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how?

Started by the-war, August 14, 2006, 07:30:51 PM

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the-war

i heared that the differences between ultra2 microsd and normal microsd is just the ((write speed))
how does write speed affects in playing?

tlogank

I have the regular speed one and I have played the Castlevania video, Tony Hawk game, and Animal Crossing...all have played perfectly for me.

FifthE1ement

Read my homebrew guide here and go to the flash media section as it explains speeds and read/write on flash media:

http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=27045

Enjoy,

FifthE1ement  8)

bitblt

PLEASE DO NOT POST THE SAME SUBJECT TWICE. ITS ANNOYING.  THANK YOU.

Musulsa

FifthE1ement, I read your guide, and while quite good, in no way does it answer the-war's question.  You simply mention that the 80x, 150x etc refers to the write speed as a multiple of the CD write standard.

The real answer is: the write speed does NOT affect DS gameplay at all.  This is because the DS does not do any writing at all to the NDS romfiles (rom does mean READ ONLY memory after all!) but instead only ever writes to the save files, which are so tiny as to be generally unaffected by write speed.

The two major factors of flash memory that will noticeably affect DS gameplay are #1 access time and #2 read speed.  #1 is generally more important than #2.  This is because the DS usually needs lots of little packets of data more often than a few giant pieces of data.  Access time is more important when trying to get lots of random pieces of data.  Read speed is more important when trying to get a few very huge files.
 
In regards to #2: Using the speed multiplier can be a good rule of thumb for predicting the read speed as the two tend to be tied together.  However keep in mind that sometimes the read/write speeds differ from the advertised speeds.  Example:  A reports that A-Data's 150x 4gb SD card actually seems to read at 66x.

In regards to #1: For access time/speed data, check google.  Several trade magazines and online review sites have compiled data on read/write/access speeds of the major brands of the major types of flash memory.  You might be surprised how widely access time can differ across brands.

Again using the "150x is faster than 80x" is a decent rule of thumb but there can be large differences between two or three "150x" rated cards.  As always do your own research.

AND FINALLY:

Having said all that, my own informal testing of a normal sandisk 1gb microsd and an sandisk ultra2 1gb microsd found that they were identical in visible performance in Tony Hawk and Animal Crossing.  But you don't take my word for it.