ZIP performance?

[bacarlino]

So ZIP files work for many emulators but is it advisable to actually keep them zipped in RetroPie's roms folder? Has anybody experienced any noticeable performance loss by doing so? I'm setting up my first RetroPie and just want to optimize it as best as I can - I guess I'm just curious to see how everybody else handles this. Common sense tells me to unzip, but the fact ZIP is even supported is raising questions for me.

[mediamogul]

@bacarlino

I currently keep every game file zipped that is at all possible. Having run it both ways, I would say that the performance hit is no more than an additional second or two in almost any occasion. Anything like a CD image that would normally take a substantial amount of time, doesn't support being zipped to begin with.

[backstander]

I like having them zipped as well. It can save you a lot of space and you can fit more on your SD card! I think I read somewhere that some of the emulators unzip the ROM out to run it and then delete the unzipped file when it's done so the only performance hit is the small amount of time unzipping while loading up the game and deleting (which is mega fast) when exiting. I would think that most of the smaller ROMs are just loaded into memory so the files aren't touched again anyways. The exception being the floppy disc and CD-ROM images which are read as needed (like the Amiga and Sega CD).