Author Topic: Workarounds possible for running large ROMs on RAM limited environments?  (Read 3470 times)

Offline Epy

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I'm using FB Alpha as part of RetroArch on a Nintendo Wii. Currently only ROMs less than about 20 megabytes can be loaded because of the RAM limitations on the Wii. I have no understanding of how things are loaded etc., but would it be possible to have a page file on a local storage device to make up for the lack of RAM? For instance, I want to play the Metal Slug series--the games are divided up into about 5 missions each, I would think that you'd be able to leverage that someway, i.e. put data not being currently accessed into the page file, keep everything else in the RAM. Is this or another workaround possible for low RAM environments?

Offline Arcadez

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Re: Workarounds possible for running large ROMs on RAM limited environments?
« Reply #1 on: November 23, 2015, 10:11:00 AM »
The xbox is a low Ram environment with the FBA ports on that console talented developers added something called VMM
to some drivers this reduces the overall mem requirements and made it possible for games to load and be playable that otherwise wouldn't also they added smaller side cores for example as well as VMM neogeo and PGM games load in a smaller core again this
helps to free up some more memory making even the largest Roms boot and be playable.

You'd have to post on the RetroArch Forums and request that the dev's add a Universal VMM Programe to the RetoArch Launcher.

Offline iq_132

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Re: Workarounds possible for running large ROMs on RAM limited environments?
« Reply #2 on: November 23, 2015, 10:23:44 AM »
As low as the ram is in the wii, it may be very difficult to do a vmm with proper roms. Probably the best bet is to use a program that pre-processes the rom into a pre-processed blob and reads that from the Sd card.
The nice thing is that SD memory has very fast random access times. This would help a lot.