Hacking Should I use emuNAND or redNAND?

Naendow

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Hello together :)

So, I saw in the last days that there are differences between emuNAND and redNAND. I use AuReiNand with Arm9LoaderHax. What would be better for me? If you have a bit knowledge, could you explain why one of them is better?

Thx for answering
 

frosty5689

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Here's another copy&paste of what I posted multiple times before

Here's what I posted in AuReiNAND threed and a few other threads asking diff between RedNAND and EmuNAND:

Looking at the differences between RedNAND and EmuNAND, we can assume the CFW needs to correct the offset for every read/write request to NAND.

Code:
RedNAND:
1. 3DS firmware requests for access to some place in NAND
2. CFW Calculate offset using formula: offset + 512
3. CFW redirect read/write to SD Card.

EmuNAND
1. 3DS firmware requests for access to some place in NAND
2. CFW Calculate offset using formula:
if (offset < 512) {
    actualOffset = EmuNANDSizeInBytes + offset;
}
else {
    actualOffset = offset;
}
3. CFW redirect read/write to SD Card.
This is just an abstraction and the calculation could have off-by-one error as I quickly wrote it up.
But having to do integer comparsion for every request is always going to take longer than always adding 512 to the offset.
Now this has a negligible impact on performance, but it still impacts performance.

Here's the original post by neobrain comparing the two for those who is into technical stuff:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/emunand-rednand-technical-implementation.401969/#post-5783813

Other than that, RedNAND can save 600MB of space on N3DS.
 

SomeGamer

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So.
The first sector on the SD is the FAT, it can't be moved.
EmuNAND maps original NAND sectors (except the first) to their respective locations on the SD, the first becomes the last one, after the others.
RedNAND simply shifts all of them to the next sector on the SD.
RedNAND is faster because no integer comparison.
 

MattKimura

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From what I understand:

Emunand = Takes up more space, but not a whole lot more than rednand
RedNand = Uses up less space, pretty much the only benefit you'd get out of it

I believe you can use emunand9 to convert yourself to rednand, through a process:

1. Backup emunand to emunand.bin
2. Unmount the card and backup all the files to the PC
3. Insert it back into the 3DS, select "complete rednand setup"
4. Unmount it when it's done, restore all your files to your SD
5. Clone emunand.bin to rednand (Is that even an option?)

Can someone clarify that these are the right steps?
 
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frosty5689

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From what I understand:

Emunand = Takes up more space, but not a whole lot more than rednand
RedNand = Uses up less space, pretty much the only benefit you'd get out of it

I believe you can use emunand9 to convert yourself to rednand, through a process:

1. Backup emunand to emunand.bin
2. Unmount the card and backup all the files to the PC
3. Insert it back into the 3DS, select "complete rednand setup"
4. Unmount it when it's done, restore all your files to your SD
5. Clone emunand.bin to rednand (Is that even an option?)

Can someone clarify that these are the right steps?
Yes. step 5 is possible. You can restore RedNAND to EmuNAND or vise-versa. EmuNAND9 will detect and handle it for you.
 

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