vivster said:
Obviously cartridges are as fast as RAM, since it's both flash memory. Duh. |
setsunatenshi said:
lol, obviously... how silly of us xD |
In fact, it does.
Computer memory is hierarchically organized because fast memories are expensive but HDD, RAM, processor cache are just the "same" memory (some faster than others). If your HDD was as fast as processor cache you wouldn't need RAM at all (or any other memory).
Cartridges won't be as fast as RAM but having a faster media to read on than optical discs means that you don't need to have a big RAM (used as cache) to pre-load things. Some of the resources can be read on demand. That's why a 6MB cache for your processor is enough; because your RAM is fast. Now, change "cache processor" for "RAM" and "RAM" for "cartridges" and the last sentence stays true.
To summing up... If you had a game media (let it be cartridges) that is as fast as your RAM and big enough than you could run it on a RAM-less console.
