I have 2 GB of SNES ROMs, about 2000 games, on a 50x SD card and GP2X/emulators takes about 1 minute to load or edit the list of games, so I was wondering will a 120x SD card speed up the read time in a GP2X. I know it'll be faster in most SD card reader/writers.

Speed only matters where data is streamed, as in GneoGeo or maybe PSX iso's ... and even so, it's not that noticeable.

Also: WTF do you need 2gigs of SNES roms on one card?

OK, so is a 50x SD card fast enough for emulation streaming or do I need a 120x card?

... sooooo, if you have the disposable cash, go for it. I'm a cheap bastard, so I go for the bargain stuff.


(I.E. I have a 50x card, and GneoGeo runs as smooth as a snot sandwich for me )

I got a super cheap 1GB card that is very noticeably slower than my other cards. So there is a case where the speed matters, it just only happens in extreme cases. Even the super slow card still works to play movies back to me though, so I'm happy (although it does take an overnight copy to put the movies on there, grr)

I got a 133x el cheapo that seems really slow. Does brand matter for speed more than speed rating?

Also, the GP2X movie player streams, too. I've heard it can stutter when using low speed cards, but I don't know. Mine's 150x or something, and I've never had any stuttering.

I think brand matters, but even moreso where you get it. There seems to be a lot of fake cards about. I've got a Corsair card that is lightning fast compared to my Sandisk which I think is fake.

I got my A-Data 4-gig 150x and it loads way faster then my old Sandisk 1-gig. I'm not sure the speed on the Sandisk but I know it wasn't 150x. It seems to load music and video slightly faster but not an extraordinary amount of speed, but emulators load faster .

My '133x' 4GB card is way slower than my 128MB SD card and my 128 card doesn't even have a stated speed rating!

I've read on-line in several places that a _huge_ percentage of the flash memory cards being sold on eBay are relabeled fakes (old, cheap, ultra-slow cards relabeled as fast ones). I mean, how hard is it to have a fake label printed and slapped onto an old card? Instant, easy (criminal) profit.

The best bet is to buy from a large, reputable on-line retailer. I wouldn't even _consider_ buying one off of eBay at this point. Not that all eBay flash memory sellers are crooks, it's just that many possibly don't even know that they're selling fake cards and some probably don't want to know, so they don't make the effort to check.

Here's a great Wiki about fake cards and how to recognize some of them

http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/Fake_Memory_Cards