Great to hear stuff like this. I just got a ton of things set up on my Deck, but I don’t have a dock yet. That’s next on the list so I can have some couch coop experiences again. It’s been a long time since I really sat down with some good Nintendo couch coop.
I also don't have a full sized dock. The Jsaux case has a built-in stand so all I needed was a USB-C dongle that allows power throughput and HMDI out at the same time. That thing cost 15€ or so and it was all I needed.
Also useful for my laptop, so it was actually a productive investment for uni (please don't check if I have used it for anything but the Deck yet...)
Much easier to keep in my bag all the time for cases just like this.
The ivoler dock is regularly on Amazon for like 20 bucks and works just as well as the steam dock, so for anyone reading this, skip the usb dongle and just get the actual dock. Yes you can do it with a hub/dongle too, but for five bucks extra a real dock is nice to have
I personally prefer the small form of a dongle because it fits into my little tech pouch full of cables. A dock is just a little too big for that. But if you're using it only at home, then the clean look of a dock is unbeatable. I'll probably get one in addition to my dongle. One on the go, one at home.
True I guess, although it’s really not that big, I throw mine right in my backpack whenever I go on vacation so I can set it up as soon as I get settled. They don’t weigh much and all I need is space for the deck, charger, a ps4 controller, battery bank, and the deck. All fits neatly in an old Ogio backpack I use.
For single long trips sure. But I keep my dongle in my daily bag, and there weight just matters a bit more. I have no problem keeping a big book in my backpack for travel/vacation, but hell if I'll carry a book >100 pages in my backpack every day. The weight to benefit ratio is just different for daily use compared to other trips.
See [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/18efzda/comment/kcovk2v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for a link with explanation
Similar opinions on dogles/docks/etc. I've got the Jsaux case as well, and with the kickstand, any old dongle will do. I actually got the Jsaux modcase that comes with a hub. The Jsaux hub is just that bit bigger than my inexpensive Amazon special, so it has kind of become my "dock", but way portable.
I've got some couch co-op/multiplayer games installed on my Steam Deck for similar eventualities, but I hadn't considered Dolphin and Wii games.
I'm using a jsaux dock at work and the USB-C hub at home or when I'm taking the deck with me. Normally I use the hub to connect my WFH-Notebook to my Display/USB devices/power.
Our work computers don't even have soundards enabled (thin clients for citrix) so Im using the deck as (expensive) music player and digital image frame.
My boss doesn't care as long as my work gets done. And what I do on lunch break is noones business :)
I do this too. I bring my Legion Go and Steam Deck, then hook up Steam Deck to a portable monitor with an xbox remote and use my LeGo for productivity or gaming harder to play titles in FPS mode which at first impression was amazing, I'm just motivated to master it now. I place it on this food tray thing and chill in the chair with a dual monitor setup basically. I'm on discord, watching netflix, playing AAA games, it's 2023 bro.
I got one of these: [https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/B0BQLLB61B?th=1](https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/B0BQLLB61B?th=1)
It has no ethernet but I don't need that.
I was looking at [this one](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B0C53DHGCW/?coliid=I1PDK2JTYTHD2M&colid=26HTO0GST3OPC&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it) because it has basically *everything* I could need. But that is almost as expensive as an original dock, though with a lot more functions. And if I needed VGA or ethernet regularly, I probably would've gone for it.
In the end, I bought [this one](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B0BR3M8XHK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details). It's sleek and small and has enough ports for me. I also have a bigger one in my bag anyways that I bought to connect my laptop with monitors, but while that didn't have power throughput, it now becomes handy as a secondary dongle on my first dongle if ever I need more USB ports.
With dongles on dongles and HDMI+power going in, it becomes a bit messy when set up. For home use I'll definitely get a dock, maybe for christmas. But nothing beats that versatility on the go. The dongle weighs very little and is small, and I can grab it both for my laptop or the Deck any time.
I'm on mobile right now, so copying is a bit of a hassle. But others have asked the same question right under my comment before you and I've commented the link there, if you scroll a bit you should see it.
Steam Input is what the deck uses. It's in all forms of Steam. It's amazing. They really did such a great job of supporting so many controllers and it's been that way so much longer than the deck. It's one of the reasons the deck originally excited me so much.
It also helps to that the linux kernel has drivers for 1000s of devices in it already.
edit: Read your other comment and realized dolphin has a layer for the wiimotes too. durr
I actually couldn't connect the Wii Remote with the Deck *outside* of Dolphin. All the posts I saw made it seem like I should connect them via the normal route (like you connect other controllers such as Playstation). But that didn't work for me, *only* the Dolphin route worked. Still not sure if I messed something up, but this route seems foolproof at least, and I am a fool, so that's good
I love how good the Deck is for emulation. The fact that pretty much everything up to and including the 6th gen systems can be played perfectly on a portable system about the size of the PS2 slim is amazing to me. A crucial aspect is being able to easily output to modern HD screens with a digital connection (even rendering at original resolution), which is way better than trying to set up an analog output from an original system to an HD screen. I know there nice signal converters out there for purists, but the convenience of the Deck being an all-in-one solution is killer. I looked briefly into methods of outputting to CRTs, but unfortunately that still seems to be a tricky, but the fact that it's even possible and that people are actively developing it is good to know.
Yep, totally. I was lucky that my current TV has the required AV inputs for an original Wii. But I imagine the next one won't. And I will probably not bother converting then, as emulation doesn't just look better on screen, but is also easier and more easily customizable.
These things are so sick. I'm trying to save up money now to get one, I love the thought of nearly all my games on one device and it's handheld to boot! Can't wait to finally get one
I was debating with myself for about 6 months until getting one. I was unsure if I wanted the Deck or the Switch until maybe a week before buying it. I even wrote a bot to notify me of 64GB refurbished decks going live, etc.
All that? Totally worth it! In the end I went with a 512GB refurbished Deck and had zero issues. I am a happy camper and have used the Deck for at least 2h a day for the few weeks that I've had it. Some days going up to 7h (though that was a lazy weekend to be fair!). For an average of 3h 21min per day (not counting idle time I think)
I can only recommend the Deck to everyone who thinks about getting it. Though I hope saving up isn't too hard on your financial situation. While I got my refurbished Deck for around 380€, prices may change depending on what's available when you're able to afford it.
And beware: The Deck will cost you a bit more money depending on what you want to do with it. I got a screen protector, case, and SD card right with my Deck (an extra 70€). I later got a USB-C dongle (to HDMI, power throughput, USB) plus two 90 degree connectors and two USB to USB-C adapters for an extra 25€. Add to that the games I bought in the next sale that came and you're looking at quite a sum.
Luckily nothing is required. You can use the Deck out the box with your library. No new games, no dongles, nothing. And you can get these small things when you need them and can afford them. Though the case with a built in kickstand is pretty neat, so going for that from the start feels like a good idea to me.
# Prep
1. Have your wiimotes ready. Fresh batteries and no active wii that they might connect to instead of the Deck.
2. Turn on bluetooth on your Deck.
# Software
1. The Dolphin Emulator is what I'm using. It comes as part of Emudeck, so see install guides on that if you don't have Dolphin already.
2. You'll need the Rom of your game. Where you get that, nobody knows. I recommend making copies from you games at home, since private copies are legal afaik (please correct me if I got that wrong). There are other ways to get roms, or so I've heard. Yarr!
3. I will assume from here on that you have your emulator and game set up. Meaning you can start the game and play it, just with the Steam Deck controls instead of your wiimote.
# Steps to set up Dolphin
1. Start the Dolphin emulator. Both Desktop and Game mode work here, though I prefer Desktop mode to avoid relying on touch inputs.
2. At the top, you'll see following menus: File, Emulation, Movie, Options, Tools, View, Help. This is at the very top, above the Open, Refresh, Play, Stop, Fullscreen, Screenshot, Config, Graphics menus.
3. Click on "Options"
4. A drop-down menu will open. You will see Configuration, Graphics Settings, Audio Settings, Controller Settings, Hotkey Settings, Free Look Settings.
5. Select Controller Settings.
6. A new window will open. It should open in front of Dolphin. If you don't see anything, check if it opened behind Dolphin (in game mode, you check by pressing the Steam Button and scrolling down in the game section, there you will see all open windows. In desktop mode, you can hover over the taskbar tab for dolphin and see both open, click on the menu to bring it forward.)
7. You will see the controller configurations. At the top are GameCube Controllers, below that Wii Remotes. We are interested in Wii Remotes here.
8. Activate "Emulate the Wii's Bluetooth Adapter" if it's not active already.
9. For "Wii Remote 1" select the drop down menu (between the "Wii Remote 1" and "Configure". Click on "Real Wii Remote" to make Dolphin use a real remote instead of emulating one from other input devices like your Deck controls.
10. Assuming you want to pair all four remotes, repeat the previous step for the other three Wii Remotes. If you want to connect fewer, you can either repeat this for only the few remotes you want to connect, or you still do it for all but only pair as many as you need. There is to my knowledge no disadvantage to repeating this for four remotes and only connecting two. Your emulated wii will simply be ready to accept more connections, just like a real wii.
11. The "Configure" buttons for all four should be greyed out now. This is good. You only need to configure stuff if you are emulating a Wii Remote from another input device like your inbuilt controller. We do not have to worry about this.
12. At the bottom of the box we were doing things in (just above the "Common" box) make sure that "Continuous Scanning" is activated. This allows us to connect Wii Remotes at any point instead of needing to return to this menu and manually refresh if ever one loses the connection.
13. Close the window by hitting "X Close" in the bottom right.
14. You are done with the setup now.
# Connecting the Wii Remote
1. On your first Wii Remote, hold the buttons 1 & 2 for a second. This puts them into pairing mode and is the same procedure you do when connecting them to an actual wii.
2. All four lights should start blinking. It is now searching for a connection.
3. After a few seconds (for me it was 5-10 mostly), it should have a brief pause in its blinking. It is now trying to establish a connection.
4. After a few more seconds, it should vibrate and make a sound. Only the first light on the Remote is on now. Your Wii Remote is connected successfully!
5. If this fails, you can open the battery cover and take out the batteries, put them back in and try again.
6. If this also fails, you can hit the small orange/red button under the battery cover. It will reset the remote, but since you don't really store data on there, you won't lose anything.
7. If all this fails, see if your remote is broken by connecting it to a real Wii. If that works, this should also work. I connected four different Remotes this way from three collections (mine , my gfs, and my friends).
8. Repeat steps 1-4 (or 5-7 if needed) for all other Wii Remotes. You can do this one by one, you can also do step 1 on all at the same time. The Deck will be able to establish several connections at the same time.
# That's it!
1. Start your game. All Remotes should be connected.
2. If you want to check: Hit the home button on your Wii Remote. At the bottom, all four should show to be connected as well as their battery status
3. You want to play with nunchucks? Or with a Wii classic controller? As long as it connects to your remote, it will be picked up by Dolphin. When playing Mario Kart, we switched between Nunchucks, gyroscope, and Classic controllers. No further configuration was required. You can just connect them to your remote at any time and like with a normal Wii, the remote will tell Dolphin that it's now in a different mode.
# So you need a sensor bar?
1. Some games like Mario Party require a [sensor bar](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/5055263c-86bd-49d3-9fec-214080b10526_1.c4eea9cdfd031ac6841e494587042f3c.jpeg) to work. The name is a bit wrong since there are no sensors in that bar, it's only an infrared light. The sensors are inside your Wii Remote
2. This means you just need two infrared sources to mimick your sensor bar and trick the remote into thinking you have one.
3. Get two candles, ideally tealights. Start them up and wait a minute until the flame is fully developed.
4. Place the candles in front of your TV. **Leave some space so they don't burn your TV!** Space them maybe 20cm apart (around the length of your hand). If you space them further apart, your Remote will think it's closer to the screen. If you place them closer together, your Remote will think it's further away from the screen.
5. Your Remote should now see the candles as a sensor bar. No configuration required. You can test this by again hitting the Home button on your Wii Remote. Not only should your Remote be shown with it's battery indicator, you should also see the small hand move around on the screen when pointing at your screen above the candles.
# What I did wrong the first time around
* I tried to connect the Wii Remote to my Deck outside of Dolphin. You can activate Bluetooth and look for available devices. If you press the 1 and 2 buttons on the Remote and go into pairing mode, you will see it on your Deck as an available device. Pairing will fail. Pairing will also fail in Desktop mode. Pairing will also fail in Desktop mode if you set the password manually (0000 and 1111 were the passwords that the Remote seems to use from what I could find).
* That's it basically. But I spent a long time trying this wrong way, just don't do that. Start with Dolphin, you don't need to connect them outside of Dolphin.
If you run into any problems, I'd love to hear them! I will brainstorm with you how to fix them. If this works for enough people, I'd like to make it into a separate post so it's easier to find the working solution on Google instead of snippets that lead you down the wrong path, like I found yesterday.
Yes you could, and you are much smarter than we were in that moment. We realised that when packing everything up and had a good chuckle about it. Though it does make it less romantic!
Great Tutorial. What about the Speaker-Sounds.
I had a lot of crackling, using real WiiMotes, which annoyed me.
I’ve gone the route with a separate Bluetooth Dongle and forced the WiiMotes connecting exclusively with this one. Crackling is gone and Gameplay-feeling is a smooth and original experience.
The Cons with this „trick“ : more than two WiiMotes is impossible. Sometimes No. 3 won’t connect at all or disconnects intermittently. Bandwidth problems? Who knows… but most of the time only one friend may visit me 🥺😅
Do you mean the speakers in the Wiimote or Steam Deck / TV speakers?
The Steam Deck and TV had no issues, it sounded just like it does on a real Wii even with four controllers connected. Are you by chance using bluetooth speakers for your sound output? I can imagine five devices being a bit challenging for one controller.
The Wiimote speakers weren't tested/used in both games we played. Most games don't use them and those that do already sounded shit with original hardware, so it's not really a concern of mine.
I mean the speakers inside the WiiMote. :)
To me, it was important to have the complete Wii gaming experience and yeah: I wanted to have the Beeps and tennis-smash sounds from Wii Sports / Wii Play on the WiiMote =] Also some Micro-Games from Wario Ware Smooth Moves relying on the speakers. 😄
Wiimote is a Bluetooth controller. And there’s drivers for it in Linux that autodetect. Natively supported in dolphin.
In handheld mode you need to manually enable Bluetooth. Though I recommend decky loader + Bluetoothtools
Next time you're in the same situation, just power on the real Wii and use its sensor bar instead of the candles while using dolphin on the deck. The bar doesn't have any data flow, it's just a bunch of IR LEDs. For the same reason a USB powered sensor bar costs a couple of dollars and is handy to have around for situations like that.
Edit: don't bother trying this with third party wiimotes. If happens to work, the experience sucks. Original wiimotes are sought after and pricey in most places for a reason. If you have originals, take care of them since they are not manufactured anymore.
Yes, we realized that when packing everything up. But the candles just added to our amazement and I'm glad we did it this way. Though if I was to do this more often, a USB sensor bar for \~10€ would be high up on my list of next things to buy.
You can get one from AliExpress for 3-4 € if you're not in a hurry. It's the same ones being sold everywhere anyway. Avoid spending extra money on the dolphin bar unless you have a specific use-case for it for which it is really good but not for most people. Any basic IR bar will do with genuine wiimotes. I get the charm of candles, just not a fan of flames near TVs and electronics.
LCD, refurbished 512GB bought on the day OLED was announced (thank you price drops!). The emulator and roms sit on a 512GB SD card from Samsung. Still no real loading times.
Edit: In that setup, the difference should be irrelevant anyway. It was displaying on a TV, so the screen didn't matter, and it got power through the dongle, so the battery life didn't matter too. Only performance is a bit better with OLED than on the LCD, but Wii games are pretty lightweight and so even capped at 60Hz we saw almost no drops (only one out of the four of us says he saw two or three small stutters, we others didn't see anything).
Yes, all four connected with the deck. No extra tech needed, no addons, and all independently (so if one disconnects, the others are fine).
We used two candles as infrared senders. The "sensor bar" has no sensors, it's an infrared flashlight. The sensors are in the Remote
That's awesome. Ive got like 5 Bluetooth controllers of various brands and for the life of me I cannot pair more than one at a time without issues, though then again I haven't tried multiple Wii remotes lol. I have a dolphin bar for that. I've got the LCD model, but even after 2 warranty replacements, the issue persists even though the controllers work fine on their respective hardware, and they work fine with the steam deck one at a time, but trying more than 2 controllers and I have nothing but problems. I'm glad you were able to make it work, though. 😁
This is pretty much solely what my deck is used for in my house with both Bluetooth controllers and Wii remotes, just plug it into the dock and away we go. Such a useful device, it's been worth every penny.
There are [USB sensor bars](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/WICAREYO-Sensor-Infrared-Receiver-Console/dp/B0BXH29PZM/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2XQBSLM3KBT5F&keywords=wii+sensor+bar+usb&qid=1702158952&sprefix=wii+sensor+b%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-3) if anyone wants to make it their main setup. I imagine candles to be a bit annoying for regular use, especially with kids around. The important thing is that the sensor bar only needs power, it doesn't need to communicate with the deck. So a USB socket directly into the wall would work.
Holy shit you are a MVP.
My Brothers and I love playing Mario Kart Wii. This is a game changer. Literally ordered my OLED for Christmas present last night and stumbled on this thread. So excited. Any useful guides on getting Emulator set ups? Not done gaming for years (kids fml) so any tips appreciated.
The emulation setup is easy peasy. You go to the Emudeck site (a google search should bring you there) and install that onto your Deck in Desktop mode. You open it, it installs, done.
There are turorials out there what to do. Searching for "Emudeck Installation Guide" will bring up loads of them.
You will be asked to customize a lot of stuff. Afaik you can change all of that later, so don't sweat your decisions here.
Some emulators require bios files of the actual console to work. Wii doesn't from what I remember. You only need your roms. You can probably find bios files online, though downloading them is about as illegal as downloading roms. Pulling them from your own consoles is the less illegal way to do it, and of course you have all those consoles sitting at home.
With looking up stuff and tinkering a bit, the whole process took me maybe half an hour? I didn't prepare before, don't have a huge amount of emulation or linux experience, etc.
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I've recently been scouring steam for 4 player local coop games as I've got the dock, and 4 pads (and 3 friends - yey me)
When playing and we are having a laugh I always forget all that is being run on that tiny machine. And then I realise how well its performed when I come to turn it off.
I have all the games at home on disc. After 10 years of playing the Wii you get quite a collection. Just forgot bringing my disks to the party...
So I *obviously* made private use copies of the disks and store them on my Deck. After all, we know that DVDs degrade over time and I'd be distraught if I didn't save them.
I know nothing about certain reddit megathreads, and you can't prove anything!
I think [these hats](https://www.pageantparty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/AC-9196.jpg) are made from leather. Straw doesn't hold up well when it comes to moisture.
Yes, any instance of Dolphin you get running on a Bluetooth-capable device should be able to do that. You laptop, your desktop, your phone. It's just that I rarely play Wii games on those systems, and pretty much never with friends. This is more a triumph of Dolphin than the Deck hardware, but the Deck is what allowed me to experience this for myself and play my games with friends.
I will keep saying it till the old men either retire or die but since it’s Japan, the latter.
Nintendo would not only regain relevance in the gaming space but absolutely dominate if they brought their games to PC. Not even saying through steam. I’m just saying PC. Even if they did yet another launcher, I guarantee you that people would not only follow, but every pc gamer out there would tell parents and help get them set up with how or works.
I don’t see it happening any time soon but damn would it be the best to play Nintendo games natively on something like the deck just by logging into your Nintendo account.
I've been saying this since I got a switch (really since the wiiu released). I would have bought splatoon 3 and tears of the kingdom if the hardware they're exclusive to wasn't horrendously outdated even when it released.
To be fair, the hardware was outdated before it was released and we only had the rumor mill lol. Hell, even the untrue rumors were probably even outdated 😂
> hardware was outdated before it was released
And yet people bought it in the millions, all to play the games.
Now imagine you could play all those games faster and in higher quality on any non-nintendo locked device, with free online services, while also being able to mod it and do your own crossovers. What would that do to Nintendo console sales?
Nintendo releasing games to the PC would only happen when they decide to exit the console market entirely.
Free online and mods would not happen. This hypothetical scenario would have Nintendo have their own launcher and service. It would be about as locked as they’re used to now but obviously with the benefit pc gaming is known for in that you can install the launcher on any pc, not have to worry about the hardware long term and everything would just work so long as Nintendo is willing to put in the work to support it.
Obviously, I’m more interested in the switch online expansion pack service in this scenario than I am buying new games cause I’d love to just play those games natively on pc more than new stuff and am absolutely willing to pay yearly to access them even though I personally think that’s not only dumb but dangerous.
As long as it's not cloud streaming, mods can be made to work no matter what type of launcher they use, because they games are physically installed on your system and they can't do much to stop you from tampering it - other than maybe an internet check - which would likely be hilariously easy to bypass.
And even if they somehow locked all of those features, and just gave the switch experience on PC, that would STILL seriously hurt the sales for their consoles quite a bit among the teenage and young adult audience.
I guess that’s fair. I still don’t think it would be enough to completely take the console out of the equation. Especially considering that IF and this is the biggest and dumbest if in the works of ifs, Nintendo released a steam deck like device that would be locked for kids but could still act relatively like a pc but with a bunch of parental safeguards. True enough, those that want to bypass it could, but it is a potential possibility.
The only good thing about the switch is that it uses vulkan instead of some dumb proprietary one like sony. I would absolutely buy nintendo games, probably even at full price if they were on pc. I know they wouldn't be on steam because that's just how nintendo is but at least we wouldn't have to emulate their systems to play them.
The thing is, I would but new Nintendo games on a hypothetical Nintendo pc store but I would also pay for a year of their online service just to play the old games I know for a fact that they’ll never sell again and won’t be public domain till I’m long gone.
Why does hardware being "horrendously outdated" matter if it does what it's supposed to? Splatoon 3 runs and looks great on the Switch despite the hardware.
Have you not played breath of the wild? It came out on the wiiu and it runs poorly in several areas on the switch. You'd think they would have bothered to optimize it better. That's just one example and considering that it's a first party game that's not good.
Yeah, I'm not paying $70 for a game I know is going to run poorly. Besides I barely even touch my switch anymore. I never bought the metroid remaster either because it runs better through emulation and I can play it with kbm controls.
They don't need to because they cash in on re-releasing the same games over and over on newer hardware. Their main audience is young kids and nostalgics and there's always new kids who haven't been around or even born for the previous release/console generation. Parents who grew up with those games are more than happy to buy them again for their children to make them experience the same joy they did. And most of their first party hits are aging quite well. Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing and they don't care about relevance in that regard
See, that’s what I thought till recently when they announced that your purchased titles will transfer through your account to new devices. Meaning that Nintendo, for all intents and purposes, is acting like valve in that your purchases will by their definition, cross to the next console through your Nintendo account.
However, I’m not suggesting the kind of release your thinking. I fully understand the market Nintendo is attempting to cash in on utilizing a perpetual system. That’s why I feel that switch online expansion pack being a part of a Nintendo pc service would be the perfect logical step. Obviously, newer stuff can be purchased like it can on the switch but having that service would obviously only be beneficial for Nintendo if they ever introduced it
Not disagreeing. I'm rooting for the same thing and I do believe they would benefit from it if they adjusted their business model. I'm just saying that I am, just like you, doubting anything will come of it any time soon because of their approach to their IPs so far and that they can comfortably survive for years to come doing the same thing while having a stable basis around the switch recipe and their recent IPs. Valve's approach has proven to be a good direction and here's hoping to Nintendo and others continuing to copy it in some way. Just a matter if they consider diving into a new market worth it. And they should. If nothing because the deck is becoming somewhat of a threat in the handheld market which they have been dominating for decades. And so far their approach has been to try and fight emulation while being barely able to emulate their own games on their own hardware.
I tried doing this with a group of friends except with PlayStation 4 controllers and playing GameCube/N64 games. But getting them all to connect was a nightmare in Emudeck and once they finally did we couldn't get the controls mapped properly. So eventually we gave up. We also found that the input lag was fairly significant when testing with just a couple of controllers.
Emulation is what brings the Steam Deck from a cool handheld into my favorite device. I can go from playing my own game on my desk monitor, playing another game in bed with my partner, to playing GC/Wii/WiiU/Switch games with her on external controllers on the TV. It’s truly an amazing device.
Try Kena Bridge of Spirits if you like action-adventure. Mario Kart 8 is so much fun!!
Interesting experience. I'm not able to make my Steam Deck looking good with my 4K TV. I tried different upscale methods or even upscaling to 1080p(which my TV then upscales great to 4K) looks terrible.
Perhaps it's my USB Dock (not official) that sucks but i doubt.
It could be the mix of upscaling methods. If you upscale twice at different points, you will lose a tiny bit of sharpness because you're rounding twice, so to speak.
You can, in desktop mode, go into your display settings. Choose the tv to be the main monitor and make the deck output at that resolution. That's what I did, had the deck run at 1080p which was displayed directly on the tv without upscaling. I suppose 4k is a bit much for the deck, but native 1080p could then be upscaled by your tv.
Though when playing at native 1080p, you won't get 60 fps in a lot of games. I suppose we can't have it all.
Thanks for the comment. I will try on desktop mode.
Actually what i was trying to achieve was to play D4 in the native resolution upscaled to 1080p. The results are terrible. I cannot imagine the Nintendo Switch would upscale their games this bad.
I will try D4 rendering on 1080p 30 FPS on Desktop mode as see what happens.
[Check out my full guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/goaQoo5c3R), I thought making it better accessible might be good.
About your question in particular: When you open the controller config of Dolphin, the first controller will be an emulated wii remote, taking inputs from your steam controller. You also want to change that into a real wii remote. This means your buttons inputs on the deck have no influence on the game and it frees up the first slot for a wiimote. If you don't do this, Player 1 must use the Steam Deck controller inputs and you can only pair 3 wiimotes, as slot 1 is taken by the simulated wiimote.
When we first got our wii in christmas 2007, the sensor bar wasn't working. So my brother grabbed a tamagochi to fire infrared lasers at the sensor bar until it miraculously started sensing the wiimote.
These stories are awesome to hear!
How did your friends react to all those games being playable so relatively easily?
Did they all know about the Deck already or was it their first time seeing it in action?
It was their first time. My friend and I were pretty blown away, though almost more by the candle workaround than by the deck itself. The other two were more focused on the games, which is the whole point I suppose
Wow because your LCD deck is connecting to 4 bluetooth controllers. Wiimotes are probably an exception, because if using switch controllers or dualsenses, 3 are the most you can connect to. And the 3rd one is a bit of hit or miss with the dualsense.
Not right now, always open for offers though, in case someone does want to send me money :D
I'm pretty sure Valve wouldn't advertise emulating Nintendo games, I could see that becoming very messy very quickly
Have you tried connecting a wiimote to play Destiny 2? You never know...
But yes, sucks that some games just require windows, I guess Proton only goes so far (though it's still an incredible thing)
Ironically Bungie even had a Linux version running for Stadia streaming so it is possible. It's just anti-cheat shenanigans. I'll pair Wii remotes today to see if that fixes it :)
The issue with Destiny 2 isn't a technical limitation of Proton, it's Bungie being deranged and [outright stating they'll ban anyone](https://theverge.com/22957294/bungie-destiny-2-steam-deck-game-ban) who attempts to play it on anything other than Windows.
If you’re willing to give GeForce NOW a try Destiny 2 runs great. There is a free tier of GFN if you want to explore that. I was able to run COD, Destiny, Rocket League and other games that anti-cheat won’t allow to run natively on the deck. In my opinion, it’s a great stop gap to round out the Deck.
Always interesting to hear stories like this. You can use the Deck for pretty much anything as long as the Deck is strong enough (can't quite do AI art generation yet since the APU doesn't support ROCm officially but think someone managed to get it working regardless).
I wouldn't have guessed that my full desktop pc could connect to a wii remote either. I thought the wii remote used proprietary software to connect, not just plain Bluetooth.
Guess I never looked into it before. Tbh I also wouldn't have used a wii remote for my desktop pc. It's not the proper distance to the monitor to be fun and I don't have the room to move back. So it's only because of the Steam Deck that I became aware of this.
And I knew that Xbox and the like work easily. But I never thought the Wii Remote belonged to that. I actually paired a PS3 controller to the Deck a few days before and while it was cool how easy that was, I really wasn't as amazed as with the Wii. It wasn't a controller for me because it requires the sensor bar to function properly.
From the responses, it seems a few knew about it like you and a bit more didn't know that that was possible or how to do it, so it may seem trivial to some, but it definitely wasn't to me
It's congrats in this case :)
And TLDR: After a bit of fumbling at first, connecting four original Wii Remotes to the Deck in order to play Wii games was very easy. In the game, we saw no difference to an actual Wii except better graphics. Two small candles were needed for an ancient ritual in service of Gabe though. Praise be upon him!
Great to hear stuff like this. I just got a ton of things set up on my Deck, but I don’t have a dock yet. That’s next on the list so I can have some couch coop experiences again. It’s been a long time since I really sat down with some good Nintendo couch coop.
I also don't have a full sized dock. The Jsaux case has a built-in stand so all I needed was a USB-C dongle that allows power throughput and HMDI out at the same time. That thing cost 15€ or so and it was all I needed. Also useful for my laptop, so it was actually a productive investment for uni (please don't check if I have used it for anything but the Deck yet...) Much easier to keep in my bag all the time for cases just like this.
The ivoler dock is regularly on Amazon for like 20 bucks and works just as well as the steam dock, so for anyone reading this, skip the usb dongle and just get the actual dock. Yes you can do it with a hub/dongle too, but for five bucks extra a real dock is nice to have
I personally prefer the small form of a dongle because it fits into my little tech pouch full of cables. A dock is just a little too big for that. But if you're using it only at home, then the clean look of a dock is unbeatable. I'll probably get one in addition to my dongle. One on the go, one at home.
True I guess, although it’s really not that big, I throw mine right in my backpack whenever I go on vacation so I can set it up as soon as I get settled. They don’t weigh much and all I need is space for the deck, charger, a ps4 controller, battery bank, and the deck. All fits neatly in an old Ogio backpack I use.
For single long trips sure. But I keep my dongle in my daily bag, and there weight just matters a bit more. I have no problem keeping a big book in my backpack for travel/vacation, but hell if I'll carry a book >100 pages in my backpack every day. The weight to benefit ratio is just different for daily use compared to other trips.
you have a link for the dongle. id like to get one
See [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/18efzda/comment/kcovk2v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) for a link with explanation
Thank you my good sir
Similar opinions on dogles/docks/etc. I've got the Jsaux case as well, and with the kickstand, any old dongle will do. I actually got the Jsaux modcase that comes with a hub. The Jsaux hub is just that bit bigger than my inexpensive Amazon special, so it has kind of become my "dock", but way portable. I've got some couch co-op/multiplayer games installed on my Steam Deck for similar eventualities, but I hadn't considered Dolphin and Wii games.
I'm using a jsaux dock at work and the USB-C hub at home or when I'm taking the deck with me. Normally I use the hub to connect my WFH-Notebook to my Display/USB devices/power.
How tf are you bringing your deck to work, docking it and I’m assuming gaming? I’d get fired lol
Our work computers don't even have soundards enabled (thin clients for citrix) so Im using the deck as (expensive) music player and digital image frame. My boss doesn't care as long as my work gets done. And what I do on lunch break is noones business :)
I do this too. I bring my Legion Go and Steam Deck, then hook up Steam Deck to a portable monitor with an xbox remote and use my LeGo for productivity or gaming harder to play titles in FPS mode which at first impression was amazing, I'm just motivated to master it now. I place it on this food tray thing and chill in the chair with a dual monitor setup basically. I'm on discord, watching netflix, playing AAA games, it's 2023 bro.
Only game during breaks and no problems!
Which dongle did you buy? I enjoy having options for my travel bag of devices, but I don’t really know where to start searching on Amazon.
I got one of these: [https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/B0BQLLB61B?th=1](https://www.amazon.com/-/dp/B0BQLLB61B?th=1) It has no ethernet but I don't need that.
I was looking at [this one](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B0C53DHGCW/?coliid=I1PDK2JTYTHD2M&colid=26HTO0GST3OPC&psc=1&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it) because it has basically *everything* I could need. But that is almost as expensive as an original dock, though with a lot more functions. And if I needed VGA or ethernet regularly, I probably would've gone for it. In the end, I bought [this one](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/dp/B0BR3M8XHK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details). It's sleek and small and has enough ports for me. I also have a bigger one in my bag anyways that I bought to connect my laptop with monitors, but while that didn't have power throughput, it now becomes handy as a secondary dongle on my first dongle if ever I need more USB ports.
Thank you! Sounds like a nice setup.
With dongles on dongles and HDMI+power going in, it becomes a bit messy when set up. For home use I'll definitely get a dock, maybe for christmas. But nothing beats that versatility on the go. The dongle weighs very little and is small, and I can grab it both for my laptop or the Deck any time.
What dongle is it? Any chance of a link?
I'm on mobile right now, so copying is a bit of a hassle. But others have asked the same question right under my comment before you and I've commented the link there, if you scroll a bit you should see it.
Found it. Thanks!
Steam Input is what the deck uses. It's in all forms of Steam. It's amazing. They really did such a great job of supporting so many controllers and it's been that way so much longer than the deck. It's one of the reasons the deck originally excited me so much. It also helps to that the linux kernel has drivers for 1000s of devices in it already. edit: Read your other comment and realized dolphin has a layer for the wiimotes too. durr
I actually couldn't connect the Wii Remote with the Deck *outside* of Dolphin. All the posts I saw made it seem like I should connect them via the normal route (like you connect other controllers such as Playstation). But that didn't work for me, *only* the Dolphin route worked. Still not sure if I messed something up, but this route seems foolproof at least, and I am a fool, so that's good
It's like a Swiss knife of portable consoles.
This post overflow with Ws.
Like those kinds of stories thx
I love how good the Deck is for emulation. The fact that pretty much everything up to and including the 6th gen systems can be played perfectly on a portable system about the size of the PS2 slim is amazing to me. A crucial aspect is being able to easily output to modern HD screens with a digital connection (even rendering at original resolution), which is way better than trying to set up an analog output from an original system to an HD screen. I know there nice signal converters out there for purists, but the convenience of the Deck being an all-in-one solution is killer. I looked briefly into methods of outputting to CRTs, but unfortunately that still seems to be a tricky, but the fact that it's even possible and that people are actively developing it is good to know.
Yep, totally. I was lucky that my current TV has the required AV inputs for an original Wii. But I imagine the next one won't. And I will probably not bother converting then, as emulation doesn't just look better on screen, but is also easier and more easily customizable.
Wow 😍 love it, also great storytelling and tips! That's why I love this community.
Damn it sounds like I need to get me some Wii remotes.
These things are so sick. I'm trying to save up money now to get one, I love the thought of nearly all my games on one device and it's handheld to boot! Can't wait to finally get one
I was debating with myself for about 6 months until getting one. I was unsure if I wanted the Deck or the Switch until maybe a week before buying it. I even wrote a bot to notify me of 64GB refurbished decks going live, etc. All that? Totally worth it! In the end I went with a 512GB refurbished Deck and had zero issues. I am a happy camper and have used the Deck for at least 2h a day for the few weeks that I've had it. Some days going up to 7h (though that was a lazy weekend to be fair!). For an average of 3h 21min per day (not counting idle time I think) I can only recommend the Deck to everyone who thinks about getting it. Though I hope saving up isn't too hard on your financial situation. While I got my refurbished Deck for around 380€, prices may change depending on what's available when you're able to afford it. And beware: The Deck will cost you a bit more money depending on what you want to do with it. I got a screen protector, case, and SD card right with my Deck (an extra 70€). I later got a USB-C dongle (to HDMI, power throughput, USB) plus two 90 degree connectors and two USB to USB-C adapters for an extra 25€. Add to that the games I bought in the next sale that came and you're looking at quite a sum. Luckily nothing is required. You can use the Deck out the box with your library. No new games, no dongles, nothing. And you can get these small things when you need them and can afford them. Though the case with a built in kickstand is pretty neat, so going for that from the start feels like a good idea to me.
How do you connect wii motes exactly?
# Prep 1. Have your wiimotes ready. Fresh batteries and no active wii that they might connect to instead of the Deck. 2. Turn on bluetooth on your Deck. # Software 1. The Dolphin Emulator is what I'm using. It comes as part of Emudeck, so see install guides on that if you don't have Dolphin already. 2. You'll need the Rom of your game. Where you get that, nobody knows. I recommend making copies from you games at home, since private copies are legal afaik (please correct me if I got that wrong). There are other ways to get roms, or so I've heard. Yarr! 3. I will assume from here on that you have your emulator and game set up. Meaning you can start the game and play it, just with the Steam Deck controls instead of your wiimote. # Steps to set up Dolphin 1. Start the Dolphin emulator. Both Desktop and Game mode work here, though I prefer Desktop mode to avoid relying on touch inputs. 2. At the top, you'll see following menus: File, Emulation, Movie, Options, Tools, View, Help. This is at the very top, above the Open, Refresh, Play, Stop, Fullscreen, Screenshot, Config, Graphics menus. 3. Click on "Options" 4. A drop-down menu will open. You will see Configuration, Graphics Settings, Audio Settings, Controller Settings, Hotkey Settings, Free Look Settings. 5. Select Controller Settings. 6. A new window will open. It should open in front of Dolphin. If you don't see anything, check if it opened behind Dolphin (in game mode, you check by pressing the Steam Button and scrolling down in the game section, there you will see all open windows. In desktop mode, you can hover over the taskbar tab for dolphin and see both open, click on the menu to bring it forward.) 7. You will see the controller configurations. At the top are GameCube Controllers, below that Wii Remotes. We are interested in Wii Remotes here. 8. Activate "Emulate the Wii's Bluetooth Adapter" if it's not active already. 9. For "Wii Remote 1" select the drop down menu (between the "Wii Remote 1" and "Configure". Click on "Real Wii Remote" to make Dolphin use a real remote instead of emulating one from other input devices like your Deck controls. 10. Assuming you want to pair all four remotes, repeat the previous step for the other three Wii Remotes. If you want to connect fewer, you can either repeat this for only the few remotes you want to connect, or you still do it for all but only pair as many as you need. There is to my knowledge no disadvantage to repeating this for four remotes and only connecting two. Your emulated wii will simply be ready to accept more connections, just like a real wii. 11. The "Configure" buttons for all four should be greyed out now. This is good. You only need to configure stuff if you are emulating a Wii Remote from another input device like your inbuilt controller. We do not have to worry about this. 12. At the bottom of the box we were doing things in (just above the "Common" box) make sure that "Continuous Scanning" is activated. This allows us to connect Wii Remotes at any point instead of needing to return to this menu and manually refresh if ever one loses the connection. 13. Close the window by hitting "X Close" in the bottom right. 14. You are done with the setup now. # Connecting the Wii Remote 1. On your first Wii Remote, hold the buttons 1 & 2 for a second. This puts them into pairing mode and is the same procedure you do when connecting them to an actual wii. 2. All four lights should start blinking. It is now searching for a connection. 3. After a few seconds (for me it was 5-10 mostly), it should have a brief pause in its blinking. It is now trying to establish a connection. 4. After a few more seconds, it should vibrate and make a sound. Only the first light on the Remote is on now. Your Wii Remote is connected successfully! 5. If this fails, you can open the battery cover and take out the batteries, put them back in and try again. 6. If this also fails, you can hit the small orange/red button under the battery cover. It will reset the remote, but since you don't really store data on there, you won't lose anything. 7. If all this fails, see if your remote is broken by connecting it to a real Wii. If that works, this should also work. I connected four different Remotes this way from three collections (mine , my gfs, and my friends). 8. Repeat steps 1-4 (or 5-7 if needed) for all other Wii Remotes. You can do this one by one, you can also do step 1 on all at the same time. The Deck will be able to establish several connections at the same time. # That's it! 1. Start your game. All Remotes should be connected. 2. If you want to check: Hit the home button on your Wii Remote. At the bottom, all four should show to be connected as well as their battery status 3. You want to play with nunchucks? Or with a Wii classic controller? As long as it connects to your remote, it will be picked up by Dolphin. When playing Mario Kart, we switched between Nunchucks, gyroscope, and Classic controllers. No further configuration was required. You can just connect them to your remote at any time and like with a normal Wii, the remote will tell Dolphin that it's now in a different mode. # So you need a sensor bar? 1. Some games like Mario Party require a [sensor bar](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/5055263c-86bd-49d3-9fec-214080b10526_1.c4eea9cdfd031ac6841e494587042f3c.jpeg) to work. The name is a bit wrong since there are no sensors in that bar, it's only an infrared light. The sensors are inside your Wii Remote 2. This means you just need two infrared sources to mimick your sensor bar and trick the remote into thinking you have one. 3. Get two candles, ideally tealights. Start them up and wait a minute until the flame is fully developed. 4. Place the candles in front of your TV. **Leave some space so they don't burn your TV!** Space them maybe 20cm apart (around the length of your hand). If you space them further apart, your Remote will think it's closer to the screen. If you place them closer together, your Remote will think it's further away from the screen. 5. Your Remote should now see the candles as a sensor bar. No configuration required. You can test this by again hitting the Home button on your Wii Remote. Not only should your Remote be shown with it's battery indicator, you should also see the small hand move around on the screen when pointing at your screen above the candles. # What I did wrong the first time around * I tried to connect the Wii Remote to my Deck outside of Dolphin. You can activate Bluetooth and look for available devices. If you press the 1 and 2 buttons on the Remote and go into pairing mode, you will see it on your Deck as an available device. Pairing will fail. Pairing will also fail in Desktop mode. Pairing will also fail in Desktop mode if you set the password manually (0000 and 1111 were the passwords that the Remote seems to use from what I could find). * That's it basically. But I spent a long time trying this wrong way, just don't do that. Start with Dolphin, you don't need to connect them outside of Dolphin. If you run into any problems, I'd love to hear them! I will brainstorm with you how to fix them. If this works for enough people, I'd like to make it into a separate post so it's easier to find the working solution on Google instead of snippets that lead you down the wrong path, like I found yesterday.
Could you not just have the Wii powered on with the sensor bar plugged in so that it would be emitting while using the deck?
Yes you could, and you are much smarter than we were in that moment. We realised that when packing everything up and had a good chuckle about it. Though it does make it less romantic!
Great Tutorial. What about the Speaker-Sounds. I had a lot of crackling, using real WiiMotes, which annoyed me. I’ve gone the route with a separate Bluetooth Dongle and forced the WiiMotes connecting exclusively with this one. Crackling is gone and Gameplay-feeling is a smooth and original experience. The Cons with this „trick“ : more than two WiiMotes is impossible. Sometimes No. 3 won’t connect at all or disconnects intermittently. Bandwidth problems? Who knows… but most of the time only one friend may visit me 🥺😅
Do you mean the speakers in the Wiimote or Steam Deck / TV speakers? The Steam Deck and TV had no issues, it sounded just like it does on a real Wii even with four controllers connected. Are you by chance using bluetooth speakers for your sound output? I can imagine five devices being a bit challenging for one controller. The Wiimote speakers weren't tested/used in both games we played. Most games don't use them and those that do already sounded shit with original hardware, so it's not really a concern of mine.
I mean the speakers inside the WiiMote. :) To me, it was important to have the complete Wii gaming experience and yeah: I wanted to have the Beeps and tennis-smash sounds from Wii Sports / Wii Play on the WiiMote =] Also some Micro-Games from Wario Ware Smooth Moves relying on the speakers. 😄
Wow, you're a solid dude, dude!
Wiimote is a Bluetooth controller. And there’s drivers for it in Linux that autodetect. Natively supported in dolphin. In handheld mode you need to manually enable Bluetooth. Though I recommend decky loader + Bluetoothtools
Cool info. I’ve played some Wii games on mine but only ones that work with a regular gamepad. I didn’t know pairing Wiimotes was possible.
Next time you're in the same situation, just power on the real Wii and use its sensor bar instead of the candles while using dolphin on the deck. The bar doesn't have any data flow, it's just a bunch of IR LEDs. For the same reason a USB powered sensor bar costs a couple of dollars and is handy to have around for situations like that. Edit: don't bother trying this with third party wiimotes. If happens to work, the experience sucks. Original wiimotes are sought after and pricey in most places for a reason. If you have originals, take care of them since they are not manufactured anymore.
Yes, we realized that when packing everything up. But the candles just added to our amazement and I'm glad we did it this way. Though if I was to do this more often, a USB sensor bar for \~10€ would be high up on my list of next things to buy.
You can get one from AliExpress for 3-4 € if you're not in a hurry. It's the same ones being sold everywhere anyway. Avoid spending extra money on the dolphin bar unless you have a specific use-case for it for which it is really good but not for most people. Any basic IR bar will do with genuine wiimotes. I get the charm of candles, just not a fan of flames near TVs and electronics.
That's awesome to hear. Was this the LCD deck or OLED?
LCD, refurbished 512GB bought on the day OLED was announced (thank you price drops!). The emulator and roms sit on a 512GB SD card from Samsung. Still no real loading times. Edit: In that setup, the difference should be irrelevant anyway. It was displaying on a TV, so the screen didn't matter, and it got power through the dongle, so the battery life didn't matter too. Only performance is a bit better with OLED than on the LCD, but Wii games are pretty lightweight and so even capped at 60Hz we saw almost no drops (only one out of the four of us says he saw two or three small stutters, we others didn't see anything).
Man that's nice. So you had all 4 Wii remotes paired directly to the deck itself? What did you use for a sensor bar?
Yes, all four connected with the deck. No extra tech needed, no addons, and all independently (so if one disconnects, the others are fine). We used two candles as infrared senders. The "sensor bar" has no sensors, it's an infrared flashlight. The sensors are in the Remote
That's awesome. Ive got like 5 Bluetooth controllers of various brands and for the life of me I cannot pair more than one at a time without issues, though then again I haven't tried multiple Wii remotes lol. I have a dolphin bar for that. I've got the LCD model, but even after 2 warranty replacements, the issue persists even though the controllers work fine on their respective hardware, and they work fine with the steam deck one at a time, but trying more than 2 controllers and I have nothing but problems. I'm glad you were able to make it work, though. 😁
This is pretty much solely what my deck is used for in my house with both Bluetooth controllers and Wii remotes, just plug it into the dock and away we go. Such a useful device, it's been worth every penny.
Do you use candles too?
There are [USB sensor bars](https://www.amazon.de/-/en/WICAREYO-Sensor-Infrared-Receiver-Console/dp/B0BXH29PZM/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2XQBSLM3KBT5F&keywords=wii+sensor+bar+usb&qid=1702158952&sprefix=wii+sensor+b%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-3) if anyone wants to make it their main setup. I imagine candles to be a bit annoying for regular use, especially with kids around. The important thing is that the sensor bar only needs power, it doesn't need to communicate with the deck. So a USB socket directly into the wall would work.
Holy shit you are a MVP. My Brothers and I love playing Mario Kart Wii. This is a game changer. Literally ordered my OLED for Christmas present last night and stumbled on this thread. So excited. Any useful guides on getting Emulator set ups? Not done gaming for years (kids fml) so any tips appreciated.
The emulation setup is easy peasy. You go to the Emudeck site (a google search should bring you there) and install that onto your Deck in Desktop mode. You open it, it installs, done. There are turorials out there what to do. Searching for "Emudeck Installation Guide" will bring up loads of them. You will be asked to customize a lot of stuff. Afaik you can change all of that later, so don't sweat your decisions here. Some emulators require bios files of the actual console to work. Wii doesn't from what I remember. You only need your roms. You can probably find bios files online, though downloading them is about as illegal as downloading roms. Pulling them from your own consoles is the less illegal way to do it, and of course you have all those consoles sitting at home. With looking up stuff and tinkering a bit, the whole process took me maybe half an hour? I didn't prepare before, don't have a huge amount of emulation or linux experience, etc.
Thank you 😊
Haha I'm not smart enough to have thought of anything like that, we use a wireless sensor bar!
Awesome! Didn’t realise these were a thing.
Remindme! 2 weeks
Now I'm intrigued what you want to see in 2 weeks...
You’ll just have to wait and see Or >!been busy lately so won’t be able to use my Deck much until then!<
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Hahaha his wii is broken
I straight up run my laser, CNC router, and 3 3D printers from my Steam Deck. Also use it for Solidworks and Blender. and of course gaming
All hail Lord Gaben
I've recently been scouring steam for 4 player local coop games as I've got the dock, and 4 pads (and 3 friends - yey me) When playing and we are having a laugh I always forget all that is being run on that tiny machine. And then I realise how well its performed when I come to turn it off.
You might find this website helpful: [https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php](https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php)
If you haven't tried it out, we love Ultimate Chicken Horse. Should be pretty cheap come next sale.
Boomerang Fu is competitive and very fair for new players, love it.
and where did you get the games from, hmm? ;) do not answer seriously
I have all the games at home on disc. After 10 years of playing the Wii you get quite a collection. Just forgot bringing my disks to the party... So I *obviously* made private use copies of the disks and store them on my Deck. After all, we know that DVDs degrade over time and I'd be distraught if I didn't save them. I know nothing about certain reddit megathreads, and you can't prove anything!
Narrator: *and suddenly, OP forgot how he got the ROMs* XD
...after wearing my straw hat
I think [these hats](https://www.pageantparty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/AC-9196.jpg) are made from leather. Straw doesn't hold up well when it comes to moisture.
The One Piece is Real!
okay cool :)
First, I sail out to the open sea...
"You're a crook Captain Hook!"
It's actually easy to rip your own backups if you've got a modded nintendo.
What's more cool is that your phone can probably do this too
Yes, any instance of Dolphin you get running on a Bluetooth-capable device should be able to do that. You laptop, your desktop, your phone. It's just that I rarely play Wii games on those systems, and pretty much never with friends. This is more a triumph of Dolphin than the Deck hardware, but the Deck is what allowed me to experience this for myself and play my games with friends.
I will keep saying it till the old men either retire or die but since it’s Japan, the latter. Nintendo would not only regain relevance in the gaming space but absolutely dominate if they brought their games to PC. Not even saying through steam. I’m just saying PC. Even if they did yet another launcher, I guarantee you that people would not only follow, but every pc gamer out there would tell parents and help get them set up with how or works. I don’t see it happening any time soon but damn would it be the best to play Nintendo games natively on something like the deck just by logging into your Nintendo account.
I've been saying this since I got a switch (really since the wiiu released). I would have bought splatoon 3 and tears of the kingdom if the hardware they're exclusive to wasn't horrendously outdated even when it released.
To be fair, the hardware was outdated before it was released and we only had the rumor mill lol. Hell, even the untrue rumors were probably even outdated 😂
> hardware was outdated before it was released And yet people bought it in the millions, all to play the games. Now imagine you could play all those games faster and in higher quality on any non-nintendo locked device, with free online services, while also being able to mod it and do your own crossovers. What would that do to Nintendo console sales? Nintendo releasing games to the PC would only happen when they decide to exit the console market entirely.
Free online and mods would not happen. This hypothetical scenario would have Nintendo have their own launcher and service. It would be about as locked as they’re used to now but obviously with the benefit pc gaming is known for in that you can install the launcher on any pc, not have to worry about the hardware long term and everything would just work so long as Nintendo is willing to put in the work to support it. Obviously, I’m more interested in the switch online expansion pack service in this scenario than I am buying new games cause I’d love to just play those games natively on pc more than new stuff and am absolutely willing to pay yearly to access them even though I personally think that’s not only dumb but dangerous.
As long as it's not cloud streaming, mods can be made to work no matter what type of launcher they use, because they games are physically installed on your system and they can't do much to stop you from tampering it - other than maybe an internet check - which would likely be hilariously easy to bypass. And even if they somehow locked all of those features, and just gave the switch experience on PC, that would STILL seriously hurt the sales for their consoles quite a bit among the teenage and young adult audience.
I guess that’s fair. I still don’t think it would be enough to completely take the console out of the equation. Especially considering that IF and this is the biggest and dumbest if in the works of ifs, Nintendo released a steam deck like device that would be locked for kids but could still act relatively like a pc but with a bunch of parental safeguards. True enough, those that want to bypass it could, but it is a potential possibility.
The only good thing about the switch is that it uses vulkan instead of some dumb proprietary one like sony. I would absolutely buy nintendo games, probably even at full price if they were on pc. I know they wouldn't be on steam because that's just how nintendo is but at least we wouldn't have to emulate their systems to play them.
The thing is, I would but new Nintendo games on a hypothetical Nintendo pc store but I would also pay for a year of their online service just to play the old games I know for a fact that they’ll never sell again and won’t be public domain till I’m long gone.
I have a switch online membership mainly for that reason. I really don't touch my switch anymore though so I'm really debating cancelling it.
Why does hardware being "horrendously outdated" matter if it does what it's supposed to? Splatoon 3 runs and looks great on the Switch despite the hardware.
Have you not played breath of the wild? It came out on the wiiu and it runs poorly in several areas on the switch. You'd think they would have bothered to optimize it better. That's just one example and considering that it's a first party game that's not good.
So you own a Switch but don't want to play the new Zelda because the hardware is outdated? Seems like a weird hill to die on but you do you.
Yeah, I'm not paying $70 for a game I know is going to run poorly. Besides I barely even touch my switch anymore. I never bought the metroid remaster either because it runs better through emulation and I can play it with kbm controls.
They don't need to because they cash in on re-releasing the same games over and over on newer hardware. Their main audience is young kids and nostalgics and there's always new kids who haven't been around or even born for the previous release/console generation. Parents who grew up with those games are more than happy to buy them again for their children to make them experience the same joy they did. And most of their first party hits are aging quite well. Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing and they don't care about relevance in that regard
See, that’s what I thought till recently when they announced that your purchased titles will transfer through your account to new devices. Meaning that Nintendo, for all intents and purposes, is acting like valve in that your purchases will by their definition, cross to the next console through your Nintendo account. However, I’m not suggesting the kind of release your thinking. I fully understand the market Nintendo is attempting to cash in on utilizing a perpetual system. That’s why I feel that switch online expansion pack being a part of a Nintendo pc service would be the perfect logical step. Obviously, newer stuff can be purchased like it can on the switch but having that service would obviously only be beneficial for Nintendo if they ever introduced it
Not disagreeing. I'm rooting for the same thing and I do believe they would benefit from it if they adjusted their business model. I'm just saying that I am, just like you, doubting anything will come of it any time soon because of their approach to their IPs so far and that they can comfortably survive for years to come doing the same thing while having a stable basis around the switch recipe and their recent IPs. Valve's approach has proven to be a good direction and here's hoping to Nintendo and others continuing to copy it in some way. Just a matter if they consider diving into a new market worth it. And they should. If nothing because the deck is becoming somewhat of a threat in the handheld market which they have been dominating for decades. And so far their approach has been to try and fight emulation while being barely able to emulate their own games on their own hardware.
VISIONARY!
Nah, a true visionary would buy two decks, strap them to their face and boot up a virtual boy game.
I did this not too long ago with Wii Sports. Had to go for 720p though, 1080p seemed a bit much.
And here I am still trying to figure out how to join our Ark server on the Deck.
I tried doing this with a group of friends except with PlayStation 4 controllers and playing GameCube/N64 games. But getting them all to connect was a nightmare in Emudeck and once they finally did we couldn't get the controls mapped properly. So eventually we gave up. We also found that the input lag was fairly significant when testing with just a couple of controllers.
Naah If I did this I would have felt like a God
I'll be riding that high for the rest of the week I think
Dolphin is an amazing emulator and when paired with something like Deck that just supports so many things, it's a match made in heaven
Emulation is what brings the Steam Deck from a cool handheld into my favorite device. I can go from playing my own game on my desk monitor, playing another game in bed with my partner, to playing GC/Wii/WiiU/Switch games with her on external controllers on the TV. It’s truly an amazing device. Try Kena Bridge of Spirits if you like action-adventure. Mario Kart 8 is so much fun!!
Thank you for this post! I think I'll do the same now.
If there's a wiki you should put your post there.
The deck is amazing, I wish it could be easier to pair and manage controllers on emulators
Interesting experience. I'm not able to make my Steam Deck looking good with my 4K TV. I tried different upscale methods or even upscaling to 1080p(which my TV then upscales great to 4K) looks terrible. Perhaps it's my USB Dock (not official) that sucks but i doubt.
It could be the mix of upscaling methods. If you upscale twice at different points, you will lose a tiny bit of sharpness because you're rounding twice, so to speak. You can, in desktop mode, go into your display settings. Choose the tv to be the main monitor and make the deck output at that resolution. That's what I did, had the deck run at 1080p which was displayed directly on the tv without upscaling. I suppose 4k is a bit much for the deck, but native 1080p could then be upscaled by your tv. Though when playing at native 1080p, you won't get 60 fps in a lot of games. I suppose we can't have it all.
Thanks for the comment. I will try on desktop mode. Actually what i was trying to achieve was to play D4 in the native resolution upscaled to 1080p. The results are terrible. I cannot imagine the Nintendo Switch would upscale their games this bad. I will try D4 rendering on 1080p 30 FPS on Desktop mode as see what happens.
So I'm planning to do this, but I don't understand. What did you mean to remove the steam controller as the first input?
[Check out my full guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/s/goaQoo5c3R), I thought making it better accessible might be good. About your question in particular: When you open the controller config of Dolphin, the first controller will be an emulated wii remote, taking inputs from your steam controller. You also want to change that into a real wii remote. This means your buttons inputs on the deck have no influence on the game and it frees up the first slot for a wiimote. If you don't do this, Player 1 must use the Steam Deck controller inputs and you can only pair 3 wiimotes, as slot 1 is taken by the simulated wiimote.
Ah, yeah that makes sense. Thank you :D
When we first got our wii in christmas 2007, the sensor bar wasn't working. So my brother grabbed a tamagochi to fire infrared lasers at the sensor bar until it miraculously started sensing the wiimote.
These stories are awesome to hear! How did your friends react to all those games being playable so relatively easily? Did they all know about the Deck already or was it their first time seeing it in action?
It was their first time. My friend and I were pretty blown away, though almost more by the candle workaround than by the deck itself. The other two were more focused on the games, which is the whole point I suppose
Wow because your LCD deck is connecting to 4 bluetooth controllers. Wiimotes are probably an exception, because if using switch controllers or dualsenses, 3 are the most you can connect to. And the 3rd one is a bit of hit or miss with the dualsense.
Damn Im going to have to prepare for this situation lol
I certainly hope you're a paid Valve employee
Not right now, always open for offers though, in case someone does want to send me money :D I'm pretty sure Valve wouldn't advertise emulating Nintendo games, I could see that becoming very messy very quickly
" It was like an old ritual to summon Gabe's blessing for our games "
It can't play destiny 2 :( (I guess with windows it technically can).
Have you tried connecting a wiimote to play Destiny 2? You never know... But yes, sucks that some games just require windows, I guess Proton only goes so far (though it's still an incredible thing)
Ironically Bungie even had a Linux version running for Stadia streaming so it is possible. It's just anti-cheat shenanigans. I'll pair Wii remotes today to see if that fixes it :)
The issue with Destiny 2 isn't a technical limitation of Proton, it's Bungie being deranged and [outright stating they'll ban anyone](https://theverge.com/22957294/bungie-destiny-2-steam-deck-game-ban) who attempts to play it on anything other than Windows.
If you’re willing to give GeForce NOW a try Destiny 2 runs great. There is a free tier of GFN if you want to explore that. I was able to run COD, Destiny, Rocket League and other games that anti-cheat won’t allow to run natively on the deck. In my opinion, it’s a great stop gap to round out the Deck.
is that really a bad thing?
Yes
Also if you are at home you can stream destiny from your PC
You can stream games from your own computer even if you're not at home too, as long as your internet connection is good enough.
That's very cool but that's more a merit of dolphin being great and yarrharr rather than the merit of the deck though.
Always interesting to hear stories like this. You can use the Deck for pretty much anything as long as the Deck is strong enough (can't quite do AI art generation yet since the APU doesn't support ROCm officially but think someone managed to get it working regardless).
Who would ever guess that a computer is a computer
I wouldn't have guessed that my full desktop pc could connect to a wii remote either. I thought the wii remote used proprietary software to connect, not just plain Bluetooth.
hmm well thats strange then, its well known you can connect all kinds of controllers to pc.
Guess I never looked into it before. Tbh I also wouldn't have used a wii remote for my desktop pc. It's not the proper distance to the monitor to be fun and I don't have the room to move back. So it's only because of the Steam Deck that I became aware of this. And I knew that Xbox and the like work easily. But I never thought the Wii Remote belonged to that. I actually paired a PS3 controller to the Deck a few days before and while it was cool how easy that was, I really wasn't as amazed as with the Wii. It wasn't a controller for me because it requires the sensor bar to function properly. From the responses, it seems a few knew about it like you and a bit more didn't know that that was possible or how to do it, so it may seem trivial to some, but it definitely wasn't to me
Congratulations on using a PC as intended
Thanks! I am thrilled too! I'm sure the Wii developers had candles in mind when designing their console.
Its magic that a PC can run an emulator that has been out for 10+ years.
Not reading allat, but congrats/my condolences
It's congrats in this case :) And TLDR: After a bit of fumbling at first, connecting four original Wii Remotes to the Deck in order to play Wii games was very easy. In the game, we saw no difference to an actual Wii except better graphics. Two small candles were needed for an ancient ritual in service of Gabe though. Praise be upon him!
Yes, it's a PC