First Gp2x's Have Arrived

[DijiTao]

crap-tastic... Using a fast SD card to act as virtual memory was looking like an easy way to make systems like the NeoGeo MVS with it’s ultra-large roms do-able.

 

[triton]

since it is in MMC mode or whatever i think buying MMC cards (generally cheaper) in high capacity for videos and mp3s would be a good idea right? and since sd cards are faster than MMC getting sd for roms/apps would be good. or am i misunderstanding somthing?

 

[abigsmurf]

crap-tastic... Using a fast SD card to act as virtual memory was looking like an easy way to make systems like the NeoGeo MVS with it’s ultra-large roms do-able.

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Until that is you wear out the card in a couple of months due to the thousands of times the same area gets written to

 

[reallynotnick]

SD cards are cheaper then MMC cards now, this is the bet place to show for cards http://dealram.com/prices/30/1GB.html
But lets just hope its not this MMC mode because I want the sped of SD cards.

PS SD stands for Secure Digital. Its really dumb there is this little slider on the card (like a floppy) and you can lock it so no one writes to it. Thats where the name comes from.

 

[Jarska333]

Even at MMC speeds, it's not exactly slow, and the added benefit of the ultra fast card is not going to make much difference really, unless you start loading up 64mb roms.

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So does this limit the size of the SD card that you can use? Will the 4 Gig cards work?

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Bah, now I'm worried.

 

[moz]

maybe this is the moment the GP curse strikes

 

[Goity]

no limit. Read the gpx2.com faq

 

[Julius]

However I'd be very suprised if they were allowed to use the SD logo without licenced SD support

​

Good point... if it is also on the final unit we will know

Chear up guys, this is really nothing to get worried about at this point.

 

[Squidge]

Even at MMC speeds, it's not exactly slow, and the added benefit of the ultra fast card is not going to make much difference really, unless you start loading up 64mb roms.

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So does this limit the size of the SD card that you can use? Will the 4 Gig cards work?

​

No, MMC compatibility mode is limited to 128mb.









Just kidding

 

[DaveC]

Even at MMC speeds, it's not exactly slow, and the added benefit of the ultra fast card is not going to make much difference really, unless you start loading up  64mb roms.

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So does this limit the size of the SD card that you can use? Will the 4 Gig cards work?

​

No, MMC compatibility mode is limited to 128mb.









Just kidding

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So you can or can't use 2 and 4 gig cards in MMC mode?

 

[junker]

yes, plus there is HARDWARE support for SD format. software can always change
edit:
mmc mode or not, GPH says it'll have support for those high capacity cards, so it will....

 

[DJWillis]

MMC Mode under Linux will support big cards .

My understanding of the SD logo is that the hardware interface/chipset is certified for the full SD spec not necessary the underlying support software.

There is work going on to improve MMC/SD support in Linux and offer an open-source driver with closed-source like speed but that kind of ‘clean room’ reverse engineering takes time. When and if that happens you can bet money on it being a very short about of time until it's in the GP2X’s kernel .

GPH could still use a closed-source loadable module for SD support but I don’t believe they intend to go down that route as it adds costs (licences etc.) and we all know GPH is a small company without anything like the economies of scale the likes of HP or even the small/tiny OEM's have with suppliers.

 

[Squidge]

Plus, don't forget SD support will be present in my SDK, and it won't be MMC compatibility mode (does mean it won't support MMC's, but I see that SD's are cheaper than MMC cards now anyway, so who cares?)

 

[Empyre]

***** First Post Alert!!! ***** :blink:

SD cards are cheaper then MMC cards now, this is the bet place to show for cards http://dealram.com/prices/30/1GB.html
But lets just hope its not this MMC mode because I want the sped of SD cards.

PS SD stands for Secure Digital. Its really dumb there is this little slider on the card (like a floppy) and you can lock it so no one writes to it. Thats where the name comes from.

​

In the UK I have always found SVP to be pretty cheap and always reliable.

SD isn't SD because of the little slider switch, there is a small area of memory on the card that is not user accessable, this is for DRM info, MMC does not have this, hence the 'secure'.

MMC is actually more reliable because that little bit of space on an SD card can become corrupted (This is rare tho) and this renders the card unreadable.

MMC speeds now rival standard SD cards but can't keep up with the high speed variants. Prices have evened out and MMC is now actually a little more expensive than standard SD but it is still cheaper than high speed SD.

Sizes over 1gb tend to be high speed as well, this gives them a price premium.

So the cheapest format is standard speed SD, then MMC, then high speed SD.

Question is... is it worth buying high speed SD cards of 2GB or 4GB if the GP2X only supports MMC or standard speed SD? Would we be better off getting a few 1GB standard SD cards instead?

 

[x68000]

i don't think we will see huge benefits from using high speed sd cards over the standard ones. I recently tried a 1gb sandisk ultra 2 sd, a 512k non brand cheap mmc and a 1gb standard speed sandisk sd in a sd compatible media player and saw little to no difference in performance between the 3 when accessing video and mp3 files.

If we are just using the cards for storing game roms then i can't see where we will benefit to justify the extra cost.

 

[DijiTao]

crap-tastic... Using a fast SD card to act as virtual memory was looking like an easy way to make systems like the NeoGeo MVS with it’s ultra-large roms do-able.

​

Until that is you wear out the card in a couple of months due to the thousands of times the same area gets written to

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I didn't think SD cards wear out - can somebody prove me wrong on that?

 

[Jarska333]

Well, it's flash, with X-number of write-times.

 

[DijiTao]

I've just never heard of one actually wearing out- But I just read the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory) and I guess they do.

I've been thing about getting this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820211314

or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820211313

both of them have a lifetime manufacturer warranty so I wouldn't matter to much to me if I had to RMA it every couple of months...

 

[x68000]

they can only be flashed to a certain number of times although you will probably die before your SD does.

Long Live the SD card!

 

[Jarska333]

Lifetime guarantee means the lifetime of the card. When the card dies, the guarantee expires.