Hacking Is 256 GB safe, and more!!

[Sardinha157]

Basically, I'm thinking about buying a 256 card, cuz my 128 is full, and I inteed to play every game on that creature and more.
Using 2 sd cards seems like a bad idea (if not them please tell me, that would help me a ton lol) and having the games on pc, and using checkpoint, them installing the ones I'll be playing makes me wanna sleep.

So yeah, what shoul I be prepared for if I use a 256 gb one? Like:
- Best brands, and types.
- Best way to format.
- And what to do so that the gba games play well, and the custom themes (anemone) work normally.

And someone on reddit said that 256gb is easier to corrupt, wich I don't know if it's true.

So yeah, please tell me everything, cuz I don't know what information is outdated, and what simply is false. Anyway thanks to you all!!! And have a great day!

 

[Hayato213]

Safe to use 256GB

 

[Latiodile]

slower boot times

 

[Gamemaster1379]

That actually doesn't bother me at all hahahhaa so the themes and gba are all good to go! Like 0 chances at a problem even?

Size has no real impact on those. I've been using a 256 GB for years. Boot times are about the only impact. I'm a patient person, and 256 GB doesn't bother me. I tried a 512 GB at one point though and it ended up being a bit much, so I moved to 256 GB for a middle ground between space and performance.

 

[Hayato213]

slower boot times

Cluster affect boot time, 64 kb Cluster boot faster than 32kb.

 

[anotherthing]

I'm using a SanDisk 256GB MicroSD card. I haven't had a problem with a SanDisk card on anything from a DS to a Retroid Pocket 2.

 

[Ryab]

No, exFAT is not less reliable than FAT32.

I heavily disagree there. ExFat is an extremely unstable filesystem. Fat32 is just straight up better. The only probably with Fat32 is the file size limit. I've had a rather large number of ExFat drives corrupt.

 

[Ryab]

That's rather specious. Are you using a lot more exFAT drives than FAT32 drives? Have you tried using FAT32 drives in the same devices where you've used exFAT drives? Are you doing a lot of work with files larger than 4 GB on your exFAT drives (which you'd never be able to do with FAT32) ?

I've used both rather extensively. But ExFat is kinda known for not being a stable file system. Especially on certain devices. cough cough Switch cough cough.

 

[EnterpriseFreak]

The SD controller of the 3DS can theoretically handle up to 2 TB but as @Latiodile already said larger SD cards will make the 3DS take longer to boot. I am using a 200 GB card and its maybe a couple of seconds more. Once the OS has booted it's just as fast as it always was. Do keep in mind that on old 3DS games that use the extended memory modes will have to reboot the system to run, that'll increase the launch time of those games. For brands I'd go with Samsung or SanDisk or something else that's reputable. If it seems to good to be true it probably is.

Keep in mind that the 3ds can only have 300 titles on the home screen at once. Titles past that cannot be installed.

Afaik you can install more than 300 titles they'll just not show up on the home menu. FBI (or devmenu) should still be able to launch those games from their title list. For a more "user friendly" way there's also a homebrew called 3DS Bank which allows you to have multiple Nintendo 3DS folders on your SD card by swapping them around on the system itself.

 

[linkinworm]

I think if I remember correctly. If you use gba Injected games into the official emulator you get issues like the screen size being too big. And spamming the start button will make the frame buffer scroll round , for what ever reason. But for normal 3ds games should be fine

 

[CoolMe]

So yeah, what shoul I be prepared for if I use a 256 gb one? Like:
- Best brands, and types.

Generally Samsung or SanDisk, they're good, can't tell you about other brands (even if they're good) because i have no experience with them. I'd stay away from Kingston, even if they're genuine they're known to have abismal R&W speeds (same for their usbs).

Though should go without saying, that the 2 aforementioned brands are the most copy- able & imitated brands, so you might end up with a counterfeit (even if the packaging is convincing enough) instead of the real thing. so one way to know is to check it for errors with h2testw, and use their authenticity checker software to make sure it's indeed genuine.

You could also use CrystalDiskMark to measure the speed, though if you have 2.0 usb ports you won't get their full speed..

- Best way to format.

Fat32, and with 64kb cluster size since it's a 256gb card. Use Guiformat to do the formatting.

A side note, make sure the micro sd card has only one partition (without a small, hidden partition), i see many new cards come like that (Samsung & SanDisk, it's for backup), that would also make the test fail in h2testw, 'cause it didn't check the whole storage capacity..

- And what to do so that the gba games play well,

You want to know best way to play gba games on the 3ds? VC injects (with NSUI) and /or Open_agb_firm.

and the custom themes (anemone) work normally.

Themes should work as normal, don't think the sd formatting could affect it.

And someone on reddit said that 256gb is easier to corrupt, wich I don't know if it's true.

Not if it's genuine. Still, do regular backups specially of your game saves (with Checkpoint), as you can always DL games easily even in the event of sd corruption.

 

[CoolMe]

What about gba games on the twillight menu?

That's GBArunner2, that's the worst way to play GBA games, if you want to use an emulator use mGBA since you are using a 3ds.. Note that VC Injects & Open_agb_firm have better performance, because it's not emulation.

That's the way I like to play them, so what should I expect, and if something doenst work what shoukd I do to correct it?

You can't do anything to correct it, If you encounter something lag, stuttering or any performance problem in a game, it's just how the emulator/ emulation experience is for the 3ds. That's why people around here recommend the 2 aforementioned options because they give a much better & stable experience.

 

[CoolMe]

And I'm actually using Twillight Menu for gba games, does it have issues with the sd card? If so I would see more abt injects!

No there shouldn't be.

And the themes I was talking abt custom ones, wich I have had some people say work fine and others saying it doesn't.

I'm not sure about themes actually, and if sd formatting and/ or cluster size could affect how it displays, since i don't dabble with custom themes anyway. Though you might run into a theme that prevents you from accessing the home menu, there's a way to fix that..

Oh got it!! I thought that TM didn't use emulation lol

You can still use TWilightmenu for DS & DSiWare games, and the experience is solid. GBArunner2 however is still not that good, mGBA is better (tho still not as good as injects/open_agb_firm).

 

[Kwyjor]

I thought that TM didn't use emulation

That's right, TWiLight Menu (or more specifically GBARunner2) runs the GBA code natively and technically isn't "emulation". But it still has to "fake" certain aspects of the GBA hardware, and it doesn't do that as well as open_agb_firm or VC injects.

open_agb_firm is in some ways preferable to VC injects, but they are indistinguishable in performance.

 

[anotherthing]

It's been my understanding that the 3DS read speed is already inherently too slow to be affected by the hardware, and that you certainly won't achieve any speed reported by a PC-based benchmarking utility.

25MB/s is the read speed on a New 3DS. Most SD cards these days are 48MB/s to 90MB/s last I looked, so you're 100% correct there. The main reason you'd want a super fast SD card isn't the speed of the 3DS, it's for copying files to and from a PC. If you're packing a 64GB or above SD card, you'll appreciate that speed when you go to back up your SD card.

 

[CoolMe]

And should I run in less problems using it in a 256 size sd?

We already talked about this, yes it's fine, just make sure to format it as FAT32 64kb clusters (not 32kb) otherwise gba games won't display correctly.

 

[WizardWell]

The only issue with open_agb_firm is that it requires you to shut down to access it. So then you're running into the boot problem more often. I've found that VC injects of GBA games run into very long boot times as well, which makes complete sense as they are shutting down the 3DS OS and initiating the GBA hardware in the unit. mGBA is the only other option and even that seems to have lengthy load times. Even worse, there are almost always minor performance issues (audio crackling) or major issues (Golden Sun has terrible audio crackling).

Would be nice if open_agb_firm had a sleep mode but that is tough to accomplish apparently. VC injects can be crafted with a sleep mode hack, so that might be the best way to play GBA. I'm trying open_agb_firm for Minish Cap, I've been saving lots since I play in small bursts usually.

EDIT: I should note I'm using a 256GB card rn. It's pretty cool, I've loaded a buttload of PS1 games and 3DS games, along with an extensive retro library.

 

[fvig2001]

I'm using 400gb and it's fine but my gawd is it slow when enough games are installed. I use standard allocation. GBA needs to just be on actual NAND.

 

[Viri]

In 20 years, when we're using our 15 dollar 25tb Micro SD cards, people are going to spend more money to buy a 128GB Micro SD card, because slow boot times.

 

[fvig2001]

Lol 400 gbs should really have some slowdown hahahaha, and what do you mean with gba games beign on nand? Like vc injects?

Post automatically merged: Nov 30, 2023

Gonna preserve mine so that the 3ds purists will pay me well for then, thanks for the knowledge good sir

3DS has a title limit, so some people like me use emunand to bypass it without having to deal with the weird workaround that other people use.

GBA uses a special mode and it does not work with virtual nand. You can only run GBA games in normal nand. Emunand cannot run them (unless you also have that game in real nand)

 

[Indy13]

I'm using a 512go sd on my n3ds it's bit slow to boot but it's ok and I'm using godmode9i to format my sd card in fat32