Hacking Fat or fat32

[cribby08]

In gerneral what do you guys think is better to format a SDHC Micro SD card for the majority of flashcards?

I have seen some people that say fat32 is faster and some that say fat is faster. I am just wondering what results and thoughts Tempers have.

Thanks for your time reading this.

 

[Searinox]

Your memory size:

-is 4GB or less: FAT
-is larger than 4GB: FAT32

FAT is faster than FAT32. Use whenever possible. FAT is limited to 4GB.

Second order of business: cluster size. FAT and FAT32 are formatted with DEFAULT 32K cluster. Maximum is 64K cluster, use whenever possible. 64K cluster will make your files take up more space if you have many of them(thousands). The bigger the cluster size the faster so use it when due. The only place of concern is really Supercard where 2600 tiny cheat files take up 120MB on 64K where as they take 60MB on 32K.

Cluster size impact on speed is very small, about 2%. FAT versus FAT32 yields more of a speed boost, about 10%.

Another thing: FAT and cluster size impact SEQUENTIAL ACCESS SPEED, solve problems with large continuous reads like game movie intros lagging, will not solve problems caused by internal RANDOM ACCESS SPEED like Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin in-game. These will depend on your memory, flashcart, and OS settings(enabling DMA setting and disabling background routines like cheatcodes, soft reset, and in-game functions can improve it).

 

[cribby08]

Thanks.

 

[Dark^'^Knigh]

XP only gives the option of FAT32 for 4BG card, well, for me anyway.

 

[ENDscape]

XP only gives the option of FAT32 for 4BG card, well, for me anyway.

For all i think.

 

[ShiningSaber]

XP only gives the option of FAT32 for 4BG card, well, for me anyway.

It's probably XP itself, since I heard on ME FAT16 only went up to 2gb. Try a program?

 

[Aerundel]

It might be a combination of XP and your card. The OS formatted my SanDisk 4GB just fine. Probably depends on brand/hardware revision.

 

[Hatsikidee]

OS wouldn't format my kingston 4gb, but I found a solution:

How to format specifying filesystem
1. Go to Start Menu -> Run...
2. Type 'cmd' without quotes
3. At command prompt, type:
'format x: /q /fs:FAT' (without quotes, this is for FAT16 filesystem)
(change x to your MS drive)

If asks for a Force Dismount, choose yes.
If it warns you about compatibility problems on FAT16, just ignore it.
If it asks for a Volume Label, just type anything or none at all.

Works great, and my acekard is way faster with FAT

 

[geokilla]

OS wouldn't format my kingston 4gb, but I found a solution:

How to format specifying filesystem
1. Go to Start Menu -> Run...
2. Type 'cmd' without quotes
3. At command prompt, type:
'format x: /q /fs:FAT' (without quotes, this is for FAT16 filesystem)
(change x to your MS drive)

If asks for a Force Dismount, choose yes.
If it warns you about compatibility problems on FAT16, just ignore it.
If it asks for a Volume Label, just type anything or none at all.

Works great, and my acekard is way faster with FAT

FAT16 allows memory up to 16GB right? So a 8GB SD card would be fine?

 

[DanTheManMS]

FAT16 only allows up to 4 GB if I remember correctly, though the standard usually sets the limit at 2 GB, which is the real number you should be looking at. If you can get a non-standard non-SDHC 4 GB card, you might be able to format it in FAT16 in a way that slot-2 devices like the Supercard can handle, but there's no guarantee that it would work correctly.

Pretty much, if it's SDHC, use FAT32.