Gaming Why You cant play VC games off SD Card

[TGBoy]

Reply from a Nintendo rep in an email.

I don't know if you've transferred any games from your Wii memory to an
SD memory card. If you have, you're already aware that it can take a
long time. The data access speeds for the SD memory card are so slow
that running a game directly from a card would be full of delays. For
fast data transfer speeds, it's necessary to have the game data reside
in the system memory.

As players continue to download Virtual Console games, the Wii
console's internal memory will fill up. However, it's important to note that
the actual downloaded game and the license to have that downloaded game
on your Wii console reside in two separate areas of your Wii Internal
Memory. The game resides in the Channels section while the license is
kept in your Wii Shop Channel account.

What this means to you is that once you've beaten a Virtual Console
game, feel free to delete it to make room for another game. If at any
point you decide to play it again, access the Wii Shop Channel and
download it again. It is possible to delete and re-download purchased Virtual
Console games as many times as you like for free, even if you were to
re-format the console. This will allow you to free up the space you
need for game saves and new Channels indefinitely.

The only way to delete or lose the license is to delete your Wii Shop
Channel account entirely, which would then delete the licenses of all
the games you've downloaded.

Source

 

[raulpica]

As players continue to download Virtual Console games, the Wii
console's internal memory will fill up. However, it's important to note that
the actual downloaded game and the license to have that downloaded game
on your Wii console reside in two separate areas of your Wii Internal
Memory. The game resides in the Channels section while the license is
kept in your Wii Shop Channel account.

That explains why you can't in any way play a PC-downloaded VC console

So that means only a Custom Firmware could make that possible.

 

[jalaneme]

i hate DRM.

 

[kedest]

I'll probably never download a VC game anymore. I now have an emulator disc with loads of SNES-roms.

 

[tisti]

VC games would rock if they supported multiplayer and VoIP.
The multiplayer part isn't that freaking hard to do, since they have the basic framework set up.

 

[oRBIT2002]

I am not expert in Wii hardware but I really doubt that SD speed is the problem here.
My guess are that all VC games are still loaded into the Wii internal memory and then decrypted (I doubt that the files are played in it's encrypted form) when they're about to be played.

 

[.TakaM]

so... if we could all get a hold of a hacked wii shop channel with a license to every game, we'd all be set?

 

[Gaisuto]

I still fail to see why the games are as large as they are, when the ROM equivalent of a SNES game is like 5MB. How long it takes to put a 60MB DS ROM on the SD Card (My M3) takes less time than a download off the Shop Channel.

 

[hanman]

i would imagine that N64 and Neo Geo games would be the only titles to suffer from slow media access on an SD card. the others could be loaded directly into system RAM in a few seconds. then again, how much RAM does the Wii have?

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Yeah it's so that you can't pirate them. Because they would be very easily pirated by putting them on an SD and uploading them.

 

[hanman]

you can already put them on an SD card. this is about playing them from an SD card.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

did not understand the topic was about playing games YOU OWN off SD Card specifically..I thought you could do that? ?

I don't bother with the shop channel I have a dvd full of nes/nes/sms/sega/tg16 roms that plays just fine. So, I wouldn't know

 

[adgloride]

You should easily be able to play games from an SD card. You can play DS roms from one and the Wii VC games are usually smaller. Its just further security to stop anyone hacking the games.

 

[shadow1w2]

The Wii VC games are encrypted while they are transferd to your machine or to the SD card. They get decrypted then re-encrpted every file transfer. Wich is way it takes so darn long to download and transfer VC games.
Though I wouldn take out the possibility that the SD reader in the Wii is a cheap slow type of some sort but even with that it shouldnt take so darn long.
So ya, its all about encryption.
Also the point of having the VC games only on the Wii memory ereases any problems of SD card malfunctions and increases the chances of security since its stuck on the Wii's memory.
Heck, they are promoting their service ALOT. They want poeple to rely on the Wii Shop channel as a way to retreive games again rather than back them up on SD card.
Making the SD card backup rather useless, but its nice to have when one day you cant get online. Even if trading is all but impossible. (Nintendo seems to be hoping the Gift option will rake up some money before considering something as nice as trading :/)

It would be nice to run them right off the SD card, however if your really having problems with space, theres always Nintendo's suggested option.
Though Id really love to have an alternate Wiimenu, this one is getting old.
The screen can fill up before your space does O-o
Guess I should be glad images stay in the messege board.

 

[ganons]

we need DAX lolz

 

[Awdofgum]

haha sorta reminds me of Apple DRM. I hate that thing so much.