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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

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
    Linus Torvald rolls in his hopefully far off future grave. Oh well, good thing end users need to give a shit to use an emulator. Steam or not you don't just download an emulator and have access to every game at perfect settings.
    - Klonoar 3y ago
      Yeah... no. The need to tinker to get everything working correctly is generally down to the sheer number of hardware/software configurations out there, and you see this on Windows and Linux platforms. In contrast, on more strictly-defined platforms - like, say, macOS or the Steamdeck - you know the general hardware and OS combos up front and can optimize around that. This thing isn't a computer in the traditional sense, regardless of the OS it runs. It's absolutely a good goal to provide an experience where the non-power-user doesn't need to tinker with shit randomly and go down a rabbit hole of options that they will inevitably shoot themselves in the foot with.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        Dolphin wasn't made for the steam deck, and I don't think being steam deck verified was ever in the cards. The games it's playing was after all optimized for GameCube or Wii, not any desktop OS. Even if it was, the big problem with figuring out "the right settings" comes down to opinon. That's the tradeoff for the sweet beautiful freedom of a customizable emulator that people proceed to use as a reason to bash Nintendo for laziness or whatever. If you don't like something running at 30 fps you get to change it. If you don't care about that customization to begin with I question why you buy a steam deck. Becsuse thr steam deck at the end of the say is advertised as 'just being a PC". Up to the ability to ditch Steam OS and throw Windows on as a dual boot or exclusive OS.
        Klonoar 3y ago
        > Even if it was, the big problem with figuring out "the right settings" comes down to opinon. Not particularly, no. The hardware in the Steam deck is a known parameter set and it's entirely feasible to optimize around it. You're not really responding to my points, and instead seem to be opting to recede into user choice or customizability as a feature. I'm not dogging on either of those - I'm just saying that they don't need to be the default for a platform like this, and to imply otherwise is just weird. Things should "just work" where they can. Expecting people to become Linux wizards is poor form.

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
  Linus Torvald rolls in his hopefully far off future grave. Oh well, good thing end users need to give a shit to use an emulator. Steam or not you don't just download an emulator and have access to every game at perfect settings.
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    Yeah... no. The need to tinker to get everything working correctly is generally down to the sheer number of hardware/software configurations out there, and you see this on Windows and Linux platforms. In contrast, on more strictly-defined platforms - like, say, macOS or the Steamdeck - you know the general hardware and OS combos up front and can optimize around that. This thing isn't a computer in the traditional sense, regardless of the OS it runs. It's absolutely a good goal to provide an experience where the non-power-user doesn't need to tinker with shit randomly and go down a rabbit hole of options that they will inevitably shoot themselves in the foot with.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Dolphin wasn't made for the steam deck, and I don't think being steam deck verified was ever in the cards. The games it's playing was after all optimized for GameCube or Wii, not any desktop OS. Even if it was, the big problem with figuring out "the right settings" comes down to opinon. That's the tradeoff for the sweet beautiful freedom of a customizable emulator that people proceed to use as a reason to bash Nintendo for laziness or whatever. If you don't like something running at 30 fps you get to change it. If you don't care about that customization to begin with I question why you buy a steam deck. Becsuse thr steam deck at the end of the say is advertised as 'just being a PC". Up to the ability to ditch Steam OS and throw Windows on as a dual boot or exclusive OS.
      - Klonoar 3y ago
        > Even if it was, the big problem with figuring out "the right settings" comes down to opinon. Not particularly, no. The hardware in the Steam deck is a known parameter set and it's entirely feasible to optimize around it. You're not really responding to my points, and instead seem to be opting to recede into user choice or customizability as a feature. I'm not dogging on either of those - I'm just saying that they don't need to be the default for a platform like this, and to imply otherwise is just weird. Things should "just work" where they can. Expecting people to become Linux wizards is poor form.