The ScooterBlog

Stats fascinate me. I’m a numbers guy, so any time I can look at something through the numbers, I’m all for it. The PSP and its options for memory offer a way to do that.

Since the PSP uses industry-standard memory (or at least Sony-standard in the Memory Stick Duo), the first major console of any kind to use anything that’s not 100% proprietary for memory at least. And that also means there’s multiple manufacturers, types, and styles of memory stick you can buy, so differences in speed and access are quite possible.

For example, it’s been documented that loading a movie from the UMD is actually the slowest method on the device! A report I read when the 4 GB hard drive came out was that a movie loaded from the memory stick (generically) in one second, the hard drive in 6 seconds, and the UMD in about 15 seconds. Those are approximates, I don’t remember exact figures, but it was somewhat interesting.

That said, there’s a file out there now that tests performance of various different Sony and Sandisk brands of Memory Stick Duo’s to see which ones are best. The scary thing is? The Sony brands, even their “Ultra” models, performed poorly even to a standard model from SanDisk, and the SanDisk Ultra proved to be the best in the bunch.

Maybe this gives credence to one of the “conspiracy theories” that Madden 06 had issues due to “slow” 32 MB memory sticks, and people whom used SanDisk and larger cards didn’t have the issues.

Here’s the link to the report, it’s interesting stuff.

http://www.psp-hacks.com/file/161

P.S. - We at Game Junkie keep the SanDisk memory sticks in stock, I don’t think we even stock the Sony 32 MB Memory Sticks they came out with … in our minds, it makes more sense to spend a few more bucks and get something that will let you use all of the capabilities of the PSP fully.