Homebrew [Request] SD card reader benchmark tool

[bakawun]

I have found many forum threads discussing whether or not a faster SD card helps or not.
From the casual testing people have done it doesn't matter much for 3ds games.

However as the homebrew posibilites expand there may be usecases where a faster card may actually help out, because a homebrew isn't hardcoded to a certain speed limit as commercial games are.

additionally it would be great to have such a tool to help figure out why some(or all) users are experiencing performance issues with cards larger than 32gb.

Finally there could be a ram based test to figure out the theoretical maximum througput of the sd card controller.

 

[proflayton123]

Something like this, doesn't take much to do from my point of thinking, although. If you think logically a class 4 sd card compared to class 10 will have a quicker and bigger capacity

 

[bakawun]

yes but the real question is what is the physical limit of the sd controller inside the 3ds in terms of max write, read and iops speeds

A class 10 card could still have slower reads than a class 4

 

[ArtemisM]

Just FYI, the card reader in the console is throttled at about 600KB/s on o3ds.

 

[bakawun]

Just FYI, the card reader in the console is throttled at about 600KB/s on o3ds.

how do you know that?

 

[ArtemisM]

how do you know that?

Real-time NN download monitoring, file installation through various apps, local network file transfer, etc across three different consoles and multiple SD cards all pointed to roughly 600KB write speed and 650KB read speed. I can't speak for N3DS.

You're welcome to try these methods for yourself to see if you find different results. All tests were done on Class 4 SDHC

 

[bakawun]

Real-time NN download monitoring, file installation through various apps, local network file transfer, etc across three different consoles and multiple SD cards all pointed to roughly 600KB write speed and 650KB read speed. I can't speak for N3DS.

You're welcome to try these methods for yourself to see if you find different results. All tests were done on Class 4 SDHC

what kind of read and write speeds does the sdhc get on the pc?

I have been able to download with around 900kb/s on a 2ds so at least for me the limit is not 600ish

 

[ArtemisM]

what kind of read and write speeds does the sdhc get on the pc?

I have been able to download with around 900kb/s on a 2ds so at least for me the limit is not 600ish

25ish MB/s read and 10-13MB write. I haven't tried on a 2DS, just O3DS(XL). I can imagine the 2DS having a superior SD controller due to it being a newer hardware release.

 

[bakawun]

I reread your testing, can you confirm the following for me
* many tetst involved wifi and could have been bottlenecked by it
* install test was reading and writing simultaniously from/to the sdcard

 

[ArtemisM]

I reread your testing, can you confirm the following for me
* many tetst involved wifi and could have been bottlenecked by it
* install test was reading and writing simultaniously from/to the sdcard

1: Yeah, control tests were ran. On local wifi as well as via phone server.
2: Install from SD and install via network were within 10% fluctuation, which leads me to believe the controller has intentional throttling for SD r/w stability, due to either hardware or controller reasons. I know for a fact that N3DS exceeds my test results, which leads me to believe the former. My SD cards in an unrestricted environment (PC) have simultaneous r/w speeds many times higher than what I attained on my three O3DS consoles.

I wouldn't take my results as law, but rather a set of samples. I have no means to run advanced hardware tests.

 

[bakawun]

Thanks, so we still need the requested homebrew to figure out more.
But at least we have a rule of thumb value for o3ds