Hacking How important is memory card transfer speed?

[drfreeman]

Sorry for lame question, I have read about Castlevania FMV & GBA slowdown issues... And of course I know that faster=better, but... how much better?

I have to decide what SuperCard version I should buy. I'm going to buy used hardware and I have to choose between
SuperCard CF + standard speed card
SuperCard SD + x80 speed card
SuperCard MiniSD + x80 speed card

CF one is cheaper than the other ones. I can always buy a faster card in the future.

I want to play DS roms, homebrew stuff (emulators, maybe mediaplayers if any available), some GBA roms (but it isn't very important).

Does memory card transfer speed really matter? Should I expect slowdowns in NDS games using memory card that isn't fast enough? Or what?
Will x80 card guarantee smooth GBA games playback?

Thanks in advance.

 

[meangreenie]

Memory speed is important, but the x80 or x150 does not gaurantee good performance. It's the access time that is important, you need something with 1.0 m/s or less (better) to avoid the skips in the Castlevania video. Note that 98-99% games run fine on all cards.

An example is my Transcend MiniSD x80 . It has good read/write performance but relatively bad access times of 1.65 m/s and the castlevania vid skips with it. On a Kingston Elite Extreme CF card that has slower read/write performance but 1.0 m/s access times the video runs smooth. It's a minefield because I have seen high rated cards with 2.5 m/s access !! (jutter fest)

Of course the high speed x80/x150 cards are more likely to have the faster access memory .. here is a great link .. http://www.valuemedia.co.uk/performance_verified.htm

note if you click on the link for the individual card in the charts it also shows you the all important access speed.

So get a fast card with fast access speed.

edit.. another example I have verified since I have both these 2 CF mem cards.

Example 1 works flawless with the Castlevania vid http://www.valuemedia.co.uk/popparts.htm?part=CF1000KE

Example 2 stutters in a few places with the castlevania vid http://www.valuemedia.co.uk/popparts.htm?part=CF1000KE

If you look at the access times, it's easy to see 'why' the difference, despite them having almost the same read speed.

 

[Thorisoka]

so 1ms access time is a good one ?

I have 1GB kingston elite pro (60x) and I've never experienced slowdowns by any means, and some microSD i've seen on the market have 1ms access time to, and R/W speed greater

this should work great if we're careful

 

[meangreenie]

so 1ms access time is a good one ?

I have 1GB kingston elite pro (60x) and I've never experienced slowdowns by any means, and some microSD i've seen on the market have 1ms access time to, and R/W speed greater

this should work great if we're careful

Yes the Kingston Elite Pro's despite the relatively bad avg read/write speed are great cards for DS games because of their fast access times, I find them very robust too, It's been treated very roughly in my house hold and is even bent in the middle!, but has worked faultlessly since Christmas.

 

[drfreeman]

Thanks for replying, Meangreenie!

FMV stuttering is not a problem for me, but what about slowdowns in GBA games? Are these slowdowns caused by memory card performance, or is it general SuperCard issue?

 

[meangreenie]

Oh yes, I forgot you asked about GBA.. this is as you suggested a Supercard problem. It has slow GBA ram and affects the gameplay in @ 1 in 10 games I have tried on it.

 

[CatScam]

You know a fast SD card may also help in GBA games as well.
I keep trying games that ppl say have slow downs the latest being
“Yoshi’s Island Super Mario Adv 3“ & after playing it for 40 min
I see no slow down at all. I’m running a SC-mini with a A-Data 66x.
And this is like the fourth so called slowdown game I have tried.

 

[Darkspark]

What is this castelvania fmv I keep hearing about???
I have the game, and there is no FMV in the beginning, just a flash of lightning against a castle backdrop, then it is straight to the title menu.

 

[meangreenie]

press 'B' or wait on the title screen... if it jerks for you, don't worry too much, as it doesn't really mean anything other than you might get a tiny bit of lag in the games...

'Tony Hawk' (between music track changes, fix is to turn the music off if it bothers you)

and 'Animal Crossing' (a slight pause when entering the menu or new area, fix is to load the game into the gba ram, again if it bothers you).