I am using tool – optimize – smallestcode.
When I ignite the saber, the configured color appears correctly. However, when I swing the saber, there is noticeable stuttering, and occasionally an unintended different color appears.
In addition, when I press the AUX button repeatedly or rapidly, there is input lag. If this continues, at some point the sound and motion effects stop completely, leaving only the blade illuminated. In this state, the saber does not retract or power off properly and becomes unresponsive.
Hello Professor,
Based on what you explained, I tested several SD cards that I have. In conclusion, among the three SD cards, after formatting the one I had been using, reloading the sound fonts, and running it again, the system has been operating much more normally than before.
Does this mean that SD cards need to be formatted periodically? Or is it more likely that, due to my inexperience with configuration, memory management, or Arduino operation, unnecessary logs or data accumulated and caused the lag? I would appreciate your insight into the underlying cause.
The underlying cause is that flash memory cells are fragile and wear out over time. All flash drives (SSDs, SD cards, etc.) have strategies to work around this, but those strategies can take time, which slows down reading and writing from the device.
Generally speaking, all flash devices becomes useless eventually, the quality of manufacturing and the cleverness of the workaround strategies determine how long it takes.
ProffieOS has very low tolerances for slow reads, so an SD card that seems to function fine might work very poorly with ProffieOS. Like, if you read a GB of an SD card and some of the blocks take an extra 100ms to read, you would not notice, but ProffieOS would. Generally, if any block takes more than 5ms to read, it will cause problems for ProffieOS.
I generally recommend “industrial” or “professional” SD cards since they often spend an couple of cents on making those cards more durable, but unfortunately there are just no guarantees, regardless of what SD cards you buy.
Then I understand that SD cards should be treated as consumable items. Thank you. Until then, when similar issues occur, I will clean the card by formatting it.
Additionally, I previously purchased a professional-grade SD card (SanDisk Ultra 128 GB), but the same issue occurred from the very first use, so I stopped using it. I believe this is a high-quality SD card, so could the problem be that the capacity is too large? Is there any way to use it?
Large capacity is not a problem in itself, but there are two things that can happen:
Sometimes large cards are formatted in such a way that ProffieOS can’t read it at all. This is annoying, but can be fixed by reformatting the card.
Large cards have smaller flash cells. Smaller flash cells are more fragile. Depending on the algorithms of the card, and the quality of construction, this may make some larger cards unsuitable for use with ProffieOS. Smarter cards and better manufacturing can compensate for this, and ideally there wouldn’t be any difference in the final quality between small and large cards, but that is not always the case.