Caching whole ROM?

not a VBA problem. something on your computer is stealing cpu cycles.

external hard drives don't have caching enabled by default btw.

But theres nothing thats stealing anything. I play it on my internal drive and it works just fine. I don't want to enable caching from the OS cause I frequently remove my external, I wouldn't want to do that seeing how I keep my most precious files archived on there. When the game lags, it's always accompanied with the blinking light on the external.

Then this is no fault of the application, your limiting the applications read-ahead by not enabling the caching functions. and exactly how does adding the single step of clicking the safely remove hardware icon put your data at risk?

There's usually an error that pops up stating the disk is in use all the time when I click to get windows unmount. Well I have lots of files that mean alot to me, and they range over 600 gb, I can't what I'd do if anything would happen to it. I'll have to do some inspecting to figure out what keeps using the extenal. Still my question, why not cache the whole thing?

then there is something wrong with your drive, this again is not an issue with vba or vba-m

Just wondering why not.

mud says (9:32 AM):
*almost all emus cache the ROM entirely into a buffer
*D:

Click to expand...

VBA included.
The problem is not the emulator.

That's good to know, it really is.

Well it surely can't be the drive then. Then what could possible be the problem when playing off an external drive without caching? It happens right after I do turbo, the game lags and the external blinks. I mind as well let this pass.

well it's your darn drive, look when you use an external drive you would normally use either A) firewire or B) usb, usb has some speed limitations, thus giving you some speed issues, again this isn't an issue with vba or vba-m

Oh, don't forget esata

You'd be surprised to know it's not that slow, goes around 280 Mbps through the transfer itself (Rivals my hard disks usual 300 Mbps) on 2.0. Don't know about seeking speed though. Don't forget eSATA, eSATA! Well, i enabled caching and the problem's gone, still don't know why it lagged like before if it caches the whole thing.

Check it out, this is the eSATA version of mine(mine is USB): My DVR Expander 500 GB External hard drive - 3.0 Gbps (eSATA)

Hmm not sure if I have cache enabled on my external, but then again it probably behaves a little different than yours because mine is merely an enclosure with a propper internal HDD in it, but I never experienced such issues, I can watch a 2 hour movie without a hint of a pause and it's only connected through USB so I don't know what might have cause those issues you had. I am actually quite surprised at the speed external HDDs are able to attain.

Well, it's not just a hard disk incased you know. You also need controllers that handle USB messages and convert them to SATA messages accordingly at very high speeds. So I like to think not only a hard disk, but a very special interface at that also. Same here with the movies, it's just fine with everything else. Nothings wrong with it, it's just when I use VBA or VBA-m and after a do turbo the game lags more than normal and the external blinks.