Now that the Wii has begun its third year on store shelves, we've managed to download a lot of things. In fact, we've accrued quite the collection of Virtual Console and WiiWare titles already. Much to our surprise, we've yet to fill the entire capacity of a 2gb SD card, which is the maximum size supported by Nintendo's latest console. How about you all? Use a SD card with your console? How full is it?
Now that the Wii has begun its third year on store shelves, we've managed to download a lot of things. In fact, we've accrued quite the collection of Virtual Console and WiiWare titles already. Much to our surprise, we've yet to fill the entire capacity of a 2gb SD card, which is the maximum size supported by Nintendo's latest console. How about you all? Use a SD card with your console? How full is it?
Reader Comments (22)
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 8:13AM (Unverified) said
I have a 2 gig card reserved specifically for GH DLC. Other than that I have yet to fill the Wii's memory. I really need to download some WiiWare games. Is LostWinds or Gyrostarr any good?
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 8:47AM Mr Khan said
I've yet to fill the on-board memory, frankly. I am approaching a limit, but retail games are going to dominate the scene for a long time coming, and i don't think it will get much fuller.
But i am in mourning right now. My primary GC memory card corrupted while i was playing Sonic Mega Collection. Some of my greatest achievements (all emblems in Sonic Adventure 2) still live, backed up on my PC at home, but i still have many losses (namely Path of Radiance)
But i am in mourning right now. My primary GC memory card corrupted while i was playing Sonic Mega Collection. Some of my greatest achievements (all emblems in Sonic Adventure 2) still live, backed up on my PC at home, but i still have many losses (namely Path of Radiance)
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 8:47AM (Unverified) said
I enjoyed LostWinds, but haven't tried Gyrostarr. However, if you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend World of Goo. Great puzzle/physics gameplay, top notch soundtrack, and co-op.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 9:05AM samfish said
I have one, but aside from Mario 64 and Sin & Punishment, which I only backed up to test, really, I don't have anything on it. I refuse to put games on the card until Nintendo let's us run games off of it.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 10:52AM Thanat0s said
Im in the same boat, i havent downloaded in almost a year because of the fact they refused to acknowledge there was an issue and fix it. They said it only affected a small majority, youd think that they would bend over backwards for the people that are buying so many titles that they are filling up their Wii but no. And from what ive read this "solution" thats coming isnt a solution at all as there isnt any talk anywhere about playing it off the sd card only bypassing the Wii and saving VC games directly to the SD card, How does that fix things?
Reply
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 11:14AM (Unverified) said
Although Nintendo hasn't officially described their storage solution, I imagine it will work like this:
*WiiWare/VC games purchased from the shop channel can optionally be downloaded directly to the SD card.
*The Wii Menu will be modified so that downloaded games will display on the menu whether they are stored on internal memory or the SD card.
*Wii internal memory will have a "page file" for quickly loading games into internal memory for gameplay.
All this will be transparent to the user. If they do something like this, the storage solution will be pretty impressive.
Reply
*WiiWare/VC games purchased from the shop channel can optionally be downloaded directly to the SD card.
*The Wii Menu will be modified so that downloaded games will display on the menu whether they are stored on internal memory or the SD card.
*Wii internal memory will have a "page file" for quickly loading games into internal memory for gameplay.
All this will be transparent to the user. If they do something like this, the storage solution will be pretty impressive.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 2:13PM (Unverified) said
> Aaron said...
>All this will be transparent to the user. If they do something like this, the storage solution will be pretty impressive.
Uh, no it won't. That's how Palm OS handles SD cards, and it's a hacky, crappy solution. Does Nintendo really want to take a page from Palm's terrible ancient technology playbook?
Reply
>All this will be transparent to the user. If they do something like this, the storage solution will be pretty impressive.
Uh, no it won't. That's how Palm OS handles SD cards, and it's a hacky, crappy solution. Does Nintendo really want to take a page from Palm's terrible ancient technology playbook?
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 2:41PM (Unverified) said
Thinking about it some more, I suppose it's more Palm's implementation of this scheme that's the problem (the launcher puts all SD card apps in their own category, the apis and file systems for accessing internal memory and SD cards are completely different) and some things that are an issue on a handheld are unlikely to be an issue on the Wii (like your memory card accidentally popping out while you are running the app). But the most likely issue seems to me that it's going to be a slower if you have to copy an app off a card into local memory and then run it from local memory (and delete it when you are done) than it would be to just read it directly into to RAM and execute it; perhaps the wii has so little RAM (looks like it has 88 meg) that executing right off the memory card would not always be practical? Well, anyway, when I hear the Wii is going to work like Palm OS I get the heebee geebes. :-)
Personally, although I own a bunch of Wiiware games, the storage problem isn't a big problem for me. I play games serially, so once I've beaten, for example, Lost Winds, I'm unlikely to want to play it again. After I've finished with a game, I copy it to the SD card, delete it off internal memory, and then forget about it. And I'll probably never fire it up again.
Reply
Personally, although I own a bunch of Wiiware games, the storage problem isn't a big problem for me. I play games serially, so once I've beaten, for example, Lost Winds, I'm unlikely to want to play it again. After I've finished with a game, I copy it to the SD card, delete it off internal memory, and then forget about it. And I'll probably never fire it up again.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 9:36AM HTCEVO said
I used to be really religious about buying games from the virtual console and from Wii Ware. Game slike Lost Winds and Gyrostarr were great, but then .. I ran out of system memory. As soon as I had to juggle SD card memory, and wait for re-dload times and having to save files back onto the card... UGHHH, I had had it.
Personally, I'll stick to Marketplace until nintendo fixes this issue by allowing me to play the games from the card itself. Otherwise, it's just too annoying to deal with right now. It's a shame too, because Nintendo really put a wrench in the service... and it was actually really starting to take off.
Personally, I'll stick to Marketplace until nintendo fixes this issue by allowing me to play the games from the card itself. Otherwise, it's just too annoying to deal with right now. It's a shame too, because Nintendo really put a wrench in the service... and it was actually really starting to take off.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 11:46AM (Unverified) said
Amen! I filled my system memory within a week of getting into virtual console. After that I started with the whole SD card thing. But, it drove me completely insane having to switch stuff back and forth. After a few months of that I had had it. I reformatted my system memory, contacted Nintendo and then sold my Wii on eBay. Nintedo assures me that my games are all connected to my MyNintendo account and I will be able to get them back as soon as I decide to get another Wii. hopefully it will be a Wii2 with a built in hard drive. In the meantime, my Wii and one extra WiiMote scored me 400 dollars on ebay.
Reply
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 11:14AM (Unverified) said
I have my 2gig about 1/3 full. I would certainly have more on it if I didn't have to wait for the game to load into memory. That worked fine on my Atari 1200XL Computer but on my console in 2008?
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 12:00PM (Unverified) said
Many people have mentioned that long transfer times are a problem for them, but update 3.4 basically eliminated these.
Even the largest games, such as the 320 block World of Goo now transfers in no more than 30 seconds.
Even the largest games, such as the 320 block World of Goo now transfers in no more than 30 seconds.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 6:07PM BrokenTriforce said
Dude
I'm not updating to 3.4 because all of my homebrew would be gone.
Which means emulators won't work I wouldn't have all the games that you can't get from the shop channel.
My 2gig SD card is about full. I just erased all of the VC channels from my Wii, since only 5 games that I bought left me with 61 blocks of memory. I'm considering buying another.
Some games have rediculous save file sizes. Skate It takes up something like 120 blocks. Yeesh. The GH cllc is getting up there too...
Reply
I'm not updating to 3.4 because all of my homebrew would be gone.
Which means emulators won't work I wouldn't have all the games that you can't get from the shop channel.
My 2gig SD card is about full. I just erased all of the VC channels from my Wii, since only 5 games that I bought left me with 61 blocks of memory. I'm considering buying another.
Some games have rediculous save file sizes. Skate It takes up something like 120 blocks. Yeesh. The GH cllc is getting up there too...
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 12:05PM Roto13 said
I have a 1-gig SD card I dump everything onto (whether I'm deleting or not, when I get a new game I stick it on there just so I won't have to download it again in the future) and it's almost full, but that has a lot to do with the homebrew.
Also, anyone who denies themselves games they want to play because they can't be assed to take a maximum of 30 seconds to transfer something to an SD card is a whiny bitch. I can't imagine how these people manage to actually GET UP and switch disc-based games whenever they want to play a different one.
Also, anyone who denies themselves games they want to play because they can't be assed to take a maximum of 30 seconds to transfer something to an SD card is a whiny bitch. I can't imagine how these people manage to actually GET UP and switch disc-based games whenever they want to play a different one.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 11:05PM (Unverified) said
For the most part I agree with you Roto13, but transferring VC/WiiWare games to SD takes much longer than 30 seconds.
In my experience, it's more like 5-10 minutes for the big ones.
I think it'd be faster to just delete them and redownload them when I want to play them again.
As for the question posed by the article: I'd be nowhere near full if it wasn't for homebrew. Even still, I think I have over 2,000 blocks free on my SD card.
Reply
In my experience, it's more like 5-10 minutes for the big ones.
I think it'd be faster to just delete them and redownload them when I want to play them again.
As for the question posed by the article: I'd be nowhere near full if it wasn't for homebrew. Even still, I think I have over 2,000 blocks free on my SD card.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 12:37PM (Unverified) said
RightO Roto13!
I have only downloaded 1 VC title so I can't relate to the people who have to use SD cards but they come off as very whiney.
I have only downloaded 1 VC title so I can't relate to the people who have to use SD cards but they come off as very whiney.
Posted: Dec 9th 2008 8:06PM GewurztraminerX said
I've had a 2 GB SD card for awhile now but only started using it recently for GH:WT DLC. Well, that, and storage for Ocarina of Time so I can get the DLC in the first place.
Posted: Jan 3rd 2009 3:50PM (Unverified) said
"I can't relate to the people who have to use SD cards but they come off as very whiney"
Huh? Just download a WiiWare title or two and you r out of memory. I love the WiiWare offerings, however they just underscored how critical the memory limitation is.
I just got Guitar Hero World Tour and while I have only 2 WiiWare titles currently in system memory (strong bad, world of goo) and the stock channels I cannot download any songs because they require 200 blocks system memory for buffer before a song can be transferred to SD card. Ridiculous!
Huh? Just download a WiiWare title or two and you r out of memory. I love the WiiWare offerings, however they just underscored how critical the memory limitation is.
I just got Guitar Hero World Tour and while I have only 2 WiiWare titles currently in system memory (strong bad, world of goo) and the stock channels I cannot download any songs because they require 200 blocks system memory for buffer before a song can be transferred to SD card. Ridiculous!
