serious question: What exactly are ps2 limitations? / What is ps2 limiting?

[Spamtastic]

since the official forums have been up all i've been hearing about is how the ps2 is this evil awful thing that's doing nothing but holding ffxi back. i understand that the ps2 is ancient but what exactly are it's limitations? what exactly is it limiting? can someone please list a link to some sort of official word on this? because if there's a solid confirmed reason for the "lolps2limitations" mantra around here i'd like to see it myself. i'm not trying to dispute that there is a problem, i just wanna understand it a little better.

thanks for taking the time to read.

[Rambus]

ram, hdd partition.

ram as in why we have cap 80 slots and so forth, anything the game has to load is based on that.

is 29.9 (w/e it is) fps related to ps2?

[Zumi]

Ram - PS2 has 32MB of system Ram and 4MB of Video RAM
HDD Partition - PS2 is limited to 10GB of space on the PS2's 40GB HDD

[Tamarsamar]

is 29.9 (w/e it is) fps related to ps2?

I could be wrong, but I believe that was actually more related to dial-up connections somehow.

[Malamasala]

I don't see how refresh rate of graphics has anything to do with connection to Internet. I'd assume they simply went for "slightly above TV refresh rate" or something for PS2s (and later 360s).

[sope]

I'd assume they simply went for "slightly above TV refresh rate" or something for PS2s (and later 360s).

If you have a PAL TV, yes, it is slightly above. NTSC, used in North America, and more importantly in this case, Japan, uses 29.97 frames per second. Not to say I know anything about how FFXI was programmed, but generally in video game programming there are a decent amount of calculations done based off of the FPS. SE probably capped it to save time instead of re-writing a lot of code/re-working a lot of animations.

[Atomic_Skull]

is 29.9 (w/e it is) fps related to ps2?

No.

There is a cutscene in COP that runs at 60 fps (the one with the demons) it's a flashback scene and it was probably done to make it look different. Parts of the FFXI benchmark also run at 60fps. The engine is capable of it and they don't even need to adjust the animation of monsters and NPCs to do it. They just cap it at 29.97 fps for some inexplicable reason.


I don't see how refresh rate of graphics has anything to do with connection to Internet. I'd assume they simply went for "slightly above TV refresh rate" or something for PS2s (and later 360s).

NTSC televisions display 29.97 frames per second (59.94 interlaced fields per second). 29.97 is also the FPS cap of FFXI.

There are tricks you can pull with updating the interlace fields to make the framerate appear smoother. The Dreamcast did this by running games internally at 640x480 at 60 FPS so that each interlace field sent to the TV was 1 60'th later than the last. This is what caused combing artifacts during horizontal motion. Some video cameras also worked this way which is what caused that weird "too smooth" effect you would see on some video footage. The video camera recorded each interlaced field 1 60'th second later than the previous field.

[Eadieni]

The devs have frequently cited the PS2 as reasons for not being able to expand the game.
PS2 memory limitations are why we can't have more autotranslator words.

[Nikia]

I would love to see SE decide to move away from PS2 in favor of PC/PS3/xbox, PC mostly. The incentive would be to allow the PC client to be downloaded free, not a product key just the software. Another incintive would be to add some interesting feature that wouldn't be possible on the PS2, such as increasing the bag space to 100+ or something similar. Personally if I had to move from PS2 to PC and get 20-60 extra spots depending on sack/satchle then I would for that reason alone.
PS2 is legacy hardware and support will one day have to end. I think doing it now while giving them a real reason to move would soften the blow.

[Spamtastic]

thanks for the pretty straight forward answers! :D

[lowkey]

I would love to see SE decide to move away from PS2 in favor of PC/PS3/xbox, PC mostly.

Not going to happen. Allegedly the majority of Japanese PS2 players, and they also make up the majority of the game population.

[Nikia]

Not going to happen. Allegedly the majority of Japanese PS2 players, and they also make up the majority of the game population.

FFXI is still an amazing game, IF SE wants the game to be sustanable then they will need to decide a way to make either ps2 workable or drop the support for it. Again it is legacy hardware. I understand that many people play on that platform however that doesnt mean they couldnt move to another platform given the right incintives.

I suppose SE could just start releasing Major content for PC/PS3/XBOX and lesser content changes for PS2 members.

[Rambus]

Not going to happen. Allegedly the majority of Japanese PS2 players, and they also make up the majority of the game population.

they posted polls on that here, and that is not the case anymore. ( no idea where they are though kinda Buried) .

I think that rumor was based from the fact that Japan got the ps2 verson first so of couse they would have more ps2 users because it started there first.

I would guess that is the reason why there is more comp users in NA even when ps2 was new because it was on comp first here.

as far as FPS, are you sure that is not a misread? when you start up FFXI and see the opening CS you get 88 and strage high numbers for a bit

[rog]

and they also make up the majority of the game population.
No.

1234567890

[Rezeak]

they posted polls on that here, and that is not the case anymore. ( no idea where they are though kinda Buried) .

The polls arn't accurate cause a) it was mainly NA/EU player that filled it in (EU player can't even use ps2) and b) it was on a PC and if ur only on a PS2 u couldn't fill it in.

in otherwords it's like going on xbox360 and asking pple which console is better ps3 or 360.

[CrystalWeapon]

Not going to happen. Allegedly the majority of Japanese PS2 players, and they also make up the majority of the game population.

Go translate the Jp forums, they're asking for a Ps2 -> Ps3 transition as well.

[Juri_Licious]

The dark ages era must end.