All of this is true. RetroDECK also have existed since the before EmuDeck as it was born from some of the AmberELEC team members.

You can read a lot more on our wiki: https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/wiki

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In short

RetroDECK is an full application (still in beta) and not just an emulation bundle install script. All of the moving parts of RetroDECK are inside of the sandboxed flatpak.

As we are building several emulators from source it allows us to add features, hot fixes and uniformity to the emulators themself for a more cohesive experience in what we call the RetroDECK Framework.

Our focus is Steam Deck, SteamOS, Linux Desktop and future SteamOS / Full Linux based handhelds.

Some examples in development and stable are:

• The multi-user system that allows you have different emulation profiles / saves / states / configurations per Steam Deck user account OR a local RetroDECK user account for the Linux desktop (in development).
• Tiny things like hard patching various hotkeys that the emulators don’t allow the users to change in the GUI, changing hard coded folder names etc…

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Mindset

This is biased but but I think the team is also approaching problems differently from others.

One example:

Mod and texture pack support for various emulators:

It has been a pain for users to get them up and running. We looked at the problem and said how can we make this easier and more accessible for all?

HD Packs for Mesen, Mupen64Plus texture packs and mods etc…

Now all you need to do is put them into the corresponding mod / texture pack folder and follow the guides on the wiki and you will be up and running in no time.

When doing this we also engaged with the texture and mod community.

Another example is:

How the framework is handling configurations is quite unique and allows us to add and remove specific things when emulators does changes and try to keep as much of the users settings when possible.

This allows us to multi change settings inside the application across many different emulators: You want borders in Genesis but not in Super Nintendo? - You can

For us it is about making emulation accessible for more user but at the same time provide new tools for hardcore tweakers in the long term with our RetroDECK Framework.

This is just the beginning.

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But:

That said this complexity adds time between patches and the users can not add their own emulators into RetroDECK, have to wait for us to do the updates and add features.

That said we are always developing and if you want to help out check our wiki and join our discord. We need devs, artists, ambassadors and good community members :)

End note:

We have great discussions the entire emulation community and have close relations with ES-DE, Batocera and others. We also plan to move our reddit blogposts over to Lemmy so look forward to that in September.