of range in the highlights

One way or the other the game looks great in HDR

[mellow void]

But you couldn't take 5nits dark scene and stretch it to 1000nits.

[unique swift]

I also just finished the second chapter, I think I can fuck with this game

[unique swift]

But why would you wanna do that?

[mellow void]

I'm just saying that's the degree of info you have with games, to me it's entirely different

And that stuff is core to the workflow

[unique swift]

I know the games do it differently
And IMO they're doing it wrong most of the time

[mellow void]

It happens when you walk inside a room and back outside.

It's not if the effects make something visible the colors are always there

[unique swift]

Or maybe not wrong, but whatever they are using as an SDR reference is usually way to bright for me

[unique swift]

You are talking about auto exposure

[mellow void]

Auto or manual

Light mapping ends up having that range

[ocean ether]

ya some games def could tweak autoexposure for HDR

[unique swift]

This is something that the industry finally realized that they have been doing it wrong for years and now they are trying to fix it
UE5 has a local or adaptive AE option that essentially prevents shadows from being crushed and highlights from being blown out
GOW R uses it too
Haven't we discussed that before here?

[mellow void]

Mhm I posted a link of a web example

Auto exposure I've seen can try to correct things but the local tonemapping thing I often see is separate

One of these days I need to take the time to edit down the class I streamed 😩

I only did some excerpts

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/613810271512952872/797754115529768980/Hdr_Color_Explanation-1.webm?ex=66ea98ea&is=66e9476a&hm=43c1446cfaa7805b0769fd36987fdf3eff22ee59dcfbcffdfa319e7c71f1c8ed&

It's meant for game devs who have no idea what the engine means when it says HDR color. It's not a display HDR thing.

[whole kestrel]

I updates Special K's official stable release w/ "Fake Fullscreen" enabled by default in this game.
I'm kind of speechless for the artificial requirement of Fullscreen Mode for HDR in FFXVI.

They aren't using the nasty driver-specific APIs for HDR, they just think there's something special about Fullscreen mode that is required for HDR, despite using DXGI and having no such restriction.

[mellow void]

Maybe it's left over from the PS5

[whole kestrel]

But... then again, they also have some ridiculous metadata setup, so they didn't read the docs very clearly. If they had, they would have seen "DO NOT USE THIS API, METADATA IS EVIL" 😛

I wonder if that disclaimer's in the Japanese DXGI docs?

Maybe all Japanese ports suck because the docs are translated poorly? 🙃 If only.

[mellow void]

Doesn't it just use the OS calibration like it did on the PS5?

[whole kestrel]

For the tonemapping that it does in the engine, yes. It goes by the DXGI reported capabilities, which are either EDID or from an ICC profile.

But... it also shoots itself in the foot and reports a 2000 nits MaxCLL to any display that accepts metadata.

[ocean ether]

it also may read EDID/calibration incorrectly if you have multiple monitors

[whole kestrel]

It should be one of those things or the other, not both.
If your engine tonemaps to a target maximum luminance, then metadata is unnecessary... or at the very least it should match the tonemap the game's using.

But they're using a constant 2000 nits MaxCLL metadata for all users, no matter what display they're using or how their tonemap is configured.

[mellow void]

🤔 well at least it's not 1000 lol

[wispy patrol]

...huh? it doesn't require fullscreen

i'm in borderelss and i have hdr on

also, i'm pretty sure the sharpening slider does nothing with dlss turned on like in every goddamn game since dlss 2.5

although to be fair it doesn't seem too blurry

i can definitely see fsr3 oversharpening at max sharpening, so yeah

[whole kestrel]

What the hell?

How on Earth did you manage that? 🙂

Oh, god. These dummies.

[wispy patrol]

i don't think i did anything at all 😄

[whole kestrel]

You have to first go into Fullscreen, then you can turn HDR on, then you can go back to Borderless.

[wispy patrol]

maybe leftover from the demo then, not sure

[whole kestrel]

Japanese software at its finest.

[wispy patrol]

didn't touch anything today

[wispy patrol]

seems i have right stick drift on my dualsense

[wispy patrol]

https://dualshock-tools.github.io/ hot damn am i saved

[whole kestrel]

SONY has official tools for PC now to adjust this stuff.
I think it might be DualSense Edge only though.
They use buttons a nromal DualSense doesn't have to load the profiles.

Man UI composition in this game is weird.
It's perfectly legible at all brightness settings, but it uses high contrast inverted color that's a little annoying to look at 🙂
They tried something new though, I won't fault them for that. Wish they had an option to put an opaque background behind the HUD elements instead.

That's not an accurate description.
I don't quite know how to describe this

Weird, is what it is 🙂

[wispy patrol]

yeah afaik edge has some stuff but only edge

[wispy patrol]

i think it's just additive?

but yeah it feels kinda weird to me too. but i guess it works

[whole kestrel]

Maybe it's additive in Rec 2020 colorspace 😕
That isn't a good idea 🙂

[ocean ether]

Does it look the same in SDR

[unique swift]

https://x.com/aitaikimochi/status/1836064739753136386

☆オードリーAudrey☆ (@aitaikimochi) on X

Famitsu has a Q&A on the difference between FF16's PC vs. PS5 version:

While the story is the same, the PC version made adjustments to the overall feel of the gameplay and actions based on player feedback from the PS5 version. It also supports 240fps with super resolution.

Twitter · Sep 17, 2024, 3:28 PM

I've seen some people saying that normal difficulty is more challenging now vs PS5, haven't play it there so can't comment

Also, first difficulty mod is out
https://www.nexusmods.com/finalfantasy16/mods/13

[spiral forge]

Anyone figure out how to fix the weird fires in this game? Torches are piss yellow and fire is just underexposed at random places like campfire in the beginning of the demo

[mellow void]

Oh?

That would be nice

[mellow void]

I haven't seen anything that looked different from ps5

post screenshots i can check

[mint hawk]

that's an fmv

[spiral forge]

I don't think that this part is an FMV anymore tho

getting barely 554 nits MaxCLL in this pic from the fire

[mellow void]

https://youtu.be/HifPONhLzf4?t=169

I think thats just how it looks cuz

it shows near 1000 on skiv

maybe you have something enabled?

[mint hawk]

it might be

[mellow void]

near 800 on the other image

[mint hawk]

but I don't feel like verifying it by going through the game's files again

[spiral forge]

yeah windows calibration is set to 2200 nits so it's nowhere near clipping on either one of these screenshots

[mellow void]

it probably wouldn't on the fire tho, better test is the intro with pheonix, this game may focus on the magical connection to fire rather than realism

[spiral forge]

Here's what I mean with the torches, I made a before and after I did a small highlights color tweak

[spiral forge]

the phoenix in the intro does look good and clips highlights well but some things like ifrit's body looks off maybe that's just their intent tho

Unsure if this part is an fmv but it kinda shows what I mean with ifrit's body

[mellow void]

Fire is likely intended to look consistent between pheonix and maybe sometimes ifrit, their fires are a little different i think.

Yeah they're a bit different

It shows later too

[spiral forge]

yeah ifrit's just looks weird to my eyes when it doesn't clip it looks like a pinkish mist more than fire

[mellow void]

I dunno about pinkish but it's more paired with black than pheonix is which is more colorful

[spiral forge]

I can see what they were going for it's just weird how they also did the fire in the other cutscene it makes me feel like some fires don't have the right exposure

Almost like it's a reverse fall-off of the highlights

[mellow void]

This game has a lot of fire in it, so if it looks a certain way i'm pretty sure its intended

To me the image you posted the fire doesn't look that different between the two

[spiral forge]

I hope so maybe I'm just being picky lol

[fading veldt]

Are the adjustments to the "overall feel of the gameplay and actions" actually verified or is it just them guessing? Couldn't it just be placebo from the new KB+M control scheme?

[mellow void]

The after image is just a smidge desaturated

[spiral forge]

Just slightly shifted to a more reddish tint

[mellow void]

I might buy the game and see for myself, I plan to get it eventually I just have no need atm lol

[spiral forge]

in the highlights

[mellow void]

hm, to me it looked desaturated

i'm on miniled tho, maybe oled is different?

Anyone else see his comparison?

[spiral forge]

I'm on an FALD monitor too

[unique swift]

It's literally a quote from the devs
What it means excacly we don't know
But it's not the kind of game thats easier on kb&m

[fading veldt]

Huh? Weird... why bring those specifically to PC?

[mellow void]

hoping to improve sales a bit, A LOT of people found the original game much too easy

it was the games main criticism

[unique swift]

Pc version of ff8 remaster has exclusive gameplay modifiers

It seems like square views pc as a platform for hard-core gamerz

Lol

[spiral forge]

probably also a platform more willing to customize the experience too

[unique swift]

Speaking of Famitsu

[unique swift]

TIL:

• parries reduce cooldown time
• stinger (forward thrust) is faster than a slash and will more consistently get you parries.
• parry is also easier with the jumping attack
• charged magic shot has iframes

[fading veldt]

DF-findings (video not live yet for the public):

• Very very variable GPU-load at times per scene, which can sometimes exponentially increase suddenly causing it be be very hard to run this game at a flat 4K 60 on ANY hardware atm.
• 30 FPS cap at the cutscenes seems to have some troubles engaging in the first few seconds and hovering just below it and afterwards setting itself to proper 30.
• Game does not support ultrawide.
• Using upscaling; post-proces effects will render at original pre-upscaled resolution. Nvidia advises against that. Post-proces effects should be rendered at the final upscaled resolution to improve the look of the game. Now using upscaling can cause more image instability because of this.
• Cutscene frame rate locked to 30.
• Some pre-rendered cutscenes are of low quality (lower resolution), but there are only a couple of them luckily.

[mellow void]

I'm pretty sure the variable GPU load is a remnant from the PS5 version. That game adjusted the performance depending on if you were inside or outside of combat

[fading veldt]

Yeah, it did that through adjusting the DRS to be more aggressive during combat to have a more stable performance. But with DRS disabled on PC, they found a very variable per scene GPU load

[dapper cape]

They are going to fix most of these issues I think

They patched the demo 3-4 times?

[fading veldt]

2 times: https://steamdb.info/app/2738000/patchnotes/

[fading veldt]

Hopefully 🙂

[dapper cape]

ah yea there were 3 versions in total

[fading veldt]

Initial version + 2 patches yeah

[dapper cape]

I wont be able to play until the weekend so they still have some time to release a patch haha

[fading veldt]

And damn if they don't before you can enjoy it we will find them and.......

https://tenor.com/view/doctor-who-dalek-filth-chris-eccleston-gif-12271530

[unique swift]

Eh the game runs fine for me so far except for Lostwing, but I've been told it hammered framerate on PS5 too

Also, apparently the DLSS dll the game ships with is causing issues, better to replace it with the latest oneor maybe not, can't confirm

[nocturne shale]

Regarding "stinger", do you mean lunge?

[unique swift]

Yes

It's essentially stinger from DMC

[mint hawk]

Aw man

[rapid turtle]

How's the general image quality in this? Considering giving up SW Outlaws because its just too blurry

[mint hawk]

Blurry

[rapid turtle]

😦 FFS

[wispy patrol]

not blurry at all

very sharp in fact

it's just that the sharpening slider does nothing with dlss on because no dev on this planet reads docs

use optiscaler to inject RCAS as sharpening into dlss and it's great

[mellow void]

depends on mode

[wispy patrol]

what does that mean

it's 3.7.10

pretty much the newest

[unique swift]

Changing quality setting doesn't work

[wispy patrol]

uh it does

unless i got a placebo fps boost when i tried changing to quality from dlaa before

checked again now

works just fine

[dapper cape]

What do you recommend for 4k quality? 0.8 RCAS looks fine but I'm not sure

[wispy patrol]

i'm on 1440p dlaa right now

probably gonna go 4k soon tho

i did 0.5/0.8 moving in optiscaler, seems good

[dapper cape]

I mean it looks okay even without the extra sharpening

[wispy patrol]

yeah

it's nicer with tho

[dapper cape]

definitely

[wispy patrol]

i mean,. it's supposed to be there, they're just unaware it doesnt work

with fsr the slider obviously works

[dapper cape]

dlss works fine btw, 3.7.10

[wispy patrol]

yup

not sure what koklusz meant

[dapper cape]

I did test the newer 3.7.20 version ,it was the same

[unique swift]

I've always changing dll to the latest one so can't speak for myself, But I've seen people saying that changing DLSS quality doesn't always work until restart
maybe it was placebo, I don't know

[wispy patrol]

eh people claim all sorts of shit as usual

like rtx hdr being better than native hdr 😉

[dapper cape]

can someone send me the original nvngx.dll

😅

from FFXVI

[mellow void]

wouldn't verify integrity do it

[dapper cape]

nope for some reason

[mellow void]

🤔

[dapper cape]

I'm running it for the second time now

[mellow void]

delete it then run it

[dapper cape]

Yea

I deleted it

it's just slow lol

[wispy patrol]

theres no original

[dapper cape]

hmmm

you are right

it was the amd_fidelityfx_dx12.dll

haha

thanks for checking it

[unique swift]

okay, fuck, that was Jedi Survivor issue not FFXVI, I've watched both videos yesterday on pateron and mindmelted them somehow
https://youtu.be/smD4okK5-Hw?t=75

[rapid turtle]

Star Wars Chocobo: Ifrit

[unique swift]

Can't tell in which game I have a better chance to meet Biggs and Wedge

[dapper cape]

@wispy patrol how did you name your optiscaler dll? It refuses to work with the game for some reason

[wispy patrol]

OptiScaler.asi as i already had an asi loader from ffxvifix

[dapper cape]

hmm not working

I will try without SK

yea it's SK that's blocking it for some reson

[unique swift]

Latest version of sk should be loading asi mods I belive?

[dapper cape]

oh true it does

well it breaks SK if I try to load it lol

what a mess SK no longer hooks

PC restarts fixed it

even optiscaler works now

[dapper cape]

@unique swift is the UI supposed to be transparent?

[unique swift]

Yeah

[dapper cape]

it looks weird lol

[unique swift]

No way to change I think

[dapper cape]

hard to read sometimes

[unique swift]

Kinda yeah

[dapper cape]

it's nice tha SK fixes the cutscenes

no need to use the FFXVIfix mod

[whole kestrel]

It is? It's got the highest resolution assets I can recall seeing pretty much ever.

Well, aside from the heavily aliased micro geometry in Nanite games.

That requires strong TAA to fix.

[ocean ether]

post processing is before upscaling

so depth of field probably looks bad

[whole kestrel]

Oh. You're using upscaling? Yeah, I guess that could be blurry then.
I have DLAA on.

[ocean ether]

cries in 4070

[whole kestrel]

My problem with the game is that it crashes every 20 minutes unless I force it to run on only 3 or 4 CPU cores 🙂

That makes loading times very excessive.

Apparently this is a problem for people using Windows 11 24H2.

[rapid turtle]

Hmm, I'll try DLAA.

[dense salmon]

If you set cinematic effects to medium/low you'll get rid of all that blurry effect but some other issues will appear.

[dapper cape]

wrong sub forum haha

[rapid turtle]

True.

FF16, 4K, DLSS Quality, Frame Gen + OptiScaler HCAS looks and runs beautifully. What a spectacle

[dense salmon]

So now games are releasing without a sharpening option or what? Same happened with Space Marine 2.

[rapid turtle]

There's a sharpening option but they've messed up and it doesn't engage with DLSS. They could fix it

[whole kestrel]

Yeah, that's actually weird.
They use NVIDIA Streamline, so why they're using DLSS for sharpening, I don't know.
If they enable Streamline's debug output, it even warns you:

09/22/2024 00:29:48.108: c:\program files\epic games\finalfantasyxvi\sl.interposer.dll : [20-29-48][streamline][info][tid:21728][31s:051ms:292us]commonentry.cpp:911[ngxLog] [NGXDLAA::CreateFeature:325] Warning: DLSS Sharpening is deprecated and disabled. Please refer to the programming guide for guidance on sharpening alternatives.

Streamline can trivially use NIS, it's a plug-in.

But they didn't ship the game with NIS.

Star Wars Outlaws is the same.

Same exact debug warning that the developers ignored for some reason.
Really makes you wonder... what exactly did they test?

These debug warnings are on by default, so it's not like they're not aware of them.
FF16 actively went out of its way to disable the debug output of Streamline. They know it exists, they just don't want to read it.

SK now re-enables the debug output in Streamline games.
It's pretty damn important given how unstable DLSS3 frame generation is.

[dark tendon]

Someone probably abstracted away all of those upscalers into an IUpscaler or whatever and they just feed the same inputs to all of them.

Since FSR sharpening is still a thing, they are possibly mapping the same sharpness value as FSR into DLSS since "hey the field exists"

but also, i'm glad they haven't added NIS lol

i'd rather have no sharpening than NIS lol

NIS is awful

[whole kestrel]

All sharpening is awful 🙂

That's why I only remark that it's funny when developers don't implement DLSS sharpening correctly, and don't care one way or the other 😛

[unique swift]

Beat the ||Ifrit|| yesterday and generally I'm having a blast so far, but unfortunately performance is all over the place.

In some areas moving the camera or the character can double the GPU usage, seems like their culling system doesn't work correctly? I've tried to disable GPU decompression via SpecialK but that doesn't fix the issue.

Hopefully it gets patched sooner than later

[dapper cape]

I had to turn on DSR

the internal resolution is fluctuating between 1080p and 1440p, but it's okay

it can look a little soft sometimes but it runs at a locked 60 fps

so far

[unique swift]

How far are you? Because the further into the game the worse it gets

[dapper cape]

not that far

6-7 hours in

or something

[unique swift]

Essentially any open area has frame rate bouncing up and down

[dapper cape]

but the game runs smoothly even at 40fps

so it's bearable I guess

even without DSR the game was not stuttering

I use SK with all the fixes for the game

though

and the loading times are really short like sub 1 second

I like the game a lot

[rapid turtle]

Me too, it's fantastic. Presentation is great too. Only issue I've had so far is my HDR just randomly being limited to 400-500 nits after a restart. I had to switch out and switch back my windows 11 calibration profile to get it back up to 1200 nits. So strange.

[ocean ether]

Windows calibration breaks really often for me

[dapper cape]

I use doge's set_maxtml tool to set the peak brightness value

there are too many issues with the calibration app

[unique swift]

I always keep the system - > display window tucked away in the corner of the desktop, also let's you quickly swap color profiles

This has less to do with windows calibration and more with ICC profile not applying unless display window is in view

[rapid turtle]

Really? Never knew that

What a mess

[unique swift]

Anyway, this is an example of the performane I was talking about
Even moving the camera can tank the frame rate in some spots

This is 1440p dlss performane with all sk performane fixes

[dapper cape]

ugh

[unique swift]

https://tenor.com/view/gordon-ramsay-its-raw-raw-gif-12603501

[mellow void]

🤔

it's not that bad in combat tho right?

[dapper cape]

with a 4090?

[unique swift]

Combat is mostly unaffected from what I've seen

[mellow void]

I still think it's a remnant from ps5 behavior, game was rough unless it was a stage or combat.

[dapper cape]

there is no way the ps5 pro is going ot run the game at a stable 60fps not even at 1080p

[mellow void]

it's why i was largely fine playing on quality mode

[unique swift]

Lol no, 3080 12gb

[dapper cape]

ahh ok

[unique swift]

Still, can't keep 720p 60

[mellow void]

Maybe DRS played a role in that but imo it had to be more

[unique swift]

I'm no expert, but it kinda looks like culling issue?

[dapper cape]

I'm on a 4080 and I use DSR but the problem is that cutscenes are heavy ant it's always rendered at 1080p internal

[mellow void]

I think it might be some kind of CPU issue with NPCs

[dapper cape]

I would like to limit cutscenes to 30fps or something

[unique swift]

But it's GPU getting hammered

The green graph is GPU busy

[dapper cape]

or the LOD states are messed up

[mellow void]

hm

oh yeah i see

whats the blue?

[unique swift]

frametime

Rtss also supports cpu busy but I don't know how to add it to overlay, lol

[dapper cape]

SK's widgets stopped working for me for some reason

I can't get the graph to show

[unique swift]

What's the name of the situation where too many pixels are clustered too close together? Overdraft?

[mellow void]

overdraw?

That wouldn't fix it self in combat tho

[unique swift]

True

[mellow void]

I largely pointed to the cpu cause thats the ps5 main weakness, and I figured that might be an easy thing where turning off a bunch of stuff in combat works.

But maybe it just dynamically reduces draw distance or other stuff

really someone needs to do a comparison of incombat and out combat visuals

Cause like probably what would visually be the heaviest area like the greatwood performed fine.

But that was also a stage

[frail abyss]

I just finished the demo and this game seems amazing. The story is top notch. Last FF I truly enjoyed was maybe FFX and my favorite is FF8... and I haven't played any FF games in years (except the XIV MMO for the bit) but this seems A++

[unique swift]

God damn Ignition is op as fuck

[mellow void]

I still like FF7R's combat much more, but I did enjoy this a lot

[unique swift]

I'm not sure how far I'm into the game (maybe halfway through?) but I really don't get the hate

Sure, it's maybe FF in name only (at least gameplay wise, in terms of overall vibes seems like the successor to FFIV), but it's really fine game otherwise

[mellow void]

Its a odd mix of being DMC with an FF story and pacing. And I think that conflicts a bit. I like it but I can understand why that doesn't vibe with people.

It's also too easy outside of certain Bosses I guess. It has an MMO mentality with more rotations than normal FF combat.

For me that's my main notes.

But I haven't played a game that made my jaw drop this often in years.

And I adore the story and world building.

[unique swift]

Pacing wise it feels like a TV show, with every chapter being an episode with it's own beginig, middle and end
I think it works fine with that in mind

As for the difficulty: I'm terrible at action games, so it feels perfect for me. They really should had unlocked the hard mode from the start tho

[unique swift]

Probably the biggest negative I have so far is incredibly naive take on slavery, but at least it does shows it as something generally bad, so it's already more progressive in this aspect than Harry Potter, lol

[mellow void]

It's pretty fuckin grim in some cases lol.

[unique swift]

that and the middle eastern town being surprisingly monochromatic if you catch my drift

[mellow void]

So africa still has slavery and like genocide to this day

And there the "other" isn't even actually different at all lmao

To me it's fairly grounded, even the stuff with children similar to how the one child policy on China caused some bullshit.

In this case it's dehumanization based on old ideas no one remembers, but it's convenient for some.

As for the middle eastern peeps, Google sexy middle eastern and I dunno I assume that's what they were going for lmao.

[ocean ether]

i think its 260 nits, just checked based on the brightness of the startup videos.

so I just set paper white in pumboautohdr to 62.4615385 to get 203 nits. It reads as 202.9120 nits which is what 203 nits typically reads as in HDR10

[unique swift]

Latest version of the Lyall mod added an option to modify the upper and lower bounds of the DRS window, might help with some performance instabilities
And also allows the DRS to actually hit 100% resolution if it has enough overhead

[dapper cape]

nice nice

[dapper cape]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2515020/view/4685522407035993829?l=english

Resolved an issue wherein the frame rate would drop under certain conditions.

[unique swift]

Big if true

[frail abyss]

thats a bit vague isn't it 😄

[unique swift]

This aint it sadly

Moving the camera around still costs like 9ms, lol

[unique swift]

Completely forgot that Platinum did the ||Titan|| boss fight

[dapper cape]

@unique swift I reached chapter 2? I think, ~20hours and my biggest problem with the game so far is that the story does not really focus on the characters/relationships, but the world. Which is very not Final Fantasy like. FF XV was a flawed game, it did focus on the world too, but the main focus was on Noctis and the guys. I mean I like the game a lot, but it's like watching two seasons of game of thrones so far, it's hard to get attached to the characters when there are little to no conversations. We barely get to know the characters then a big time skip happens.... And I have a feeling that the storytelling is not really going to change.

[unique swift]

After the second time skip the game slows down a lot, introduces more characters and gives the existing ones more to do, and generally gets more "Final Fantasy" as it goes. But the politics are still the important part of the plot and sadly the game never introduces any other villain with as much of the rizz as Benedicta

Jill is especially a Tifa Lockhart 2.0: great design, great VA, interesting backstory, but for the most of the game she's just kinda there, being passive, nice and girlfriend-ish.

[dapper cape]

that's good to hear

I mean that the game slows down

I understand the reason for the time skip

but I'm not sure that it is well executed

I don't mind the politics the story is actually realyl interesting so far

[unique swift]

The game is very much about Clive and everyone else is kinda a supporting character, it's not really an assemble piece like most FF games
It's very much like FFIV in that regard

[mellow void]

I disagree with this cause ||she's on the verge of death the whole game.||

[dapper cape]

oh you are right it's really like FFIV

no spoilers pls

[mellow void]

Oops

[dapper cape]

And yea Benedicta and Cid were amazing especially Benedicta's acting

[unique swift]

Doesn't really change the fact she has a very little agency in the plot, as well that personality wise she's kinda sauceless

[mellow void]

Yeah for the overall plot, but ||that girl had death flags all over the place. ||

She gets her one moment, and then a little end game stuff thats fine lmao. Girl's been through enough.

Especially with some of the removed subtex

[unique swift]

||Bahamut|| boss fight

Jesus Christ

[mellow void]

Yeah

Like i said few games have made my jaw drop as much as this

[unique swift]

I have to agree with the people saying that the game kinda deflates in the second half. I still really enjoying it, but there was really no need to stretch it out like that.

As much as I appreciated the ||Enterprise|| quest being an extended Star Trek reference/pastiche, that part was an absolutely brutal filler.

[mellow void]

it's a star trek reference?

[unique swift]

I mean, ||the ship is called Enterprise and you spend most of the quest looking at schematics and listening to the technobabble, there is at least one scene like this in every TNG episode, lol||

[mellow void]

🤔 fair enough

[unique swift]

Yes I know that ||both FF3 and 4 had an airship called Enterprise, but this feels directed more at ST than previous games||

[mellow void]

I mean i doubt square was above the reference at the time lol

[unique swift]

In older games it could be a reference to one of the real life ships
||https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Enterprise||
||https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise||

||I dunno how popular ST was in Japan at the time, but than again first FF is essentially an unofficial D&D game, so who knows||

[sullen shale]

sorry being late to the party. HDR seems fine so far but i have a feeling there is a slight black level raise in HDR? or is this just me?

[ocean ether]

It’s not raised it’s just high paper white

[sullen shale]

oke thanks it just looks a bit .. "dull" for the lack of a better word in some scenes. any advice?

[mellow void]

might be a calibration issue? If there's any elevated black levels it might be circumstantial but certainly not general.

[ocean ether]

The game is essentially 1:1 match (except for highlights of course) between sdr 2.2 gamma 260 nits and hdr

You’ll have to use a reshade shader like pumboautohdr to lower paper white

[sullen shale]

okay will try with pumbo. the 2.2 gamma profile makes it a bit too dark. just redid the calibration so i don't think it's that (lg oled playing in a dark room mostly)

[ocean ether]

Nah that’s breaking it

Don’t change the color space from whatever it is

the game uses hdr10

You just have to use whatever color space makes it the same

And then lower the paper white slider from 80

either that or just lower the in game brightnes slider. lowering it is incorrect and can deep fry the image a little but less of a hassle

[sullen shale]

as usual: thank you!

[ocean ether]

Like if you wanted 200 you’d have to do 64 because 80 * (200/250)

[sullen shale]

yea i'll play around with that when i get home tonight

[unique swift]

Or you can just drop down the in game brightness slider

Probably with the better results

BTW anyone knows how long the DLCs are? I'm reaching the endgame, and tbh I kinda had my fill with the game

[dapper cape]

this

using Pumbo's messes with the peak brightness too

[unique swift]

I dunno if I wanna spend another 15 or 20h on this

[dapper cape]

idk I had no time to play i'm still at the beginning of chapter 2

haha

both DLCs are 3 hours long accoring to HLTB

[unique swift]

Oh good

[mellow void]

Yeah first DLC is a single dungeon with an awesome boss at the end, second is longer with some sidequests but basically 1.5 dungeons (cool ass boss but not as cool as first dlc) and a eikon boss.

Plus some secret stuff at the end

[unique swift]

How secret?

[mellow void]

Well it's not like you have to unlock it/find it, but nothing about the DLC info will tell you it's included in it lol

It'll just uh, happen

And surprisingly no one on twitter has spoiled it from what i've seen

[sullen shale]

i hear you. this game is super strange... i am not even sure i am having such a great time playing but keep coming back for some reason lol
the characters and story are somewhat captivating but the gameplay is kind of dull and my god that snail-pacing

[mellow void]

RPG pacing and DMC gameplay is a odd combo for sure lol.

[unique swift]

The first act is actually paced extremely well, sadly after that the game settles on the pattern of cool story mission - > hours of busy work - > cool story mission, rinse and repeat

[mellow void]

Yeah if it was a tactics game or something like FFXII it would feel less jarring i think

[unique swift]

https://tenor.com/view/finished-elijah-wood-lord-of-the-rings-lava-fire-gif-5894611

Credits are rolling, overall I liked the game a lot

It has a lot of issues, all of them has been already recounted in the different places on the internet multiple times over
But unlike the other recent FF entry I can safely say that the good outshines the bad for me
Overal, solid game, 8/10
Hopefully CBU3 gets the chance to iterate further on the design

[frail abyss]

how do you even control this game I have major gripes with it. R2+Face buttons control the skills but then there is also skill switching with L2+R2+FACE buttons and on top of that u need to dodge with R1 and control the dog with the DPAD. such horrific controls I have never seen

[unique swift]

There are multiple control presets avaliable

As well as the custom one

[frail abyss]

oh maybe I should look into those

[unique swift]

You also have an accessory that will automate the dog commands, but that will take a slot that might be useful for something else

Tbh dog combos are only needed for the high level play, you can beat the game ignoring it completely

[frail abyss]

im a high level play kinda player🥸

[sullen shale]

this game has serious VRR flickering or is it just me?

[mellow void]

doesn't that generally happen if a game is fairly dark?

[sullen shale]

fair point but here it seems really severe

[gloomy sky]

Probably just from the stutter

Specialk can help that a bit but can't get rid of it

[ocean ether]

Ya vrr flicker is usually from erratic frame times and it’s more noticeable when the screen is dark

[dapper cape]

not really, but the framerate is stable on my pc

[mellow void]

I think they mean the OLED issue

At least from what ive read it can happen regardless of performance.

[dapper cape]

I have an OLED screen

and as long as the framerate is stable, there is no flicker

[mellow void]

yeah? hm

[dapper cape]

Star Wars Jedi Survivor is teh VRR flicker king

[mellow void]

lol

[ocean ether]

silent hill 2 has dethroned it

[dapper cape]

nooooo

[ocean ether]

it looked like my tv was dying

[dapper cape]

damn 😩

[mellow void]

lol

Oh i'm sure a dark game like that is especially bad

[mint hawk]

Rip

I guess it's not that surprising on a va panel though

A nice hdr panel with no flicker doesn't seem to exist

[wispy patrol]

it’s dreadful on oled

[mint hawk]

All the vas I've had were worse than oled flicker wise imo

[dapper cape]

that's surprising

[mint hawk]

Even my ips tv was worse

It is?

[wispy patrol]

can’t even imagine after what i’ve seen yesterday hah

[mint hawk]

I had some random trash va and a q27g3xmn

The q27g3xmn without tweaks flickers everywhere

[dapper cape]

if the frametime is not smooth then my C1 is trying to give me an epilepsy attack

[wispy patrol]

i’ve been googling and the flicker is more or less same on all current oleds?

[mint hawk]

The tvs are not as bad apparently.

Because of the lower refresh iirc

[wispy patrol]

some of them have some flicker reduction settings but supposedly it’s not too great

[mint hawk]

Gs got a 5.9 and the c4 got a 6.2

Dark Grey was like 1 point higher on the gs

[mellow void]

I've never seen the issue before

[mint hawk]

The gr is even worse

[mellow void]

Neither on my TV in my room or the OLED in the living room

[mint hawk]

What do you pc game with

[mellow void]

QN90A in my room and an S95B in the living room

[mint hawk]

Interesting

The Alienware qd oled got a 9.5

[wispy patrol]

is a higher score better or worse

[mellow void]

I'm still sticking to TV's until they get their act together with monitors

[mint hawk]

Better

[mellow void]

I HATE the UI on TV's but they're just better

[mint hawk]

The g sync module still has some value i guess

[wispy patrol]

aw3225qf’s flicker is unbearable in silent hill

[mint hawk]

Dwf is 5.7

[wispy patrol]

oh so the gsync module in dw

gotcha

[mint hawk]

5.5 btw

[mint hawk]

Yeah with it being integrated into mediatek socs it should make a comeback someday

[wispy patrol]

yeah i feel like i didn’t notice the flicker as much on aw3423dw

[dapper cape]

are these rtings ratings?

[mint hawk]

It isn't enough to eliminate it, but it seems like a massive improvement

[mint hawk]

Yes

[dapper cape]

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/learn/research/vrr-flicker interesting

IPS/TN panels are the best, which is not surprising

[wispy patrol]

i could still return the aw3225qf but it seems there isn’t really any alternative

[dapper cape]

but the VA panels ugh

[mint hawk]

Rting's ratings do not tell the whole story tbf

I've never noticed any flicker at all on my xg2431

[mint hawk]

But it has a lower score than the aw3423dw

Which you can notice flicker with at times

[wispy patrol]

well it depends on the game too

[mint hawk]

Yeah the q27g3xmn is def as bad as the score suggests

[mint hawk]

True

[wispy patrol]

silent hill 2 is the only one where its been noticeable in gameplay

i’ve played ffxvi a bunch on aw3225qf and haven’t really noticed the flicker

[mint hawk]

I think it's tolerable if you bring up the min range to 70hz, but it's still there.

[dapper cape]

what about Jedi Survivor

[wispy patrol]

yeah its the framerates

[mint hawk]

Plus I might have lower standards

[wispy patrol]

as long as you don’t fall below 70-80 it’s good

[mint hawk]

The flicker on the c1 doesn't bother me unless if it happens constantly(hellblade 2 uncapped with reflex)

[dapper cape]

the problem is with lfc, if lfc kicks in then the flicker gets horrible

[mint hawk]

It still helped reduce it a lot. On the oleds it might be different.

[wispy patrol]

i think the worst flickers in sh2 are when framerate dumps so low vrr turns off

bc the indicator on the monitor shows 240hz at those frames

so basically it’s a spike every few seconds that’s so bad that it disengages and the screen flashes

[dapper cape]

Using SK's latenc sync or RTSS's scanline sync with a 60fps lock is better when flickering is an issue

with VRR turned off

[wispy patrol]

this one here shows it

[dapper cape]

ugh

[wispy patrol]

the worst flashes are when 240 shows up it seems

[dapper cape]

yea

but this means that the frametime is unstable so without VRR the game will stutter a lot

I wonder why 240hz shows up

lfc should kick in

which is just as bad I guess lol

[wispy patrol]

i guess the stutter is so bad it goes below the overall vrr limit?

or is that not a thing anymore

[dapper cape]

depends on the display but something with a gsync module should be able to handle even sub 20 fps

[wispy patrol]

aw3225qf doesnt have a gsync module

[dapper cape]

the C1’s LFC range is 20-60hz

if the fps drops below 20 then VRR turns off on the C1

[mint hawk]

Nice

[sullen shale]

correct me if i am wrong but isnt the idea of VRR to compensate fluctuating framerates?
i mean why have VRR with a stable framerate?

anyway, turned off VRR, capped FPS , flickering gone

[mellow void]

Yes it should, I dunno why it's so bad on monitors but not TVs.

[gloomy sky]

Fluctuating yea but not hard drops and stutters

There isn't a ton to be done about stutter, just need the game to not do it

[sullen shale]

was in reply to @dapper cape's comment about having no problems with VRR flicker on stable framerates.

and i am actually playing on an LG C9 (TV) 😄

[sullen shale]

on a 4070 ti super i don't get severe fps drops anyway. it's just that if i leave fps uncapped and turn on VRR i get crazy flickering in dark areas (@4k/120hz/HDR/RGB-full screen settings)

[dapper cape]

The idea of VRR is to solve the issues with normal Vsync, but it can't really handle fluctuating framerate/frametime. As long as the framerate is stable and/or the frametime is smooth, VRR works fine. To get the best experience, the framerate should stay at the target lock at 99% of the time, even with VRR enabled, but is pretty hard to achieve nowadays.

if the framerate is fluctuating between 50-90 then you can lock the framerate to something like 75 to get a lot smoother experience

[sullen shale]

but the framerate wasn't fluctuating any more than 1-5fps to begin with (with VRR enabled) and i still got crazy flickering(?)

VRR disabled, flickering gone

[dapper cape]

that's more of a TV issue I think

but then again Jedi Sruvivor is not dropping frames but the frametime is all over the place and it's flickering liek crazy

[sullen shale]

what's more in other games where the framerate fluctuates a lot more i don't get flickering.
i mean ofc you're right it's the TV but there is also something going on on a game to game basis

[dapper cape]

It depends more on the frametime I think

[sullen shale]

guess the C9 is just too old, afaik LG did some magic with newer models that masks the flickering better

[dapper cape]

yea probably, my C1 is fine, FF XVI is not flickering

but I use SK with all the FF XVI fixes enabled

[sullen shale]

yeah that's probably the most sensinble M.O.
but tbh i am getting kind of fed up w having to spend hours on testing and fixing stuff in newer games before i get them into a "working" state 😄
but that's another discussion i know

[dapper cape]

I love testing/fixing, but yea it feels like that we are some kind of beta testers lol

[sullen shale]

yeah generally that's why we play on PC after all, right? but nowadays i get like 1 hour playtime a day.. and spending half of that trying to fix shit really isn't fun 😄

[frail abyss]

this game has a strange bug where it doesnt always reads the correct calibrated HDR profile information from windows and I end up restarting the game and re-engaging hdr for it to lock to the correct brightness

[ocean ether]

That might be a windows problem

Sometimes i open up SKIV and it shows the incorrect peak brightness

[unique swift]

Yeah that's an windows issue

It can "loose" color profile if the system > display window is not in view

[frail abyss]

curious

no real way to fix it then except for opening display?

[unique swift]

you can keep it open at all times in the corner of the screen
That's what I do
Or you can use CRU to modify EDID peak brightness
I don't really remember how to do this though

[dapper cape]

I use doge’s tool to edit the peak brightness

I don’t use color profiles

And I have no issues

https://github.com/ledoge/set_maxtml

[dapper cape]

highlight saturation:

with "fix":

I can't believe that this is supposed to be the intended look, highlights turn pink

this happens in the desert after ||ultima casts that spell to change the sky||

[mellow void]

Doesn't it happen everywhere?

[dapper cape]

I checked it at two locations so far and only the desert area was affected

but leme check

[gloomy sky]

it's most intense in the desert but it's definitely supposed to be tinted pink everywhere

[dapper cape]

yea you are right

it's just a lot more visible because of the sand

it just looks wrong imo

I should check it in SDR

yea it's pinkish in SDR too

I guess this is what ||ultima meant when he said this is going to drive people mad||

[gloomy sky]

lmao

i think it doesn't look bad generally and gives the game a nice atmosphere for the last act

[mellow void]

yeah lol

||it's basically to sow discord by making people think the world is ending||

[mellow void]

Imagine ||wasting up every day where instead of sunlight you get purple doom sky. Would probably make you miserable.

But also it kinda sucks you have to do all the final questing with the world in this state lol||

[dense salmon]

Trying the demo finally. From my ignorant point of view. HDR does not look bad at all I'd say. Quite bright though. Using brightness 4 on an OLED. Are you guys using any other trick?

[mellow void]

there's really no need

[dense salmon]

Also. No HDR using borderless?

Oh it crashed alt-tabing. Haha.

[ocean ether]

if it forces fullscreen you can try using specialk's fakefullscreen mode

[dense salmon]

I'd say HDR is working properly but cannot see histogram with my bare eyes. Haha. And since it did not let me change it until I switched to fullscreen...

I think I can go with brightness as low as to 2 and not crush things...

[mellow void]

The game has night scenes which can be very dark, for me i played with all default settings

[dapper cape]

I use brightness 3 with vignette disabled

vignette over darkens everything in this game imo

[unique swift]

That would be my recommendation
#1212434739500154921 message

[dapper cape]

it is very aggressive

I used brightness 2, but dark scenes were too dark so I raised it to 3

[dense salmon]

There's a lot if talk in there and I get lost. If I understand correctly 5 matches SDR?

[unique swift]

5 matches SDR at ~ 250 nits in the shadows / midtones
To does the same but with the SDR at 120 nits
Essentially 2 has better contrast, but is less bright overall
Peak is untouched

[ocean ether]

ya there's no correct way to adjust brightness without reshade unfortunately, youre basically stuck deep frying it with the brightness slider unless you wanna use reshade along with setting a higher peak in your windows calibration to compensate

annoying stuff

I guess you could launch the game through a bat or cmd that run's doge's max_tml first

[dense salmon]

I see SK comes with a lot of fixes. Nice! Although I think I got it to run on HDR while borderless.

[dapper cape]

I use SK for FFXVI too and yea borderless HDR works fine

[dense salmon]

But without it. Which I found weird. Or it got fixed? SK is now working now so I like having a second plan just in case.

[wispy patrol]

no kal was just confused

ffxvi always let you run hdr borderless

[dense salmon]

I see. Yes. ReShade was reporting HDR so... Haha. Maybe it got updated in the game but not on SK.

[gloomy sky]

It's been the same since the demo

Borderless just doesn't give you the option, so i guess he wanted to make sure everyone had the option?

Did feel it was unnecessary but i guess it doesn't hurt

[unique swift]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2515020/view/4545912721046242416?l=english

[dapper cape]

@unique swift I finished the game

[unique swift]

Noice

[dapper cape]

and I liked it a lot, other than the ||Open ending, which is just lazy writing imo||

[unique swift]

Heh, I actually liked ending a lot
Reminded me of og ff7

But i get it

[dapper cape]

I sick of ||these kind of endings||

japanese media loves to use it

I wanted ||full conclusion even if it's bad||

[unique swift]

Yeah, I don't remember when FF last time did a straight up happy ending
Ff9?

[dapper cape]

I love sad endings

the problem is always with the execution

FF 13 trilogy's ending was normal or even FF XV's

well OG FFXV's ending was similar kinda

[dapper cape]

FF 13 was happy

well Lighting Return's ending was happy

FF XV book ending is also happy

[unique swift]

FF13 was kinda bittersweet
Lighting Return's was dumb, but it was a happy ending
Haven't read XV book, in general it might have been FF game I've vibed the least

[dapper cape]

My ||my interpretation of the ending is that Clive survives, and goes back to the hideout, magic is gone, he write the book in the name of his brother and He and Jill travel the world maybe?||

[unique swift]

I think it's safe to say that ||all three died||

[dapper cape]

the XV book is not bad if you like happy ending but it's kinda stupid too

[dapper cape]

||Who wrote the book?||

Only Clive know about what Joshua planned

[unique swift]

||Book was probably written by the Joshua's cult GF||

[dapper cape]

ehh idk

[unique swift]

At least one of the sidequest implies this

In general there is enough rope to pull with just about any interpretation

[dapper cape]

||Jill makes little sense at the end if Clive died, I mean yes daybreak brings hope, but there is no hope for Jill if he dies||

[dapper cape]

yea kinda

and yes even the devs said that ||there is no canon interpretation||

But I wanted || to see what happened after the end, like everyone's reaction, sadness, happiness etc||

||like where did Mid end up with her ship, I waned to see people rebuilding the world etc ||

|| some form of conclusion||

[unique swift]

I guess I don't play enough JRPGs to get disincentivize to that
At least they didn't do ||"Titanic" ending like FFVIIR3 will inevitably do||

[dapper cape]

haha yea

[unique swift]

Mid ||and the ship feels like a cut plot line||

[dapper cape]

I do wanted ||to see Jill and Clive happy ngl, they had so little time together, and saying that " I love you" before going on a suicide mission to die is soo ugh 😅 ||

Still ||I think Clive survived and Jill saw him on a boat or something||

[unique swift]

🟥 🏁

Right there

[dapper cape]

yea but why would ||Clive die from a cursed hand? Bearers survived worse||

[unique swift]

I think the idea is that ||he spend all his energy and now is turning to stone, like Cid at the end of Act 1||

[dapper cape]

but ||Cid dies from blood loss||

anyways it's very ||open-ended, there are no good or bad interpretations||

[unique swift]

||I think it was heavily implied that Cid was already at the breaking point, and having to fight off Typhon tipped the scales||
At least that's how I remember it

[mellow void]

Nah || he was mostly fine, in a better state than jill or joshua at least ||

I don't remember Tarja being near as concerned for him as the others

[unique swift]

||I believe he did a good job of hiding it, but when you fist arrive to Martha's End you can see that he's already partially turning into a stone||

[mellow void]

🤔

[dapper cape]

so ||eather was literally the life force of the land like mako and ultima's race exploited it and used it to fuel magic, and now with no catalysts to cast magic, the land can heal?||

[unique swift]

||His hand was gray IIRC||

[dapper cape]

his hand at least

[unique swift]

Pretty much, yeah

[mellow void]

yeah

[dapper cape]

Now that I can read "reviews" I find it funny that people compare this to games like FF7 R. People seem to hate/dislike the story and the "bland" characters

FF7 R is a "classic" FF game with very unrealistic and cheesy dialogue

people love it because it can be emotional and funny/silly at the same time

16 might be a "serious" Final Fantasy but it's not a bad thing imo

But I guess hardcore FF fans disliked 16 because it does not really "feel" like an FF game and it's ture

[unique swift]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/should-final-fantasy-change-the-artsyle-to-appeal-for-more-people-outside-of-the-jrpg-fanbase.1013775/page-2#post-130351494

[unique swift]

It doesn't feel like Kitase/Nomura FF game

[dapper cape]

yea true

it's like XII and pre 7 FFs

[unique swift]

And Tactics

[dapper cape]

oh right

I loved tactics

[unique swift]

XVI in general feels very Matsuno pilled

[dapper cape]

oh right Vagrant Story too

that is an even more similar game

[unique swift]

Yup

[dapper cape]

Nomura style FFs can be "too much" sometimes imo

[unique swift]

I always get a kick when I see folks complaining about XVI character and using Tifa as an counterexample
It just show that what they really mean is "horny design"

Jill is essentially Tifa down to the hair style

[dapper cape]

yea rofl

Long hair, kinda similar face maybe = Tifa

Mid was clearly inspired by Rikku though haha

[unique swift]

And Rikku was essentially Yuffie/Selphie

[dapper cape]

yea

Yuffie might be my fav character in 7 other than Vincent ofc

but Rikku was more of an engineer like Mid

[unique swift]

I was talking more about personality really
Childhood friend / lost parents / went through some shit / goodie two shoes / "Mom" of the party

[dapper cape]

well if you put it that way then yes

but she did not really remind me of Tifa tbh

maybe because of the very different world/setting

I'm not a huge fan of Tifa but I liked Jill

but I'm not a huge fan of 7 either

it might be my least favorite FF game

[unique swift]

I respect it but I don't love it

I actually liked the Remake more

[dapper cape]

It's a good game

[unique swift]

Mainly because the character writing is way better

[dapper cape]

and well it looks a lot better too haha

but yea and the good voice acting

btw Jill's facial animations were horrible fora main character

[unique swift]

The thing about OG FFVII is that while Remake and especially Rebirth are too long for their own good, going back to the OG it feels like a cliff notes version of itself

There is a WIP mod that restores a bunch of the cut content, and while some (most?) stuff was cut for a reason it does kinda let the game breath a little more.

[dapper cape]

Benedikta's expressions were really well done, and then we have Jill, maybe the curse did turn her face muscles into stone or something lol

[dapper cape]

for the OG game?

[unique swift]

Yeah

[dapper cape]

hmm interesting

[unique swift]

Shinra Archaeology Cut

[dapper cape]

I don't think that I can bring myself to play the OG 7 again but maybe one day

[unique swift]

Comes with the new translation too

[unique swift]

I think the problem is that video games still had a hard time showcasing a more restrained performances

[dapper cape]

yes, but even Tarja's facial animations were better

and she is a side character

or Jote's

[unique swift]

Tbh I never really had a problem with her, she just kinda has a sad puppy resting face
Not a very expressive character, but it makes sense in the context
And they can't really fall back on the anime cliches like with VIIR

[dapper cape]

or Anabella's, her animations were especially good

[dapper cape]

I mean it's fine, but her animations were lower quality than the rest of the cast's

and it was weird that her skin was awlays spotless, no blood, no ||curse mark on her body|| etc

but I guess they wanted her to look graceful all the time

[unique swift]

I don't think they where lower quality per se, it's just showing a realistically traumatized character in video games is really hard unless you have an Naughty Dog animation department and budget.

[dapper cape]

haha yea

TLOU 2's facial animations are quite something

but ofc I don't think that they used mocap for FF16

[unique swift]

Even in VIIR the way they portray Cloud's trauma was showing him have an over the top freakouts
"Hey Cloud, how was your weekend?"
[Grabs his head and starts moaning]

[wispy patrol]

the original translation for ff7 was really bad apparently

like straight up omitting shit

it really makes the game feel even more immature than it should

[unique swift]

All major cut scenes where mocaped
Thing is, mocap data is usually just an reference to the animators
Up until recently, when at least big VFX houses started using Neural Netowrk models to actually translate mocap data to the 3D model
There is a reason why Weta animators wince when you bring up acting awards for Andy Serkis for LotR or PotA movies

[dapper cape]

btw speaking of realistically animated traumatized characters, Jinx in the series Arcane, is the perfect example of how to do it correctly

[unique swift]

You might be interested in this
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsiJPoHlPqEEA07AKMQ2Hm2oRLiGkR_uJ

[dapper cape]

hmm I guess it's just not that as easy to do it in their new engine as in UE then

[unique swift]

ARCANE METIONED
🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨

https://tenor.com/view/did-we-just-become-best-friends-did-we-just-become-best-friends-meme-step-brothers-best-friends-besties-best-friend-gif-16089140842417573336

[dapper cape]

Very excited for season 2

[unique swift]

that show is so fucking good, my god

If S2 is anywhere near as good as S1 it's gonna be one of the best of the decade

[dapper cape]

I can't get over how funking realistic Jinx's freak out/hysteria, from episode 2 or 3?, is

it's honestly hard to watch

[dapper cape]

yea, S1 is already one of the best animated series of all time imo

[wispy patrol]

oh hell no the game's not worth that much time spent analyzing its writing 😄

[dapper cape]

All in all, FF XVI is a good game, it has some flaws, but it's a solid 8/10

[wispy patrol]

ok not every part is 1 hour long

[dapper cape]

It's not a game that you want to replay in the future though

[unique swift]

Yeah it's not 10hours long
Like his CP2077 review

[dapper cape]

rofl 10 hours long review?

[unique swift]

||I've watched it twice||

[wispy patrol]

wtf

[unique swift]

||It's legitimately one of the best things on YouTube||

[dapper cape]

ok you piqued my interest

@unique swift where is that 10 hours long review? 😄

I could only find his 1 hour long video

[unique swift]

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ30Ch0mLmzJH9qX4VsWZUC73YoQqHNkS&si=sD-t_IGYSaNVsjsh

[dapper cape]

ah nice thx

it's not listed

it's pretty hard to find lol

[unique swift]

It's linked at the end of the first video

[dapper cape]

oh right and in the description

[unique swift]

6h long Tokimeki Memorial video is also some hot shit
afaik it was partially responsible for the English fan translation

[unique swift]

Just hit 1.0 btw
https://x.com/ShinraArch/status/1848037380764447164

Shinra Archaeology Department (@ShinraArch) on X

The time has come. Version 1.0 of FFVII: Shinra Archaeology Cut is now out! Experience FFVII like never before with a brand-new retranslation and—optionally—over an hour's worth of official cut content restored to the game. Play on Steam through the Seventh Heaven launcher today!

Twitter · Oct 20, 2024, 4:23 PM

[sullen shale]

finished it yesterday... dunno but this game had me seriously stockholm syndromed at some point i just wanted to see it through... not going to bother with the dlc

[dapper cape]

I don't think that the game is too long, most of the side quests add to the lore too

I will definitely play through the DLCs especially the leviathan one

[sullen shale]

yeah i guess it just wasn't for me in the end.

[spring pelican]

I saved this formula, but using this formula, DLAA gives me a value of -1, am i doing it wrong?

using performance mode in the formula gives me -2, like in the guide above

so i figured I was doing it right

[unique swift]

I really don't know, lol
First time I'm seeing that
Since dlaa is at the display resolution, than mip bias should not be nessesary

[spring pelican]

Yea, I'm just wondering if the above formula is wrong

What would you use for dlss quality?

the formula gives me -1.5

[unique swift]

I've always been told ~ -0.5 for the quality mode

[spring pelican]

Hm yea that's what DF said for dead space remake, however I tested it and -1.5 looked a lot better

i remember someone here was showing the above calc, I just don't remember who

[unique swift]

Tbh a sharper textures aren't really worth the moire
especially in a game when you can barely see shit anyway

[spring pelican]

I'm on 1440p, not 4k. It might benefit me a bit more

[spring pelican]

@unique swiftapparently this is from nvidia?

so they're saying -1 for DLAA, but sometimes nvidia says weird stuff, ya know

[spring pelican]

quoting testbench from the SK server in case anyone is interested, in regards to running -1 bias even with DLAA

What are you guys using for the HDR? I read both Koklusz and Musa's settings. Looks like this is another weird HDR game

[dark tendon]

the native HDR with the default brightness setting, it's not bad, it's just weird, the brightness setting is just gamma and the actual max brightness gets pulled from your EDID

[spring pelican]

is 5 default?

[dark tendon]

i think so?

i don't actually remember.

[spring pelican]

And it's ~250 nits paperwhite?

[wispy patrol]

i like the hdr. what do you dislike about it?

it feels very impactful

[dark tendon]

I think it's scaled off your max brightness? but even if it was fixed at 250, it looks good imo.

[spring pelican]

I don't have the game. But I plan to get it. I'm just saying it seems weird because brightness is gamma or something. And you can't adjust paperwhite. I'm just catching up on the thread. Glad to hear the HDR is good tho

[wispy patrol]

ah, yeah the options are kinda useless but it looks good

[spring pelican]

That's good

You're enjoying the game itself too?

I heard it was good

[wispy patrol]

yeah i kinda burned out at the end and i’m taking a break but it’s cool. i like it more than any of the 13’s or 15

it’s hardly a rpg though

[spring pelican]

Are there any graphical tweaks or nuances or anything weird

[spring pelican]

Honestly I'm okay with just a straight forward fun game that looks cool. I don't need it to be super technical

FF7 remake was kind of overwhelming a bit

[wispy patrol]

dlss has no sharpening so use optiscaler

[spring pelican]

what's optiscaler

[gloomy sky]

your new god

https://github.com/cdozdil/OptiScaler

extremely powerful

[dark tendon]

yeah optiscaler is pretty neat

(i'm totally biased however)

[spring pelican]

isn't DLSS always supposed to not have sharpening now though?

[ocean ether]

It’s just not included in DLSS anymore

[wispy patrol]

you’re supposed to use sharpening. it’s just decoupled ||and shit||

[ocean ether]

Ya it was horrendous in red dead

[dark tendon]

Not "supposed", just recommended lol.

however NIS is pretty trash

and so was DLSS sharpening.

OptiScaler has actual good sharpening

[spring pelican]

I always turn dlss sharpening to 0 when it's offered as a separate slider

[spring pelican]

How is it different than like liliums hdr cas sharpening shader?

[ocean ether]

Doesn’t apply to ui

[spring pelican]

Do you guys use it in every game with dlss then?

I've never heard of it until now somehow

[ocean ether]

I don’t use sharpening, but some games just have their own custom sharpening

Well I imagine they probably also just use CAS

[spring pelican]

You don't use this program?

I'm not a fan of sharpening either

[gloomy sky]

you kinda need some sharpening if you're using upscaling

hence the point of making sure it's good, optiscaler has rcas which is great

[spring pelican]

I thought that's what negative lod bias was for with dlss

To sharpen

[gloomy sky]

you're supposed to use both

[spring pelican]

What's rcas

[gloomy sky]

the nvidia sharpening is just tragic

[spring pelican]

Yea it sucks

[gloomy sky]

rcas is amd's sharpening pass, it's very good, much better than nvidia's

you don't need a lot, it's supposed to be applied conservatively

[spring pelican]

Ok I'll give the program a try. Looks interesting

Does it conflict with sk?

And are you using this with all dlss games in place of in game sharpening?

[dark tendon]

you can change a setting on OptiScaler and both play nice

[dark tendon]

honestly yeah

[gloomy sky]

sk can load it as an asi if it's in the game directory for you automatically. can also load it as a plugin normally afaik

OverlayMenu = false in the nvngx.ini for compatibility

[unique swift]

Just decrease (or increase) the brightness with in game slider until it looks good to you
It's as straightforward as it can be

[dapper cape]

the -1 is optional

you can use 0 to -1 for DLAA

the game uses higher res textures with negative lod bias at -1 but it’s more shimmery

I would use 0/clamp for DLAA/native res

[dapper cape]

I think that it was actually fixed in one of the patches, the sharpening slider is disabled for dlss and the sharpening is adjusted automatically now

[dense salmon]

Doesn't optiscaler have a built in LoD bias calculator?

I'm using SK which recommends -0.6ish. Messed a bit with Optiscaler and found out that feature which told me -1, something for 4K DLSSQ.

[wispy patrol]

i think they just realized sharpening doesn’t work so they disabled the slider

[dapper cape]

Hmm, I had to disable optiscaler because the game looked over sharpened, sharper than native

even at low sharpening values

I wonder how the game handles the negative lod bias when DRS is enabled

the resolution is fluctuating between 1080p and 2160p at 4k display resolution

[wispy patrol]

just compare dlaa to fsr native, dlaa is blurry

[dapper cape]

But DLAA should not require extra sharpening

[wispy patrol]

dlaa always looks too blurry to me without sharpening

in motion

[dapper cape]

how does FSR native look without the added sharpening

aka sharpness slider at 0

[wispy patrol]

dunno

[dapper cape]

just like TAA

[wispy patrol]

i didn't care enough to check 😅

[wispy patrol]

yea

[dapper cape]

but its nowhere near as bad

[wispy patrol]

anyway my point is just that dlss/dlaa in this game is missing the sharpening that should (imo) be there

[dapper cape]

Idk I really hate the artificial sharpened look, I even noticed ringing artifacts in FF XVI

[wispy patrol]

whereas fsr has properly functioning sharpening

[dapper cape]

Which is optional imo

But yea it would be nice to have a functional slider

even if I would just set it to 0 personally

FSR is always crispier in motion but I believe thats because of the not so great anti aliasing aka it is shimmering in motion

[spring pelican]

Does it? Does it override the game's?

[gloomy sky]

Optiscaler hooks directly to dlss so it should override everything yes

[dense salmon]

I'm using it though SK though. You can use the slider and see the changes live.

[spring pelican]

how do you use it through SK?

Also how do I install this? You just need the dll file if you already have nvidia? That's it?

or do you need a config file too

[dense salmon]

I use the MipMap thing of SK, but also installed Optiscaler through SK which also have that built in but don't want it to mess with SK's.

[spring pelican]

how do you use it with SK

[dense salmon]

https://github.com/cdozdil/OptiScaler/blob/master/README.md

[spring pelican]

yea i read all that

don't get it

you just drop the dll into the game folder and SK loads it as asi?

[dense salmon]

Seems complicated but is super easy. Give it a read and you'll find out its super simple. If I figured it out, you can, because I don't remember it from top of my head now.

[spring pelican]

ok i'll keep messing with it

thx

[dense salmon]

I think that's it then hit "Insert" for the UI to pop.

[gloomy sky]

Rename the dll to optiscaler.asi, put it in the game directory, sk will load it

[spring pelican]

thx

what about the ini file

for optiscaler

i put that in the game folder?

[gloomy sky]

Also put that in the game folder

[spring pelican]

alrighty thx

[dense salmon]

Yes, that's it.

[spring pelican]

I'm sure I'll have more questions on this program. Looks like it does as ton of stuff

[gloomy sky]

OverlayMenu = false in the ini for compatibility with sk

[spring pelican]

Also which version are you guys using. Last full release? Or one of those beta versions

[dense salmon]

First time using it myself too.

[spring pelican]

Does that mean you can't change stuff in game since the overlay is disabled? or do you change it through SK instead

[dense salmon]

6.7

[gloomy sky]

I think i was using a beta version, not sure

[gloomy sky]

Not sure what it does tbh, it still draws its UI on demand when dlss is enabled

But if it's set to enabled then it won't draw correctly with sk

[dense salmon]

There are some settings pinned on SK's Discord.

[spring pelican]

which channel

[dense salmon]

#1275135831425679461 message

[spring pelican]

got it, from marat

thx

Haven't played this game yet, but are there other .asi fixes that i'll need for SK to load?

saw something about a fps fix

[dense salmon]

I think by default SK loads all that. FPS unlocker in cutscenes.

[spring pelican]

nice

[gloomy sky]

Ff16 fix standalone has some misc features like uw support and motion blur with fg that aren't implemented in sk

But the important stuff is in sk already

[spring pelican]

Alrighty looks like I'll have to do a fair emount of messing around to get all this set up when I buy the game

thx for the info

[dense salmon]

Seems like a lot but they're not. The game it's almost perfect out if the box I'd say.

[spring pelican]

Well the issue is that if you suggest some new tool to me, I'm going to have to spend time figuring it out 🙂

because I can't resist

so now I gotta look into the optiscaler ha

[dense salmon]

It was exactly the same for me. Haha. But give it a try and then tweak it along the way.

[mellow void]

Adjust the brightness up or down according to preference but imo default is fine.

5 is default, a tick higher or lower based on preference is fine.

[dense salmon]

I started at 2, then kept increasing it and now I'm using default 5 I think.

[mellow void]

Yeah the game has a good deal of night stuff and the night is pretty dark as it is.

[ocean ether]

ya

anything other than 5 crushes

its gamma

[unique swift]

It does not, I know because I've compared the dark scenes
Only 0 and 1 crush
2 is a match for 100 nits in shadows
3 is be 140
4 is 200

[ocean ether]

ya thats what i mean

sdr based brightness adjustment

changing gamma

in the very opening of the demo without moving at all when I took a pic

changing brightness from 5 made the shadows in the cave just look super dark and weird

reminds me of spiderman remastered which I thought looked terrible when i played on playstation. super dark shadows in broad daylight

[unique swift]

I will never finish God of war at this speed 😭

[unique swift]

SDR 100 nits G2.2 in game brightness 5 / HDR in game brightness 2

SDR 140 nits G2.2 in game brightness 5 / HDR in game brightness 3

SDR 200 nits G2.2 in game brightness 5 / HDR in game brightness 4

You can see, both visually and on the waveform, that there is no shadow crush

Unless you mean playing SDR at less than 250 nits is crushing shadows

lemmie do a linear scaling quick

[ocean ether]

but if you compare in a scene with light and dark the contrast is mega deep fried

[dapper cape]

turn off vignette

[unique swift]

HDR in game brightness 2 / pumbo paper white 32

HDR in game brightness 3 / pumbo paper white 45

[ocean ether]

maybe crushing isnt the right word cause you can see on the waveform it doesn't straight up remove detail

#1212434739500154921 message

but i mean deep fried like this

[unique swift]

HDR in game brightness 3 / pumbo paper white 64

[unique swift]

The game just looks like that