Hacking SX OS slow when loading games

[guily6669]

Oh I didn't check what cluster size the Switch used when formatting the card itself from system settings - any ideas?

someone here said Nintendo Switch Formats to exFat 128KB allocation size, pretty much the most common size for all or maybe almost all current SDXC M-SD cards.

 

[hippy dave]

someone here said Nintendo Switch Formats to exFat 128KB allocation size, pretty much the most common size for all or maybe almost all current SDXC M-SD cards.

Cool that should be good to go then, thanks.

 

[zaku]

Just tried Xenoblade 2. I tested two scenarios:from home menu to title screen and from title screen to game.

On my sd card .xci loads ~3 seconds slower than .nsp (21s vs 18s)

Is legit cartridge also slower than digital?

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Just tested Bayo 2. Same thing about 3 seconds slower.

 

[Netboi]

I bought the 200gb A1 ultra SanDisk when it was on sale on Amazon and have had zero issues loading on SX 1.4. I used windows to just format to exfat. Maybe try that? I have like 17 games on it so far and have a little bit of space left.

 

[guily6669]

Just tried Xenoblade 2. I tested two scenarios:from home menu to title screen and from title screen to game.

On my sd card .xci loads ~3 seconds slower than .nsp (21s vs 18s)

Is legit cartridge also slower than digital?

---------
Just tested Bayo 2. Same thing about 3 seconds slower.

You have old videos showing that...

Fastest is digital install to nand, 2nd is digital loaded from mSD and the slowest is the original cartridges because of their encryption...

But a few ppl already said LayeredFS loads faster than SX OS, but I don't know if that's still the case or not as it was stated on a older version of SX OS too.

 

[dsrules]

slower microsd might also affects loading speed

 

[mranonymous]

Hi all, I own 2 SanDisk microSD (verified both, they're not fake): one is 64GB and the other one is 200GB.
I've both formatted them with guiformat with 4096 allocation unit size cause my switch has no support for exFat yet.
The problem is that the smaller card loads up the game way faster than the 200 GB one. It can require up to 10 seconds for a small game and about a minute for big games as zelda.
Can you help me?

What is the transfer speed of the slow card? I think the optimal read speed for Switch is 60-95 MB/s

I have a 48MB/s Sandisk card (64GB) and it is incredibly slow when loading games. It took over a minute just to load Skyrim. I also have a 100MB/s one and it's much faster of course. Could this be your issue?

I do not have CFW yet, so these speeds are all OFW-based.

 

[guily6669]

slower microsd might also affects loading speed

Most likely yes, but the tests done for quite a long time ago which are on youtube were even made with Sandisk Class 10 non A1 so the cheap class 10 and they were still considerably faster than the game cartridge so it probably means on almost mSD games will still load faster on digital games than the game card (I'm saying all original, not hacked...).

What is the transfer speed of the slow card? I think the optimal read speed for Switch is 60-95 MB/s

I have a 48MB/s Sandisk card (64GB) and it is incredibly slow when loading games. It took over a minute just to load Skyrim. I also have a 100MB/s one and it's much faster of course. Could this be your issue?

I do not have CFW yet, so these speeds are all OFW-based.

What Sandisk are you talking? The Ultra A1 gave me more than 80MB\s on continuous read, they have fast read speeds, but the writes are the problem, however its only the continuous speed, because if we are talking about random specially 4k, the Sandisk Ultra A1 is quite good, it has more iops than usual.

However I already had 3 Sandisk Ultra A1 128GB originals and they all were defective, after moving some files to it they got locked to around 20MB\s read speed and wouldnt go beyond (the 1st one got locked at ~20MB\s 4 ever no matter if I formatted or not) and the other 2 after removing from the laptop PCI-E SD reader and put it back, they would go back to 80MB\s, but after moving again some files they would again be locked to 20MB\s until I re-inserted them.

I have a like 2 years old Sandisk Extreme 32GB A1 on my tablet, I tested it and its always giving the right speed all the time no matter if I move files or not.

ps: I'm waiting for other company to make a A1 mSD with good price so I can buy, I don't think I will ever buy a Sandisk Ultra A1 again (the 3 defective were even made this year from 2018)...

 

[mranonymous]

I have noticed too that FAT32 loads slower than exFAT. With exfat it's almost instant. So .. if you want a quick workaround, try to update with exfat support?

Is the update for exFAT support included in the latest Switch firmware?

Most likely yes, but the tests done for quite a long time ago which are on youtube were even made with Sandisk Class 10 non A1 so the cheap class 10 and they were still considerably faster than the game cartridge so it probably means on almost mSD games will still load faster on digital games than the game card (I'm saying all original, not hacked...).

What Sandisk are you talking? The Ultra A1 gave me more than 80MB\s on continuous read, they have fast read speeds, but the writes are the problem, however its only the continuous speed, because if we are talking about random specially 4k, the Sandisk Ultra A1 is quite good, it has more iops than usual.

However I already had 3 Sandisk Ultra A1 128GB originals and they all were defective, after moving some files to it they got locked to around 20MB\s read speed and wouldnt go beyond (the 1st one got locked at ~20MB\s 4 ever no matter if I formatted or not) and the other 2 after removing from the laptop PCI-E SD reader and put it back, they would go back to 80MB\s, but after moving again some files they would again be locked to 20MB\s until I re-inserted them.

I have a like 2 years old Sandisk Extreme 32GB A1 on my tablet, I tested it and its always giving the right speed all the time no matter if I move files or not.

ps: I'm waiting for other company to make a A1 mSD with good price so I can buy, I don't think I will ever buy a Sandisk Ultra A1 again (the 3 defective were even made this year from 2018)...

The slow 48MB/s Sandisk I have says it's "for Fire Tablets and Fire TV", so I suppose it was never going to be optimal with the Switch. On the package it just says "C10, UHS 48MB/s"

The good one I have is a Samsung EVO Select, Class 10 with 100MB/s read speed.

Do you remember where you bought the defective ones? That's crazy how all 3 are bad!

 

[guily6669]

they were bought on a official store for Sandisk in my country (Worten) and they were legit as the package print was high quality, they performed a full h2testw with no errors (they have the full 128GB).

I contacted SanDisk and they say its not normal (they wanted a crystaldiskmark picture of the speed so I sent them), maybe if I sent for warranty I could get a good one, but too risky waiting 1 month or more to get a bad one as the others were also from 2018 (at least there was 2018 on the SD adapter so I assume the m-SD is from 2018 too).

Also they were constantly self corrupting and I havent even used any of them at all.

I ended up paying even more for a super damn slow Toshiba 128GB U3 (which is far worse U1 Sandisk on everything).

 

[mranonymous]

they were bought on a official store for Sandisk in my country (Worten) and they were legit as the package print was high quality, they performed a full h2testw with no errors (they have the full 128GB).

I contacted SanDisk and they say its not normal (they wanted a crystaldiskmark picture of the speed so I sent them), maybe if I sent for warranty I could get a good one, but too risky waiting 1 month or more to get a bad one as the others were also from 2018 (at least there was 2018 on the SD adapter so I assume the m-SD is from 2018 too).

Also they were constantly self corrupting and I havent even used any of them at all.

I ended up paying even more for a super damn slow Toshiba 128GB U3 (which is far worse U1 Sandisk on everything).

Damn man, that sucks. I don’t blame you for not wanting to deal with returning them. Have you tried Amazon at all? They seem to be pretty legit and really inexpensive when it comes to SD cards. How much did the Toshiba one run you?

 

[guily6669]

The Toshiba 128GB here was more than 50 eur while the Sandisk 128GB was 39.99€, the Toshiba I think it goes around 45 MB\s continuous read, the write is also low, cant remember already, but the worse is really random read or write and iops are far, far worse than SanDisk, this is actually one of the slowest 128GB mSD if not the slowest.

I bought it maybe like a month ago and now theres way better prices for the other mSD .

But will be enough 4 testing atmosphere when it comes out as I still havent entered RCM a single time, I'm waiting for atmosphere as emunand fully officially released so I can start modding my console with cooling mods and the joy-con for RCM...

ps: When Samsung make a A1 mSD with as good prices as the Sandisk then I would buy the definitive mSD for the Switch emunand.

 

[mranonymous]

The Toshiba 128GB here was more than 50 eur while the Sandisk 128GB was 39.99€, the Toshiba I think it goes around 45 MB\s continuous read, the write is also low, cant remember already, but the worse is really random read or write and iops are far, far worse than SanDisk, this is actually one of the slowest 128GB mSD if not the slowest.

I bought it maybe like a month ago and now theres way better prices for the other mSD .

But will be enough 4 testing atmosphere when it comes out as I still havent entered RCM a single time, I'm waiting for atmosphere as emunand fully officially released so I can start modding my console with cooling mods and the joy-con for RCM...

ps: When Samsung make a A1 mSD with as good prices as the Sandisk then I would buy the definitive mSD for the Switch emunand.

Yep that’s true, you can at least get good use out of it for testing. Wow over 50 euros for the Toshiba one. That’s almost $60 US which is really high. Thank god memory usually gets more and more affordable over the years. Otherwise a 128GB would still be like $200 lol

Hey when you mention cooling mods - do you mean like a mod that enables you to alter the fan settings on the Switch?

 

[Wierd_w]

The "ideal" cluster size will be based on the NAND erase block size of the microSD card. That is black magic voodoo, as the retailer DOES NOT, and likely WILL NOT tell you even if you ask really nicely. This is because the chips used in those cards can change every week of production.

There is a somewhat dodgy way to zero in on the erase block size of flash memory using some linux software designed for that purpose. (eg, FlashBench-- https://github.com/bradfa/flashbench )

The reason for this, is because the card actually contains a small micro controller that enables smaller writes, by caching the write and then performing a "read,erase,write" for the smaller "sector". If you write whole erase units, this will significantly extend the life of the card, and speed up writes and reads tremendously. However, the disk structures must be EXACTLY, DEAD NUTS aligned with the erase unit boundaries for this to be effective.

I burned up a 128gb microSD inside my linux running chromebook (using the SD card as /home) because of improper alignment and cluster size. After formatting the replacement *PROPERLY*, it has been doing great for over a year on daily driving.

 

[Quicksilver88]

sandisk ultra a1 sucks. get the ultra pro or switch to samsung evo plus

I sm using a Samsung evo 128gb nad had no issues. I know a few games have noticeable slower loading when using emulated .xci but for the most part my times have been pretty similiar comparing my carts vs .xci.

 

[Gamerjin]

same here, im happy with my 200GB samsung card and no issues.

not to ask a dumb question, but what are the speeds of the cards you're using? if its a U1 or v10, then if you have the extra money, try a 32GB v30 , v30 is a higher speed read/writing.

 

[Wierd_w]

Again, "Erase unit alignment" is the magic sauce here.

I will try to explain why:

Internally, the SD card can only write at the granularity of the erase unit. NOTHING SMALLER. To do smaller writes, it first reads the entire erase unit, performs the smaller write onto the read data, then writes the entire erase unit back to the device. This is the expensive "Read, modify, write" cycle I mentioned prior.

The erase unit size can be 64kb or higher on large capacity modules, yet most file systems expect a cluster/allocation unit size that is closer to 4kb maximum. That means a "Sequential write" on a 64kb erase unit card, using a 4kb cluster file system, will do SIXTEEN read-modify-write cycles in a row to update the full erase unit-- when it COULD just do ONE write operation, if the alignment was correct.

Additionally, read speed is also impacted because the page size (amount the microcontroller will actually natively read per read operation) is some fraction of the erase unit size, if not exactly the erase unit size. Meaning, when you request to read a 4kb data chunk, it actually reads the full 64kb block, cuts the data not needed, and gives the return. You can skip the cut operation completely by requesting whole pages, by setting the cluster size properly.

Why is "dead nutz alignment" needed?

Imagine what happens when your requested sectors are not exactly on the erase units-- It has to read two units to get your data, then cut+paste to get the data you request, and when you do a write, you write 2 times, on two erase units--- AT BEST.

If you reformat your SD Card, be very sure to do it in a way that properly respects the erase unit size, if you want maximum performance from the card.

Again, I learned this lesson the hard and painful way on my linux-running chromebook. I have since done some clever hackery to make the EXT4 file system produce dead-nuts aligned 64kb data chunks (even though the max sector size is 4k for ext4, by abusing its raid functionality.) and performance went WAAAAAAAY up.

ExFat natively supports such huge allocation unit sizes. Pick one that is appropriate for your card, and ensure that your partition starts exactly at the start of an erase unit.

You *WILL NOT* get ideal performance from your card unless you do.