Offical Wii SD Card Thread

Fry's BM had two SD card deals today. 1GB PQI for $5 AR and 4GB Transcend for $40AR. I was curious about the Wii's video playback features so I bought one of each and hopefully the 4GB one will work on the Wii since that should be enough for a 2 hour movie.
 
[quote name='ofacto']Fry's BM had two SD card deals today. 1GB PQI for $5 AR and 4GB Transcend for $40AR. I was curious about the Wii's video playback features so I bought one of each and hopefully the 4GB one will work on the Wii since that should be enough for a 2 hour movie.[/quote]
Check out this thread for some impressions on video playback on the Wii.
 
[quote name='ofacto']... hopefully the 4GB one [SD Card] will work on the Wii since that should be enough for a 2 hour movie.[/QUOTE]

Can anyone confirm if the Wii will read a 4GB SD Card? The Nintendo site says otherwise:

[quote name='http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/wii/en_na/sdCards.jsp']
Not all SD Cards are compatible with the Wii console. Please read the following:

* The Wii console is only compatible with SD Cards that are 2 GB (Gigabyte) or less. Cards with a capacity higher than 2 GB will likely not work with the Wii console. [/Quote]
 
I have a couple of questions:
Can the Wii actively use data from SD cards, or are they only used to back up inormation? For example, if you copy a VC game to an SD card and then erase it from the Wii's internal memory, will the game on the SD card still show up in the Wii channels?

If, for some reason, your Wii's internal memory is full, would you get the option to save games or download VC games directly to the SD card?
 
[quote name='kiyoshi67']Can anyone confirm if the Wii will read a 4GB SD Card? The Nintendo site says otherwise:[/QUOTE]


Yes it can. The brand I had was 4GB Transcend.

I need a new SD reader though, cause the one I have is USB 1.1 and it takes close to an hour to transer a couple of gigs of data. Quicktime movies still look crappy even with a higher bit rate. So I am really hoping that Nintendo allows more codecs and display options when and if they update the movie player.
 
Why did Nintendo make SD useage so restricted and difficult? Having game saves tied to a specific console is pretty much unforgivable, as is not being able to use your additional SD memory be "live" on the system. I really hope they fix this stuff soon.
 
[quote name='Scobie']Why did Nintendo make SD useage so restricted and difficult? Having game saves tied to a specific console is pretty much unforgivable, as is not being able to use your additional SD memory be "live" on the system. I really hope they fix this stuff soon.[/QUOTE]


I read that one of the reasons the Wii costs $250 was the decision to use 512MB internal flash memory. It would have been really cool if they just decided to leave it off and lower the price (and loosen up SD usage) since most people are going to buy SD cards anyway.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061116_750580.htm
 
I'm all for a lower price point on the console, and the 512 stock will be adequate for most folks for a long time to come. Just kinda puzzled why the additional SD card couldn't be handled as a proper extension of the built-in memory and why they had to make it so game saves are linked to the system they were saved on.
 
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif]The SD card I ordered finally arrived in the mail today, so I spent all day playing with it. Here is some (not so interesting) information I've discovered so far...

You can transfer your Wii's Virtual Console games to an SD, save that to your PC, and erase them from the SD card to free up space for other things, and then transfer them all back (PC > SD > Wii), and they will still work fine. Obviously, the VC games have to be played on the same Wii you bought them on, so no sharing for you!

Secondly, when you peruse the Wii data on your PC, you'll see this folder tree:

private > wii > title >

Within the "title" folder you will see folders with 4 capital letters. What these are, of course, depends on your data, but what I can tell you is....

REXE = Excite Truck save data
RRBE = Rayman Raving Rabbids save data
RTHE = Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam save data

I saved one Virtual Console game to the card, which is also listed in this folder as:

PAAE = Bomberman '93 (TG-16)

So, from raiding Wikipedia for obscure console aliases, I have deduced....

The first letter in these folders represents the console it is from. For example:

R = Wii (think Revolution and it will make more sense)

P = TurboGrafx-16 (I'm thinking the P stands for PC Engine, which was the TG's name in Japan)

F = NES (Famicom in Japan)

N = Nintendo 64

M = Sega Genesis (or the Mega Drive in Japan)

Now, the only one I don't know is Super Nintendo, because I haven't downloaded any of Super Nintendo games, but it might be an 'S'.

I'm taking a guess on this part, but I believe the last letter represents the language of the game...

E = English

I guess we'll have to wait and see if J = Japanese when it hits over there to know for sure.

Now, for the two letters in between, the only identification marker we have left is the game, right?

EX = Excite
RB = Rayman Raving Rabbids
TH = Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam
AA = Bomberman '93

I think all VC titles are going to be represented by an alphabetical two-letter code. Bomberman '93 is the first TG-16 title, so it gets 'AA', Bonk is the second one so it gets 'AB', and so on. That's just a guess though, but if it does in fact follow that formula, that means we can look forward to 676 titles for each system, yes? Maybe? I'm not good at math. I wonder if the code will always be limited to four letters....

So, in conclusion, I think, the Wii game data reads like this:

System - Game - Language

Examples:
REXE = Wii - Excite Truck - English
PAAE = TG-16 - Bomberman '93 - English

Also of note, perhaps, is that VC games are stored within their cryptic folders as content.bin, while save data is stored as data.bin.

And for the uber-nerdy among you, Bomberman '93 takes up 3.54mb (considerably more than a ROM... quality? control schemes?).



And now, I have to go to bed before my white- and nerdiness overtakes the world. :bomb:
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Just picked up a 1.0 Gb SanDisk card at Best Buy. $34.99 with a $15.00 MIR, plus I used a GGC on it and a $5 Rewards Certificate. Will end up being $10 after all. I figured the GGC would work since the card is technically a video game accessory. The cashier had to manually adjust the price by $5, but it worked...
 
[quote name='shajek'] I figured the GGC would work since the card is technically a video game accessory. The cashier had to manually adjust the price by $5, but it worked...[/QUOTE]

That's going to be YMWV. I doubt all Best buy's will give that to you.
 
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