So... What Exactly ARE the PS3 Limitations

[Greydor]

All too often, people throw out the excuse of "PS3 limitations" when asked why certain features don't exist in the game or why changes can't be made. Examples include:

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

So, has the developer given a list of any actual PS3 limitations? Has anything been confirmed to be missing/unchangeable due to PS3 limitation that aren't heresay?

EDIT: Rephrasing to clarify. What I'm asking is what total game additions/changes cannot be made due to the PS3 being the limiting factor. In other words, what are PC/PS4 players missing out on because the PS3 flat-out couldn't handle it?

[MugenMugetsu]

The PS3 has a total of 512MB of RAM. This limits how much information can be loaded when zoning into a zone or while navigating through a zone, limiting the number of player characters, enemies, terrain objects, etc. that the game can display at one time as all of this information has to be stored in the systems RAM. So while a PC user with plenty of RAM can see all player characters,mobs, terrain objects, effects of attacks/spells, etc. a PS3 user can only see as much as the RAM will allow to be loaded at one time.

That's pretty much the main factor holding back the game's potential on the PS3.

[Greydor]

The PS3 has a total of 512MB of RAM. This limits how much information can be loaded when zoning into a zone or while navigating through a zone, limiting the number of player characters, enemies, terrain objects, etc. that the game can display at one time as all of this information has to be stored in the systems RAM. So while a PC user with plenty of RAM can see all player characters,mobs, terrain objects, effects of attacks/spells, etc. a PS3 user can only see as much as the RAM will allow to be loaded at one time.

That's pretty much the main factor holding back the game's potential on the PS3.

I updated the question. How you answered the question was due to my lack of clarity - sorry about that. I was referring to what changes/additions cannot be made to any version (e.g. PS4/PC) because of PS3 being the limiting factor.

[MugenMugetsu]

Hmmm. Well first and foremost we can start with High Definition textures. These will take up more RAM for the game to process visually along with character models etc. The amount of objects (player characters, NPC, terrain objects, decorations, etc.) in any given area could be limited by the low amount of RAM available in the PS3 as SE wants everyone to have an equal experience when playing the game. The amount of items available to be visible on a character model would be limited by the small amount of RAM, character creation options which if more options were added would cause each character to take up more RAM, just anything that you can think of that's going to take memory for the game to display is going to be limited by the 512MB of RAM available in the PS3.

Again, with SE wanting everyone to have the same, or nearly the same, experience while playing the game, SE will not add things that people with more RAM can benefit from to the point that it gives a PC or PS4 player an advantage or a much better gameplay experience compared to a PS3 player.

[Kosmos992k]

All too often, people throw out the excuse of "PS3 limitations" when asked why certain features don't exist in the game or why changes can't be made. Examples include:

- We can't have more inventory because of PS3 limitations
- We can't wear two hats because of PS3 limitations
- Balmung exists because of PS3 limitations
- PS3 limitations are the reason we can't seperate Balmung into it's own server away from everyone else

So, has the developer given a list of any actual PS3 limitations? Has anything been confirmed to be missing/unchangeable due to PS3 limitation that aren't heresay?

EDIT: Rephrasing to clarify. What I'm asking is what total game additions/changes cannot be made due to the PS3 being the limiting factor. In other words, what are PC/PS4 players missing out on because the PS3 flat-out couldn't handle it?

Very large zones might be an issue due to memory limitations. Solo PS3 games resolve this by streaming data overlays as players move around to give the impression of a larger field. In an MMORPG there are many external data factors due to the online interactive nature of the game that make that more difficult.

Large scale battles are a problem on PS3 because it cannot render the same number of players, NPCs and monsters, as well as other objects as PCs/Mac or PS4. This would be the largest limitation I can think of in fact. The game is client server after all, so the client can scale to the platform.

Hmmm. Well first and foremost we can start with High Definition textures. These will take up more RAM for the game to process visually along with character models etc. .

That is not a PS3 limitation, that is an SE decision. they could easily create a high definition texture pack for high end PCs and even have the textures scale depending on platform, and have the PS3 continue to use the existing textures as the default base resolution. It's pretty well false to call this a PS3 limitation.

[Yurimi]

While I am sure there are some limitations for the game due to the aging of the PS3's hardware 90% of the limitations people are claiming are simply due to poor optimization or coding, or a lack of willingness on SE's part to actually impliment something. Those clamoring for high resolution textures but say they wont make them because of ps3 for example I would like to question how you think they make them to begin with. Most every artist starts with an ultra high resolution creation then it is downscaled to be put in engine. The reason the PC doesnt get these is because SE has not and probably will not release them. A lot of the "PS3 limitations" for features that people like to blame are often back end coding implimentations that run server side so blame poor server hardware and coding for most issues. There are some limitations the PS3 cant overcome, it does indeed have limited RAM that is shared between video and system memory but that is where things like draw distance low poly models view fogging and the like can be implimented. Most people want to blame the console but really they should be blaming the programmers lazy spaghetti code and poorly optimized server architecture.

[StrejdaTom]

UI - as SE wants the UI across PC and PS3/4 to show the same informations, they had to hide party bonus (INT/STR/etc.) in order to show TP bars, TP bars even don´t show numbers. PS3 is the reason.

Cities are divided into separate zones, it is the same for all locations and dungeons while you can see that the zones are clearly modeled even behind the transition wall.
The game could easily be one huge open world + dungeons could be 1 zone with no loading screens (I had a friend back in 2.X who used to bug behind the transition balls and wander around for hours and make screenshots. With a bit of adding some details the game is imo ready for open world, I mean world design wide).

RAM basically influences how much stuff you can have in inventory, in each UI window etc.

Most probably dyes? It is really weird that we can only put one dye into each gear piece while it could handle even 4 different colours.

EDIT: And yeah.. size of locations.

We as a players can only guess what are the real reasons behind devs decisions. Plenty of stuff was probably done because they only wanted to save some time, resources etc., but there definitely is plenty of other stuff that is plain impossible without ditching the PS3 too (UI, open world for example).

[MugenMugetsu]

That is not a PS3 limitation, that is an SE decision. they could easily create a high definition texture pack for high end PCs and even have the textures scale depending on platform, and have the PS3 continue to use the existing textures as the default base resolution. It's pretty well false to call this a PS3 limitation.

Ok. My bad. I was implying that the HD textures would be provided for all platforms, and because the PS3 would not be able to handle the addition of an HD texture pack, the PS3 is limiting/holding back the game because like I stated, SE wants all players to have a similar experience, and this could very well be the reason why SE has decided to not provide us with an HD texture pack. Therefore, PS3 limitation.

[AsteriaStarfall]

Cities are divided into separate zones, it is the same for all locations and dungeons while you can see that the zones are clearly modeled even behind the transition wall.

Not entirely, only what can be viewed from anywhere in your current zone is modeled, everything else is left blank.

[The_NPC]

as a person who went PS3 to PS4, I can state there are a few things that are diff between both versions: Resolution detail (Texture & draw distance), number of players visable at once (good luck making to a Zerged hunt & seeing it on PS3), speed of information loading (also affecting previous example with Hunts), Effects & slight animations (the shine from gather nodes is dimmer on PS3, also "Jiggle-physics" aren't used on PS3 but are on PS4 then there the shine effect they added to floors in 3.3 that PS3 can't have)

I doubt the PS3 is acutually "Holding us back" like said (as the game is only slightly diferent between PS3 & PS4 but its still playable on PS3 (u just miss out on "Fluff" effects is all) I thinks its more SE & Dev's atempts to keep the only diff being these "fluff" effects (look at the diff between DA: Inquision, PS4 just has more background NPC's & stuff when it ant a cutscene both are playable just 1 "looks" cooler due to having more "Fluff" is all))