Read speed from SD cards for gaming?

[zeturi]

Not too sure where to put this, so Imma just chose the random section.

My question is, what kind of performance would you get from games if you're loading them from an SD card as opposed to a CD drive? I already know that cartridge based games would work fine, since their files are generally pretty small. But what about stuff like PS1, Gamecube, or Dreamcast games? (Files around 1 GB.)

I dunno how many of you might be able to help me on this one, since it's not really what kind of modding we do here.

 

[samjc3]

SD is about the same speed as USB 2.0. I'll try it when I buy my PC for the PC-p, but I doubt if its great. For Ps-1 and Dreamcast its probably alright, for dolphin, Ive no idea. For Newer games, its probably REALLY slow.

 

[zeturi]

Oh yeah, I'd never attempt DVD based games with it. I was just thinking of making an SD interface for a certain system, but wanted to get an idea of how games would load from it.

 

[XCVG]

Fastest speed, Class 10, is 10MB/s. AFAICT, that's megaBYTES, not megaBITS. However, most cards are class 4 or 6, which is 4MB/s and 6MB/s respectively. Class 10 is equivalent to an 80x CD-ROM drive, Class 4 is equivalent to 26x. I'm getting these numbers from Wikipedia, which is generally reliable for this sort of thing.

So yeah, probably fast enough, if your interface can keep up.

 

[Zero]

You can run Wii games pretty easily from SD cards if that means anything. I think you should be fine.

 

[zeturi]

Oh yeah... forgot all about that. Thanks Zero!

 

[hidiosoman]

I run GameCube games from an SD card using a Qoob Pro.
It runs the games fine and I just use a cheap 2gb card.