One of the biggest reveals of Gamescom 2017 was Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition, a beast that will push gaming PCs to their limits when it arrives in early 2018, mostly because NVIDIA partnered with Square Enix on the PC side of things.
Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition will feature massive PC enhancements over the console version of the game, including 4K textures, as well as a bunch of NVIDIA technology like HFTS, VXAO, Turf, Flow, and HairWorks. But during an interview with PC Gamer, Game Director Hajime Tabata said that even the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti won't be enough to run Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition at 4K 60FPS.
Tabata said: "Supporting 60fps will be possible, but considering the spec you'd need to get that level-with native 4K, HDR, and a good 60fps-the machine we've got here couldn't do that at the moment. That's a GTX 1080 Ti, and even with that 60 frames is not possible".
If you thought GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards in SLI were the solution, think again... Tabata continued: "So, multiple cards, there's the loading of the previous frame and you have that little bit of delay. It doesn't allow for that proper 60 frames. In order to get that really smooth 60 frames, you need a higher capacity base in order to do that. All the physics simulations as well need to be refreshed in every frame-if you have two cards running in tandem there's that little bit of delay between the sending of data between the two cards and that's what makes it impossible".
The future? Cloud-based games, according to Tabata, who said: "If my team were going to be in charge of the next Final Fantasy game, we probably would set up the basis of development on that high-level PC architecture-I think that's something that we'd do. But looking into the future, you have to consider cloud-based games-the answer might be different depending on how far down the line we're talking about".
He finished up by saying: "I think this is for us a great opportunity in getting the game out to the PC market that the latest Final Fantasy game is serious about the PC market and its players. We're taking on that challenge with everything we've got and it'd just be great to get some kind of feedback on that, players' reactions and understand what people are expecting towards our game".