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

Hey, that sounds like a package manager!

My package manager certainly doesn't sync settings and save files between multiple systems. But I'd be interested in one that does!

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

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.

It shows a huge disregard for non-technical users. Very just-use-Wireguard (tail scale) or just-ftp-rsync-your-data (Dropbox).

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

We are beyond that with the thin client revival, also know as cloud computing.

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)

Dolphin doesn’t emulate Wii U games. The Wii U is a completely separate console to the Wii, Cemu is the emulator for that

> completely separate console

Yet it does emulate GameCube and Wii, completely separate consoles.

Even the Wii itself will run Gamecube games in Wii mode, see "Nintendont".

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

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.

Dolphin does not even remotely touch Wii U games.

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

The average Steam Deck user isn't emulating games, though.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Just because the Steam Deck runs Linux in no way means end users should have to give a shit.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

>The hardware in the Steam deck is a known parameter set and it's entirely feasible to optimize around it.

I'm saying that we can't agree on what is "most optimal".

- Do you prefer 30 fps, 60fps, or even higher? those are different ways to optimize it.

- Do you want a pure experience or would you prefer highest internal resolution?

- Do you perhaps want to add in post processing, maybe as a way to get around what would otherwise be visual glitches?

- Preference in renderer? I guess we eliminate DX11/12, but OpenGL vs. Vulkan will give different results, even if Vulkan is in theory the better graphics API.

- and ofc there are preferences on various other nitty gritty settings that some people will be opinionated on.

A switch user just takes what they get and either accepts or grits their teeth with these opinions. But since we're ultimately talking about PC users they will be much more opinionated, and fight amongst one another. Because those supposed "linux wizards" exist and are very loud. I'm sorry if you see this as talking past your point, but my point is that we can't agree. Which ironically enough reinforces my point, I guess.