Topic: SD Card Channel!

[BlackNMild2k1]

If they were just gonna do #2 shouldn't they just load the game in the sys RAM and leave the save on the internal mem?
that would save the needless wear and tear in the internal flash mem.

Oh well, this is still a good storage solution to the problem of not having a storage solution. so I won't complain.

[Jonnyboy117]

My SD card is 2 gigs, and I'm probably using 1/4 of that.  It was purchased around the time of Wii's launch, and I got it really cheap, although the brand (Kingston) came highly recommended.  Now that SDHC is supported, I may buy a new and larger card, since it sounds like mine is unusually slow.

[BranDonk Kong]

It's about fucking time! This is also semi-perfect timing, because SDHC cards are getting cheaper every day. You can get a 16GB card for $27 w/ free shipping from Newegg, or a 32GB for $74. They probably have pretty slow read/write speeds, but hey, at least you don't have to worry about space on the Wii, ever again.

[Jonnyboy117]

If they were just gonna do #2 shouldn't they just load the game in the sys RAM and leave the save on the internal mem?
that would save the needless wear and tear in the internal flash mem.

No, because WiiWare games and the VC emulators are written to use the system RAM.  They may not always use all of the RAM, but there would surely be a lot of problems if a chunk of that RAM was no longer available.

I think people are overstating the problem of flash memory rewriting.  Your Wii's disc drive is likely to burn out long before the flash memory will.  Laptops are now being sold with only flash memory storage -- and a computer saves data much more often than any gaming console.

[ShyGuy]

I will miss all the fridge jokes and gifs.

[vudu]

Oh ****--what's this update going to cost Insanolord?  For the past year he's been declaring games "worthy of a purchase once Nintendo releases a storage solution".  If he buys them all at once the poor man's gonna go broke!!

Anyone try loading up Super Mario Bros 3 from the SD card?  It's the game I picked at random to try it out and I received an error message stating that 'this game cannot be loaded from an SD card".  After that I tried Mega Man 2 and it worked just fine.  Can anyone else load SMB3 from an SD card?  Are there any other games that can't be loaded from an SD card?

[DAaaMan64]

Vudu, you don't have enough blocks free on your will. Find your biggest game, and try that.  IF it doesn't work, free enough up till it does. Then your safe for your whole library.

[vudu]

I have over 400 free blocks on my system and I'm pretty sure SMB3 is smaller than that.

[NWR_pap64]

Frankly, I don't see why anyone would complain about this.

Once more, I didn't get enough time to test this fully, but the first game I loaded with the new storage solution was "Alex Kidd". When I selected it, the game went straight into the part where I last played, and it was a seamless transition. It was as if I was running it from the home channel.

So I don't understand how ANYONE would find issue with this when so far it works flawlessly.

[vudu]

I think I figured out my problem--I got a replacement system in January, and anything I saved to my SD card from my previous system I can't launch from an SD card (I can't copy it to my Wii, either).  I guess I just need to redownload a bunch of stuff.  Annoying, but understandable.

EDIT:  There really needs to be a "download everything I've already paid for" option.  This is really annoying downloading them one-by-one.

[Adrock]

Awesome, though I have yet to buy a single VC game. Like most people, I'm curious why Nintendo didn't allow this from the start. Lack of foresight? Oh Nintendo, you so crazy...

[ThePerm]

make sure to keep backups of all your SD card data, my SD card recently died and I had to get a new one. Luckily i had backups of my info on my computer.

[Stratos]

That flash memory issue has me worried. I knew that flash could go bad, but I always assumed it would be ages from now like after I died or something. I still play older consoles from time to time, will my Wii eventually stop working years from now?

[TJ Spyke]

I'm trying to figure out exactly how the SD storage solution works. I've been reading around and there seems to be 2 different ways that are being talked about. If you know the actual answer please let me know.

1.) You can launch your game directly from the sd card. the save data remains on the internal sys memory. limited copying back and forth.

2.) You can't launch directly from the sd card. It makes a temp copy onto the internal mem and then deletes it after you are done playing. leaving only the save file on the internal memory.

Anyone know which one it is? I'm hoping its the 1st one. I'm not at home to try it out myself.

From what i've read on other sites, it's the second. It doesn't delete it afterwards though. What it does is it creates a "phantom" save spot. So if you play a game that is 302 blocks, it will create a file that takes up 302 blocks of your Wii memory. If the next game you load is 240 blocks, then the phantom save will become 240 blocks. You can choose to delete the phantom save anytime you want though if you want to free up the space.

[Adrock]

That flash memory issue has me worried. I knew that flash could go bad, but I always assumed it would be ages from now like after I died or something. I still play older consoles from time to time, will my Wii eventually stop working years from now?

Hard drives can go bad. Battery backup could go bad and die. Even regular old memory cards can go bad (my GCN memory card got corrupted and went bad though I luckily backed up almost everything on my other memory card). Anything can and will go bad because there's no permanent, perfect, fail-proof solution yet. Eventually (way, way down the line assuming everything works as it should in the meantime) you won't be able to save on the Wii though it's also possible for the hardware to crap out due to age.

[ShyGuy]

I backup my VC games to stone tablet. History has shown it as the most reliable media for long term backup.

[NWR_pap64]

I'm trying to figure out exactly how the SD storage solution works. I've been reading around and there seems to be 2 different ways that are being talked about. If you know the actual answer please let me know.

1.) You can launch your game directly from the sd card. the save data remains on the internal sys memory. limited copying back and forth.

2.) You can't launch directly from the sd card. It makes a temp copy onto the internal mem and then deletes it after you are done playing. leaving only the save file on the internal memory.

Anyone know which one it is? I'm hoping its the 1st one. I'm not at home to try it out myself.

From what i've read on other sites, it's the second. It doesn't delete it afterwards though. What it does is it creates a "phantom" save spot. So if you play a game that is 302 blocks, it will create a file that takes up 302 blocks of your Wii memory. If the next game you load is 240 blocks, then the phantom save will become 240 blocks. You can choose to delete the phantom save anytime you want though if you want to free up the space.

So basically, that extra data on your Wii stays there, but changes according to the game you play?

Doesn't seem so bad.

[TJ Spyke]

From what I have read, yeah. And you can always delete that extra data if you don't feel like having it take up space at all. It definitely is a good idea though for people who have a lot of Virtual Console/WiiWare games, you can reduce them down to 1 file now and just play them from your SD card.

I don't have a SD card right now, so I can't check it myself.

[AV]

I backup my VC games to stone tablet. History has shown it as the most reliable media for long term backup.

That's barbaric. use a laser and write it onto a diamond.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I backup my VC games to stone tablet. History has shown it as the most reliable media for long term backup.

That's barbaric. use a laser and write it onto a diamond.

hahah that is so 2008. I used nano bots to re-write genetic code with my save data

[Stratos]

I backup my VC games to stone tablet. History has shown it as the most reliable media for long term backup.

That's barbaric. use a laser and write it onto a diamond.

hahah that is so 2008. I used nano bots to re-write genetic code with my save data

I can't wait to see pictures of your kids. With all that genetic re-writing to mimic Nintendo code imagine what they could look like!

[GoldenPhoenix]

So let's see if my math is correct. If you write and rewrite your system, lets say, 100 times a day. That would 36500 times a year so it would last you 2.7 years even at that pace (which appears EXTREMELY EXTREMELY unlikely). Better start worrying, Nintendo is obviously is the sux. Better limit yourself to like 30 games a day using the SD channel!

[Mop it up]

I'm not sure how many writes the Wii flash memory can tolerate, but there are some games which save an excessive amount. Take, for example, Mario Kart Wii. Now, this game autosaves so I'm not exactly sure how many times it saves, but it definitely does it multiple times in-between and possibly during races. Playing this game, it would be easy to have it save 100 times in a day, so one could conceivably reach the theoretical 100,000 limit in a few short years.

Flash memory worked for Nintendo 64 games because each game had its own chip and it would be unlikely for a person to play the same game enough to reach 100,000 saves. The Wii memory however applies to all the games you play and even extra content such as messages and channels, so now this possible limit of 100,000 could potentially present a problem sooner than one might think. I can't say it isn't something which worries me, but then again I like to worry about everything.

[NWR_pap64]

So let's see if my math is correct. If you write and rewrite your system, lets say, 100 times a day. That would 36500 times a year so it would last you 2.7 years even at that pace (which appears EXTREMELY EXTREMELY unlikely). Better start worrying, Nintendo is obviously is the sux. Better limit yourself to like 30 games a day using the SD channel!

So long story short, the only way to truly make a dent on the flash memory is to completely abuse it?

[BlackNMild2k1]

I backup my VC games to stone tablet. History has shown it as the most reliable media for long term backup.

That's barbaric. use a laser and write it onto a diamond.

hahah that is so 2008. I used nano bots to re-write genetic code with my save data

I can't wait to see pictures of your kids. With all that genetic re-writing to mimic Nintendo code imagine what they could look like!

never said it was my genetic code that was being rewritten for saved data

Besides, I just heard it was the deleting of data from flash that did most of the damage, is that not true?