Smc Life

[Loridan]

I was wondering if anyone has ever worn out an SMC by reaching the max number of erase/writes. Im getting a little paranoid about the camera industry trying to phase out smartmedia and Im wondering how much longer we will be able to obtain them. Just wanting some opinions.

 

[sam fisher]

I only got my gp32 the other day but must of written to my 2 cards at least 30 or 40 times by now!
What is the life as I don't have another £40 to spend and like you said WHAT IF THEY GET PHAZED OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[khephren]

Most cards can write 10,000 times, some of the branded ones can 100,000...so it isn't something you should have to worry about for a while

 

[Loridan]

Most cards can write 10,000 times, some of the branded ones can 100,000...so it isn't something you should have to worry about for a while

Thats what I figured, because Ive worked with eeproms befor and it was a similar case. But I was unsure of SMC. I wonder, if gamepark ever does make a new device if it will still use SMC or the newer flash media thats available. I wouldnt be at all shocked if they made a unit with no external memory. Just slap some internal storage in there some way. Theres all kinds of new memory devices coming out.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

You should get a good 5 years out of a new SMC. So just keep a couple locked away for this eventual failure.

The one thing I think will kill my SMC is LittleJohn, it writes the VRAM everytime I goto the menu, which I do A LOT and sometimes by accident about 30 times a day. When really I only want to save about 3 out of those 30 times, I took LittleJohn off my SMC for this reason. Please YoYoFR make VRAM save an option on a menu!

 

[Mikey]

Related question but what happens when you reach the max number of erase/writes? is the smc useless or are you stuck with whatever is on the card? :huh:

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Related question but what happens when you reach the max number of erase/writes? is the smc useless or are you stuck with whatever is on the card? :huh:

You can no longer write to your card.

In most cases you can still read from it just fine. So your stuck with whatever is on the card AND you cannot save in any game or emulator.

 

[Mikey]

Great, not all bad then thanks for the info.

 

[Nightripper]

DAMN IT! Now you guys got me scared...

/me goes away to buy 50 additional SMC's before they are gone...

 

[sam fisher]

I think they will still be around for a long while longer.
I mean look at floppy discs!!!
They are far obselete.
There are zip drives and then cd's that are much better but you can still get them! h34r:

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

I think they will still be around for a long while longer.
I mean look at floppy discs!!!
They are far obselete.
There are zip drives and then cd's that are much better but you can still get them! h34r:

Thats not a valid comparision.

First of all, SMC cards were designed simply as a storage medium for digital equipment. Nothing more. Now there are much better alternatives and no new cameras/etc.. are being designed that use SMC's, the stores arround here (like Circut City) already stopped carrying them.

Second, Floppy disks WERE replaced, the old 5.25 floppies (which are like the SMC of today) were replaced with 3.25 floppies (which are like the SD cards of today) The onl reason floppies still exist is because its still the easiest, cheapest way that you can backup and store documents, and rescue your PC, and create boot disks etc... So it still has some valid uses. Where as, SMC, doesnt have any valid uses, the new medias do exactally what SMC does, and more. Its already a dying market, it wont be too long until you have to buy them on ebay or some other such sites.

 

[sam fisher]

And I wasn't told this before I traded in my PS2 for a gp32?
ANyway I don't have themoney for more smart media cards yet.
No until next month.
I presume there wil be some cheap ones by then and that they will still be around then.
Will they?

 

[sam fisher]

By the way they still seem to sell pretty good on ebuyer and the euro launch of the gp32 may boost sales!
Anyway ebuyer should still have them next month so I will buy huge amounts from them then.
Now if you excuse me I am 14 and my SATS and internal exams are in less than two weeks(Start next week).

I have had a virus for 4 months and have hence virtually missed 4 months at school!
But I havn't seemed to miss much?
Any way I must revise from many sats revision guides.

 

[Squidge]

My kingston cards state a erase/write cycle durability of 1 million, some of the other cards are 100,000 (depends when they were manufactured). The smaller cards (8mb and below) are normally between 10,000 and 100,000.

So, nothing to worry about

Besides, if SMCs do die,you can always use a converter.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

Well all the stores arround here are slowly phasing out SMC's, not restocking them, etc..., and no new equipment is being designed that uses them, they all use the newest, latest technology to hold more, higher quality, videos and images. SMC's is yesterdays technology. They were modern a few years ago when GP32 was released, but they have since been replaced in the common market. SMC's only go upto 128MB. Which severly limits them, all new equipment is being made for the media that can go 512MB and higher. Which is the logicial progression of storeage media. Once the physical stores stop carrying them, they will slowly start to disapear from online stores as well. It may take a couple years, it wont be instant, but it WILL happen.

I hope by that time GamePark will have released their new GP32(64/whatever) so it wont be a problem at all, just upgrade to the new GamePark with a newer higher capacity media.

 

[pip]

If you write to it 10 times per day every day of the year, it will last 27 years. Not sure what you are all so fuzzed up about. I have never heard of anyone who had any problems with the smc running out of "charges".

 

[RomHacker316]

Actually the second SMC I bought was only written to 46 times before it conked out. I emailed the online place i bought it from and they replaced it saying one of their shipments was defective and apologized to me.

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

10 times a day? Come on! Get realistic here.

I am sure nearly everyone here writes to their SMC ALOT MORE THAN THAT. Maybe they are not aware of it, but, like EVERY time you goto the menu on LittleJohn and have a game running that has VRAM, it writes to your SMC, everytime you complete a level in DynaMate it writes to your SMC, etc...MANY games write their scores and save files after each level, or during menu sequences, etc.., most dont even tell you they are doing it. 10 times? Thats an absurdly low number for someone who plays with their GP32 on a regular basis.

Just because you dont actually select "WRITE TO SMC" doesnt mean the games are not doing JUST THAT!

I recently counted the number of times LittleJohn is writing to my SMC on an average days use, and JUST LITTLEJOHN writes an average of 25+ times to my SMC. (because, even if you dont want it to, when you goto the menu, it writes to your SMC, I had to remove LittleJohn from my SMC for this reason, it was costing me too many erase cycles.)

 

[RockOut]

Do you know that floppies are just cheaper and easier to use than any other kind of media and they are very popular for backing up computer systems today.

And, Akuma no Hukon, I bet that most people don't use their GP32 every single day!

 

[Akuma no Houkon]

And, Akuma no Hukon, I bet that most people don't use their GP32 every single day!

Blasphemy!