PS2 Limitations: What are Rumors, What is Truth?

[Gwynplaine]

Ever since the last update triggered a glitch in the PS2 to react as though the HDD was full, rumors and speculation about its limitations have flared up. Some limitations like the auto translate memory has been acknowledge by Square, but otherwise it's difficult for any casual player to tell what is true or just a rumor. I wasn't sure where to put this, I'm addressing it like a Twitter question but I don't know if any forum reps will be interested in suggesting answers.

Here are the most common rumors I hear players talk about:

Rumor 1-The PS2 HDD capacity is nearly full. Or, the maximum partition space a single PS2 HDD game can use up is 8GB which FFXI is nearing. The partition limit sounds like it could be realistic. If it were I don't know how much trouble it could be to expand further or if it's possible. If partition space isn't an issue then I doubt HDD space really is an issue.

Rumor 2-There's a hard coded limit built into FFXI on how many zones the game can index. This sounds unlikely to me and I've never seen any solid info.

Rumor 3-A large population of Japanese players still use the PS2 for playing FFXI. Was this ever, or is it now still true? Something you hear a lot and it feels possible, but no real solid info.

Hopefully this at least helps communicate the popular gossip players are passing around. I'd appreciate any helpful info that could be provided.

[rog]

#1 is true, but can be changed.

#2 is also true, but unless there is not even a single free byte left in ram, can also be changed.

#3 was definitely true in the past, and probably still is, but not 100% sure.

edit: apparently #2 has already been fixed.

[Dsherman]

Here is my own rumor (unconfirmed) about that glitch that said the PS2 HDD was full on the Update that occurred December 6,2010........ SE Botched something on the preliminary update they made available on November 30.

There was no Server downtime on November 30. So people already running the game were not forced to exit and receive the November 30 update.

It is my belief that anyone that just kept the game running the whole time, plus anyone that just simply didn't try to play FFXI from November 30 until December 6 had no problem with the December 6 update. Those of use that did receieve the November 30 update got that error and had to do the "Clean Install" to get the December 6 update to work.

If this were true, SE probably overlaid the bad data as they set up the December 6 update..all before anyone knew there was a problem.

I have received NO confirmation of this from SE.... it is only my own personal experience. But it is plausable.

[Delsus]

Here is my own rumor (unconfirmed) about that glitch that said the PS2 HDD was full on the Update that occurred December 6,2010........ SE Botched something on the preliminary update they made available on November 30.

There was no Server downtime on November 30. So people already running the game were not forced to exit and receive the November 30 update.

It is my belief that anyone that just kept the game running the whole time, plus anyone that just simply didn't try to play FFXI from November 30 until December 6 had no problem with the December 6 update. Those of use that did receieve the November 30 update got that error and had to do the "Clean Install" to get the December 6 update to work.

If this were true, SE probably overlaid the bad data as they set up the December 6 update..all before anyone knew there was a problem.

I have received NO confirmation of this from SE.... it is only my own personal experience. But it is plausable.

The only way this would be possible is if PC users also downloaded the bad data, a prelimenery update adds DATs but they sit inactive until an activation code is added to them so playing the game without these DATs should cause no issues.

About the rumors, I beleave the issue with the PS2 hard drive is that the ffxi partition is the issue, which is why SE decided to change it so that it deleted the old DATs before installing the others, this action by SE proves that the ffxi partition is the issue here.

There isnt a limit of zones in ffxi, the limit is in the PS2's RAM, it only has 32MB which is pathetic for todays standards, all they could do is try to make a type of page filing to get round this problem, but I dont know how easy that would be.

however I cant say the exact numbers of japanese playing on the PS2 but as far as I beleve is that the Japanese prefer to play on consoles rather than PC which would enforce the argument that the main japanese playerbase plays on PS2

[Laraul]

There isnt a limit of zones in ffxi, the limit is in the PS2's RAM, it only has 32MB which is pathetic for todays standards, all they could do is try to make a type of page filing to get round this problem, but I dont know how easy that would be.

What's not pathetic is the 2560bit wide bus the PS2 GPU utilizes... that's 1024 reading, 1024 writing, 512 read or write.

The PS2 is not holding this game back... in anyway what so ever. Rather the aging engine is the issue.

I'm not sure what you'd expect if they did drop PS2 support.

[rog]

What's not pathetic is the 2560bit wide bus the PS2 GPU utilizes... that's 1024 reading, 1024 writing, 512 read or write.

The PS2 is not holding this game back... in anyway what so ever. Rather the aging engine is the issue.

I'm not sure what you'd expect if they did drop PS2 support.

You realize the ps2 has a total of 32 mb of ram, right? The gpu/cpu obviously aren't holding it back at all.

[Futan]

[...]

#2 is also true, but unless there is not even a single free byte left in ram, can also be changed.

[...]

edit: apparently #2 has already been fixed.

Kind of curious where you got the source code to know that the supposed area limit is hard coded? Hard coded, of course, meaning it's in the source code opposed to an external .DAT. And that's something that would only need to be loaded into memory upon changing zones, while a bunch of other much more memory intensive things are being unloaded from memory, so there should be no issue with memory that causes an area limit.

[rog]

Kind of curious where you got the source code to know that the supposed area limit is hard coded? Hard coded, of course, meaning it's in the source code opposed to an external .DAT. And that's something that would only need to be loaded into memory upon changing zones, while a bunch of other much more memory intensive things are being unloaded from memory, so there should be no issue with memory that causes an area limit.

Check the memory? Your current area was stored in a 1 byte variable, which limits it to 255 possible values. According to someone in another thread this was changed recently, so the new the cap would be 65535, which obviously will never be reaches.

And no, it can't just be checked when zoning. It needs to constantly be in memory, just like your x,y,z position.

[Gwynplaine]

According to someone in another thread this was changed recently, so the new the cap would be 65535, which obviously will never be reaches.

What is the other thread or reference you're talking about? Is it on this forum or somewhere else?

[rog]

What is the other thread or reference you're talking about? Is it on this forum or somewhere else?

On here. Not sure what thread it was. May have been deleted even, not sure.