FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)
Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS tech arrived in Final Fantasy XV last week, allowing all three people who’ve actually bought themselves one of Nvidia’s new Turing RTX cards to finally start making use of what makes the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti so special. I’m still a bit miffed this fancy, AI-driven edge-smoothening magic only works at 4K at the moment, thereby making it even more niche and harder to use than FFVII’s Knights of the Round summon (a little joke for you there) but I do realise that this is the resolution that arguably needs it most. And after running some tests on the RTX 2080, the results are pretty encouraging.
FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Katharine Castle)
Anyone who didn’t uninstall Final Fantasy XV in a fit of despair and/or rage last month after the abrupt cancellation of 75% of its upcoming DLC will have noticed a delightful 15GB update waiting for them on Steam today, in which finally arrives support for Nvidia’s frame rate rocketing tech, DLSS (or deep learning super sampling, if that makes things any clearer).
It’s one of the things I’ve been most looking forward to testing on Nvidia’s new Turing RTX GPUs, but as with almost everything to do with the launch of Nvidia’s RTX family, there’s a catch. You can only enable it if you have a 4K display.
We wanted to issue out a quick update and let you all know that NVidia’s DLSS has been implemented into FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION!
DLSS is capable of being twice as efficient compared to that of previous anti-aliasing technology. Experience the beautiful world of FINAL FANTASY XV on another level!
1. Choose OPTIONS from the title menu 2. GRAPHIC SETTINGS IMAGE SETTING PRESET Change to CUSTOM 3. Choose Anti-Aliasing and select DLSS
※Updating your NVIDIA graphic drivers to the latest version is recommended ※Required to change your screen setting resolution to「3840x2160」（4K） ※DLSS is only available on select graphics cards
Nvidia's GeForce RTX graphics cards are supposed to usher in a new era of gaming highlighted by ray-traced rendering and DLSS (deep learning super sampling) for better visuals. Not many games support one or the other yet, though the latest 'Game Ready' 417.35 WHQL driver release finally lets RTX owners enable DLSS in Final Fantasy 15.
The feature is in beta, and we haven't had a chance to try it out ourselves. According to Nvidia, players who own a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card can hit 60 frame per second at 4K with the quality settings maxed out and DLSS turned on.
"To enable DLSS, download the Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition update once available on Steam, open the in-game options menu, set your resolution to 3840x2160 (4K) and enable DLSS under Graphics > Anti-aliasing setting. Then let us know your feedback on the first DLSS beta so we can continue to train and refine the performance and image quality of the deep learning network via future Nvidia software updates," Nvidia says.
Nvidia posted video attempting to show the full performance benefits of running Final Fantasy 15 maxed out on a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. However, it's only compared to a GeForce RTX 1080 Ti. We'd be interested to see how performance compares on the same card when enabling DLSS, versus turning it off. Anyway, here's a look:
Nvidia also fixed a handful of issues with its latest driver release.
[SLI][Titan Xp]: SLI is disabled by default after installing the driver.
[Titan V][Nvidia Control Panel]: The Workstation->Manage GPU Utilization page appears when it shouldn’t.
[Rocket League]: The game launches to a white screen with audio in the background and then crashes.
[Battlefield V: Day0 97][Ansel]: After being moved all the way to the left, the Ansel field-of view (FoV) slider stops following the click-and-drag mouse movement.
[Hitman 2 Silent assassin]: There is flickering texture corruption in the game. [Notebook][3D games]: Frame rate of 3D games may drop to under 30 fps on notebooks.
You can download the 417.35 driver release through GeForce Experience, or go here to grab and install it manually.
Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (The Dealer)
Is… is it over yet? Are the Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals finally finished? Just a couple more hours to go now, you can do it deals herald, you can get through this. You’ve got a week and a half holiday coming up soon, just get through the afternoon and then you can go and lie in a dark room and not dream about Cyber Monday graphics card deals you might have missed for the seventh night running.
Ahem. Sorry, I don’t know what came over me there. Probably the Cyber Monday PC gaming deals fatigue settling in, or the Black Friday fever dream I seem to have been living this past fortnight. But your deals herald is stronger than that. Nay, THE DEALER is stronger than that, and with a renewed sense of vigor that may in fact be frenzied despair, I thus present to you the final monolithic installment of our Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC deals bonanza. Gone are the deals swept away by the ever-grabbing hands of internet shoppers. All that’s left is the best of the best that are still up for grabs, from graphics cards and monitors to SSDs, gaming headsets, CPUs and mice and keyboards and more. If you’ve yet to do your Cyber Monday shopping, act fast, as these PC gaming deals won’t be around for long.
I’m sure everyone’s feeling a bit of Black Friday fatigue by now (trust me, I want this all to be over just as much as you do), but in the interests of those after that one, last, final deal to end all deals, I present to you our newly refreshed Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals hub. I’ve cleared away all the deals that have been swept into oblivion by the almighty wave of discount-grabbers, leaving you with the best of the best PC gaming deals that are still available. Whether you’re after a new graphics card, monitor, SSD, gaming headset or even a new CPU, mouse and keyboard, your deals herald will provide. Here are all the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday PC gaming deals you can grab right now.
FINAL FANTASY XV WINDOWS EDITION - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alice O'Connor)
The saga of Final Fantasy XV will cut off abruptly, as Square Enix last night announced they’ve cancelled three of its four upcoming story DLCs. FFXV director Hajime Tabata has left the company too, planning to start his own company for his own project. So… that’s about the end of that. The DLC story episode starring antagonist Ardyn is still coming, as are more of the multiplayer Comrades and some FFXIV crossover gubbins, but the DLCs focused on Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis are in the bin.
UPDATE: Square Enix has been in touch to provide a statement, and to assert that, contrary to a part of our report, that Luminous Productions will remain its own division.
"Hajime Tabata resigned from his role as the director of Final Fantasy 15, at the same time he left Luminous Productions and has no further relations with Square Enix or Luminous Productions," it reads. "We are told that he left for personal reasons. It is with regret to see the departure of such a talented member of staff who applied themselves on Final Fantasy 15 and many other memorable titles. We wish him every success for the future and will continue to cheer him on."
"As to the future of Luminous Productions, the studio was established with the goal to create a new IP, so we are continuing to develop our new title."
Final Fantasy XV game director Hajime Tabata has left the company, Square Enix announced today. The revelation came during a livestreamed Final Fantasy presentation, which outlined the company's plans for XV's forthcoming DLC packs and the newly standalone nature of XV's multiplayer mode.
The news on the DLC front is surprising: three of the four announced DLC packs scheduled for release in 2019 have been canceled. Episodes concerned with characters Aranea, Lunafreye and Noctis have all been ditched, though the Ardyn pack – which focuses on the game's main antagonist – will still come in March 2019. "The Final Fantasy XV development team wish to thank all players who have taken this journey with them and will celebrate the experience with fans to the end," the publisher said in a statement.
On the topic of why these DLC packs were canceled, global brand director Akio Ofuji says the team assigned to developing them have been moved on to another "AAA title".
"A new company called Luminous Productions was formed, centered around the staff who had previously been developing the main game as part of BD2, and they have continued to work on the project since," he said during the stream. "The main purpose of establishing Luminous Productions was to create a studio that can deliver a completely new AAA title to the global market. The desire is to deliver this new AAA experience to everyone even a day [sic] sooner, and due to this directional change, the company decided to focus our resources on the development of this AAA title."
While the previously announced modding tools and Steam Workshop support have already been added, it's unclear whether the level editor is also forthcoming.
Meanwhile, it was announced that Final Fantasy XV's multiplayer component Comrades will get standalone editions on Xbox One and PS4, though no specific mention was made of PC. Later, it was announced that Final Fantasy XIV will get a special event designed for XV owners, which features Noctis in a quest titled 'Adventurer From Another World'. More info on that is here, but you can see the trailer for Episode Ardyn below.
Here ye, hear ye! The most honourable nobles of this treehouse do hereby declare that the RPS Podcast, known in various lands as the Electronic Wireless Show, is now royal majesty of recorded games chat, lord over all, King of the Podcasts, ruler of headphones, holder of hot takes, overseer of opinion. Welcome to this coronation, feeble folk of the videogame fields. Come listen to us chat about the best kings and queens in PC gaming.
