Marlin-Pronterface-Slic3r, who has limit control, and when ?

A fundamental question I have not found an easy answer for. As a newbie in 3D Reprap I assumed that the firmware settings were absolute in the limiting of maximum motor speed and acceleration, but now I'm not sure that was a good assumption.

Can anybody tell me (without guessing like I did). What is the hierarchy of motion control in a Reprap 3D printer in relation to movement limits like motor max speed and motor max acceleration etc.
Are the settings that we put into the firmware when compiling (whether Marlin, Repetier or whatever) the highest level, or the lowest (leaving the EEPROM out of this for now).
Or in other words does the code produced by Slic3r contain it's own motor speed limits that over ride the firmwares limits ?

I need to know this to be able to understand where I need to be looking to find motor over driving issues during printing...

Thanks,
Martin

I found a bit of a clue here
[forums.reprap.org]

Suggests that the firmware has final control of the feed and accel limits (not sure about Pronterface and slic3r).

If anyone has more info I'd like to know.

Right. In other words:
The firmware is the motor, the host is the steering wheel and the slicer is the driver.

---

Triffid Hunter's Calibration Guide

--> X <-- Drill for new Monitor

Most important Gcode.

gcode requests a feed rate, firmware looks at requested feed rate, if its under max feed rate it does as its told, if its over it clips the feed rate to the max feedrate value

Thanks, that's a useful description.
I guess if the G-code is being spooled from an SD card on the controler then the GUI like Pronterface or Repetier has no further input until the job is complete ?