Hacking Kingston Benchmarks & PoR

[IBNobody]

I have 2 Kingston Taiwan 1GB MicroSDs, 1 Japan 1GB, and 1 Japan 2GB.

I just picked up the 2GB today, and I decided to test it out against PoR.

First, I ran it through "Flash Memory Toolkit"

Kingston Japan 2GB:
R: 18.4 MB/s
W: 6.6 MB/s

For reference, here were my other MicroSD cards. (I only benchmarked one Taiwan this time, but I know they are both close in terms of specs.)

Kingston Taiwan 1GB:
R: 9.6 MB/s
W: 5.7 MB/s

Kingston Japan 1GB:
R: 9.7 MB/s
W: 4.3 MB/s

The Japan 1GB and 2GBs looked similar. Both have a rectangular "hump" on the bottom side of the card that is absent from the Taiwan 1GBs. The Japan cards were clearly made at the same factory using the same process.

Both the Japan 1GB and Taiwan play PoR without lockups. The Taiwan card required me to format it as FAT16/64k clusters before it would pass the lockup test. I put most of my hours into the game using the Taiwan card, too.

I took the Japan 2GB card and formatted it for FAT16/64k. I loaded up PoR, and was able to crash it rather quickly in a teleport room. I just had to push up to activate the TP stone to cause the freeze. Formatting as FAT32/Default yielded fewer lockups. I could no longer get freezes by pushing up. I had to change destinations before it would freeze. No matter what formatting I used, I would always get a freeze.

This is just plain weird. I don't understand why a card that is clearly better could perform poorly.

 

[aslacker55]

You forgot to take into consideration the random access speed. The 1gb Japanese micro sd cards have the best random access speed.

 

[roguetrip]

I've experienced lockups in Castlevania PoR with my kingston 2GB Japan card only in teleport rooms.

I haven't extensively tried my Patriot 1GB card, but i can say with the 1GB card i never saw slow downs during the intro movie. Nor any other game at that matter. link to the tester you used? i'll try it on my one this card.

EDIT: I used HDtach to measure my cards since that flash memory toolkit isn't free. Results:

Patriot 1GB Signature series (micro SD):
Random Access: 1.0ms
CPU utilization: 1%
Average Read: 10.1MB/s
Burst Read: 10.1MB/s

Kingston 2GB Japanese (micro SD):
Random Access: 0.9ms
CPU utilization: 0%
Average Read: 18.6MB/s
Burst Read: 18.8MB/s

 

[IBNobody]

I've experienced lockups in Castlevania PoR with my kingston 2GB Japan card only in teleport rooms.

I haven't extensively tried my Patriot 1GB card, but i can say with the 1GB card i never saw slow downs during the intro movie. Nor any other game at that matter. link to the tester you used? i'll try it on my one this card.

http://www.flashmemorytoolkit.com/

I'm about to try HDTach to verify random access speeds.

 

[IBNobody]

I've experienced lockups in Castlevania PoR with my kingston 2GB Japan card only in teleport rooms.

I haven't extensively tried my Patriot 1GB card, but i can say with the 1GB card i never saw slow downs during the intro movie. Nor any other game at that matter. link to the tester you used? i'll try it on my one this card.

EDIT: I used HDtach to measure my cards since that flash memory toolkit isn't free. Results:

Patriot 1GB Signature series (micro SD):
Random Access: 1.0ms
CPU utilization: 1%
Average Read: 10.1MB/s
Burst Read: 10.1MB/s

Kingston 2GB Japanese (micro SD):
Random Access: 0.9ms
CPU utilization: 0%
Average Read: 18.6MB/s
Burst Read: 18.8MB/s

I used HD Tach, too, to list the random access speeds:

Japan 1GB: 0.8ms
Japan 2GB: 1.0ms
Taiwan 1GB: 1.1ms

If my Taiwan works when formatted to FAT16/64k, and it has a 1.1ms random access speed, why wouldn't my faster 2GB Japan work?

EDIT: The HD Tach and Flash Toolkit transfer/burst scores were roughly the same.

 

[IBNobody]

I tested two more Japan 2GBs.

Both had transfer rates similar to the other 2GB I tested.

Both had random access rates of 1.1ms.

Both failed in PoR.

A coworker suggested to me that it may simply be that the cards are just too fast. The 1GB cards (both Japan and Taiwan) are in a "sweet spot" when it comes to transfer speed: not too slow to impact FMV, but not too fast to cause timing errors.

 

[Rayder]

Hmm....I tested a 2gig Kingston Japan (bought for a friend) formatted in FAT16 (default WinXP clusters format...whatever size that is) and PoR never crashed on me at all with my R4. Not when I spammed the pause button and not when going through the portals. Weird.

On the other hand, my slow-arsed Transcend 2gig locked immediately at the portals, but worked fine with all the other games I've ever ran through my R4.....and that's gotta be in the hundreds.

Unfortunately, I can't speed test either of them because the billion-in-one card reader in our PC's are bottlenecked at 5megs per second. And my USB card reader's....only 4.

We're ordering 3 more of the 2gig Kingstons on the 15th. (one for me, the others for friends)

It's not hyper important to me for PoR though, I own the retail cart of PoR, but I'm dumping off the slow 2gig Transcend card for a speedy 2gig Kingston.

I wonder if the crashes you had were the result of using special cluster sizes? Maybe it just isn't necessary on the 2gig Kingstons? Maybe I just didn't play PoR long enough to run into crash issues.....I don't know, but I went through the portals and back just fine.

Not arguing with you, just telling of my experience with the card.

 

[IBNobody]

Hmm....I tested a 2gig Kingston Japan (bought for a friend) formatted in FAT16 (default WinXP clusters format...whatever size that is) and PoR never crashed on me at all with my R4. Not when I spammed the pause button and not when going through the portals. Weird.

On the other hand, my slow-arsed Transcend 2gig locked immediately at the portals, but worked fine with all the other games I've ever ran through my R4.....and that's gotta be in the hundreds.

Unfortunately, I can't speed test either of them because the billion-in-one card reader in our PC's are bottlenecked at 5megs per second. And my USB card reader's....only 4.Â

We're ordering 3 more of the 2gig Kingstons on the 15th. (one for me, the others for friends)

It's not hyper important to me for PoR though, I own the retail cart of PoR, but I'm dumping off the slow 2gig Transcend card for a speedy 2gig Kingston.Â

I wonder if the crashes you had were the result of using special cluster sizes? Maybe it just isn't necessary on the 2gig Kingstons? Maybe I just didn't play PoR long enough to run into crash issues.....I don't know, but I went through the portals and back just fine.

Not arguing with you, just telling of my experience with the card.

It sounds like you didn't play the game long enough. The crashs increase in frequency as you unlock more teleport stones.

I can give you the save that I use. It's pretty easy to get the thing to crash.

 

[IBNobody]

Here's a copy of the PoR save that I use to crash my game.

Castlevania_-_portrait_of_ruin_(Us)_save.Zip

Continue the game.
Exit the save room.
Take the elevator up.
Head Right.
Push UP in front of the teleport stone and rapidly change destinations.