4 ms·

Would recommend those interested in older games also look into EmuDeck. It is a really polished experience, combining a range of emulation tools with good defau

Would recommend those interested in older games also look into EmuDeck. It is a really polished experience, combining a range of emulation tools with good default settings. https://www.emudeck.com/ https://www.emudeck.com/ I've been having a tinker with BBC games too (not integrated with EmuDeck currently) and, after some minor tweaks to the code and config, managed to get quite a useable setup with BeebEm. Will see how feasible it is to upstream in the new year.

robotnikman 4y ago
Glad I saw this in this thread, I have never heard of emudeck. I've been using retroarch from the steam store, and while it works it is missing a lot of emulation options
- giobox 4y ago
  It would be fascinating to see install stats on emudeck - I haven’t seen a single steam deck without it installed so far and I’ve met quite a few users “in the wild” now.
gotoeleven 4y ago
Is there a legal way to acquire ROMs of old games or are torrents the only practical way?
- theshrike79 4y ago
  You could buy the game and dump the ROM yourself. You also need to get the original console and dump the BIOS from it. Nobody does it, torrents are the way people actually do it. Nevermind that people would actually pay money to have legal, licensed, digital copies of both - but the game companies don't care or want the money.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    Nintendo does release older software from time to time, at least 1st party titles. Especially on their virtual consoles.
    - skyyler 4y ago
      They don't do that anymore. They offer subscriptions to curated lists of games. You used to be able to purchase old games from Nintendo, but now you can't. (At least on the Switch)
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    That is not necessarily legal. Nintendo's lawyers for example have the view that a copy made dumping one of their games is a copy that violates Nintendo's copyright.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      In the United States, that view doesn't have legal precedent. It could be argued, but in the past American courts tend to rule in favor of the personal freedom to archive software. Emulators have gotten a protective shield ever since the Bleem! lawsuit, and ripping physical media is a practice grandfathered in to the ownership of digital paraphernalia. You're correct to highlight that it's not explicitly legal/illegal, but at least in America things are pretty cut-and-dried.
    - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
      It's been a while, but ISTR that their argument was essentially that backup or archival copies are unnecessary due to the reliability of their media and hardware, therefore any purported backup or archival copies must actually be for an infringing purpose. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's no "unless the copyright owner or an affiliated party claims you don't need to" clause in the backup/archival exceptions.
      - tadfisher 4y ago
        For other media, format-shifting does have precedent; MP3 players survived the RIAA, for instance. I don't see a meaningful difference for software.
        0xcde4c3db 4y ago
        While I'm ill-equipped to properly analyze that comparison, I'd generally be wary of generalizing from rulings about music recordings, which get special treatment under US copyright law. They're even represented by a distinct category, "phonorecords", explicitly excluded from the definition of "copies".
    - rowanG077 4y ago
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  The Genesis/MegaDrive collection games on Steam include the roms.
wiseowise 4y ago
Did they add Flatpak support yet? If no, then still hard pass.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  It does have uninstall functionality if that's the reason you're passing.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    How reliable it is, though? I know I'm probably being skeptical for no reason, but still.
andybak 4y ago
I've found ZX Spectrum games pretty unplayable due to poor support for "pure joystick" usage. So you have to either: a) use the awful virtual keyboard to switch to joydyick mode and start the game b) create a controller profile for every single game

robotnikman 4y ago

Glad I saw this in this thread, I have never heard of emudeck. I've been using retroarch from the steam store, and while it works it is missing a lot of emulation options

giobox 4y ago
It would be fascinating to see install stats on emudeck - I haven’t seen a single steam deck without it installed so far and I’ve met quite a few users “in the wild” now.

gotoeleven 4y ago

Is there a legal way to acquire ROMs of old games or are torrents the only practical way?

theshrike79 4y ago
You could buy the game and dump the ROM yourself. You also need to get the original console and dump the BIOS from it. Nobody does it, torrents are the way people actually do it. Nevermind that people would actually pay money to have legal, licensed, digital copies of both - but the game companies don't care or want the money.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  Nintendo does release older software from time to time, at least 1st party titles. Especially on their virtual consoles.
  - skyyler 4y ago
    They don't do that anymore. They offer subscriptions to curated lists of games. You used to be able to purchase old games from Nintendo, but now you can't. (At least on the Switch)
- charcircuit 4y ago
  That is not necessarily legal. Nintendo's lawyers for example have the view that a copy made dumping one of their games is a copy that violates Nintendo's copyright.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    In the United States, that view doesn't have legal precedent. It could be argued, but in the past American courts tend to rule in favor of the personal freedom to archive software. Emulators have gotten a protective shield ever since the Bleem! lawsuit, and ripping physical media is a practice grandfathered in to the ownership of digital paraphernalia. You're correct to highlight that it's not explicitly legal/illegal, but at least in America things are pretty cut-and-dried.
  - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
    It's been a while, but ISTR that their argument was essentially that backup or archival copies are unnecessary due to the reliability of their media and hardware, therefore any purported backup or archival copies must actually be for an infringing purpose. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's no "unless the copyright owner or an affiliated party claims you don't need to" clause in the backup/archival exceptions.
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      For other media, format-shifting does have precedent; MP3 players survived the RIAA, for instance. I don't see a meaningful difference for software.
      - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
        While I'm ill-equipped to properly analyze that comparison, I'd generally be wary of generalizing from rulings about music recordings, which get special treatment under US copyright law. They're even represented by a distinct category, "phonorecords", explicitly excluded from the definition of "copies".
  - rowanG077 4y ago
HideousKojima 4y ago
The Genesis/MegaDrive collection games on Steam include the roms.

wiseowise 4y ago

Did they add Flatpak support yet? If no, then still hard pass.

theshrike79 4y ago
It does have uninstall functionality if that's the reason you're passing.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  How reliable it is, though? I know I'm probably being skeptical for no reason, but still.

andybak 4y ago

I've found ZX Spectrum games pretty unplayable due to poor support for "pure joystick" usage. So you have to either: a) use the awful virtual keyboard to switch to joydyick mode and start the game b) create a controller profile for every single game