Mobile The Path Ahead: Major News Updates for Console & Mobile

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3KonekoChan3 said:
Really? I found a USB flash drive that gives me 116Gb for my xbox. I can download games on it but I can take it out and it's not on my main storage.
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This won't be the most technically perfect description, but here goes anyway.

What you have (the USB flash drive, as well as your Xbox's hard drive) is data storage. Its basically for recording and keeping data available for the long term; data you've saved on a game 6 years ago would be saved on the hard drive, as well as all of your world/player saves, screenshots, the actual game data themselves when you download or save them to your HD. Loading data from the HD takes a little while, though its still pretty fast, so while it can be used to access information, it has a delay. You could think of it as long term memory.

RAM is the memory that is used to keep all of the currently loaded data "active" and quickly accessible. So while all of your saves are recorded on your HD, when you load up Terraria, "what's going on in the world right now" is loaded in RAM, so that it can be very quickly accessed and changed. Everything active in game has to be handled by RAM all at the same time, and no amount of extra Hard-drive space can be substituted for it. If your HD is your long term memory, you could think of RAM as your short term memory; imagine trying to keep a random string of numbers in your head at once without being given time to memorize them. You can probably keep maybe 6-8 of them at a time, but after that, its too hard to keep track of it all. That's basically how RAM works (except RAM will be loading thousands or even millions of things at once).

And that's where hardware limitations hit Terraria very hard, because of how the game has to keep a lot of content "active" at once in the RAM. Terraria itself takes up a relatively small amount of storage space, but RUNNING Terraria requires a higher amount of RAM than most people expect, because they assume that low res graphics = easy to run. But its the "background processing" that really puts the strain on RAM, not the quality of the graphics . . . this is much like Minecraft, which loads only specific chunks of the world so as to reduce the burden on RAM.

Hope that makes sense.
 
Leinfors said:
This won't be the most technically perfect description, but here goes anyway.

What you have (the USB flash drive, as well as your Xbox's hard drive) is data storage. Its basically for recording and keeping data available for the long term; data you've saved on a game 6 years ago would be saved on the hard drive, as well as all of your world/player saves, screenshots, the actual game data themselves when you download or save them to your HD. Loading data from the HD takes a little while, though its still pretty fast, so while it can be used to access information, it has a delay. You could think of it as long term memory.

RAM is the memory that is used to keep all of the currently loaded data "active" and quickly accessible. So while all of your saves are recorded on your HD, when you load up Terraria, "what's going on in the world right now" is loaded in RAM, so that it can be very quickly accessed and changed. Everything active in game has to be handled by RAM all at the same time, and no amount of extra Hard-drive space can be substituted for it. If your HD is your long term memory, you could think of RAM as your short term memory; imagine trying to keep a random string of numbers in your head at once without being able to memorize them. You can probably keep maybe 6-8 of them at a time, but after that, its too hard to keep track of it all. That's basically how RAM works (except RAM will be loading thousands or even millions of things at once). And that's where hardware limitations hit Terraria very hard, because of how the game has to keep a lot of content "active" at once in the RAM.

Hope that makes sense.
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Ohhh Thank you!
 
Looking forward to the future of Terraria :)

Happy Warm Welcome to Pipeworks too :)

"Returns to cave"
[ Hibernation skill increased ]
 
hello guys. nice to see lots of 1.3 news that has gotten me totally hyped. i do feel sorry for old gen. and as for Pipeworks, welcome to the community
 
Shame about the Past gen consoles. PSVita CAN handle the magnitude of the 1.3 update, provided a competent developer could give it a makeover. I have faith in Pipeworks for handling the future of the console versions, but the Vita version felt like the pinnacle of Terraria, a truly portable full version that despite its issues, still gave the best Terraria experience. The multiplayer anywhere with ad-hoc, mobility, controls were a beauty, and a true pick up and play experience

Although I don't feel too bad about the loss of the vita version, it's been unplayable for over a year (thanks old Dev's).

Good thing I jumped the boat onto the PC version though, with its fancy controller support.

Also, important note. PSVITA IS NOT LAST-gen, it's classed as 8th gen, the same generation as ps4 and Xbox one. It's considerably more powerful than a PS3. Please, if you can find a way to get 1.3 on the vita, don't give up on it
 
HappyDays said:
So much news! 1.3 for current gen, everyone will be excited! Welcome to the community Pipeworks :) I'm sure everyone is glad for the update! :)
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I play PC terraria so I can already play with 1.3 content but it's good to know that I can go on my Xbox One aswell and play with it.Now it's just the long wait to see what it'll feel like.
 
well looks like ill no longer be playing terraria because the vita version was THE BEST way to play the game but ive already collected everything currently in the game and was hoping for 1.3
 
The Teenage Gamer said:
PSVita CAN handle the magnitude of the 1.3 update, provided a competent developer could give it a makeover.
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I am not questioning your expertise, but if both Re-Logic and 505 Games, two companies with extensive experience with Terraria's format as well as software development in general, say that it can't be done, you'll have to support that claim incredibly well to convince me.
 
Kazzymodus said:
I am not questioning your expertise, but if both Re-Logic and 505 Games, two companies with extensive experience with Terraria's format as well as software development in general, say that it can't be done, you'll have to support that claim incredibly well to convince me.
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there is a difference between being impossible and being time consuming
 
Leinfors said:
Time has nothing to do with it. Its an issue of sacrificing quality and cutting corners to "make it work", and walking away with an unsatisfactory product. :)
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I'm sure there are many optimizations that could be made within the code to make it use ram more efficiently and I know there are ways to optimize 2d graphics without sacrificing any quality but again both of these things are easier said than done
 
deathblade200 said:
well looks like ill no longer be playing terraria because the vita version was THE BEST way to play the game but ive already collected everything currently in the game and was hoping for 1.3
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I know the feeling mate. Those thousands of hours, and for what? (Sad violin starts playing in the background) even though we won't be getting 1.3, we'll at least have each other to play with.

2016 is a very bad year, we're losing everything. We've lost many celebrities this year, many lives have been lost in numerous atrocities this year, but by far one of the worst things is missing out on updates for this gem of a game on a misunderstood system

Kazzymodus said:
I am not questioning your expertise, but if both Re-Logic and 505 Games, two companies with extensive experience with Terraria's format as well as software development in general, say that it can't be done, you'll have to support that claim incredibly well to convince me.
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Here's an old screenshot of mine from getting 1.1 ported on a GameBoy advance. I like referring to this screenshot as it's very inspirational towards me as a modder. If it works, they should try it
image.jpeg
Leinfors said:
Time has nothing to do with it. Its an issue of sacrificing quality and cutting corners to "make it work", and walking away with an unsatisfactory product. :)
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While I understand and truly respect you and the teams descision to do this, time was ironically the only constraint that had an impact on the quality. The psvita's low sales often makes multi-platform developers overlook the vita, and release multi-platform updates when the more marketable home console versions are finished, often releasing unfished updates for the vita to coincide with the same updates more polished release on the other consoles. If that makes sense

If PSVTN wasn't so darn dastardly, I'd at least have a shot at making 1.3 for my own vita version, provided legal issues weren't a problem either
 
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