EmuDeck hands-on: The best emulation suite for the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, and more

EmuDeck is the best emulation suite that you can get on the likes of the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and so much more. It gets its name from the Steam Deck where it originated, but there are now builds for Windows and even Android. It downloads and configures a ton of different emulators, integrating with Steam ROM Manager so that you can add those games to your Steam library, too.

With EmuDeck 2.2 recently releasing, we decided to give it a try and give a full overview of the experience it provides on a Windows-based handheld. It’s super easy to set up, took a few minutes at maximum, and makes it so much easier to make your game backups and BIOS files on a PC gaming handheld. It’s great on the Steam Deck, but it’s great on Windows handhelds, too.

How to install EmuDeck

It’s pretty easy, but depends on your platform

If you want to install EmuDeck on a Windows-based handheld, it’s pretty easy to do so. You’ll need to download the executable from EmuDeck’s website and execute it. From there, it will run you through all of the installation steps to install it and download everything that it needs. It’s more or less exactly how you’d expect to install anything on a Windows machine, but with the added benefit that it requires minimal input from the user.

If you’re using the Steam Deck, then it gets a little bit harder, but not by much. You’ll need to switch to the desktop by doing the following:

1. Press the Steam button and scroll down to power, and then select Switch to Desktop Mode.
2. Hold the power button and select Switch to Desktop Mode.

Next, open Firefox and search for EmuDeck. Download the SteamOS version and copy it to the desktop. Then you can launch it by double-tapping it from your desktop, and the installation process is the same from there. If you want a more advanced tutorial on installing EmuDeck on the Steam Deck, then check out our guide below.

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Using EmuDeck

It’s incredibly easy

When you first launch EmuDeck, you’ll be guided through the installation process to pick things like the parser you use to pick up different games, what front-end you want to launch your games, and to configure settigs like borders for titles that play in aspect ratios that aren’t native to your system.

Once EmuDeck is installed, you can select for it to open the folder that contains your games. This is, by default, in the root of the drive you installed EmuDeck to. In my case, I installed it to the C: drive, so my files are in C:\Emulation. This will likely be different for you, though you can also access that folder directly from within EmuDeck. You can then launch Steam ROM Manager, which will shutdown Steam entirely and scan for games that are on your computer in their appropriate folders.

Once added, your games and emulators will be picked up natively in Steam. You can launch them as non-Steam games, and people on your friends list will also see you playing them. It’s super easy, quick to set up, and works on any Windows-based machine. You don’t even to use a gaming handheld, as EmuDeck has a configuration during set up aimed specifically at being installed on a Windows PC.

EmuDeck takes all the hard work out of needing to set up emulators individually. It’ll pull everything for you and set it up so that you don’t need to do any of the work, and will keep your emulators up to date with the most recent versions as they come out. It can also refresh the configuration files per-emulator for you in case something goes wrong, and it’s just a much, much easier way to emulate games if you’re an avid retro gamer on the go.

EmuDeck is the best way to emulate on the go

Older systems will work very well on most gaming handhelds

While the Steam Deck is noticeably underpowered compared to the likes of the Asus ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go, it’s still more than capable of emulating most older systems. You’ll need to copy your own game and BIOS files to use these emulators, but once you do it’s simply launch and play. Steam ROM Manager will pick up the games for you and add them to your Steam Library, so in the case of the Steam Deck, you won’t need to spend long in the desktop at all.

EmuDeck no longer has Citra or Yuzu as a result of their discontinuation following Nintendo’s lawsuit, but you can still emulate a ton of other fantastic systems anywhere you can bring a gaming handheld with you. It’s really worth setting up, and you can get it running in no time!

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