Do you prefer to keep your games files zipped or unzipped and why? Bonus topic: Anyone else wants to eventually reach the level of Chuck (Level 99)?

[Valiarius]

I personally prefer to keep my game files zipped, unless the game sizes are above 1 GB. I simply hate waiting for loading times when trying to play my games.

What about you guys and gals, zipped or unzipped? And why?

Bonus: I plan on reaching Level 99 on this forum, eventually.

[Oddbrother]

Only if emulators can still read them would I prefer them zipped. It's easy on both storage space and file transfer times.

[wrestlemy69]

hmm I never thought about keeping them zipped. I know hyperspin works with 7zip just never saw the point and trying. I assume this would help with lag when playing ps1

[saitoh00]

If file =< 500 MG

zippped;

else unzipped;

 

;)

[ecb116]

Good question, I have all the files zipped

[alexfco]

Zipped

[talbin]

I keep everything zipped.  On an SSD it isn't too bad extracting and saves that precious space.  I abhor 7zip though.  It takes way too long to compress/uncompress.

[Circo]

Roms i keep zipped as long as it works fine, with hd space as cheap as it is I dont stress is too much. If an emulator supports compressed iso's natively (Dolphin, PCSX2) I do this, if not I use windows compression on my isos.  

[toaks]

For normal roms i keep them zipped, iso or any disc images I keep unzipped. No particular reason, just habit I guess.

[Xen1290]

All zipped.

[Thatman84]

I don't have many sets of roms but for the purposes on running my setup on Android it's better to be unzipped.

Except MAME. Or until I learn an android emu can deal with compressed files

[kingbee187]

all zipped..........

[Mah0uPh0x]

Everything unzipped, except for arcade roms.

[laz223]

zippity do dah! is the way to go...transfer time is always a pain. 10 times longer than unzipping on the fly

[Rozebau]

Zipped definitely (because storage), but the problem is that many emulators don't like them that way.

 

[DMJohn0X]

zipped if possible. but not at the cost of loading speeds or emulation speed.

[PeacefullyDisturbed]

I tend to keep everything unzipped; storage is fairly cheap now and transfer speeds on newer drives (depending on connection type) are pretty good.  On my new Mini-ITX system I have the emulators and everything installed on a 512GB PCIe SSD and all of the games on a 2TB SSHD with space for another 2.5" drive if needed.

 

I know the processor and RAM usage for decompresssing an archive is pretty minimal for small ROMs, but I like the idea of minimizing any performance impact on the emulation.

[Seymour]

On 15/9/2016 at 11:19 PM, LukeArio said:

Everything unzipped, except for arcade roms.

+1, as Peacefullydisturbed said storage is cheap nowadays and IMO there is no point in zipping files and having to deal with clean extracted files and other sort of problems.

[Twistar]

Gzip inst loads PS2 file you have to add the .gz extention to you XPCX2  config. and away you go. but it can take a full day to make 1 gz ps2 iso

[Seymour]

48 minutes ago, Twistar said:

Gzip inst loads PS2 file you have to add the .gz extention to you XPCX2  config. and away you go. but it can take a full day to make 1 gz ps2 iso

Instant load?  it's hard to believe but definitely I should research on that 

[Twistar]

Now that I granted your wish and your leve 99 chuck noris. I you have a request.   Tell me the time it took for each rom to convert.

Thank you Chuck

[garciahigh]

Unzipped for everything, I purchased a hard drive especially for my emulation.

[MIgs]

I have it all zipped, even though I have a 3tb hard drive just for games.

 

[isolatedrummer]

I use to have them all zipped, But now unzipped, because I started using Retropie and it needs them unzipped.  

[crmlabs]

Zipped for emulators that can handle those files without lag.