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Finally got FFXIV downloaded (took over 24 hours all up, at about 1.44MB/s. I love the NBN, and I hope Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Joe Hockey all wind up with boils on their bums that prevent them from talking out their arses about things they don't know crap about in future) and got to play it yesterday.
Whoa.
The main monitor for this new PC is a 30" curved screen, which is pretty much huge to begin with - I have a 27" one as a secondary and it looks titchy beside the main screen. Of course, both of them look small compared against the size of the TV out in the main room (which I have to sit about 2m back from in order to be able to see the whole screen) so I wasn't expecting there to be too much difference in available "screen size" when I started playing.
Well. That was a mistake. I opened up FFXIV, and all of a sudden I was looking at SPACE between each of the HUD elements on the screen. I'd forgotten the difference in pixel count between the TV, which is about 1920 x 1080, and the new monitor, which is currently at its recommended density of 2560 x 1440. The pixels really make a difference, folks.
I also headed down to Officeworks yesterday morning, and picked up some speakers (I'd forgotten I was going to need them, consequence of my last few machines having been largely laptops and all-in-ones with built-in speakers) and a headset (earphones and microphone) for if I need to talk to people online. Currently I'm just using the speakers, because they're easier, and they have a nice little headphone jack in them for if I need to shut off the noise for whatever reason (such as if I decide for some reason to be gaming past about 8pm, which is my usual "start bedtime routine" time). The headset has a dongle for plugging the headphones and microphone into the back of the computer, but I currently have the speakers occupying the "audio out" position on there. I'll think about it if I need to have voice input in future.
But I now have enough screen real estate that I can see what's going on in various raids, trials and dungeons, rather than having HUD elements overlapping each other. A definite plus, and now I can see the point of some of the various HUD elements that are included by default (I'd previously thought I might never use them - now I'm shuffling them into spaces where if I do decide to use them, they're not occupying the main view space).
I've also learned all the various bits in FFXIV which are stored locally (i.e. on your machine) when it comes to changing medium (e.g. from PS4 to Windows PC). This includes things like: gear sets for your character(s) (had to recreate all of those from scratch - tip for people doing this: changing class requires equipping the main hand tool/weapon; changing JOB requires equipping the soul crystal as well); HUD and toolbar configurations (resetting the toolbars for something like 22 different jobs is a nuisance, and I'm going to be doing it gradually over the next however long); and inventory settings. One thing which apparently isn't stored locally is your blacklist (so if you do as I do with the gold-spam bots, and report then blacklist them, you will still have your blacklist accurate). Further updates as I discover them.
But yeah, this new machine is great. Handled FFXIV and Discord running together without a hiccup, and I'm now considering having a Firefox window open on the second monitor so I can start doing the various "sightseeing" quests. (For those who don't speak FFXIV: the "sightseeing" quests are a bunch of challenges where you have to go to a particular location, at a particular time, in a particular weather condition, and perform a particular action in order to cross them off your list. The first 40 or so, from A Realm Reborn, are right whatsits. The ones in subsequent expansions have slightly less onerous conditions, simply because people pointed out the particularity of the challenges resulted in people being reluctant to do them).
Whoa.
The main monitor for this new PC is a 30" curved screen, which is pretty much huge to begin with - I have a 27" one as a secondary and it looks titchy beside the main screen. Of course, both of them look small compared against the size of the TV out in the main room (which I have to sit about 2m back from in order to be able to see the whole screen) so I wasn't expecting there to be too much difference in available "screen size" when I started playing.
Well. That was a mistake. I opened up FFXIV, and all of a sudden I was looking at SPACE between each of the HUD elements on the screen. I'd forgotten the difference in pixel count between the TV, which is about 1920 x 1080, and the new monitor, which is currently at its recommended density of 2560 x 1440. The pixels really make a difference, folks.
I also headed down to Officeworks yesterday morning, and picked up some speakers (I'd forgotten I was going to need them, consequence of my last few machines having been largely laptops and all-in-ones with built-in speakers) and a headset (earphones and microphone) for if I need to talk to people online. Currently I'm just using the speakers, because they're easier, and they have a nice little headphone jack in them for if I need to shut off the noise for whatever reason (such as if I decide for some reason to be gaming past about 8pm, which is my usual "start bedtime routine" time). The headset has a dongle for plugging the headphones and microphone into the back of the computer, but I currently have the speakers occupying the "audio out" position on there. I'll think about it if I need to have voice input in future.
But I now have enough screen real estate that I can see what's going on in various raids, trials and dungeons, rather than having HUD elements overlapping each other. A definite plus, and now I can see the point of some of the various HUD elements that are included by default (I'd previously thought I might never use them - now I'm shuffling them into spaces where if I do decide to use them, they're not occupying the main view space).
I've also learned all the various bits in FFXIV which are stored locally (i.e. on your machine) when it comes to changing medium (e.g. from PS4 to Windows PC). This includes things like: gear sets for your character(s) (had to recreate all of those from scratch - tip for people doing this: changing class requires equipping the main hand tool/weapon; changing JOB requires equipping the soul crystal as well); HUD and toolbar configurations (resetting the toolbars for something like 22 different jobs is a nuisance, and I'm going to be doing it gradually over the next however long); and inventory settings. One thing which apparently isn't stored locally is your blacklist (so if you do as I do with the gold-spam bots, and report then blacklist them, you will still have your blacklist accurate). Further updates as I discover them.
But yeah, this new machine is great. Handled FFXIV and Discord running together without a hiccup, and I'm now considering having a Firefox window open on the second monitor so I can start doing the various "sightseeing" quests. (For those who don't speak FFXIV: the "sightseeing" quests are a bunch of challenges where you have to go to a particular location, at a particular time, in a particular weather condition, and perform a particular action in order to cross them off your list. The first 40 or so, from A Realm Reborn, are right whatsits. The ones in subsequent expansions have slightly less onerous conditions, simply because people pointed out the particularity of the challenges resulted in people being reluctant to do them).
