Kill the PS2 limitations end of the Dark Ages Era

[Swords]

Then does that problem persist when you switch to the PS3?

It would because the emulator and game software would be fixed to utilizing the PS2's specs. All emulation does is mimic the settings of the console it's trying to replicate, now if you were to tweak the limit of the emulator software to utilize the expanded ram capacity of the PS3 it might improve performance pending how the drivers for FFXI are utilized and setup. The drawback to emulation however is the emulator itself is a program and can take considerable resources to run, so you may or may not experience worse gameplay than if you were to just play on the PS2 itself.