Would games like DOOM Eternal, Witcher 3,.. be possible on PS3? (2025)

PS3 is questionable, considering it only had 256MB RAM for the CPU and another 256MB for the GPU, and the GPU was pretty weak as well.

That being said, the 360 could probably run some halfway decent ports of Doom Eternal or Witcher 3. Witcher 3 is surprisingly light on the CPU and while some things would need to be changed (less NPCs in cities, less graphical effects, probably even some loading screens between areas) I have to imagine it would be possible. And if possible on 360 it'd likely be possible on PS3 as well, but seeing as how even The Witcher 2 didn't make it to PS3 while it did come to 360 it's impossible to know for sure.

Doom Eternal I don't know much about what affects what, but I know id Tech is pretty scalable, so I guess if id wanted to do it I'm sure they probably could bring it to PS3/360 albeit with much worse graphics and 30fps among other tweaks

The RAM would be the single biggest limitation, and it's not just about textures.
512MB of RAM (less than that actually available for games) is just not enough for a game like Witcher 3.

Dragon Age Inquisition was on PS3 but it's not comparable because its open world was more or less illusion as it was corridor style open world like FarCry 2, i.e. it was basically an interconnect set of wide corridors. Which is different from Witcher 3's proper open world. As an example check out any of the old Assassin's Creed game and how they ran and looked, that was basically state of the art for open world games back then. (GTAV and RDR1 look better but they are different kinds of games with different requirements, eventhough they are open world)

RAM is the issue.
Switch is 3.2 GB of RAM available to games, that's roughly 6x what is on the PS3 and PS3 doesn't have access to all of its 512 MB and the fact its not a unified RAM will also make it difficult if not impossible so the real number is probably closer to 8x to 16x

The other issue I would guess is the GPU tech.
Just look at how much better Crysis 1/2/3 Remasted handles on Switch and its running on the remastered assets instead of the OG assets on the PS3.

The limited ram really kills the chance. Maybe with potato quality graphics and sub 720p and sub 20 framerates?

MadMod said:

MGS4 looks better than most games released last gen (exaggerating), so yeah, if optimised properly in the CELL. I find it also weird that MGS4 looks better than anything on switch, yet people are saying that Switch is a stronger system? Was it just Kojima engineers or something haha.

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MGS4 looked pretty rough and was heavily downgraded from the initial reveal. The fremrates were all over the place and the resolution was pretty low. (sub 720p) The game really didn't look that impressive by 2008 standards. I would even say that the original Uncharted looked better and that came out a year earlier in 2007. In 2009 Uncharted 2 blew MGS4 away completely.

GoW 3 Remaster and TLoU Remaster on PS4 are 1080p/60FPS titles.
Doom Eternal is an (almost because dynamic resolution) 1080p/60FPS title.
The Witcher 3 is a 1080p/30FPS title with latest patches.

Doom Eternal is very, very scalable.
The Witcher 3 wasn't and is definitively an "impossible port". But the sacrifices are really huge.

But yeah, like I said, if they managed to port TW III, no problem for GoW 3 and TLoU Remaster.

CerealBro1 said:

That being said, the 360 could probably run some halfway decent ports of Doom Eternal or Witcher 3. Witcher 3 is surprisingly light on the CPU and while some things would need to be changed (less NPCs in cities, less graphical effects, probably even some loading screens between areas) I have to imagine it would be possible. And if possible on 360 it'd likely be possible on PS3 as well, but seeing as how even The Witcher 2 didn't make it to PS3 while it did come to 360 it's impossible to know for sure.

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Forza Horizon 2 on 360 and Xbox One is an interesting example. Looking at them side by side you can see just how much the open world had to be shaved down to work within the 360's memory limitations - lots of extra walls and barriers where there were none on the One.

mavericktopgun said:

Some people say games like God of War 3 and The Last of us would not be possible on Switch but DOOM Eternal and Witcher 3 are clearly doing much more in terms of game world size and graphics.

What do you think?

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You could probably make virtually anything playable if you scaled down all the graphics/effects, lowered the game to a ridiculously low resolution, and were okay with sub 30fps.

So would they be possible? Yeah, sure. But with all the concessions they'd have to make to make it run, they'd look and run like other PS3 games or worse. They essentially wouldn't be the same game.

Claude Augario said:

Some people are wearing clown shoes.

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This made me chuckle.

Pankratous said:

We can't use Bethesda games as a benchmark

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It's on both systems, I don't see why not.

Maxey said:

I bet you could port Crysis to the ZX Spectrum if you tried hard enough.

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At 30fpm (frames per minute) even!

Pankratous said:

Most Bethesda games run like crap on all platforms, even to this day. Deathloop (which isn't a looker) has major stuttering issues on PS5 which is supposed to be easy to develop for. Some notable exceptions like Wolfenstein that runs beautifully (and I think DOOM too but never played it)

The PS3 was capable of games much better than anything Bethesda put on it - God of War 3, God of War Ascension, TLOU, Uncharted 3, Killzone 2/3, and more

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None of the games you list come to the scope of Skyrim has it's an open world game that keeps track of completed quest, items stored, npcs killed, npc interactions. The PS3 only has 256mb of ram to handle that while the other half is only reserved for Video Ram

Zombegoast said:

The Ps3 couldn't even run Dragon's Dogma. The Ps3 pretty much struggled with anything that's open world

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strangely GTAV was slightly better technically on PS3 than on 360, wasnt it?

i remember being surprised at how decent it was, when i was expecting a chuggy blurry mess..

astroturfing said:

strangely GTAV was slightly better technically on PS3 than on 360, wasnt it?

i remember being surprised at how decent it was, when i was expecting a chuggy blurry mess..

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Nope, other way around. Rockstar open world games ran smoother on the 360 than the PS3. It was the second party games like Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us that the PS3 showed its strengths.

EDIT: To stay on topic. I'm sure that Doom and The Witcher 3 could be done on the PS3. They would just be heavily downgraded. Like sub-HD resolutions, blurry textures, more compressed audio, etc. But if they can put a game like Virtua Racing on the Sega Genesis, or Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64, they can do Doom Eternal on PS3.

Mr Jones said:

Nope, other way around. Rockstar open world games ran smoother on the 360 than the PS3. It was the second party games like Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us that the PS3 showed its strengths.

EDIT: To stay on topic. I'm sure that Doom and The Witcher 3 could be done on the PS3. They would just be heavily downgraded. Like sub-HD resolutions, blurry textures, more compressed audio, etc. But if they can put a game like Virtua Racing on the Sega Genesis, or Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64, they can do Doom Eternal on PS3.

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Doom Eternal has no loading outside of deaths. The final level is one of the most complex level in the game as they throw everything at you. They have to severely cut back on enemy count and level design

Dice wanted to add something simple as a 1 handed shield that can be used with a handgun but the ram limitation in the 7th gen systems forced them to drop it

PS3 has a CPU that is beyond what Switch (and PS4/XboxOne) has and the GPU is much weaker and has 1/8 off the ram.

But I guess that developers could theoretically port Eternal and Witcher 3 but it would require the CPU to do most of the work and create some advanced texture compression and more

CDprojekt confirmed before Witcher 3 came out that on 7th gen consoles it would've required a lot more loading.

Rover_ said:

PS3 also runs Persona 5 and that always blows my mind.

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Persona 5 was originally planned for the PS3. All other versions are basically enhanced ports of the PS3 game.

Mr Jones said:

Nope, other way around. Rockstar open world games ran smoother on the 360 than the PS3.

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GTAIV and RDR were better on 360, but GTAV had the slight edge on PS3, as it was later in the gen and Rockstar had managed to squeeze a tiny bit extra out of the Cell.

im pretty sure that was the general consensus back then.. someone back me up please :D