So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[Tint]

People who blame the PS3 for the way the game it is are probably the same type of people who support Donald Trump for President. Maybe they should ask Trump to ban the PS3 along with all the Muslums or convince Mexico to use them as material to build that wall...

This is a gross exaggeration of course. The anti-PS3 crowd has shown no more favoritism of Donald Trump than anyone else. But, blaming the PS3 just sounds like something that Trump would do. PS3 players are a minority in the game and make an easy target to vent.

i have played FF14 on the PS3 and it was HORRIBLE. i wished they had never released it for that plattform. couldn't wait to get my hands on a PS4. this game is clearly designed with the PS4 in mind and it is not really working on the old PS3. endless waiting for summoning retainers and NPCs, you can't see most of the people in crowded areas, HUNTS, i had an hardware delay and it was impossible for me to dodge some AOEs (on the day i got my PS4 i was suddenly a way better player xP)...
if the game was working in the PS3 but holding the other plattforms back i would say: nope, don't drop PS3 support - but it isn't working. the game is horrible on PS3, so they should drop the support to get rid of the mess xD

[Kosmos992k]

Aside from the horribly low RAM, the processor inside the PS3 is really old and long out of date now; the 2 go hand in hand to limit what can be done currently. And don't forget it's a custom CPU inside the PS3, so every new patch has to be constantly re-coded and made compatible, which takes up extra dev time and resources.

ROTFLMAO.

Throw popcorn kernels at the nVidia GPU (RSX) in the PS3 all you like, but the Cell BE CPU is/was a tremendous piece of work. It's taken many years for X86 architectures to catch up on pure performance terms, so please, let's not make any ill-educated absolute statements about it. Cell BE uses PowerPC architecture for it's main processing element, it's hardly custom. The SPEs are the only thing that's 'non-standard' and they're non standard only if you are stuck on X86 architecture being the only way to go in computing, labeling everything else non standard or custom.

Oh, BTW, how old is the x86 architecture? Before you claim Cell BE is 'really old and long out of date' (that's just a priceless statement in and of itself) Maybe you should take a quick look at the 40+ history of the x86, which is surely a bit long in the tooth by now....

The SPEs were a bank of really fast processing units that would work individually or in groups, could process data streams in series or parallel, and had tremendously high single precision Floating Point capability. It was an architecture designed around the needs of media processing, video and gaming. I'm honestly sick of the uneducated assertions people make about the Cell BE. The CPU in the Xbox 360 for example used an almost identical PowerPC core, although it was a tri-core unit with no SPEs.

People seem to be hung up on extra dev time to learn an architecture, guys, that's what developers do for a living, they learn architectures and learn to exploit them as best they can. Cell BE was a different architecture to x86, but so was Xbox 360's Xenon. For that matter every new generation of GPU that comes out represents a new architecture that must be learned to take the most advantage of it.

All the whining about a custom architecture and it's so hard to use comes from people's inherent bias against Sony more so than any technical issues. The fact is, when Cell BE hit it was the first time many developers had to start thinking about how to parallelize their code to make good use of the SPEs. Initially most Devs simply used them as extra cores and didn't get creative, until they learned to. If there was never any innovation in microprocessor design, out technology would stagnate. Just as there has been innovation, evolution and new development in software engineering, new languages and so forth, so the same is true for processor architectures. I honestly hope I never work with a developer who displays the kind of attitude towards new architecture that your post contains.

P.S. consider that the PS2 had vastly less computational power and a tiny amount of memory compared even to the PS3 and yet it was perfectly capable of running the FFXI client. In a lot of ways, it's not how big your tool is, it's how well you use it. PS2 and PS3 are great illustrations of that truism in the world of technology and gaming.

Also they say the in house Cell Architecture they used on the PS2 and PS3 are harder to develop for than what they are using in the PS4. Hence why you can't run PS3 disks on the PS4.

This is in fact completely wrong. the PS2 architecture uses a MIPS 3/4 design and features two special vector processing units, that were completely custom. PS2 also used the GS GPU which was very powerful considering it's age, but that's a different discussion. PS2 did not use Cell BE, nor did it use anything that developed into Cell BE. PS3 used the CellBE which was a joint design effort by IBM, Toshiba and Sony. The main CPU element was a standard PowerPC core, the SPEs and on chip data bus (extremely high performance) were new to the party. The GPU was RSX which was a reworking of an existing nVidia design, the GPU core elements were the same as existing products shipped by nVidia. PS3 did not use anything from the PS2 architecture (except for those early systems that included a PS2 chipset for backwards compatibility).

PS4 can't run PS3 games because a) it's an x86 system not Power PC, and b) emulating the SPEs and the interconnect bus is beyond the capability of the APUs in current consoles. Emulating the SPEs is hard because of the extremely high bandwidth of the interconnect bus that connects them on-chip. Few if any CPUs around can match the speed needed, and that's only the raw speed, not under emulation. So, PS3 games will not run under emulation any time soon.

"Harder to develop for" if you're not familiar with either architecture. If you were a developer working on iPad or Android products and switched up to working on PS4 or PC games, you'd be in the same boat. It's a new architecture to learn, and new GPUs too. "Harder to develop for" is a lazy excuse.

i have played FF14 on the PS3 and it was HORRIBLE.

I played on PS3 from beta 3 until PS4 landed with the PS4 version of FFXIV. It wasn't horrible. It fairs poorly in a side by side comparison with PS4, but on it's own merits it's actually pretty good.

this game is clearly designed with the PS4 in mind and it is not really working on the old PS3.

This game ws designed to run on PS3, low end PCs, high end gaming rigs, Macs and PS4. It was not clearly designed with PS4 in mind since the PS4 runs a modified version of the PC code base, and not the PS3 client.

endless waiting for summoning retainers and NPCs, you can't see most of the people in crowded areas, HUNTS, i had an hardware delay and it was impossible for me to dodge some AOEs (on the day i got my PS4 i was suddenly a way better player xP)...
if the game was working in the PS3 but holding the other plattforms back i would say: nope, don't drop PS3 support - but it isn't working. the game is horrible on PS3, so they should drop the support to get rid of the mess xD

Honestly, delays summoning retainers only occur when there is a server side issue. Dodging was a latency issue that affected everyone, latency was improved at about the same time as people started moving to PS4. PS3 can't render as many characters in crowded areas as a PS4 can, but then a PS4 and most low-medium range PCs can't match the number of characters that a high end gaming rig can show. It's all relative.

The PS3 client is far from being a mess.

[Linnaete]

Nothing more needs to be added after "it takes 5 mins for ps3 players to load." Wish I was joking but many instances can't even be started unless all players load, so one can already see how inconvenient that is for a whole group.

This.

Of the listed limitations, this one hits home the most because it's aggravating to have to see that black screen carry on for five minutes while a duty loads in. I don't mind having to wait. I'm used to it. But I feel terrible when I know that I'm keeping other people, so much so that I have to pre-emptively apologise every time. It's like the most Canadian thing ever, except for the fact that I'm a Brit. xD

[Tint]

Honestly, delays summoning retainers only occur when there is a server side issue. Dodging was a latency issue that affected everyone, latency was improved at about the same time as people started moving to PS4.

nope, it was clearly a hardware problem of the PS3. on PS3 i had the slow retainer summoning and npcs, and i was unable to move out of some aoes. one day later, on the PS4, same internet, same servers, same everything else, i had zero problems, retainers were there in the instant i hit the bell, npcs too, and i could dodge all the aoe markers easily.

and yeah, i thought it was horrible - especially the aoe-dodging part. that's why i got my PS4 asap.

[Kosmos992k]

nope, it was clearly a hardware problem of the PS3. on PS3 i had the slow retainer summoning and npcs, and i was unable to move out of some aoes. one day later, on the PS4, same internet, same servers, same everything else, i had zero problems, retainers were there in the instant i hit the bell, npcs too, and i could dodge all the aoe markers easily.

and yeah, i thought it was horrible - especially the aoe-dodging part. that's why i got my PS4 asap.

I've never seen the kind of slow retainer summoning or NPC reaction you're talking about when playing on PS3. When I had the PS3 version there were some fights where the polling latency of the game made dodging AoEs tricky, any marginal delays on PS3 will have made that a little worse, but switching to PS4 did not alter the delays for me. Even the notorious titan HM was not really any more of an issue on PS3 as it was on PS4. I got my PS4 and upgraded to the PS4 client as soon as SE had it available, even running the Beta for a while as a comparison with the two side by side.

Clearly some people's experience may vary, my PS3 has no SSD, we're on wired network connections and cable Internet. The biggest issue I've seen anyone encountering with AoE dodging is playing over wifi because of the inherent additional network lag induced by the use of wireless networking. Plugging the console into the router fixed that at a stroke.

I think you're indulging in a case of inverse rose tinted glasses here.

One thought that occurs is that when you interact with NPCs or open interfaces such as the retainer, the game is loading local files, if your HDD was getting towards the full end of the spectrum you may have had file fragmentation issues. That happened to me on a number of PS3 games until I got a newer, much larger HDD and re-loaded every game from scratch, resulting in much cleaner installs and almost no fragmentation. Just like on a PC, fragmentation is a problem, and don't let anyone tell you that consoles are unaffected by that.

[Niwashi]

- We can't have more inventory because of PS3 limitations
- We can't wear two hats because of PS3 limitations

The inventory limitation is due to server limitations, not PS3 limitations. The servers need to keep track of everyone's inventory in real time, including passing it between them. And for non-real-time inventory (like retainers) it's just a database issue. Both are a matter of convincing SE that this game that's bringing in so much money is worth actually spending a bit of that money on. (I can understand them having minimal servers when ARR first launched and they weren't sure if a relaunched game would be successful, but by this point they know it is. It's worth investing the time and money needed for some major upgrades. I expect that's why we're getting more inventory in the next expansion: that that's when the upgrades they're working on are supposed to be complete.)

The two headgear slot idea would be hard for PS3s to handle, but would also be harder to design for, so we wouldn't be likely to get it anyway. The reason the belt is no longer a visibly displayed gear item, for instance, is because it made it too hard for the designers trying to ensure that each belt fit with each piece of leg gear or long chest gear. Having separate head and face slots could have similar issues in matching up which ones could be displayed together.



The PS3's problem is memory. In particular, anything that increases the amount of memory needed in order to display a character on-screen is particularly limited because you not only need it for your own character, but multiplied by the number of characters around you. It's the reason really crowded areas are hard for PS3. (They're also hard for low-end PCs, but that's more often about graphics processing. The PS3 is actually better than a lot of PCs at graphics processing, but it's quicker to choke on the memory requirements.)

So adding an additional selection in character configuration (for instance separating the face and horns for Au Ra into two different options you can mix and match) would mean an additional data field your system would need in order to display a nearby character. That was ruled out specifically because SE doesn't want to increase the size of that character configuration data that every client in the area needs. But even there, there are two reasons for limiting that data size. One is that increases to it are hard on low memory clients like PS3. The other (and perhaps more significant one) is that it can become an issue with the server to client communication as the servers have to send everybody's description to everybody else. It's the second of those issues that leads to lag in crowded areas.

Adding things like an extra visible gear slot would also add to the amount of data on how to display a character, multiplied by the number of characters around you. And it all has to be first communicated to every client, then held in memory by the client which displays them.

Multiple dye colors per gear piece would add to the data, but besides the added memory needed, SE mentioned something about multiple passes in rendering it. I don't quite understand the details, but from the sound of it, it seems it's low-end PCs with limited graphics capabilities rather than low memory clients like PS3 that that limitation is geared towards.


So most of the things that PS3s memory limits are also limited by other factors anyway, whether that's server communications, development effort, or graphics processing. It doesn't seem like there's much that dropping PS3 support would actually buy us.

[Tarta]

PS3 doesn't have 512 of RAM.
Has 2 sources of Memory, which together would equal 512, but you don't *add* them up.

Memory 256 MB XDR DRAM system and 256 MB GDDR3 video

[AstreaTrinity]

Honestly i dont know how anyone can put themselves through the suffering thats playing this game on PS3

once this dropped on PS4 i never looked back

Good old memories of missing hunts because 5 minute load times and killing half my raid group because the adds would kill them before even becoming visible to me (:

[Kotemon]

ROTFLMAO.

The PS2 architecture ..<snip>.. backwards compatibility).

.

Thanks for clearing that up. My understanding of the detailed difference between the PS3 and PS2 was always a bit murky. Especially when talk of dropping backwards compatibility would make it cheaper. As it began sounding like it had referred more to hardware than changes to the OS. So my assumption was they were using the same in house design initially that allowed backwards compatibility. As I never had a PS2 or bothered with the Ps3 when it dropped backwards support with the price..

[Niwashi]

As to PS3s long load times, a solid state drive takes care of that part (or it's possible, as someone mentioned earlier, that a larger and defragmented drive would do the same even if it weren't solid state). I've played on both PS3 and PS4 and the load times are about the same, but that's a PS3 with SSD and a PS4 with its standard hard drive.

The one place I do really see a difference between them is in crowded areas where the PS3 is slow to load all other characters / mobs. In the worst cases it doesn't display some of them at all. (From what I've heard, that can also an issue with low-end PCs, so it's not exclusively a PS3 problem, but I'm really glad it doesn't happen on my PS4.)