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[r8dhex]

I'm looking for a replacement for my 512MB Kingmax microSD card. I used the kingmax with my supercard lite (slot2) and it runs fast; especially with games that need fast transfer speeds, like Worms Open Warfare 2. But it now has bad-sectors, and usable capacity is only 256MB now. I have a Sandisk 1GB, but it seems slower than the Kingmax, and hangs on some games like Worms. What other brand of microSD card has a fast speed? I'm looking for 2GB, non-SDHC. Is Transcend or Kingston any good?

Thanks

[bitblt]

Kingston brand seems to run fast and work great with most flash carts as long as you get the Japan version, not the slow Taiwan version.

[r8dhex]

I tried a Kingston 2G (made in Japan) as suggested. Didn't work, tried everything, sold it.

The problem was nothing on the DS could write to the card, so games don't really save, moonshell doesn't start etc. Posting on supercard forums didn't really help. Probably a bad batch or they changed OEM supplier or something.

For supercard lite owners (not rumble), what brands of 2G cards do you use? If it's Kingston, what kind, pics, serial# or whatever? I'm sure Kingston works fine for others, but I need to tell which one works and which don't.

My supercard lite is one of the first few batches, ordered it as soon as it was released, so maybe the hardware is more picky than later revisions.

thanks

[bitblt]

It doesn't make any sense that the 2GB Kingston (Japan) didn't work for you. I own a Supercard lite and have no problems using Kingston or the Sandisk brand memory cards. Supercard lite isn't usually picky about what memory card is used. The Kingston (Japan) is preferred because it's a fast memory card.

When you say moonshell doesn't start etc., do you understand that you need to get the correct version of Moonshell that will run on Supercard lite? Many homebrew applications will require you to perform a DLDI patch before they can write to the Supercard lite memory card.

Do patched games save with your Supercard lite or are you only having problems with homebrew?

[r8dhex]

It doesn't make any sense that the 2GB Kingston (Japan) didn't work for you. I own a Supercard lite and have no problems using Kingston or the Sandisk brand memory cards. Supercard lite isn't usually picky about what memory card is used. The Kingston (Japan) is preferred because it's a fast memory card.

When you say moonshell doesn't start etc., do you understand that you need to get the correct version of Moonshell that will run on Supercard lite? Many homebrew applications will require you to perform a DLDI patch before they can write to the Supercard lite memory card.

Do patched games save with your Supercard lite or are you only having problems with homebrew?

Yeah, I know it doesn't make sense. I guess it's probably a bad card or something. But I did format the card to Fat16 as soon as it came out of the box. Then I copied the files from my working Sandisk 1GB, directly to the Kingston. And yes, I did remember to copy dldi.scp to the root. The format and copying steps worked fine, and my PC was able to read/write to the card. In fact the card also worked fine in my digicam.

When I plugged the Kingston into the DS, i first ran mctool.nds, to sort the files. That's when I sensed something wrong, it seemed to just hang indefinitely. At first I figured that the card may be too big for mctool. So I went to play GRID, it loaded properly, I managed to finish a few races, got tired of it, saved. The next time I played it, my saved game wasn't there, I had to start over. I tried other games, and none of them would save properly. It would be able to read the existing save (from the Sandisk), but it won't update it with new saves.

I found a fatwrite.nds test utility on some forum, probably here, i forgot. It failed the test. And that's when I confirmed that the Kingston is having problems with my Supercard. I tried the fatwrite.nds on the Sandisk, as control, and it passed.

I used the latest firmware 1.85, patcher 2.68. I've also tried other things, re-patching the ROMs, formatting the Kingston with FAT16, FAT32 etc.

And, yes I did make sure that "made in Japan" was actually printed ON the microSD.

[bitblt]

Yeah, I know it doesn't make sense. I guess it's probably a bad card or something. But I did format the card to Fat16 as soon as it came out of the box.

I think your SC lite is bad or something.  I've used the very slow Kingston (Taiwan) with my SC lite and the only problems I had where with Animal Crossing, Castlvania and a few other games. These games still play and save though.

When I plugged the Kingston into the DS, i first ran mctool.nds, to sort the files. That's when I sensed something wrong, it seemed to just hang indefinitely.  At first I figured that the card may be too big for mctool.

Maybe mctool caused the problem with your memory card?  An alternative way to sort your files is to copy them to the memory card in the order you want them to show up in the Supercard menu. You can even 'move' files to a temporary folder on your memory card, then 'move' them to a permanent folder on the memory card in the order you want them.

[r8dhex]

I don't think the SC lite is broken, maybe it's just a very early production run, the Sandisk I'm using is working fine, and not really slow for ordinary games. I've also tried other cards in it and no problems.

I also don't think mctool would have caused any damage, it only rearranges the entries in the allocation table. If it did cause any corruption to the tables, I could always reformat to fix that. If it somehow damaged the microsd, I would probably also have problems with using it on the PC or a camera. I always use mctool on my sandisk and it never caused any corruption.

Anyway, do you only have Kingstons? What other brands have you tried and worked? I'm thinking to buy a Toshiba, since Kingston gets their chips from Toshiba, and I think they're all made in Japan.

[bitblt]

I've used the 2GB Sandisk, the first 2GB miscro SD made by Sandisk, sold as a Verizon exclusive for a month or so.

Maybe your card reader is the problem when you use it to format your memory card?

[freezeburn]

I've used both Japan and Taiwan Kingston card to use on my old SC LIte and have had no problems on slow down with any games including the Castlevania games. I did just buy a 4GB SDHC card made by Lexar for 12.99 to use with my new DStt and so far its working great.

[Destro]

You need to look at the speed of the card you're buying, not the brand.  Common speeds from Wikipedia :

Rating    Speed (MB/s)
  6x     0.9
32x     4.8
40x     6.0
66x    10.0
100x    15.0
133x    20.0
150x    22.5
200x    30.0

(SDHC cards are measured by "Class" 2, 4, & 6)

[r8dhex]

@Destro

Speeds indicated on the card are pretty much irrelevant, since those are usually write speeds. For the DS, we need the Read speed. Also, SDHC is not supported on the SC Lite


Anyway, having tried some more cards:
1) 1GB Kingmax - Works, Castlevania:DoS Ok, Worms2 Ok
2) 2GB Sandisk - Works, Castlevania:DoS Ok, Worms2 Ok
3) 2GB Toshiba (Japan) - Doesn't work
4) 2GB Kingston (Japan) - Doesn't work
5) 1GB Sandisk (my old one) - Works, Castlevania slowdowns, Worms2 sometimes hangs, almost everything else ok

edit: added (Japan) note to Toshiba & Kingston. I couldn't determine origin for the other cards.

[freezeburn]

@Destro

Speeds indicated on the card are pretty much irrelevant, since those are usually write speeds. For the DS, we need the Read speed. Also, SDHC is not supported on the SC Lite


Anyway, having tried some more cards:
1) 1GB Kingmax - Works, Castlevania:DoS Ok, Worms2 Ok
2) 2GB Sandisk - Works, Castlevania:DoS Ok, Worms2 Ok
3) 2GB Toshiba - Doesn't work
4) 2GB Kingston - Doesn't work
5) 1GB Sandisk (my old one) - Works, Castlevania slowdowns, Worms2 sometimes hangs, almost everything else ok

I'm surprised to see that the 2GB Kingston didn't work for you. If you still have it could you tell us if its a Japan or Taiwan card? I have two 2GB cards from both places and work great.

[r8dhex]

@freezeburn,

I don't have the Kingston anymore, but it was a Japan card, as I said in my previous posts.

[yoshi9784]

@Destro

Speeds indicated on the card are pretty much irrelevant, since those are usually write speeds. For the DS, we need the Read speed. Also, SDHC is not supported on the SC Lite

I thought random access time was the thing that mattered most.