Does SD speed matter?

SoulnoS · January 19, 2006, 01:38:39 PM

I've been trying to figure out what sd card to buy and i noticed alot of different write speeds. I'm getting this primarly to play nds roms, so does the speed matter?

wgz4life · January 19, 2006, 02:36:02 PM

Speed does matter
I was playing Tony Hawk with my sandisk SD card and it was unplayable. Resident Evil had sound and loading problem. I advise you to go with a faster card. Avoid Sandisk (plain)

SoulnoS · January 19, 2006, 03:22:30 PM

Thanks. BTW, What speed did you have? 10x?

wgz4life · January 19, 2006, 03:32:29 PM

not sure what the speed is mines. All I know is that I tested the 512 and 1gb of the same brand (Sandisk - http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=1-10/qid=1137702619/ref=sr_1_10/602-1153510-8778239?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B0001A06GW

Dane-elec works pretty good, used a 512 for resident evil, im going to pick up a 1gb of that brand later today, Ill post my results once i test it

bitblt · January 19, 2006, 03:34:28 PM

I bought myself a 2GB SD 150X (PQI) from fry's outpost around Xmas for about $120. There is definitely an improvment in playability and load time with SD speed.

Kithkaron · January 20, 2006, 01:53:51 PM

A-Data - 160X, do a search on ebay, best price, work great.

Dudu.exe · January 20, 2006, 02:40:31 PM

i lasg as i know.. FAT16 has a limited transfer rate..

Koji · January 20, 2006, 05:49:59 PM

Again, I did the math one post awhile ago... The absolute max speed you'll ever need is 60x... but the whole thing is supercard doesn't transfer that fast. You'll probably see the same speed around 30x.

So I basically tell everyone "Anything between 30 and 60 times will probably be fine"

bitblt · January 20, 2006, 08:07:53 PM

Dudu -

Quote
i lasg as i know.. FAT16 has a limited transfer rate..

FAT16 does not have a limited transfer rate. It is slower than FAT32 and NTFS, but is not limited. FAT16 does have a 2GB limit for file and partition size.

Koji -

Quote
Again, I did the math one post awhile ago... The absolute max speed you'll ever need is 60x... but the whole thing is supercard doesn't transfer that fast. You'll probably see the same speed around 30x.

That is good information. What data did you use to do your math?

SuperCard may not use more that 60X, but the 150X speed comes in handy for copying files from PC to SD. I also use my 2GB SD for other things besides SuperCard (dig cam, Mp3, vid cam, etc.). I expect devices in the future (SuperCard II ?) will benifit from the extra speed also.

I recommend spending the extra $10 for the extra speed. :wink:

The main point is Ultimate Spiderman didn't work until I got my new SD. So, speed does matter.

kbizzle · January 26, 2006, 11:43:46 PM

Yeah, I think there's something to that "speed matters" theory. I've got a 50x Kingston card, and Tony Hawk played from the SD card (which you pretty much need to, because the game is larger than 32MB) stutters like shit through this thing. Meanwhilst, I've been reading lots of reports of people with faster cards experiencing perfect play.

I'm thinking pretty seriously about upgrading to a 150x A-Data card.

creepyplaidman · January 30, 2006, 01:58:18 AM

From what I hear, the DS's do 60x, so having 60x SD or CF is what you want for DS games. Has anyone tried Tony Hawk DS on a 60x SD?

Koji · January 30, 2006, 05:51:00 AM

Quote from: "kbizzle"Yeah, I think there's something to that "speed matters" theory. I've got a 50x Kingston card, and Tony Hawk played from the SD card (which you pretty much need to, because the game is larger than 32MB) stutters like shit through this thing. Meanwhilst, I've been reading lots of reports of people with faster cards experiencing perfect play.

I'm thinking pretty seriously about upgrading to a 150x A-Data card.

I'm not having any problems with Tony Hawk (or at least I didn't a couple versions ago. I only played it for an hour then it got kinda boring) and my SD is a 50x. My brand is sandisk though.

downset04 · January 31, 2006, 05:01:39 AM

i have a normal sandisk 1gb cf cart and all games including tony hawk work perfect, is the cf version less prone to slowdowns?

i just bought a sd version, i was planning to buy the same sd cart as my cf

Koji · January 31, 2006, 06:10:31 AM

Quote from: "downset04"i have a normal sandisk 1gb cf cart and all games including tony hawk work perfect, is the cf version less prone to slowdowns?

i just bought a sd version, i was planning to buy the same sd cart as my cf

CF is currently less prone to slowdowns yes.

I wonder though... the source that Romman released was more optimized for CF then SD... so it makes me wonder if Romman himself is using slower unoptimized code for SD and thus may be at least somewhat fixable.

kbizzle · January 31, 2006, 09:15:23 PM

Quote from: "Koji"CF is currently less prone to slowdowns yes.

I've heard this several times, and I've also heard that SD is less prone to slowdowns several times. Does anyone have any kind of source to back this up, or is it all just kinda speculation?