Moreover, the app is available as a FlatPak directly in the Discover app via Desktop Mode on your Steam Deck, making the installation process super easy. This is a great solution if you just want a simple emulation experience that you can access directly from your SteamOS environment. Because it is self-contained, it will behave as a single app with all of its emulators pre-installed and configured.

RetroDeck is an all-in-one emulation solution that uses EmulationStation as its main interface. This is an excellent setup if you want to separate your SteamOS PC gaming experience and your retro game emulation. As an example, you could use your Steam Deck primarily for PC games, and when you are ready to do some emulation, you can just add the Batocera SD card, boot into the card, and start playing games.

This means you can load Batocera on a microSD card, flash drive, or external hard drive and boot it from there. It is completely self-contained and bootable from a variety of formats. However, if you’d rather have a self-contained solution, check out Batocera or RetroDeck.īatocera is a custom Linux operating system that is focused on game emulation. I’ve seen some concerns about allowing an app to install items on your Steam Deck, but EmuDeck does not require sudo/root access to work, and only installs the same file systems that you would be installing if you installed the emulators manually. It’s not an “app” in the strictest sense, but a collection of clever scripts that take care of all the manual installation and configuration for you. Let’s take a quick look at some of your emulation options on the Steam Deck.ĮmuDeck is a tool that integrates many functions into one: it will download emulators from their official sources, pre-configure your settings and hotkeys, and work together with EmulationStation and the Steam ROM Manager. Updating EmuDeck and emulators CryoUtilities Table of ContentsĮmuDeck vs Batocera vs RetroDeck vs EmulationStation If you are looking for a general setup guide for the Steam Deck itself, I recommend this comprehensive Steam Deck guide from GitHub user mikeroyal. This guide will primarily use an app called EmuDeck to set up your emulation experience, but I will also touch on other solutions like RetroDeck and Batocera. In this guide I’ll show you how to play your favorite retro (and modern) game systems via software emulation.

Valve’s Steam Deck is the perfect storm of handhelds: it has an exceptional price-to-performance ratio, a large game library thanks to its Steam integration, and it is becoming more readily available every month. Last updated: 24NOV2023 (see Changelog for details)

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