Making your SD card less prone to lock-ups (GDemu).

[mkandersson1082]

Recently I got to thinking about how certain Atomiswave games still freeze after a while and came to the conclusion that maybe data is being pushed into RAM too rapidly. With that I thought I'd try tinkering with the file system in the Ubuntu terminal.
I limited the number of usable blocks on a 16GB SanDisk SDHC so that only 3GB of storage is available -- just enough to store the whole collection of ports. Also, I reduced the cluster size of the Fat32 partition to 512Bytes instead of 32KB, in-turn forcing longer seek times for processing data - slowing the SD card performance. So far I've had NGBC running in attract mode for over 2 hours instead of the usual 20-25 minutes and it hasn't locked up yet.

This is the command I used in the Ubuntu terminal:

sudo mkdosfs -s 1 -S 512 /dev/mmcblk0p1 3221225

(mmcblk0p1 being the SD card).

[mkandersson1082]

I tested out a few of the other ports earlier and it seems like the slightly hindered performance of my SD card hasn't affected gameplay.

[mkandersson1082]

Almost 4 hours on attract mode presently...I'll do further testing tomorrow.

[mkandersson1082]

I left KOF XI & Dolphin Blue on attract mode for a couple of hours and had no issues. Fist of the North Star, however locked up after 45-50 minutes in attract mode. Either way there seems to be an overall improvement using these file system settings.

[MoeFoh]

I left KOF XI & Dolphin Blue on attract mode for a couple of hours and had no issues. Fist of the North Star, however locked up after 45-50 minutes in attract mode. Either way there seems to be an overall improvement using these file system settings.

Wondering if you used a defragger to look at file layout?

[mkandersson1082]

I left KOF XI & Dolphin Blue on attract mode for a couple of hours and had no issues. Fist of the North Star, however locked up after 45-50 minutes in attract mode. Either way there seems to be an overall improvement using these file system settings.

Wondering if you used a defragger to look at file layout?

I haven't so much as looked at a defrag program since switching to Linux several years ago Anyway, from my experience defragging never made a difference when it came to my modded consoles, but do you think the file layout may also be an issue for Atomiswave ports?

[MoeFoh]

I left KOF XI & Dolphin Blue on attract mode for a couple of hours and had no issues. Fist of the North Star, however locked up after 45-50 minutes in attract mode. Either way there seems to be an overall improvement using these file system settings.

Wondering if you used a defragger to look at file layout?

I haven't so much as looked at a defrag program since switching to Linux several years ago Anyway, from my experience defragging never made a difference when it came to my modded consoles, but do you think the file layout may also be an issue for Atomiswave ports?

SD Cards are their fastest on sequential reads - meaning track03 & track04 are contiguous. Just the opposite of what you are trying.

I was wondering if the GDEMU uses ECC if it's part of the image - because it's stripped out in the Atomiswave converts. Anybody know?

[mkandersson1082]

It's interesting how different cluster sizes affect different games. Fist of the North Star prefers the 32KB cluster.

[MoeFoh]

It's interesting how different cluster sizes affect different games. Fist of the North Star prefers the 32KB cluster.

I've read that Metal Slug 6 can be particularly speed sensitive.

[mkandersson1082]

It's interesting how different cluster sizes affect different games. Fist of the North Star prefers the 32KB cluster.

I've read that Metal Slug 6 can be particularly speed sensitive.

I do wonder...would changing the data layout on the ISOs make a difference? Being that smaller cluster sizes provide more 'accurate' reads for some games, while bigger cluster sizes provide more accurate reads for others. This could be a case of a dummy file being beneficial also? Just a thought.