Hacking Question How fast are load times using a backup loader?

[Deleted User]

1000+ views already? That was fast.

I both hate and love this. Back when it was primarily disc, from memory (rom) was a huge benefit.

Its also worth mentioning that USB backup loaders on the Wii had lightning fast load times. Loading from flash memory or a hard drive was way faster than a DVD.

 

[z10m]

From my experience LayeredFS is fast but sx os is rather slow.

 

[naddel81]

From my experience LayeredFS is fast but sx os is rather slow.

How come? Is their obfuscation the reason or is the SD card slot too slow?

 

[z10m]

Not sure but it might have something to do with emulated cart slot that slows it down. Same games load faster using same memory card and LayeredFS method.

 

[GunzOfNavarone]

That's kind of disappointing to hear, but for the time being I can live with it. Who knows what's around the corner in ways of updates for SX OS. They were quick to address gamecard2, maybe this is something else they would look at in the near future.

 

[phonz]

I just ran tests with another game (Mario Kart 8) and got the same result. SD card is formatted ExFat (128kb sectors) with Rufus (https://rufus.akeo.ie). I'll try another card formatted by the Switch itself and get back to you in a bit.

Emulated Cart - MK8D loading Mario Circuit (200cc GP)
Test 1 - 15.83 seconds (949 frames)
Test 2 - 16.55 seconds (992 frames)
Test 3 - 15.07 seconds (903 frames)

Official cart - MK8D loading Mario Circuit (200cc GP)
Test 1 - 10.14 seconds (608 frames)
Test 2 - 10.46 seconds (627 frames)
Test 3 - 11.68 seconds (700 frames)

Edit: Back after a bit, I formatted the SD card with the Switch OS (It also used ExFat with 128kb sectors) and re-tested Fire Emblem. It sped up the emulated cart load times when compared to my first tests emulated cart load times, but still far quicker to use the official cart.

Emulated - FEW loading Invisible Ties battle "Timed Onslaught (lvl 2)"
24.87 seconds (1491 frames)
24.96 seconds (1496 frames)
25.01 seconds (1499 frames)

Original - FEW loading Invisible Ties battle "Timed Onslaught (lvl 2)"
17.47 seconds (1047 frames)
17.80 seconds (1067 frames)
18.65 seconds (1118 frames)

was the system rebooted between each play or did you play the emulated cart, and then proceed to the original cart without a coldboot?

 

[MiCH431]

was the system rebooted between each play or did you play the emulated cart, and then proceed to the original cart without a coldboot?

I tried both. In my first Fire Emblem test, it was cold booted between each test. In the tests you quoted there was no rebooting done - the software was closed and reopened between tests, but SX OS was only booted once.

 

[Batpeter]

Does anyone own a fast card like Adata Premier ONE V90 128GB (275MB/s) to test speeds on?
If its double the speed it may be worth the purchase.

 

[CallmeBerto]

@Batpeter

Unlikely to change anything due to something within SX itself slowing down the speeds.

We will just have to wait and see if/when it is fixed.

 

[guily6669]

How come? Is their obfuscation the reason or is the SD card slot too slow?

Nope, the SD card reader is not that slow, all original like tested for months already shows that every eshop game loads faster from the M-SD than game carts.

However yes, the SD port is also not that special as all Sandisk ultra vs Extreme shows Extreme faster card to be actually slower by a very small margin (though they were all non A1 tests that I have seen).

Does anyone own a fast card like Adata Premier ONE V90 128GB (275MB/s) to test speeds on?
If its double the speed it may be worth the purchase.

Switch Can't sadly support those faster M-SD cards, it doesnt have the other pins and actually almost no device in the world take advantage of them...

UHS2 is also same as UHS3 pins...

ps: At least everyone out there reports that the Switch doesn't support those speeds, its just compatible, but will run at a normal M-SD card on the Switch.

 

[Axido]

Hey, guys. Wouldn't it be smarter to compare emulated carts to digital purchases stored on the same card?

Btw, I too got the impression that SX OS loading times are rather slow.
What I also observed using SX OS is that my Switch suddenly turned off at two occasions without an error code or anything. Both occasions were rather long playsessions in handheld mode. I guess something might be overheating in there and it could potentially be the microSD card.

I actually hope it's just my Switch that is faulty, so I could get a replacement unit... that isn't banned yet.

 

[lukhart]

Hey, guys. Wouldn't it be smarter to compare emulated carts to digital purchases stored on the same card?

Agreed. I really have not noticed any long loading time for the games I've played, but I've always had eShop games (only cart I own is SMO), so I could as well be used with SD loading times (which to be fair doesn't bother me one bit)

 

[Batpeter]

Btw, I too got the impression that SX OS loading times are rather slow.
What I also observed using SX OS is that my Switch suddenly turned off at two occasions without an error code or anything. Both occasions were rather long playsessions in handheld mode. I guess something might be overheating in there and it could potentially be the microSD card.

I actually hope it's just my Switch that is faulty, so I could get a replacement unit... that isn't banned yet.

I don't see how the SD card could overheat. If anything overheats its the CPU but when that happens it displays a message before shutting down. And the only way a Youtuber could make that happen is by heating it up to 67C by removing the fan. Just remove the SD card to see if it's hot. If it is, it is likely a faulty card.

 

[guily6669]

Well talking about that I got a brand new SanDisk Ultra A1 128GB this week and broke it in like 2 min , so again ended up missing the M-SD as a requirement for atmosphere when its released...

I will probably go to the store today, but mine was the last one so I will probably have to wait a damn long time.

But basically I put it in my laptop M-SD port, it was giving around 80MB\s continuous read, I only tested for a few seconds and didnt even test the whole SD. Then I formatted the SD to exFat 128KB and now my M-SD is stuck to 20MB\s read across the entire SD and no matter what format I use or allocation size it seems stuck to 20MB\s, when I removed it it was quite hot...

I thought it was the SD reader port on my laptop as those suckers always go bad on me as my fathers SD port doesnt work, my old brother's laptop SD port also doesnt work... So I restarted PC, tested again and 20MB\s, even did a full SD format and still 20...

So I used my old Kingston 64GB class 10 that I gave to my girflriend and was getting around 60 MB\s, then I tested my old SanDisk Extreme A1 32GB on my tablet and was getting above 80MB\s too.

ps: This can only be a defective M-SD as its original, has 128GB as I tested after the 20MB\s cap crap and its bought on a local store that is a official SanDisk seller too.

 

[Batpeter]

I have a Samsung EVO Plus 128GB U3 card, it comes pre-formatted in exfat. I don't have my TX Pro yet but im curious how fast it loads. Anyone know how to properly test it without a TV capture card?

 

[Axido]

I don't see how the SD card could overheat. If anything overheats its the CPU but when that happens it displays a message before shutting down. And the only way a Youtuber could make that happen is by heating it up to 67C by removing the fan.

The card got pretty hot when I wrote some backups to it... Unusually hot.

 

[guily6669]

I have a Samsung EVO Plus 128GB U3 card, it comes pre-formatted in exfat. I don't have my TX Pro yet but im curious how fast it loads. Anyone know how to properly test it without a TV capture card?

LOL, you can film with your phone and count the seconds, or you can simply go the old fashion way of just using a watch\phone\whatever timer function and see the seconds difference to load...

 

[Batpeter]

LOL, you can film with your phone and count the seconds, or you can simply go the old fashion way of just using a watch\phone\whatever timer function and see the seconds difference to load...

i suppose i could just film it lol

 

[Quicksilver88]

I just ran tests with another game (Mario Kart 8) and got the same result. SD card is formatted ExFat (128kb sectors) with Rufus (https://rufus.akeo.ie). I'll try another card formatted by the Switch itself and get back to you in a bit.

Emulated Cart - MK8D loading Mario Circuit (200cc GP)
Test 1 - 15.83 seconds (949 frames)
Test 2 - 16.55 seconds (992 frames)
Test 3 - 15.07 seconds (903 frames)

Official cart - MK8D loading Mario Circuit (200cc GP)
Test 1 - 10.14 seconds (608 frames)
Test 2 - 10.46 seconds (627 frames)
Test 3 - 11.68 seconds (700 frames)

Edit: Back after a bit, I formatted the SD card with the Switch OS (It also used ExFat with 128kb sectors) and re-tested Fire Emblem. It sped up the emulated cart load times when compared to my first tests emulated cart load times, but still far quicker to use the official cart.

Emulated - FEW loading Invisible Ties battle "Timed Onslaught (lvl 2)"
24.87 seconds (1491 frames)
24.96 seconds (1496 frames)
25.01 seconds (1499 frames)

Original - FEW loading Invisible Ties battle "Timed Onslaught (lvl 2)"
17.47 seconds (1047 frames)
17.80 seconds (1067 frames)
18.65 seconds (1118 frames)

Ok so I am guessing the speed is related to the cartnridge emulation and may be something TeamX can imrove. I am still waiting for my SXPRO so no way to test yet. I am wondering if it is worth testing this but on the guthub page for xcicutter he says to format your card with 32kb clusters. Now he is likely referring to fat32 use but I am interested to see if fat32 or 32kb clusters would help. Generally bigger clusters mean faster loads, but that is not always the case because if you have many small files then bigger clusters less effecient.

I will do a little testing when I get my kit.