CHD support has matured. Here are your best options in 2025.
is widely considered the best practice for modern emulation. Originally developed for the sega saturn chd roms
Contrary to old myths, CHD does not slow down emulation. Modern CPUs (even low-power ARM chips in the Anbernic or Retroid Pocket) decompress CHD hunks on-the-fly faster than a physical Saturn’s CD drive can spin. In fact, because CHD reduces the total data the emulator has to stream from storage (due to compression), it can actually reduce loading stutter on slow SD cards. CHD support has matured
In retro gaming, Sega Saturn CHD ROMs disc images of Sega Saturn games that have been compressed using the CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) Originally developed for the Contrary to old myths,
: CHDs use sector-level compression, allowing emulators to decompress only the "hunk" of data they need in real-time, resulting in virtually no performance hit on modern hardware. Why Use CHD for Sega Saturn?