# FAQs: Frequently asked questions What follows is questions and answers to a variety of topics. ## General Questions ### What is the scope of this project? Read the "Whats the long term vision and goals" on the Home page of this wiki. ### What is RetroDECK cooker? 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 #πŸ’™-i-want-to-help on our [Discord Server](discord.gg/Dz3szYsP8g). We don't support the cooker on user side. #### Why the name cooker? 🍲 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. ### What emulators and software is included in RetroDECK? RetroDECK comes with: * Emulationstation Desktop Edition - RetroDECK version * The RetroDECK Framework * The RetroDECK Configurator * For emulators and other software check the RetroDECK: What's included? section of this wiki. We plan to have support for all of the the different systems ES-DE support in the long term. But the goal is only to have the best emulator per system and not every emulator in existence. ### Does RetroDECK include any games? No games are included in RetroDECK currently. ### Will you include Open Source games in the future as default? We are looking into a ports downloader for a future update. ### Does RetroDECK include any Firmware or BIOS? RetroDECK only includes those BIOS and Firmware that are Open Source. All others can never be done for legal reasons. #### Can you at least point me towards where I find none Open Source: Games, Firmeware or BIOS? For purchased titles we recommend that you use your own game backups and look into how to extract the Firmware or BIOS from your own consoles. ## Flatpak Questions ### Retrodeck is a flatpak, what is it? [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 ## Using RetroDECK ### Do I have to partition or format my disk/sdcard to install RetroDECK? 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. ### Can I move the ROMs folder to another place? Yes, you can do so inside the configurator and the `Move RetroDECK` option. ### Is there a way to reset RetroDECK? Yes, you can reset various parts of the software using the RetroDECK configurator under the option reset. Or you can use CLI arguments in the terminal. Resets the whole RetroDECK at factory defaults: ```bash flatpak run net.retrodeck.retrodeck --reset-all ``` Resets RetroArch configs at factory defaults: ```bash flatpak run net.retrodeck.retrodeck --reset-ra ``` Resets all the standalone emulators configs at factory defaults: ```bash flatpak run net.retrodeck.retrodeck --reset-sa ``` ### How do I uninstall RetroDECK? **On the Steam Deck:** Put the Steam Deck into Desktop Mode `Steam button` `Power` `Switch to Desktop` * Go into Discover * Press the `Installed` tab and find RetroDECK * Press the `Uninstall` button * 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. ### Does uninstalling RetroDECK remove my roms, bios and saves? 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. ### How can I move RetroDECK do a different device like Steam Deck OLED or a new Linux PC? Yes, check over at [[How to: Move RetroDECK to a new device]] ### Where can I find the logfiles? In `~/retrodeck/logs/retrodeck.log` ### Can I add a single game to my Steam Library or with Steam Rom Manager? We are working on this feature. Meanwhile you can achieve this manually. Example of a launch script to launch to launch a Wii game called Baloon World: ``` flatpak run --command=dolphin-emu-wrapper net.retrodeck.retrodeck -e "/run/media/mmcblk0p1/retrodeck/roms/wii/Baloon World.rvz" -b ``` ### If I installed RetroDECK from outside of discover, do I need to uninstall the application to update? If you previously installed from outside of Discover, you can find the instructions here to [install from discover](https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/wiki/Steam-Deck:-Installation-and-updates) or here [to install .flatpak file](https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/wiki/Developer-notes#managing-retrodeck-flatpak-file). ### After installing RetroDECK manually, Discover is not opening or giving me some errors? This bug is appearing only when installing RetroDECK manually and not from Discover. The discover release is suggested for all the users. However you can run this to fix it: `flatpak remote-delete retrodeck-origin` ## Feature Requests& & Bug Reports ### Will you implement X/Y/Z emulator? 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. ### Will you implement none emulator software inside of RetroDECK like Batocera? We do have plans for a ports downloader / manager in the future. ### I have a good idea on a new feature, how do I suggest it? Check if the request already exists in the issue list on github, if not you can make a new issue and suggest it. If you want to discuss before submitting feel free to post your ideas in our discord community. ## Updating RetroDECK ### What does the "b" stand for in the versioning number? It stands for Beta. ### How do I update RetroDECK? Updates to RetroDECK is handled automatically via your software manager when there is a new version released. Or if you want to update from the terminal you can type: `flatpak update` ### How do I update a specific emulator in RetroDECK? 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 be more limited then the one we ship with RetroDECK and might have less features then normal Yuzu in term of hotkey support and other things). ### Do you only ship stable versions of the emulators or nightly versions? RetroDECK ship the version that is the best for running the games on a case by case basis. For example: many bleeding edge emulators like Yuzu or RPCS3 it's nightly we ship, but for things like RetroArch it is stable releases. Even if it is a nightly version we want to make sure that the version we ship is works. ### When does the next version of RetroDECK come out? When it's ready. #### When does the version after the upcoming version come out? After the upcoming version. #### When does the version 1.0 of RetroDECK come out? In the future. ## Documentation & Wiki ### What is sudo? The command stands for "superuser do" and in the windows world it is called "run as administrator". Su in "sudo" refers to the "superuser" or in the windows called the "administrator". ### Whats the meaning of the ~ character mean in documentation and examples? The tilde character ~ is the a short way of saying the logged in users home directory in the UNIX world. So for example the Steam Deck ```~ = /home/deck``` Read more on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_directory) ### Whats the meaning of the SA acronym in documentation and examples? SA means Standalone and the emulator is not inside RetroArch/LibRetro but a separate program launched within RetroDECK. ### Whats the meaning of the CLI acronym in documentation and examples? CLI stands for command-line interface and is often refereed commands you can run in the the Linux Terminal ## About Other Emulation Solutions ### Are you related to EmuDeck? No, the two projects are not related. #### So what's the difference between RetroDECK and EmuDeck? Apart of that from the user point of view EmuDeck and RetroDECK may sound similar but technically they're completely different. 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. #### Can I install RetroDECK if I have EmuDeck already? Yes, as RetroDECK is completely standalone. #### Why create RetroDECK when EmuDeck and other solutions exists? RetroDECK is older then EmuDeck, EmuDeck was created later. ### Are you related anyway to Batocera? 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 or EmuDeck or RetroDECK I still don't get it? - 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. ### What is your relationship with EmulationStation Desktop Edition (ES-DE)? ES-DE and RetroDECK are separate projects, but we collaborate to give the best possible user experience. We have a unique partnership where inside the ES-DE code is a section just for RetroDECK specific features. [Read more on ES-DE FAQs](https://gitlab.com/es-de/emulationstation-de/-/blob/master/FAQ.md#what-is-the-relationship-between-es-de-and-retrodeck) ## Emulation & Games ### Why are games call ROMs? ROM stands for "Read Only Memory" and was a common method to store games. The games where later dumped from their ROM chips into digitalized files that can be played with an emulator. Read more on [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Read-only_memory) ### How can I set another default emulator? 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. ### Game X/Y/Z is not working or showing black screen Some emulators needs BIOS and/or firmware files, first you can check if you got the [needed ones](https://github.com/XargonWan/RetroDECK/wiki/BIOS-&-Firmware).