Bageena Posted August 17, 2018 Share Posted August 17, 2018 That is the question. I am running out of storage. Right now my collection is split between two drives and totals around 5TB. I am purchasing a 10TB hard drive soon. I would like to fit as many games as I can on my hard drives. I have been doing some research into compression using various formats (CSO, GZIP, ect.). It does appear this will save a lot of space, however, I have read it causes longer load time and some games will no longer work. I don't want to sacrifice quality for space. Is it worth it to compress the games or should I just get more storage? I am sorry if this is a duplicate post, I did do some searching on the forums. Mostly just found guides on compressing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lordmonkus Posted August 17, 2018 Share Posted August 17, 2018 There is no simple answer here, it all depends on the emulator and compression type on how it will impact things. Some compression types will cause longer load times while others will not and some emulators can read the compressed images perfectly fine with no impact on load times while some emulators will not work with a compressed image. You will just have to read up on the emulator and compression used for its games and how it will impact things. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragon57 Posted August 17, 2018 Share Posted August 17, 2018 One thing to consider is IF you are using Retroarch, or are willing to switch to it, many of the cores support CHD files now. CHD is a good compression option for those cores that support it, plus there is no uncompressing the game files as the core runs the game directly. You can save a ton of space using CHD, or at least I know I did. Here is a current list of cores that support CHD (as of this initial post). 4do_libretro genesis_plus_gx_libretro mame2000_libretro mame2009_libretro mame2010_libretro mame2014_libretro mame2016_libretro mame_libretro mednafen_pce_fast_libretro mednafen_pcfx_libretro mednafen_psx_hw_libretro mednafen_psx_libretro mednafen_saturn_libretro mednafen_supergrafx_libretro mess2014_libretro redream_libretro reicast_libretro reicast_naomi_libretro reicast_oit_libretro ume2014_libretro 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bageena Posted August 18, 2018 Author Share Posted August 18, 2018 (edited) Thank you so much! I will look more into CHD's. I use Retroarch for most my pre disc consoles. So I still emulate a few systems with emulators because I find it easier to customize settings. Funny before I found LaunchBox I thought I knew a decent amount about emulation. Now I feel like a noob. Edited August 18, 2018 by Bageena Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suhrvivor Posted August 18, 2018 Share Posted August 18, 2018 (edited) Beware of the Reicast cores, their CHD support it's outdated. They don't support the latest version (v5). If you grabbed a recent software list or compressed your games to CHD in the last three years, chances are they won't work with Reicast. Redream can read CHDs v5 but that core its very glitchy, not recommended. I personally use Demul for Dreamcast related stuff, great compatibility and CHD support. UPDATE march 2019: The reicast core now fully supports CHD for a while now, so if you update your reicast core to the latest version, you should be able to load any CHD. And it should support multi disc games too. Edited March 25, 2019 by Suhrvivor 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragon57 Posted August 18, 2018 Share Posted August 18, 2018 What Suhrvivor said. I meant to expound a little more, but failed miserably. I have kept an old copy of chdman from an older MAME build which outputs V4 CHD conversions. That gets me around the CHD incompatibility that can show up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpujunkie Posted August 18, 2018 Share Posted August 18, 2018 I use the Windows NTFS compression. On my cd/dvd based systems it goes from 1.91TB to 1.33TB, so not bad. My Roms folder on the whole goes from 3.05TB to 2.36TB. To enable it just go to the folder properties, then advanced, then check compress to save space. I have it set on my whole rom folder. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bageena Posted August 19, 2018 Author Share Posted August 19, 2018 I currently have been using Demul, haven't had much luck with the Retroarch Dreamcast cores. Thank you CPUjunkie, I will get that a try as well. Is there any downfalls to the NTFS disk compression that you have encountered? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpujunkie Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 Not that I've noticed. The compression isn't the best, like a zip file compression set to it's least setting. But its mainly about speed, I don't noticed that the files are compressed when launching games. Once the folder is set to compress when you copy/move files over it gets compressed on the fly so it can appear to be copying/moving slowly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragon57 Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 20 hours ago, Bageena said: I currently have been using Demul, haven't had much luck with the Retroarch Dreamcast cores. Thank you CPUjunkie, I will get that a try as well. Is there any downfalls to the NTFS disk compression that you have encountered? The stand alone Demul should support CHD files as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil9000 Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 6 minutes ago, dragon57 said: The stand alone Demul should support CHD files as well. As does redream also, the reicast cores do support CHD but not the latest version of CHD, i cant use my CHD's with those cores at all, but demul and standalone redream play them fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaz808 Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 (edited) There are CHD's and CHD's isnt there ? One is the video file for Mame The Other is a DreamCast Format I think he want to shrink his Arcade - Mame which uses chd's from memory they are Zipped, or do you want to use a higher compression, like WinRar or 7z, not sure what cores do what in RetroArch, but in old Mame32UI it only supported .zip On the DreamCast side, i just bought Redream and for $5 fully worth it, it looks amazing on the Big TV, and supports chd's Edited August 20, 2018 by Jaz808 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted August 20, 2018 Share Posted August 20, 2018 CHD is a MAME format for disc images that other systems and emulators are slowly adapting but they are the same thing. There are different revision of them though which can cause incompatibility Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bageena Posted August 20, 2018 Author Share Posted August 20, 2018 I am 4 hours ago, Jaz808 said: I think he want to shrink his Arcade - Mame which uses chd's from memory they are Zipped, or do you want to use a higher compression, like WinRar or 7z, not sure what cores do what in RetroArch, but in old Mame32UI it only supported .zip Mostly just trying to see what options I have, for my collection overall. All my MAME stuff is already compressed into ZIPS. I think I'm going to convert as many games as possible into CHD. Then use the NTFS compression on my ROMs folder. I did end up getting another hard drive but want to make sure I have things somewhat compressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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