Right now, the game is being developed with DirectX 9 in mind. They looked into DirectX 10 and the machines currently available on the market as well. In the end, they decided that DirectX 9 was the best choice. Tanaka says they will also work on how to incorporate new technology in the future. Expect that you will need a computer on the high end of the current market to play FFXIV. They were told the specs for FFXI were too high when that game was released 7 years ago but look at the situation now. They have to design a game that will age gracefully. They also have to guess at what things will be like when the game is released in 2010. People will be switching from Windows Vista to Windows 7. There are people who will go from a 32bit system to a 64bit one. Tanaka also says device drivers can lead to different problems they have to try to foresee as well. They are also planning to support a wide variety of possibilities. For example, this time expect support for 64bit and multicore systems. Information on what that means exactly, for example, how much FFXIV will take advantage of such systems, is not available at this time. However, things will be different from FFXI. FFXI was made for consoles and ported to Windows. For FFXIV, it’s made with Windows in mind and then they’ll make adjustments as needed for any console systems.
Graphics will also be different. They are preparing separate graphics for the PS3 and Windows versions. For example, textures will be different. When the interviewer asked about HDTV video modes, Tanaka says the PS3 version will probably be 720p instead of 1080p. It will vary for Windows users depending on their system.