RetroArch mid-February changelog adds ZSTD, Android fixes and netplay improvements

RetroArch maintainers updated the CHANGES.md in mid‑February to record cross‑platform fixes and feature tweaks that include Android input fixes, enabling ZSTD compression usage, netplay improvements, and a range of platform and menu cleanups. The most immediately tangible change is ZSTD support called out for Android, which contributors say can dramatically improve read speeds on I/O-limited devices.

The ZSTD case was argued in a GitHub issue by @Sanaki, who wrote, “With the recent additions of zstandard support to RomVault (zip, 7z, and chd), MAME (zip and chd, mamedev/mame#11827), and libchdr (chd, rtissera/libchdr#106), this is a prime time to add support to RetroArch for these formats as well.” @Sanaki added, “For anyone unaware, zstd provides high speed compression and decompression with respectable compression ratios (significantly improved over deflate on all counts, and competitive with lzma depending on compression level). It's also the standard compressor for Dolphin's RVZ format.” In testing after adding cdzs to a Silent Bomber CHD @Sanaki reported the following outputs: chdr-benchmark "Silent Bomber (USA).chd" libchdr benchmark tool.... Read 356937984 bytes in 9.787469 seconds Rate is 34.779429 MB/s and chdr-benchmark test.chd libchdr benchmark tool.... Read 356937984 bytes in 7.134529 seconds Rate is 47.711992 MB/s. For a DVD‑type example the issue shows Standard DVD (Jak and Daxter US) CHD size: 887,124,057 bytes Ratio: 60.7% Read 1460535296 bytes in 28.192692 seconds Rate is 49.405534 MB/s and ZSTD-only DVD (Jak and Daxter US) CHD size: 913,880,480 bytes Ratio: 62.6% Read 1460535296 bytes in 8.581942 seconds Rate is 162.303008 MB/s. @Sanaki summarized those runs as “Significant improvement in read speed, which has advantages for mobile devices with limited I/O speed.”

The Libretro Discourse “# Future” forum excerpt that appears alongside the CHANGES.md update lists platform-specific items that elaborate the Android entries. The snippet includes lines such as: 3DS: Remove bottom screen fade out animation; ANDROID: Fix Enter key not working on keyboards; ANDROID: Enable ZSTD compression usage; ANDROID: Preserve OpenGL context when app is paused; ANDROID: Fix double launch issue when changing games from external launcher. The forum footer text in the captured excerpt reads: Powered by Discourse, best viewed with JavaScript enabled.

Other future items recorded in the forum snippet extend across Apple, audio, cloud sync, emscripten and core-related work. Those exact lines include: AUDIO/MICROPHONE: Fix resampling, apple drivers; APPLE: Use coreaudio3 resampling; APPLE: Add coreaudio3 driver to iOS/TVOS; APPLE: Add jollycv, skyemu, gearlynx, amiarcadia, o2em, uzem cores to App Store builds; APPLE: Add Apple on-device OCR / translation to AI service; COMMAND: Fix null pointer exception in COMMAND_GET_STATUS; COMMAND: Only allow pause when there is a core running; CHEEVOS: Update to rcheevos 12.2.1; CHEEVOS: Download badges on demand only; CLOUDSYNC: Conflict resolution options [...] - CLOUDSYNC: Conflict resolution options; EMSCRIPTEN: Added dice to core selection dropdown; EMSCRIPTEN: Numerous bugfixes; FFMPEG: new features for save state, variable strength seek, audio/subtitle stream controls; INPUT: Fix illuminance sensor on Linux.

CHANGES.md also explicitly lists netplay improvements in the mid‑February update even though the captured forum snippet did not show netplay lines. That means netplay work is recorded in the changelog alongside the Android and ZSTD items, but specific netplay file changes or PR numbers were not present in the excerpts provided. Verify the CHANGES.md commit timestamp and corresponding PRs to confirm which items are merged versus planned and to identify the exact RetroArch builds that include these changes.

If ZSTD support is merged and enabled in builds, the practical outcome will be faster read rates and smoother load behavior on mobile devices, and the Android fixes named in the forum list should address keyboard Enter-key problems, preserve OpenGL context when paused, and prevent double launches from external launchers. Track the RetroArch CHANGES.md and the @Sanaki GitHub thread for commit details and follow-up tests to confirm real-world performance on your hardware.