Ten Things You Need To Know About Emulation Station DE (Steam Deck)

Emulation Station DE (the main launcher used for EmuDeck and RetroDeck) is an amazing interface for curating, browsing and launching your favorite retro games. But it has some not-so-well-known features and functions I'm going to reveal to you today.
While this features Steam Deck, it can really be useful for any platform that runs Emulation Station.
Check out my other EmuDeck and emulation related videos!
Chapter Jumps
00:00 - Intro
00:23 - Bumper
00:27 - #1
01:35 - #2
02:09 - #3
02:39 - #4
03:11 - #5
03:50 - #6
04:35 - #7
05:25 - #8
06:20 - #9
07:44 - #10
08:20 - In Closing

[@YoreHistory]

HI Shane. Old time fan from your "Retrogaming and Passenger Seat Radio days". I really like the spirit of this channel and how you are able to mix your retro love with some other type of tech. BTW can't wait to try your Steam game copy program out. Very cool you did that for the community. Cheers and best of luck with the channel...subbed and can't wait to see what you have coming down the pipe! :) PS THanks for the fitness posting you did online a while back too...1200 cals and walking has been doing wonders for me THANK YOU!!!

[@jefffesperman8902]

Stoked to learn about scraping and retro pie themes. Thanks!

[@Darkuni]

Pay the $1 a month for enhanced scrapping. It's worth it. I have a nice ES DE 2.0 theme video around here somewhere.

[@YoreHistory]

As for what videos I would like to see...more Steam Deck!!! I am still waiting for mine which should arrive by end of September and can't wait. Your video's are prepping me for its arrival. I really love the emulation based videos but really anything you put out Steam Deck related I will watch :)

[@Darkuni]

Thank you!

[@MADMANGAM3R]

Definitely interested in seeing a Retropie to ES theme conversion video, thanks!

[@Darkuni]

Thanks for sounding off! Got one you would like to see done?

[@MADMANGAM3R]

@@Darkuni none in particular off the top of my head, but I'll browse through available themes and reply back! Thanks!

[@MADMANGAM3R]

- Retrorama - Magazine Madness 2 - Workbench - Colorful Extreme

[@Shauny_D]

Yes! this was very helpful. Still beating my head on the wall trying to get everything working but this solved my other apps issue and all the crazy subfolders mess

[@Darkuni]

Did you see my Ultimate Beginner's Guide to EmuDeck? Might help out ...?

[@Shauny_D]

yah i watched it nothing new. It is just plain hard to get a solid front end running smoothly for multiple controllers on retroarch cores and standalone apps. There are lots of kinks to work through. Batocera would do it all for me but it doesn't support motion control and it has a massive amount of bluetooth issues@@Darkuni

[@moezmedia98]

Nice one mate

[@mistersonic93]

I didn't know you could add steam games(desktop files) into Emulationstation. This is a game changer!!!

[@Darkuni]

I'm pleased you were able to learn something new. :)

[@Kinos141]

The Konami code was a nice touch!!

[@gustos2478]

Keep it retro !

[@TheWbgv1974]

Would love to see a video on how to get Colecovision roms to play on emudeck.

[@VideoGameXDomain]

My emulation Station on my Steam Deck keeps double clicking everything or if I move left or right it will move right and left AGAIN, How do I fix this?

[@14Renzan]

Hi! Thanks for the explanation :) Question: Do we have "Search" feature in this app?

[@Darkuni]

Hmmm... I've never had occassion to use one, so I'm not sure. Are you saying you don't know what you have ... or?

[@romanempire5460]

What’s that’s music in the background kinda reminds me of Fozzy - Judas

[@Darkuni]

Some royalty free tune ... I buy in bulk :D

[@BruBoyz]

I definitely need to know how to add new themes to ES🤔I’m tired of the 3 boring default themes it comes with. SymLinks tutorial would also be useful

[@Darkuni]

I'll get to work....

[@BruBoyz]

@@Darkuni Thanks a lot

[@MikuCobraCole]

My problem with emulationstation is precisely managing settings for each emulator and games, it's a cool frontend but that's all for me...

[@Darkuni]

All done with RetroArch's front end. I set defaults all the time. RA isn't exactly the greatest piece of software from a UI/UX point of view though.

[@jadedshard9650]

just a tip if you have a lot of roms like me stick to just cover art the demo and back cover art take up a lot of space when your games get into the hundreds

[@Darkuni]

Oh for sure. It's a double-edged sword. It looks great but it's going to cost you in space.

[@VideoGameXDomain]

I have double input on my emulation station on my steam deck, how do I stop this? any help.

[@Darkuni]

Shouldn't do that in Gaming Mode. Desktop mode has always been weird. May try a full reboot.

[@ThePerfectBalls]

Is there a switcher hotkey to flip through save states?

[@Darkuni]

I do not believe that is the case. It is possible this exists - but I am unaware of it. I don't use save states personally, but there are tons of options in the RetroArch menus for them.

[@damienretro4416]

BigBox is just way too slow so I've switched to Emulation Station even on Windows. Desktop Edition themes aren't as polished as Retrobat themes yet but it has more potential.

[@Darkuni]

I'm a HUGE fan of ES. I know a lot of people like BigBox, LaunchBox ... Honestly? This tool just makes sense to me and is the easiest solution I've seen.

[@Aseesl8er]

Tried Emulation Station but I couldn't even get pass the "Roms directory" screen. It keeps on saying I don't have any roms in my current directory. I've put ROMs in at least 4 different areas and it still couldn't find them. It could be user error but ES doesn't make it easy for you link to the path to the directory. You have to manually type in the path. I think I've typed it in correctly but still doesn't see any of my ROMs. sigh. The UX on this app is subpar.

[@Darkuni]

Man, I've installed this a couple of times and never had any sort of issue. Where did you install to? Internal? SD Card? I've never had to put in any path or type in ANYTHING during EmuDeck's install. Did you follow a guide?

[@Aseesl8er]

@@Darkuni Emudeck is installed on my SD card. Also my ROMs. I think I followed ETA prime's guide. But it's the strangest thing. I'm relegated to just using retroarch but retroarch doesn't have the cores I need for neogeo or cp1 and cp2 games. I had less problems emulating on my Odin with Android.

[@Darkuni]

@@Aseesl8er arcade games are weird. I just throw them all into the arcade folder and set the right emulators to play them. I'm pretty sure neo Geo needs bios files I don't know about the other ones.

[@morid0]

@@Aseesl8er it's user end problem or you have a weird bug, haven't had it as easy as download the software and let it do all the leg work for you, mmm do you by any chance have the 64gb version of steam deck? Sounds like internal memory might be full so many things might not get downloaded, not everything goes to the SD card, if not that then you just got unlucky with some weird problem, I've also followed eta prime guide and it was plug and play

[@Aseesl8er]

@@morid0 I like to believe it's a bug since that error popped up after setup of emudeck. Tried to point the path to different folders but still couldn't recognize any of the roms there. But I'm not too technical so user error is definitely a high possibility. I'm not too hung up on it though.

[@CitizenRPG]

How do I sort the systems manually?

[@Darkuni]

That might require editing an XML file... if it is possible. There are premade options to choose from - but I've never attempted to "override" them all with something of my own choosing.

[@CitizenRPG]

@@Darkuni Yeah I was messing around with the file but no luck.

[@androxilogin]

Can't say I like these launchers. They're all soo ugly. Launchbox, Emulation Station, HyperSpin.. I'll stick with good old basic RetroArch.

[@Darkuni]

Emulation Station feels like a "happy medium". HyperSpin is too gaudy for me.

[@androxilogin]

@@Darkuni I felt offended to find ES pushed with the installers on the PS Classic and RetroPi when I made a SNESPi with an official controller. Hah. Definitely not for everyone.