#22305 - RogerRabbit - Thu Jun 17, 2004 10:58 am
...does anybody know if it?s possible to build an adapter for the GBA, so that I?m able to do "development stuff" or play games via a SD Card (or other cards like: compact flash, smart media)?
The only thing in my opinion that it won?t work is because they are maybe slower than a EZ-Flash card or other flashing cards.
...because playing over a SD card would be much cheaper and more comfortable!
#22311 - notb4dinner - Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:45 pm
http://www.gbax.com/smartwallet.html
Some one else might be able to comment on how well this actually works...
Edit: After actually reading the article it looks like you still need a flash cart to execute the ROMs from - this just allows you to copy games from Smart Media to a flash cart via the GBA. Not really useful unless you want to carry around a whole bunch of big ROMs.
#22313 - ampz - Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:19 pm
SD, compact flash, and all other similar devices are block adressed.
GBA flash memory must be linearly adressed.
#22326 - tepples - Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:33 am
| ampz wrote: |
SD, compact flash, and all other similar devices are block adressed.
GBA flash memory must be linearly adressed. |
That is, unless you have a linearly addressed bootloader and then block addressed programs (.mb) and data.
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#22334 - RogerRabbit - Fri Jun 18, 2004 9:27 am
ampz wrote:
SD, compact flash, and all other similar devices are block adressed.
GBA flash memory must be linearly adressed.
What?s the difference between these two procedures?
Is maybe block adressing not so exact as linear adressing?
...there has to be a way to simulate/emulate block adressing so that the gba thinks the device is a linearly adressed device...
#22335 - ampz - Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:06 am
| RogerRabbit wrote: |
ampz wrote:
SD, compact flash, and all other similar devices are block adressed.
GBA flash memory must be linearly adressed.
What?s the difference between these two procedures?
Is maybe block adressing not so exact as linear adressing?
...there has to be a way to simulate/emulate block adressing so that the gba thinks the device is a linearly adressed device... |
The block access time of devices like SD and compact flash is in the order of many microseconds. GBA non-sequential access time is less than 180nanoseconds. You do the math.
#22336 - RogerRabbit - Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:20 pm
...now I got it. thx for reply!
#22341 - Cyberman - Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:34 am
| RogerRabbit wrote: |
ampz wrote:
SD, compact flash, and all other similar devices are block adressed.
GBA flash memory must be linearly adressed.
What?s the difference between these two procedures?
Is maybe block adressing not so exact as linear adressing?
...there has to be a way to simulate/emulate block adressing so that the gba thinks the device is a linearly adressed device... |
As Amp said.. but more importantly think of the SD/Smart Media cards as DISK drives which is pretty miuch there behavior. They are not maped into the GBA's memory but have to be access via IO. Bottom line is 'there is no free lunch' =)
Cyb
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#22346 - dagamer34 - Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:49 am
Besides, don't you have to copy data to RAM before using it if the storage space is block-addressed?
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#22350 - tepples - Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:57 am
| dagamer34 wrote: |
| don't you have to copy data to RAM before using it |
Yes, a program using block-addressed storage has to copy blocks of data from the "disk" into RAM, but if you're running .mb programs, that's not so hard. It's not even hard if you're streaming, say, compressed audio or video off the "disk". There's only a problem if you're running a commercial GBA game, you dirty pirate ;-)
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#22372 - dagamer34 - Sat Jun 19, 2004 5:13 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| dagamer34 wrote: | | don't you have to copy data to RAM before using it |
Yes, a program using block-addressed storage has to copy blocks of data from the "disk" into RAM, but if you're running .mb programs, that's not so hard. It's not even hard if you're streaming, say, compressed audio or video off the "disk". There's only a problem if you're running a commercial GBA game, you dirty pirate ;-) |
Aren't we a little feisty?!?! I was really thinking about how the DS will access data on it's media cards, since ampz seems to really think that it is block-addessed instead of memory-mapped. It pretty much explains why the DS has a lot more RAM compared to the GBA.
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#22377 - ampz - Sat Jun 19, 2004 7:07 pm
dagamer34: Exactly.
#22392 - dagamer34 - Sun Jun 20, 2004 1:00 am
| ampz wrote: |
| dagamer34: Exactly. |
:)
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