sellenoff wrote:That's exactly what we're doing, it loads everything into memory and runs from there, so the key is only read when you turn the game on initially.

As for the writes, we're still working on a few things to see what the best way to handle it is, but we will certainly keep the writes to the key as minimal as we can get w.o jeopardizing losing settings/scores/audits etc..

Ok that sounds good. I guess the game doesn't write settings and scores that often, but audits might be a bit. I figure the platform must have some logging of tripped switches and so for the game to notice failure too, and that could add up a bit, eventhou that data wouldnt be cruscial if the system should hang.

JMX wrote:

sellenoff wrote:That's exactly what we're doing, it loads everything into memory and runs from there, so the key is only read when you turn the game on initially.

As for the writes, we're still working on a few things to see what the best way to handle it is, but we will certainly keep the writes to the key as minimal as we can get w.o jeopardizing losing settings/scores/audits etc..

Ok that sounds good. I guess the game doesn't write settings and scores that often, but audits might be a bit. I figure the platform must have some logging of tripped switches and so for the game to notice failure too, and that could add up a bit, eventhou that data wouldnt be cruscial if the system should hang.

While it may sound like they store a ton of data, their nvram consists of a 32K sram and a 128K sram. I don't know how much data is stored in flash, but at worst case, the flash image is 4MB.

So on 1 GB stick you're be constantly writing only 4.1MB of data, which is such a small % of the total drive, I can't even calc it in my head..

-Steve

One thing to consider is that you guys are building a reliable replacement. Williams didn't necessarily have long term reliability a factor in their choice of hardware. The fact that they chose certain types of storage doesn't automatically mean your product should.

So many factors play into what hardware we use. reliability is a key for me. Compatibility is also a huge issue. We are doing our best. In the end I would like to be able to tell people to choose their favorite storage method (which may be a reality.) I like usb drives for convenience. I think don likes compact flash with an ide interface. steve likes cake (*humor*) I have been working all week testing these various methods. There is a small issue with usb I've been trying to resolve but all of them work really well.

I can't wait to tell some of the stories of what we've been through. We have hundreds of hours into this and many more to go. And most of the "sexy" work is done. The rest is boring and repetitive, but very necessary.

Thank God for Team Fortress 2!

p.s. If you play I'm Lot. Drop me a line and maybe I'll frag ya =D

Chuck wrote:So many factors play into what hardware we use. reliability is a key for me. Compatibility is also a huge issue. We are doing our best. In the end I would like to be able to tell people to choose their favorite storage method (which may be a reality.) I like usb drives for convenience. I think don likes compact flash with an ide interface. steve likes cake (*humor*) I have been working all week testing these various methods. There is a small issue with usb I've been trying to resolve but all of them work really well.

I can't wait to tell some of the stories of what we've been through. We have hundreds of hours into this and many more to go. And most of the "sexy" work is done. The rest is boring and repetitive, but very necessary.

Thank God for Team Fortress 2!

p.s. If you play I'm Lot. Drop me a line and maybe I'll frag ya =D

Heh.. I've got thousands of hours under this project most likely..

And, I've only just begun to do the "sexy" work stuff.. I've got a lot of ideas we've not discussed yet. Mwahahha..

Oh and cake rocks.. but the CF->IDE idea was also my idea as well as Don's, and it's probably my preferred choice still, though I'd love to be able to support usb also.

-Steve

sellenoff wrote:Heh.. I've got thousands of hours under this project most likely..

ok

hours=hours<<4

better?

My vote is for CF through the IDE. Clearly the most reliable way to go. And if you shop around you might even be able to pull it off for less than the cheap USB flash drive route.

USB has officially pissed me off. I'm joining the compact flash/IDE club as the preferred method of storage. We are also taking measures to reduce any writes to CF that we can. We want to reduce them to the point that hopefully no one would have to replace a CF due to them exceeding max writes. More to come on this shortly.

Chuck wrote:USB has officially pissed me off.

Me too. I have to write drivers for it and it pisses me off all the time.

So given how cheap and plentiful smallish IDE hard drives are, why CF over IDE and not a hard drive?

ChadTower wrote:So given how cheap and plentiful smallish IDE hard drives are, why CF over IDE and not a hard drive?

It's overkill for what we need. That being said, with relative ease, we could support both, and most likely will, though I haven't confirmed that with Chuck, but I see no reason not to.

What Steve said. I looked at the price of ide drives compared to 4gb usb and cf cards and even the smallest hard drive you can buy seems to run about 3x as much and like steve said it is overkill. Plus a removeable device is easier to update and easier for the user to utilize some of our planned additions.

~20GB hard drives can be had free all day long for tech people.

You have to compare the price of the drive + the price of the IDE - CF adaptor. That CF adaptor isn't free.

ChadTower wrote:~20GB hard drives can be had free all day long for tech people.

You have to compare the price of the drive + the price of the IDE - CF adaptor. That CF adaptor isn't free.

Agreed. I have working drives laying around my house that I don't use. But non tech people won't have these. So we have to assume people won't have access to cheap or free drives.

The cf-ide adapter is only 4 or 5 bucks btw.

Hrm. How many completely non tech people can reasonably be expected to use a product like this? I know there are plenty of pin owners who don't know a transistor from a big sister but those are the same guys who would be paying someone like us to set this up for them.