SD Card - pretty much useless at the moment?

[thisisgil]

I purchased an SD card with my Wii yesterday, with the sole intention of storing all donwloaded VC games, channels and save states on the card.

However, I've found that even after the SD Card Wii update, I can only copy things to the SD card from my Wii. After trawling through the setup menus, I've not found a single option to specify where to save games, and where to download VC games to, so I've come to the conclusion that this feature has either been intentionally left out, or is still to be updated....

I even tried copying VC games to the SD card, and then deleting them on the Wii - the channels just disappeared until I moved the VC games back onto the Wii.

So I guess my point is... although I can see that an SD card could be handy for backing up save games etc, why were so many stores keen to bundle one in? It's not a particularly essential accessory with the current state of play.

 

[JoeTheZombie]

Yah, other than the Photo Channel, the SD cards are currently only usable as a backup solution. As you noticed, the Wii can only utilize savegames and VC applications from the internal memory.

 

[thisisgil]

you can only use them to store gamesaves and channels - you cannot access channels and gamesaves directly from the SD card - they have to be copied onto the Wii!

 

[unluckylink13]

You can't copy the VC games to the SD card, only the saves. I agree that it's not as great as I wanted it to be. I want to have a 4th save file on Twilight Princess =P

 

[thisisgil]

unluckylink - I was able to copy both VC games and saves onto the SD card - however, I was unable to access either the games, or my Wii sports save whilst it was only on the SD Card and not on the Wii memory. Perhaps Zelda saves *can* be accessed from an SD card then?

 

[thisisgil]

My original point was that I'm not particularly annoyed that I cannot use VC games / Saves from an SD card (although I am disapponted, as I can imagine the wii memory getting full pretty fast as I download more VC games), but I was a bit unhappy that stores were pushing these SD cards out as if they would be a lot more necessary than they currently are. I suppose it's an easy accessory sell for a video games store, and a step further towards a bonus payment for a clerk...

Either way, I'd be surprised if Ninty don't eventually push an update to use saves from SD cards. There's probably some authentication issues with VC games to prevent people breaking the encryption and injecting their own code into a VC emu/game package on an SD card, so I'm not holding my breath on that one....

 

[unluckylink13]

No, it doesn't. I wish it would, though.

It's not a bad feature, but I have to copy my original data to the SD card, then erase it from the Wii. Then to keep the data that is on the Wii after that, I need another SD card to save that data on. I'm just used to Memory Cards, haha.

 

[unluckylink13]

I can't even get the music to work, haha. All of the music on my computer (even if I download an mp3) is .wmp. I tried a converter, but it didn't work. Photo Channel works very well, though. =]]

Also, I'm glad Nintendo allows you to download a game for free if you delete it or something. If they didn't, that would be pretty lame.

 

[vagrant]

The wii can store game saves on the sd cards, as well as channels.

You cannot store directly to SD cards at the moment but that will probably be changed with a firmware update. Not that you even need to save directly to it. Saving to the internal memory than to the sd card serves the exact same purpose.

 

[thisisgil]

I, like many other people, expected the SD card to be an alternative place to store downloads / saves to the Wii memory. Now whilst you can technically store *copies* of saves in the Wii memory, you CANNOT store active saves / VC games, which, to me at least, defeats the whole purpose.

Yes, I am aware that I can copy things to and from as I want to use them, but when my Wii memory is full of VC games, it's going to be an absolute nightmare navigating through the list and moving things to the SD card to free up some space so I can copy another VC games back from the SD card to the Wii. I may even delete some by accident, forcing a re-download. In fact, if the system stays as it is, I *know* that some games will get deleted due to my clumsiness.


In short: I love my Wii, you love yours. There's a feature that I'm not so crazy about, but it doesn't trouble you. However, don't come on here posting obnoxious replies to my threads trying to make me out to be an idiot because my views do not exactly coincide with yours. That only serves to make you look ignorant.

 

[thisisgil]

I suffer from Dyspraxia which is a sequencing issue. I KNOW that when things start getting full, I'll be confusing myself moving things left, right and centre, and that one day, I shall zip about trying to free up space to grab a new vc game, or save progress from a new wii game purchase, and delete the wrong thing. If this is a vc game - I'll be able to download it again, but deleting something like a Zelda save game will hurt.

This is a flawed system, and seems at odds with Nintendos efforts to make gaming easy and accessible to all. If my grandparents are supposed to want to pick up a wiimote and play golf or tennis, why make them jump through hoops with SD cards? I have enough faith in Nintendo to ultimately make it so we can save games to SD cards, but at this moment in time, if I'd known what I do now, I would have politely declined the offer of an additional SD card at point of purchase, and I suspect there are others here who would have done the same.

and I believe I already explained why you cannot, and will not be able to save VC information in any way other than natively.

As did I....

There's probably some authentication issues with VC games to prevent people breaking the encryption and injecting their own code into a VC emu/game package on an SD card, so I'm not holding my breath on that one....

 

[vagrant]

As far as VC games go, it's not a matter of "injecting code." you could just straight up move vc games, upload them, download them. Eliminating the whole purpose of putting them up in the shop. And ultimately costing Nintendo some dime.

 

[thisisgil]

As far as VC games go, it's not a matter of "injecting code." you could just straight up move vc games, upload them, download them. Eliminating the whole purpose of putting them up in the shop. And ultimately costing Nintendo some dime.

Not quite - according to the good folk at wiimodwii, every VC has a unique encryption based on the Wii that downloads it. This is authenticated when it passes into the Wii memory. Much of the homebrew efforts are concentrating on cracking the encryption used, hence they are collecting a lot of duplicates of VC games from different Wiis to compare.

Nintendo wouldn't like people running VC games from SD memory as it skips the authentication steps that take place when the game is pushed into memory.

As it stands, it is perfectly possible to copy a VC game to an SD card, move the content.bin to a PC hard drive, delete BOTH copies of the game on the Wii and SD card, and then copy it back to the Wii from the PC via the SD, and it'll run fine. It's all in the encryption...

 

[vagrant]

It uses authentication based on the machine it was downloaded with.

My point was that if they allowed VC games to be used amongsts machines, then they could also be ripped easily.

 

[eko]

Im with this is gil on this one, even microsoft got this one right they make sure that every one of there arcade games is under 50mb so that they can be stored on there memory card. Each console has a different code and the game is locked to that console code (or in microsofts case it locks it to your live account) if you arnt logged onto that console then the game doesnt work. Under that princaple you should be able to save your data anywhere you want.