5 ms·

Who cares honestly? Why would I want to launch dolphin through steam in the first place? Just adds bloat. Just install dolphin with your package manager and lau

Who cares honestly? Why would I want to launch dolphin through steam in the first place? Just adds bloat. Just install dolphin with your package manager and launch it via your desktop environments built in launcher ("start menu").

isthisfoss 3y ago
Some people like the convenience of a single application that saves your settings and backs your saves up to the cloud instead of many different ones you have to micromanage, especially across different machines
- Joker_vD 3y ago
  Hey, that sounds like a package manager!
  - danhor 3y ago
    My package manager certainly doesn't sync settings and save files between multiple systems. But I'd be interested in one that does!
  - c-hendricks 3y ago
    My package manager doesn't let me stream games to my other devices My package manager doesn't have a nice controller-support UI My package manager doesn't let me set up controller mappings
    - Joker_vD 3y ago
      Well, that's kinda my unstated serious point in that joking comment: Steam, in a sense, is a package manager but a much better one in many ways so asking to abandon Steam for the system-provided package manager (which may not even exist if we're talking about pre-Store Windows) is quite flippant.
      - hoten 3y ago
        It shows a huge disregard for non-technical users. Very just-use-Wireguard (tail scale) or just-ftp-rsync-your-data (Dropbox).
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      No, but you can download apps via a package manager for all of that. Or use steam anyway? I'm very confused why people these days are so happy letting one big company manage their entire library and history. Did we not learn from the 2010's?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  I'm sure You can opt into most of that by linking Dolphin as a non-steam game. No cloud saves but you get to launch it through a launcher as people seem to like nowadays. Alternatively you can set that save backup up yourself with use of your favorite cloud application and symlinks.
Rhedox 3y ago
Steam Cloud synced save games are nice for people with a Steam Deck.
- jdiff 3y ago
  Plus updates without having to drop into Desktop Mode, and a much more streamlined initial install and setup.
amelius 3y ago
Because if this Walled Gardening continues, at some point you won't have a desktop system to begin with ...
- lolinder 3y ago
  So the solution to walled gardening is to put everything you care about in the walled garden? Won't that make people even more dependent on said walled garden, expediting the end of the free desktop? I'd rather see as many popular apps as possible stay outside the garden. The bigger the user base that still uses user-controlled installation methods, the bigger the outcry if an OS tries to lock down a previously-free platform.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  We are beyond that with the thin client revival, also know as cloud computing.
amiga386 3y ago
1. The Nintendo Wii U has a portable game controller with a screen on it. Wii U games are designed to be played on this. 2. The Steam Deck is a portable game controller with a screen on it. Wouldn't it be nice to play games designed for this form factor, rather than typical PC games designed for keyboard/mouse, or typical PC/Console games designed for a large screen? 3. Games/Apps on the Steam Deck are most convenently launched by Steam 4. Dolphin emulates Wii U games (as well as Wii and GameCube games)
- circuit10 3y ago
  Dolphin doesn’t emulate Wii U games. The Wii U is a completely separate console to the Wii, Cemu is the emulator for that
  - pests 3y ago
    > completely separate console Yet it does emulate GameCube and Wii, completely separate consoles.
    - Dwedit 3y ago
      Even the Wii itself will run Gamecube games in Wii mode, see "Nintendont".
    - circuit10 3y ago
      I was going to say that the GameCube and Wii are very similar to the point where the Wii is backwards compatible but I guess that argument would apply to the Wii U too. Either way, Dolphin doesn’t emulate the Wii U
      - Dwedit 3y ago
        Yeah, Wii-U has extra hardware for backwards compatibility with the Wii. Wii->Gamecube has no extra hardware, just the ability to disable parts that the Gamecube does not have.
- Klonoar 3y ago
bjord 3y ago
to me, the most obvious answer seems like that it would make emulation via dolphin more accessible to the average steam deck user
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  The average Steam Deck user isn't emulating games, though.
brucethemoose2 3y ago
To many gamers, Dolphin is unknown, and installing it is finicky. It would foster Dolphin adoption, and possibly Steam Deck adoption and a Switch alternative.
nullify88 3y ago
I'm not a user of Dolphin, but an obvious reason is to utilise Steams Big Picture mode as a way to run various emulators. This also opens the possibility of playing over In Home streaming if you have a steam link. Some setups can be elaborate with Roms listed in Steam / Big Picture with box art, fan art, and various metadata. Software like Steam Rom Manager assist with this. Considering console emulation is often played with controllers perhaps infront of TV, Steams launcher is probably more suitable for launching emulation than using a keyboard or mouse for a start menu.
- jerf 3y ago
  You can still add non-Steam programs to Steam to use them that way, so this doesn't even prevent that. This just means Valve is not distributing this over their store. The Steam Deck community already has scripts for installing & adding to Steam emulators for basically everything in one shot, and Steam isn't doing the distribution of any of these.
  - nullify88 3y ago
    Parents comment was only asking why would someone launch dolphin via steam and commented on it being bloat. We weren't talking about distribution because as you pointed out, it has little to do with launching dolphin as a non steam app.
deelowe 3y ago
You honestly can't see a difference between installing the emu via steam on the deck versus switching to the desktop os, mucking about with various packages and configs, figuring out how to make the app show up in the steam ui and then switching back to handheld mode?
- Steltek 3y ago
  Without weighing in on the merits, I didn't even look for emulators in Steam for my Deck. I installed ("sideloaded", if you will) EmuDeck in Desktop mode and that was a much nicer experience. Deck-aware controls and unified hotkeys (quit, save/load). But also, Dolphin was also the only emulator which needed a lot of additional tweaking from the EmuDeck defaults. Wii games have a combinatoric explosion of control schemes (wiimote, sideways wiimote, +nunchuk, +classic controller, +pro gyro thingy, balance board, light gun, etc) and there are really no sensible defaults. Dolphin won't remember layouts per-game, you need to do some launcher gymnastics to make that happen.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    I use emudeck and think it's great, but I'm not naive enough to not see how proper steam integration would make things better. Case in point, it would be awesome to have community support for things like controller configs on certain platforms such as N64.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  So we want to cause a bunch of legal headaches to save ~20 minutes of configuration? I feel that goes against a core philosophy of Linux.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    Just because the Steam Deck runs Linux in no way means end users should have to give a shit.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago

isthisfoss 3y ago

Some people like the convenience of a single application that saves your settings and backs your saves up to the cloud instead of many different ones you have to micromanage, especially across different machines

Joker_vD 3y ago
Hey, that sounds like a package manager!
- danhor 3y ago
  My package manager certainly doesn't sync settings and save files between multiple systems. But I'd be interested in one that does!
- c-hendricks 3y ago
  My package manager doesn't let me stream games to my other devices My package manager doesn't have a nice controller-support UI My package manager doesn't let me set up controller mappings
  - Joker_vD 3y ago
    Well, that's kinda my unstated serious point in that joking comment: Steam, in a sense, is a package manager but a much better one in many ways so asking to abandon Steam for the system-provided package manager (which may not even exist if we're talking about pre-Store Windows) is quite flippant.
    - hoten 3y ago
      It shows a huge disregard for non-technical users. Very just-use-Wireguard (tail scale) or just-ftp-rsync-your-data (Dropbox).
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    No, but you can download apps via a package manager for all of that. Or use steam anyway? I'm very confused why people these days are so happy letting one big company manage their entire library and history. Did we not learn from the 2010's?
johnnyanmac 3y ago
I'm sure You can opt into most of that by linking Dolphin as a non-steam game. No cloud saves but you get to launch it through a launcher as people seem to like nowadays. Alternatively you can set that save backup up yourself with use of your favorite cloud application and symlinks.

Rhedox 3y ago

Steam Cloud synced save games are nice for people with a Steam Deck.

jdiff 3y ago
Plus updates without having to drop into Desktop Mode, and a much more streamlined initial install and setup.

amelius 3y ago

Because if this Walled Gardening continues, at some point you won't have a desktop system to begin with ...

lolinder 3y ago
So the solution to walled gardening is to put everything you care about in the walled garden? Won't that make people even more dependent on said walled garden, expediting the end of the free desktop? I'd rather see as many popular apps as possible stay outside the garden. The bigger the user base that still uses user-controlled installation methods, the bigger the outcry if an OS tries to lock down a previously-free platform.
pjmlp 3y ago
We are beyond that with the thin client revival, also know as cloud computing.

amiga386 3y ago

1. The Nintendo Wii U has a portable game controller with a screen on it. Wii U games are designed to be played on this. 2. The Steam Deck is a portable game controller with a screen on it. Wouldn't it be nice to play games designed for this form factor, rather than typical PC games designed for keyboard/mouse, or typical PC/Console games designed for a large screen? 3. Games/Apps on the Steam Deck are most convenently launched by Steam 4. Dolphin emulates Wii U games (as well as Wii and GameCube games)

circuit10 3y ago
Dolphin doesn’t emulate Wii U games. The Wii U is a completely separate console to the Wii, Cemu is the emulator for that
- pests 3y ago
  > completely separate console Yet it does emulate GameCube and Wii, completely separate consoles.
  - Dwedit 3y ago
    Even the Wii itself will run Gamecube games in Wii mode, see "Nintendont".
  - circuit10 3y ago
    I was going to say that the GameCube and Wii are very similar to the point where the Wii is backwards compatible but I guess that argument would apply to the Wii U too. Either way, Dolphin doesn’t emulate the Wii U
    - Dwedit 3y ago
      Yeah, Wii-U has extra hardware for backwards compatibility with the Wii. Wii->Gamecube has no extra hardware, just the ability to disable parts that the Gamecube does not have.
Klonoar 3y ago

bjord 3y ago

to me, the most obvious answer seems like that it would make emulation via dolphin more accessible to the average steam deck user

johnnyanmac 3y ago
The average Steam Deck user isn't emulating games, though.

brucethemoose2 3y ago

To many gamers, Dolphin is unknown, and installing it is finicky. It would foster Dolphin adoption, and possibly Steam Deck adoption and a Switch alternative.

nullify88 3y ago

I'm not a user of Dolphin, but an obvious reason is to utilise Steams Big Picture mode as a way to run various emulators. This also opens the possibility of playing over In Home streaming if you have a steam link. Some setups can be elaborate with Roms listed in Steam / Big Picture with box art, fan art, and various metadata. Software like Steam Rom Manager assist with this. Considering console emulation is often played with controllers perhaps infront of TV, Steams launcher is probably more suitable for launching emulation than using a keyboard or mouse for a start menu.

jerf 3y ago
You can still add non-Steam programs to Steam to use them that way, so this doesn't even prevent that. This just means Valve is not distributing this over their store. The Steam Deck community already has scripts for installing & adding to Steam emulators for basically everything in one shot, and Steam isn't doing the distribution of any of these.
- nullify88 3y ago
  Parents comment was only asking why would someone launch dolphin via steam and commented on it being bloat. We weren't talking about distribution because as you pointed out, it has little to do with launching dolphin as a non steam app.

deelowe 3y ago

You honestly can't see a difference between installing the emu via steam on the deck versus switching to the desktop os, mucking about with various packages and configs, figuring out how to make the app show up in the steam ui and then switching back to handheld mode?

Steltek 3y ago
Without weighing in on the merits, I didn't even look for emulators in Steam for my Deck. I installed ("sideloaded", if you will) EmuDeck in Desktop mode and that was a much nicer experience. Deck-aware controls and unified hotkeys (quit, save/load). But also, Dolphin was also the only emulator which needed a lot of additional tweaking from the EmuDeck defaults. Wii games have a combinatoric explosion of control schemes (wiimote, sideways wiimote, +nunchuk, +classic controller, +pro gyro thingy, balance board, light gun, etc) and there are really no sensible defaults. Dolphin won't remember layouts per-game, you need to do some launcher gymnastics to make that happen.
- deelowe 3y ago
  I use emudeck and think it's great, but I'm not naive enough to not see how proper steam integration would make things better. Case in point, it would be awesome to have community support for things like controller configs on certain platforms such as N64.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
So we want to cause a bunch of legal headaches to save ~20 minutes of configuration? I feel that goes against a core philosophy of Linux.
- Klonoar 3y ago
  Just because the Steam Deck runs Linux in no way means end users should have to give a shit.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago