Cooker is a bleeding edge snapshot of the current commits, the action of uploading code to GitHub is called commit.
As you can understand, the code may not be always reviewed and so the cooker it's unstable by its nature, it's just suggested to testers or developer to try bleeding edge function or to contribute.
More info on the pinned post in #💙-i-want-to-help on our [Discord Server](discord.gg/Dz3szYsP8g).
That's what cooking in the pot at this moment and not yet ready to be served (released). This name was also used by Linux Mandrake and Mandriva for the bleeding edge channel.
No, partitioning or formatting is not needed at all. RetroDECK (differently from AmberELEC, Batocera and others) comes as a flatpak. Just install it as any other application and launch it from your desktop and/or Steam library.
* Manually backup then remove the `~\retrodeck` folder. Warning! Make a backup your data roms/bios/saves etc if you want to save them else they will be gone.
No, as long as you don't manually don't delete the `~\retrodeck` folder and it's content your data is safe. You could uninstall RetroDECK and install it again and keep going.
Our goal is to implement and configure a selection of the best emulators for each system. If your favorite system is not integrated you can request its integration by opening an issue on this github page.
You can't in a easy way do that without breaking several things. RetroDECK builds many emulators and add RetroDECK specific features on top of them and makes it into one application. That said we are looking into a custom emulator installation for those that have payed early access versions like Yuzu (that installation will still beore limited then the one we ship with RetroDECK and might have less features then normal Yuzu in term of hotkey support and other things).
EmuDeck is a shell script that you run in the Steam Decks desktop mode that downloads and configures all the separate emulators & plugins for you from various sources using a built in electron based gui.
RetroDECK is an all-in-one application contained in a sandboxed environment called "flatpak", that is downloaded from Discover (Flathub). This is Valves and other Linux desktops recommended way of distributing applications on the Steam Deck and Linux desktop in a safe way. It grantees for example even if Valve makes major changes to the file system in a SteamOS update, RetroDECK and it’s configurations will not be touched and will be safe.
RetroDECK only writes in these two folders: `~/retrodeck` for roms/configurations/bios etc.. And an hidden flatpak folder located in `~/.var/net.retrodeck.retrodeck`.
As everything is contained within those two folders it will not have conflict if you decide to install an emulator from another source like Yuzu or RetroArch with your RetroDECK setup. Even if you uninstall RetroDECK all your roms/bios/saves/etc.. are safe until you remove the `~/retrodeck` folder. So if you for some reason don't like the application after playing for a while you can easily move out your important files after an uninstall (or you can just reinstall RetroDECK again and start where you left off).
This approach of everything is in a all-in-one package will also allow RetroDECK to do tighter integrations with each bundled emulator in the future and expose all those settings when you are inside RetroDECK, so you do not need to go into Steam Decks desktop mode to do changes and tweaks. All things should be, in the long term, inside the application itself and you can already see a part of that inside the RetroDECK Configurator in the Tools menu.
No, but RetroDECK had some dialog before the project started with some of the Batocera crew if there where any plans to start a Batocera non-OS application (there where no plans at that moment and their focus is to make the best retro gaming operative system). RetroDECK and Batocera also have good dialog together with representatives of each projects inside the internal development channels.
- Batocera is a retro emulation operative system that you need to boot into separately (like from an SDCard) or replace your current OS. For the Steam Deck you lose access to the SteamOS features and your emulation gaming is separate from your SteamOS gamemode gaming. That said; Batocera has many years of development time, is a great mature OS with a lot of features.
- EmuDeck is a shell script that you download and run. The script downloads & configures all the separate emulators & plugins for you from various sources for various operative systems.
- RetroDECK is an all-in-one application that already provides everything you need without to many extra steps for the user.It is on Flathub and thus allows the users to update the application via standard safe operative system update methods.
You can see RetroDECK as the in between of EmuDeck and Batocera. We hope that one day we can offer a complete Batocera-like experience right inside your operative system.
[Flaptak](https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/introduction.html) is like sandboxed application, with its own read only filesystem that is different from your computer's filesystem. That's why flatpak is safer than installing something directly in your filesystem as everything it needs is contained within the flatpak.
#### How is a flatpak made?
A flatpak is generated from a manifest file. A software called flatpak-builder reads the manifest, then starts downloading dependencies and starts building the software. After the build process is done it generates the software in a .flatpak file. This file can then be hosted on Flathub or distributed on the web.
#### How does the RetroDECK flatpak manifest look like?
You can find out manifest here: https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/blob/main/net.retrodeck.retrodeck.yml
The ES-DE interface allows you to change emulators for systems that has many different emulators. In the main menu go to `Other Settings` - `Alternative Emulators` to set other defaults.
- Some emulators needs BIOS and/or firmware files, first you can check if you got the `How-to's 💬` - `How to: Manage BIOS and Firmware`.<br/
- You could have bad backups compare them on a database site for example [no-intro](https://datomatic.no-intro.org/index.php?page=search&s=64) or even [RetroAchievements](https://retroachievements.org) if your game is supported.<br/
- Moreover please mind that some emulator require very specific roms `How-to's 💬` - `How to: Manage your Games`
If you find some better configurations however, you may contribute by sharing it on the `💙-i-want-to-help` channel on our [Discord Server](discord.gg/Dz3szYsP8g) that may be included in the next version.
The long term answer is yes, but there are several issues that need to be addressed from various dependencies that are beyond the scope of what RetroDECK can do by it self. We are talking to several projects and hope to have those issues addressed in the future. Right now the best way to use lightgun hardware is to use Batocera as they have developed native support in their OS.
Unfortunately on thanks to missing optimizations focusing on the Steam Deck and the hardware is limited in scope makes performance not great. Like most emulators they will get improvements over time and we will follow the XBOX emulators progress with great interest.
The Steam Deck does not have the power to play all the games in those high resolutions with a stable framerate. What you could do is go into desktop mode while docked and lower the resolution of the display to 1080p or 720p then return to gamemode.
* The Steam Deck has a screen aspect ratio of `16:10` and most themes that you will find are built for an aspect ratio of `16:9`. Depending on the theme's design this may cause the layout to appear squished when using it on the Steam Deck's display.
* All of the included themes are built for 16:10 aspect ratio so you should not see this issue with any of them; however if you are downloading a theme from another source there is a chance this can occur for you.
* There are 2 ways to fix this if it does occur: (1) see if a specific version was built for `16:10` aspect ratio and use that instead or (2) edit the theme to make it compatible with that aspect ratio.
The error message mentions something about quota. You have a quota limit on how much you can scrape each day from [Screenscraper](https://www.screenscraper.fr/) where each item you scrape counts as 1 quota of the daily total.
