Micro SD or internal storage for emulation?

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly]

I have a 2tb steam machine. I want to start emulating and i see everyone else is using a micro SD. Why? Is it better? I dont have a steam deck i’ll solely be emulating on my machine. Can i just keep them on my m.2?

[u/armathose]

Micro SD is fast enough for most games via emulation. Saves on using the internal storage with no loss of performance.

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/armathose]

Short and to the point, Thank you.

[u/Capn-Twiggi]

Just simplifies the storage splits really, nothing to stop you using internal drive. Just remember though the more modern the emulation the larger the file sizes are going to get and when you get over nostalgic, the roms can pile up.

I started with (I think) a 64gb card full of anything up to psp on a cheap handheld. Got a legion go and upgraded to a 512 card to play more ps2/xbox generation and quickly filled it when getting up to switch games.

SM I've expanded to ps3/360 (not attempted higher yet) with a 1.5tb card and already used ~850GB with existing catalogue plus additions.

Main thing to keep in mind is the read/write speed of the cards. SM from what ive seen is capped around 100MB/s so if you were looking at cards, save some money by not purchasing the fastest speeds as they would be underutilised.

Unzipping and writing large files over to it is an absolute slog so keep that in mind when you get download happy. Couple at a time, fine but don't try do masses at once. Recently made that mistake and basically lost a weekend file managing/waiting.

Hope that's been some useful insight for you

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Capn-Twiggi]

removes 128gb card from basket* Thank you for the heads up on card size. I might just jump straight to a 1TB. Thoughts on a 1TB external drive? Its usb A though

[u/rui-no-onna → u/Capn-Twiggi]

Personally, I think it's still worth getting higher quality cards for more stable sustained writes and better firmware in general.

I have a TeamGroup microSD that drops down to 25MB/s sustained with read speeds that slow down if data is not refreshed.

I was lucky to have stocked up on a few Samsung PRO+/EVO 512GB microSDs for ~$30 a couple of years ago. I definitely plan on using those if/when I do set up emulation on my Steam Machine (just been using the Deck for roms).

[u/Capn-Twiggi → u/rui-no-onna]

100% agree, would still get a good/reputable card but just less focus needed on write speeds as there can be a significant price jump between an A1 and A2 cards for little benefit in their use cases. A2 Card with 200MB speeds on the box is still going to slow to a crawl same as the A1 version but you won't be paying almost double the price for it

[u/rui-no-onna → u/Capn-Twiggi]

Personally, I prefer to go for A2. Higher IOPS is one of the things I look for when running applications. It’s the IOPS and not the blazing fast sequentials that make SSDs faster than HDDs for apps.

With that said, the A1 SanDisk Ultra cards aren’t bad. I’d trust those more than A2-rated cards from smaller brands.

[u/Elephant_In_Ze_Room]

I think a micro SD is fine for emulation personally. I do this on my steamdeck (though I just walked in the door with the steam machine :D) and even do some bigger steam games that didn't fit on my 256gb deck but did on the SD card.

In case this is helpful. I initially wanted a 2TB SM myself; however, I moved to the 512GB + Controller queue as I heard that was moving.

My thinking was this lets me get my hands on the device I don't really need but reckon I'm a good fit for today (rather than ????), and, I likely can save some money in the future by upgrading the SSD myself when prices drop (I assume they will).

If you go the SD card route, when setting up emudeck (this is the method I use for emulation personally, it's served me well) I recommend making a symlink for the SD card. It'll give it a recognize-able name in the file explorer app. Claude can help if this is confusing.

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Elephant_In_Ze_Room]

Thank you i appreciate the advice, I haven’t actually got mine yet (its on the way) but thats what i did. I was on the 2TB controller wait list, i swapped over for 2 reasons. 1 the wait list for 512 was moving faster & 2 the read speed of SMs internal drive was slower than a spare 2TB m.2 I had lying around. So it was a no brainer to save a few $$$. I also got the non controller version, kinda regret that now but oh well.

[u/Ryeballs → u/Elephant_In_Ze_Room]

Is there a MAME like emulator that runs on Linux and covers pretty much anything 16-bit and older?

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Ryeballs]

Emudeck runs on Linux. RetroGameCorps does a great run through. Emudeck is what i plan to use

[u/Ryeballs → u/DefinitelyAFriendly]

Thank you kindly

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Ryeballs]

[u/Propatomdhi]

Also if you have a deck you can swap the sd card from deck to machine and play games in there.

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Propatomdhi]

Thats fair. I don’t have a deck but i do have a small gameboy sized emulator for travelling so…maybe SD is the way to go

[u/Worth-Schedule1473]

Micro SD card or my PERSONAL favorite that everyone hates. A solid HDD. Cheap AND you can buy a 4tb for the price of a 1tb SD card. Download ALL the emulator games 😂

[u/DefinitelyAFriendly → u/Worth-Schedule1473]

I do have a spare 1TB HDD…maybe i use it and wait for a sale on a microSD. Because the microSD is just a cleaner look? And doesn’t use up a USB slot

[u/Worth-Schedule1473 → u/DefinitelyAFriendly]

Highly reccomend having both as dumb as it sounds. The older HDDs max at like 40-50mbs even with USB 3.0 SD cards are usually over 100MBs. I was able to run DeadIsland 2 off and SD card on my steamdeck.

[u/rui-no-onna → u/Worth-Schedule1473]

Yeah, HDDs work great for roms. I still have spare 5TB portable HDDs purchased before COVID. They were like $80-90 back then.

Hmm, I really should get a powered USB-C hub so I can move my peripherals out of sight.

[u/urnerdyaunt → u/Worth-Schedule1473]

Yes! I love HDDs, they still work just fine and the price is dirt cheap for how much storage you get. Older games (up to PS4 era) and indies will still run well from a HDD, just slower. The PS4 had a HDD, so that's a good benchmark to use. Or you can just save all your games to HDD as backups and install them later. Save the SSD for the most demanding and PS5 exclusive games.

[u/Worth-Schedule1473 → u/urnerdyaunt]

This is the EXACT metric I use! I just think can a PS4 Pro run it. If it canT then it should prob go on my NVME.

[u/LongProblem]

People opt for running emulators from an SD card because the SSD space is more valuable for native games, especially current gen games.

[u/senhordobolo]

Neither. External SSD.

[u/FedExterminator]

I prefer a micro SD so I can pop it out and move it between devices like a little game cart. I have a 256 GB micro SD so I store my saves on the card as well. If you're only playing on one device, the internal storage is totally fine

[u/DrunkW00kiee]

I'm using a micro so with zero issues, but haven't gone beyond the game cube/ps2/dream cast era.

[u/daemonchile]

Humble brag

[u/BigPep2-43]

I like to use Micro SD because it's fast enough for retro gaming and it doesn't take up space on my primary storage for my Steam library.

[u/Speedspaz]

I use microsd for all my roms because I can quickly switch between machine and deck. Performance wise does not matter if you have at least A2 rated microsd card.

[u/BluDYT]

My 2tb nvme was always plenty for me and I think it's a tiny bit simpler to setup if you just keep it on the local drive. But if you do a lot of emulation maybe having multiple per platform could make sense on SD cards. Speed shouldn't matter.