At the risk of a long reply, and going into the weeds a bit (sorry you can just ignore it if it gets tedious) Its never a 1 to 1 comparison if something runs well somewhere then it should automatically run well elsewhere. Of course. different hardware, different codebase, different engine etc, But from my experience (and from can you run it, and anywhere else it seems) Terraria does not take much to run. Ram majoritarily, (and to a lesser extent CPU) appear to be the most intensive usages from a system resource perspective and compared to the vast vast VAST majority of games these days, its system requirements are laughable. 'Potato' in the truest sense of the word.
Terraria System Requirements:
- OS: Windows Xp, Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10
- Processor: 2.0 Ghz
- Memory: 2.5GB
- Hard Disk Space: 200MB
- Video Card: 128mb Video Memory, capable of Shader Model 2.0+
- DirectX®: 9.0c or Greater
I mean look at that. you will struggle to find a game with LOWER system requirements. But thats also because its a 7 year old 2d game, thats also had nearly 7 years worth of development time and optimisations.
Now thats not to say it will run always run well with the bare minimum, but from personal experience, i can run it great on an old pc i use as a media centre, with a 7 year old i3, radeon 6850 and 4gb ram. 60fps locked. Just like i can on my main rig, just at a lower resolution.
I was also playing on the vita just hours ago, and it runs absolutely fine and dandy, Your statement is objectively false there. It runs BETTER than the ps4 1.3. It feels smooth and responsive to the point where i can actively FEEL it plays differently on the new engine, and not in a good way. When i booted up the vita version it was honestly a bit of a revelation. in 1.3 There is a definite delay in response of input and the frame rate/pacing makes it feel choppy and movement is...sludgy for want of a better word. If you could play both side by side the way i just did you would absolutely see the difference. Bear in mind that the PS Vita actually has MORE ram than the ps3...but i guess its slow processor means that some of the task that would be problematic for the ps3 ram wise could be offloaded somewhat/somehow to the cell processor/s, and couldn't get the same assistance on vita.
But fundamentally, it runs and runs well on Vita. unlike the ps4 version currently.
My son plays on an amazon fire tablet 5 with 1gb ram, or his mums ipad gen 2 (both fairly old and limited hardware wise) and on both, it runs absolutely fine.
All these machines are FATHOMS below the power available in a ps4/xbox1.
Terraria is in no way a 'demanding' game.
And 1.3 being 'larger' than 1.2 is almost irrelevant to performance. Adding stuff like new sprites, adjusting mechanics or parameters isnt making the game hugely more demanding. Just because there is 800+ new items in its loot database it should somehow be harder to run? The biggest performance hits i could see is the new NPC and boss AI, animations and water physics. Even at that, we arent talking earth-shattering advances here. They are simplistic in nature compared to most games. If GTA5, horizon, metal gear solid 5, (even minecraft for a more relative example because of all the block generation) etc can all run great and perform leagues better and have almost infinitely more demanding worlds, textures, ai, physics etc then what is the matter with this?
To me, its development time. 3 things to make a game run well are good or clean game source code, a solid engine that has the parts you need for your game mechanics systems, and OPTIMISATION. And all come at a cost of development time. You can have great source code but if the engine isnt designed for your game and its systems, its not going to work well without optimisation - look at ME andromeda and frostbite as an example. Frostbite is an AMAZING engine, but its primarily a FPS engine, to make whole new systems in the engine for RPG mechanics like questing and looting, not to mention creating whole new engine sub systems to make procedural planets, took a toll on development time meaning a lack of time left for optimisation. And what a mess that was, They just ran out of time because they had some kind of deadline.
You can have a great, robust, well known and tested game engine, but without optimised game code it wont run well either.
Its all down to Development time and therfore optimisation. Things which after half an hour of playing 1.3 i could see with an untrained eye, were pretty obviously lacking.
Im not going to pretend to know anything about thier studio, their workflow, thier other projects, or how hard is was to rewrite the codebase in a different language and make it work in a different engine (though ps4 and xbox are surely closer to the pc version in hardware and architecture, so i can see how attractive it would be to make them all work together in the whole one terraria ethos).
Pipeworks will no doubt get it all working properly, i am not questioning that. Im sure they will do a great job over the coming months getting it up to speed and making necessary adjustment.
But right now, it is not in a good place. Im not saying this from a place of pouty lips and "pipeworks sucksorz 4eva" because my 'beloved' game has been ruined. I have plenty other game to play. im just saying what i see as im interested in this from a development perspective, and my son has asked me for a year straight as to when he could play 1.3. When he finally got to play it, it literally made him cry or 3 different occasions, just with frustration, because it broke so frequently and so badly that it ruined his, longstanding world, his longstanding character and his items and loot on more than multiple occasions. Just in a few hours of playing. He was so psyched to play this and now hes done with it for the time being. And im trying to explain to him how or why it could possibly happen and be THIS bad.... I dunno son, it wasnt ready for release i guess....