Everyone's setup is different, but there are some things you can do to optimize performance. Refer to the Performance Tuning guide for details.

RomVault initially decompresses and hashes all files in archives the first time an archive is scanned if you are using the default scanning method. This process takes time up front, but subsequent scans will be very fast. Archives are only rescanned if the archive modified time has changed. There are ways to scan only headers, but this is not recommended. Refer to the UI Overview and Scanning / Fixing Levels pages for more details.

CHD files are scanned similar to ZIP and 7z archives. The CHD contents are decompressed and hashed using different approaches depending on the CHD version. RomVault will natively verify most older CHD files prior to CHD V5. However, most people have V5 CHDs which are verified using chdman.exe. If chdman.exe is in the RomVault directory, it will be used.

• chdman.exe present: New CHDs are verified by decompressing and hashing the contents and the CHD file itself is hashed.
• chdman.exe absent: New CHDs are checked only by reading the SHA1 hash in the CHD header and the CHD file itself is hashed.

In short, you can speed up CHD scanning by removing chdman.exe, however its recommended to thoroughly verify all CHDs by leaving chdman.exe in place. RomVault will not need to rescan the CHDs unless they are modified, so its best to verify once - even if it takes awhile initially.

It depends. The DATRoot is meant to provide an outline for how you organize your ROMs, however you can use Directory Rules to map DAT directories to ROM directories. RomVault stores references to ROMs based on how you have your DATRoot oganized. This means you can change the ROM Path in a directory rule to point to a new location and RomVault will transparently apply the update to the cache. Note this approach only works if the ROMs are moved to their new location and the modified timestamps did not change.

A word of caution: RomVault's directory rules are powerful, but can become difficult to manage if you have dozens of them. It's best to plan out how you want to organize your ROMs and align your DATRoot accordingly as close as possible. This will allow you to simplify your directory rules. For more information refer to the Organizing Your DATs page and Directory Rules page to learn about the options available and how rules cascade.

Under most circumstances, the best approach is to simply move your DATs around to match the way you want your ROMs organized. If the files are already scanned, RomVault will move the files in the most performant way possible using raw copy and ZipMove actions. See the Scanning and Fixing Levels page for additional information about when these actions are used during a fix.

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