Maximum Wiiware emuNAND size?

[fandango]

I've gathered all the Wiiware and Virtual Console games that I could find as wads, which is about 800 games taking up about 14gb space. If I install a handfull of these to emuNAND then they work fine. But if I install them all to emuNAND, then games take ages to start. I guess it's because the emuNAND is then so big.
P.S. My Wiiware/VC channels are installed in their own emuNAND with no Wii or GC games in it.
1. Is there any way of speeding up load times?
2. What is a suggested max no of Wiiware/VC games before load times slow down drastically?

 

[XFlak]

How r u launching the emunand titles? Directly via a usbloader? Or using neek? The former may be quicker.

I don't think anyone's ever established how large emunands can get before they become problematic. If u have 20gb of content, I'd suggest trying to split it up into 4 emunands of about 5gb each, and seeing how it handles and adjust accordingly. Report back too, I'm curious. Cheers!

 

[godreborn]

my emunand is about 8GBs on the vwii. I've never noticed any drastic slowdown. I don't know how large an emunand can be, but if you use neek, only put games that need it in there.

 

[fandango]

my emunand is about 8GBs on the vwii. I've never noticed any drastic slowdown. I don't know how large an emunand can be, but if you use neek, only put games that need it in there.

Yeah it looks like that's what I'm gonna have to do. It was just easier to install the lot rather than decide which to keep!

 

[godreborn]

if you use usb loader gx, you can have all games installed to that nand (as long as it's not slowing down the app or something), then install them a second time to a second, third, or fourth nand, have the games load the game from that nand in game's settings. that's how neek is supposed to be set up anyway, so it probably works with multiple nands.

 

[fandango]

Thanks everyone for the help. I will post back here my findings.

 

[fandango]

Thanks everyone for the help. I will post back here my findings.

I've discovered that the slowdown was caused by me keeping everything on USB disk! I had my Wii games, GC games, apps (ULGX, emulators, etc) and emuNANDS all on the same USB disk, with nothing on SD Card. This was brilliant from a portability aspect, but it slowed things down. It was bearable before I installed Wiiware to the emuNAND, but once I had loads of Wiiware channels installed it drastically slowed down ULGX and made the Wiiware unstable, often they would struggle to save and then crash.
Just moving my 10gb Channels emuNAND to SD Card was enough to fix it. I haven't tested with a larger emuNAND, but the size seems less important now.
Why would this happen I don't know, as in theory USB should be faster than SD? Maybe the USB connection was getting overloaded, whilst having some stuff on SD helps relieve the bottleneck? Maybe there is a bug in uneek that isn't in sneek?
Anyway this is what worked for me.

P.S. As it turns out Wiiware and VC games are a real pain! Only about half work straight away for me, so it means a lot of fiddling with settings and running some in full neek mode. It's not like this with Wii games, the majority work straight away, with only a few needed some adjustment. It's a pity there isn't a definitive answer of which work and which don't, then I could simply install the working ones. Someone kindly created a compatibility list, but it is sketchy and incomplete. I can't be bothered to fiddle around with all my 600 Wiiware and VC games, so I've abandoned the whole thing and given in, to save my sanity! Maybe I will revisit it later, in which case I will post more info here.

 

[godreborn]

I'm not sure if there's a list that lists what games require neek. I just have two games using it right now: vania rebirth adventure and valis 2. valis 2 was a new one, but it black screens after either the opening or title screen unless you put it in neek iirc. I think vania does something similar. I think all the remake type games require neek, but I can't remember for sure. not sure about usb causing the issue as my emunand is on usb actually, mostly so I can see if neek or the emunand is doing anything by watching the activity light. though, emunand is somewhat finicky. some games don't like emunand at all. I've never seen a wiiware title like that, but I've seen some regular wii games like skyward sword. if you use emunand to save, it will black screen either after the title or after the calibration screen. metroid prime 3 with the trilogy seems to reset my wii u unless I have emunand turned off. in both cases, it's random with emunand enabled; with it disabled, it always works.

 

[DocLouis]

yeah try fat32

 

[fandango]

yeah try fat32

Thanks for the suggestion but I am already using FAT32 on both my USB disk and SD Card. Maybe it will help @godreborn ?

 

[Exidous]

In case you were using a different compatibility list, the best I've found for determining what emunand settings to use (CIOS or neek2o) is https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Wii_cIOS_EmuNAND_Compatibility_List

The short version is: about half of the VC N64 games and only a handful of Wiiware games require neek2o when run from emunand.

 

[fandango]

I managed to get Wiiware/VC games working after all, thanks for everyone's help.

My main emuNAND is 125mb and as people have suggested it's best to keep this one small.

My channels emuNAND has all 800 Wiiware/VC games and is about 14gb. No slow down with this size, so it appears there is no practical limit to the channels emuNAND size as it can easily take all the wad based games.

 

[godreborn]

I kept my neek one small, only use it for games that need it. right now, there's only two games in it. I don't know if it matters in usb loader gx, but you'll definitely notice long wait times if there are lots of games if you go into the neek menu itself by booting neek, which I think is under features. I have maybe 400 games in my emunand, something like that. I just added the neek emunand to boot with those two games under the games' settings.

 

[fandango]

I kept my neek one small, only use it for games that need it. right now, there's only two games in it. I don't know if it matters in usb loader gx, but you'll definitely notice long wait times if there are lots of games if you go into the neek menu itself by booting neek, which I think is under features. I have maybe 400 games in my emunand, something like that. I just added the neek emunand to boot with those two games under the games' settings.

Yes good point @godreborn as I am only talking about playing games directly from ULGX.

 

[godreborn]

I used cfg usb loader on the wii (think it's still on there as my wii is still plugged in), but I now use usb loader gx on the the vwii. neek games restart the system when you exit in neek. normal emunand games go back to usb loader gx. not sure what neek games do on the wii or I can't remember. I'm not really sure how to enter neek outside of usb loader gx. I think there's a channel called something like nswitch, at least on the vwii. I have it in my sneek folder, but it say vwii 4.2. I think the latest is 4.3, so I don't know what happens there.

 

[DocLouis]

Thanks for the suggestion but I am already using FAT32 on both my USB disk and SD Card. Maybe it will help @godreborn ?

oh that wasn't legitmate i was just trying to get newcomer status so i could post more

 

[M4N1C_M1NER]

I managed to get Wiiware/VC games working after all, thanks for everyone's help.

My main emuNAND is 125mb and as people have suggested it's best to keep this one small.

My channels emuNAND has all 800 Wiiware/VC games and is about 14gb. No slow down with this size, so it appears there is no practical limit to the channels emuNAND size as it can easily take all the wad based games.

What is your main emuNAND for?
If it is 125mb only, it's not for games, isn't it?

 

[fandango]

My main emuNAND is just for Wii game saves and settings, hence it is so small.

 

[M4N1C_M1NER]

My main emuNAND is just for Wii game saves and settings, hence it is so small.

Thanks!

Something must be wrong then with my setup. I dumped my nand with ULGX, and I've configured ULGX to use it as channel emunand, and other dump as normal emunand. With about 30 VC/WiiWare games in the channel emunand, it takes more tan a minute to start a game.

 

[godreborn]

Thanks!

Something must be wrong then with my setup. I dumped my nand with ULGX, and I've configured ULGX to use it as channel emunand, and other dump as normal emunand. With about 30 VC/WiiWare games in the channel emunand, it takes more tan a minute to start a game.

using neek?