Square Enix Cancels Future Final Fantasy XV Development, At Least We Have The Benchmark With DLSS Support

[moob]

Nier Automata still not fixed

What was wrong with Nier? I just put 50 hours into it (got all the important endings) and didn't notice any issues.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Misleading. The game is broken, so any form of working AA looks better. Just say no to blur.

 

[RichF]

as opposed to AMD that tries to leverage 'the industry' to make the investment for them

Really? Considering how small AMD's R&D budget is in comparison with Nvidia's, and the fact that it has to compete with Intel in CPUs, it seems that the company has been doing a decent job of producing innovations. FreeSync. Mantle (which turned into Vulkan, a tech that could finally — if people would wake up — help us unchain ourselves from the nightmare that is Windows 10). Async compute. Being the first to roll out HBM. A bunch of different Vega stuff — like rapid packed math and HBCC. Et cetera.

Special sauce, though, really isn't what we need from AMD or Nvidia so much right now. What we need is more raw performance at reasonable prices. We especially need more raw performance from AMD and more reasonable prices from Nvidia.

Promoting more open/universal/transparent standards is typically a good thing, too, rather than a bad one. Black boxes aren't good. There is one reason to produce a black box — to keep people in the dark about value.

 

[Vayra86]

Really? Considering how small AMD's R&D budget is in comparison with Nvidia's, and the fact that it has to compete with Intel in CPUs, it seems that the company has been doing a decent job of producing innovations. FreeSync. Mantle (which turned into Vulkan, a tech that could finally — if people would wake up — help us unchain ourselves from the nightmare that is Windows 10). Async compute. Being the first to roll out HBM. A bunch of different Vega stuff — like rapid packed math and HBCC. Et cetera.

Special sauce, though, really isn't what we need from AMD or Nvidia so much right now. What we need is more raw performance at reasonable prices. We especially need more raw performance from AMD and more reasonable prices from Nvidia.

Promoting more open/universal/transparent standards is typically a good thing, too, rather than a bad one. Black boxes aren't good. There is one reason to produce a black box — to keep people in the dark about value.

Yeah I know, everything you've just said is the classic AMD staple but let's face it, none of that is really making them much money. And none of it is relevant towards the thing we need, as you say, from Nvidia and AMD: raw performance. None of the tech in either Vulkan, FreeSync, HBM or any of the Vega stuff benefits us directly. Who cares what API I use, AMD doesn't really look better in either one either, despite their preference for DX12 and Vulkan. And to unchain ourselves from a nightmare called Windows 10... not sure about you, but I'm not having bad dreams here. The OS is fine for most other things, too. The eternal mistake of thinking that 'because its open, its better' is really not supported by reality in this industry. Linux is still a distro clusterfuck and far from simple to use. The biggest successes are almost exclusively built on proprietary stuff. And proprietary stuff creates added value and margins, both things AMD sorely lacks especially on GPU.

Universal standards is another funny one. Know this one?

Standards only work to make things a bit easier, but they never make things consistently better. Standards are also a cause of stagnation, for example. If everything was open and available to all, nobody would be making money off it, and this directly hurts investment in new stuff. Why would you, after all?

 

[RichF]

The biggest successes are almost exclusively built on proprietary stuff.

That's because antitrust is non-existent. Tech is dominated by duopolies and monopolies.

The current state of gaming is sad. We have three x86 platforms. Two are pointless insipid walled gardens on pointless insipid hardware. The last is stuck with all of the drawbacks of MS, the same company responsible for one of the two aforementioned walled gardens. So much choice!

What we should have is a unified software layer running atop the unified hardware layer (the x86 standard). Anything else is sad, especially when dealing with the UI disaster and monopolist taxation the inhumane OS called Windows 10 foists upon us. A humane OS does not do things like brick a user's install if the user takes a break from the computer for a while. It doesn't have three or more different UIs all competing. It doesn't force-feed system changes that can break the system and cause other problems for the user. It doesn't relentlessly spy.

 

[Vayra86]

That's because antitrust is non-existent. Tech is dominated by duopolies and monopolies.

It doesn't matter, it IS the reality people deal with and that has its consequences. We can wish for a better world, but dreaming of utopia doesn't magically create a great product. And that is the pitfall of your argument and it always has been in terms of AMD's success. History proves time and time again that the tactic never truly worked.

 

[RichF]

It doesn't matter, it IS the reality people deal with and that has its consequences. We can wish for a better world, but dreaming of utopia doesn't magically create a great product.

Recognizing problems is what leads to solutions, not erroneously believing in stasis.

 

[Vayra86]

Recognizing problems is what leads to solutions, not erroneously believing in stasis.

Then you would do well to start recognizing the problems with your approach as well, which you completely omitted from the story altogether Linux is the practical example currently of open development on x86. How's that going? Even Valve couldn't get a meaningful result out of it.

Again: stop dreaming of utopia and start facing reality. A few posts on a forum don't change that reality and everything we have today is the result of that same reality. AMD's approach has clearly not worked for gaming. The only bastion they have left is the consoles... literally the LAST part of gaming you'd ever expect bleeding edge progress at.

The point is, gaming on Windows 10 for the vast majority is not considered 'a problem' at all. Only a tiny niche even knows that alternatives exist on the PC. Me personally, I don't see Windows as problematic either, in fact I see gaming on Linux as fár more problematic. Its a mistake to think more control and advanced user territory somehow is attractive to everyone. The consoles literally prove this is not the case! People want plug and play, simple stuff. Windows is the happy middle ground for gaming, where you can do everything if you want advanced user stuff, but the basic experience is hassle free and simple, intuitive and well supported. Strong terms about a few updates of the OS or 'spying' (which it doesn't do, get with the program pls, I'm allergic to FUD) don't change the immense track record this OS has built over the years.

 

[RichF]

Then you would do well to start recognizing the problems with your approach as well, which you completely omitted from the story altogether Linux is the practical example currently of open development on x86. How's that going? Even Valve couldn't get a meaningful result out of it.

Again: stop dreaming of utopia and start facing reality. A few posts on a forum don't change that reality and everything we have today is the result of that same reality. AMD's approach has clearly not worked for gaming. The only bastion they have left is the consoles... literally the LAST part of gaming you'd ever expect bleeding edge progress at.

We have a unified hardware layer, after many years of proprietary incompatibilities. We are at a stage where it is time to have a unified software layer. We all would do well to evolve in that manner.

Long ago, there were dozens and dozens of incompatible microcomputers, all vying for money and fragmenting the software ecosystem. It's time to stop with what is now monopolist/duopolist artificial fragmentation, kept in place by monopolist factors rather than true competition.

The gaming market does not need dozens of incompatible CPUs, input device ports, and the like. Proprietary hardware has gone the way of the dodo. Even Nintendo's Switch, the closest thing to variety we have these days (only because of the form factor) is using a bog standard CPU.

The only ones who benefit from the current situation are Sony and MS. Linux, Vulkan, and OpenGL offer enough power to have a unified software layer for gaming, one that scales from the low end (the so-called console, and E-sports) to the high end. What it takes is for consumers to demand more for their money. Corporations are designed to sell as little as possible for as much money as possible. Passively enabling that to be maximized is irrational on the part of the consumer. We gain less from using Windows 10 for gaming than we lose.

 

[Vayra86]

We have a unified hardware layer, after many years of proprietary incompatibilities. We are at a stage where it is time to have a unified software layer. We all would do well to evolve in that manner.

Long ago, there were dozens and dozens of incompatible microcomputers, all vying for money and fragmenting the software ecosystem. It's time to stop with what is now monopolist/duopolist artificial fragmentation, kept in place by monopolist factors rather than true competition.

The gaming market does not need dozens of incompatible CPUs, input device ports, and the like. Proprietary hardware has gone the way of the dodo. Even Nintendo's Switch, the closest thing to variety we have these days (only because of the form factor) is using a bog standard CPU.

The only ones who benefit from the current situation are Sony and MS. Linux, Vulkan, and OpenGL offer enough power to have a unified software layer for gaming, one that scales from the low end (the so-called console, and E-sports) to the high end. What it takes is for consumers to demand more for their money. Corporations are designed to sell as little as possible for as much money as possible. Passively enabling that to be maximized is irrational on the part of the consumer. We gain less from using Windows 10 for gaming than we lose.

Unified software, in a broad sense, yes I can only agree that its a good thing. But there are major caveats as well and so far every unified approach has made those larger than life. Let's look at UWP for a good example, and how it dealt with gaming: the experience is sub par in every way and the efficiency of it leaves much to be desired. Mods? Forget it. Even exclusive fullscreen was problematic.

If there is one thing Windows 10 has done and keeps doing for gaming, it is the fact that it has supported a thriving modding community, industry wide. Both for gaming and for 'tinkering'. The list of third party applications for Windows is literally endless.

For simple, light applications, unified software code is a great thing. For everything that acts upon the bleeding edge of performance, it is the worst possible thing. Why? Because unifying also means losing access to specific optimization. And we are ALSO in an age of the end of Moore's Law. We can't just keep throwing more hardware at problems, because simply enough, we've pushed it to the limit. The gains will progressively have to come more from software. And for that, we require custom built stuff and any kind of emulation is already a big fat nono. The only place where we can still keep scaling in terms of hardware is datacenter. That is why deep learning is a thing. And its why DLSS could surpass existing AA. We let the cloud do the work. Again: if we speak of control, the cloud is the worst possible example of having control. And this is a real movement in the industry.

As you can see there are just so many factors that completely counter the utopian idea of an open software environment. Open source has its place, but its a mistake to think it'll work for everything.

 

[sepheronx]

You have just described the entire gaming market in just a few sentences. With the exception of CDPR, I don't think many publishers/studios care about the total package.

And for the record, CDPR is not the god of gaming, they just have been our last bastion of hope for the last few years. Except for Gwent. That is a black mark on them (for me). I really liked Gwent in TW3 more than the full game.

Slavic magic man. CDPR has some kind of agreement with a Gypsy. Cause they work with very little but end up making magic. Heck, I like Gwent all in itself.

But I knew when Squaresoft would merge with Enix, that it would be it for the company. I may be nostalgic and just living in the past, but I have not played a good game by the company since the merger.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I may be nostalgic and just living in the past,

Yes.

 

[sepheronx]

Yes.

but you agree with me. Just say it.

You know you want to say it.

 

[rtwjunkie]

but you agree with me. Just say it.

You know you want to say it.

Yes AND no. It’s not been all bad.

 

[B-Real]

That is unfortunate, another nail in the RTX coffin.

/s

Nope, it's another victory for a GPU family advertised mainly for RT for sure!

 

[sepheronx]

Yes AND no. It’s not been all bad.

I am generally curious, which game by SquareEnix you consider good?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Nope, it's another victory for a GPU family advertised mainly for RT for sure!

You may have missed that he was joking. The " /s " denotes sarcasm, which means it was a joke.

I am generally curious, which game by SquareEnix you consider good?

This might might be an unpopular opinion, but the most recent SquareEnix title I've played and greatly enjoyed was the 3D remake of " Secret Of Mana ".

 

[sepheronx]

You may have missed that he was joking. The " /s " denotes sarcasm, which means it was a joke.

This might might be an unpopular opinion, but the most recent SquareEnix title I've played and greatly enjoyed was the 3D remake of " Secret Of Mana ".

I played original but never played remake. Ended up selling my PS4. Wanted to try remake though.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I played original but never played remake. Ended up selling my PS4. Wanted to try remake though.

There is the Steam version.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/637670/Secret_of_Mana/
EDIT;
There also the very excellent Dragon Quest XI.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/...ital_Edition_of_Light/?curator_clanid=1012195
And the 3D remake of Final Fantasy IV and After Years direct sequel;
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/66146/

 

[rtwjunkie]

I am generally curious, which game by SquareEnix you consider good?

I’m going to go with the period after April 2009 when we got their subsidiary, Square Enix Europe, which acquired Eidos and Crystal Dynamics both.

In that group we have Thief, Deus Ex games, Just Cause series, Tomb Raider series. I don’t have a problem with any of those, though many do. I genuinely enjoy PC gaming and a game has to be really bad, really bad, for me not to have fun in it. I’ve never become jaded, and for that I am thankful. Of course, it has to appeal to me first.

It’s my opinion of course. I was just never drawn into any of their prior stuff under Square such as FF or even later any Front Mission games.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It’s my opinion of course. I was just never drawn into any of their prior stuff under Square such as FF or even later any Front Mission games.

So you never enjoyed the 8bit & 16bit era games from SquareSoft or Enix? Not to sound insulting at all, I think you missed out on some of gaming's greatest moments. ChronoTrigger, Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy 6 are regarded by many to be some of the greatest games of all time to this day.

 

[rtwjunkie]

So you never enjoyed the 8bit & 16bit era games from SquareSoft or Enix? Not to sound insulting at all, I think you missed out on some of gaming's greatest moments. ChronoTrigger, Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy 6 are regarded by many to be some of the greatest games of all time to this day.

No, I really wasn’t. I wasn’t even one that enjoyed asteroids or donkey Kong all that much. It took me awhile to finally get into gaming.

For me it was about immersion. I enjoyed reading far more, creating worlds in my mind as I read. Heck, I was 31 before I got my first computer, and really never got into anyone else’s consoles, etc.

 

[sepheronx]

First FF i played was 2 on NES. Next FF was technically 6 then I played 5 when I got the anthology disk on PS1. Then FF7 on PS1. After 9, I couldn't enjoy a FF game. I know 10 was the last squaresoft title, but well, I didn't enjoy that one either.

 

[Robcostyle]

Bwahahahaha!
For a moment, I was even thinking of “wether buying 2080 ti or upgrading 9900k first - cause its too expensive to have both.

But then, I’ve realised that it’s complete, 1000% waste of money - not like “awh be damned all those capitalists!!” - but complete absence of real games on PC platfrom. ShitRoyal battles and C grade unfinished projects all over. Plus, doubtfull technologies for 3x price.

Well, thanks, but I’ll pass. I’ve just realised that skipped alot of Sony exclusives, that never gonna be launched on PC.....daym, never thought it would turn this way - abandoning pc gaming for console. Madness!

 

[RichF]

First FF i played was 2 on NES. Next FF was technically 6 then I played 5 when I got the anthology disk on PS1. Then FF7 on PS1. After 9, I couldn't enjoy a FF game. I know 10 was the last squaresoft title, but well, I didn't enjoy that one either.

This seems to be a fairly common sentiment. 10 is the first in the series I quit. The others had their flaws (and the games seemed to continually get worse) but 10 was, for me, too obnoxious to be playable. That's a lot to say after dealing with Kefka, Barret, Cait Sith, Red, and FF9. I haven't played any Final Fantasy since 10. Perhaps I got too old for the series but I have seen a fair number of people say the same thing about 10. I didn't take 7 seriously when I first saw it, when I was much younger. But, the gameplay was reasonably good and it had some atmosphere, especially because there was some good music. 8 was dull but playable. 9 was really cartoonish. Not my cup of tea but I finished it and it had decent enough gameplay at times.

The worst RPG I ever tried to play was Grandia II on Dreamcast. Absolutely dreadful in every respect. The worst-looking "RPG" I've seen is RPG Maker MV's RTP. Who likes those horrible "chibi" people? I don't get the desire to make saccharine RPGs, both in terms of looks and in terms of tone. FF7 had glimmers of atmosphere but it tried too hard to appeal to kids. One of the biggest problems with the industry is that people equate mature gaming with gore and plastic breasts.