The Switch can be a hard one to say. If you get the last release (the ‘Early Access’) of Yuzu, and you use the GreemDev build of Ryujinx he maintains now (he was a Dev of Ryujinx proper, before it closed shop) - then you’ll be totally fine.
Even tricky games such as ToTK have dedicated mod packs [like this one known as the optimizer (which is amazing at making ToTK play really well!)] which greatly improve performance, heck I even wrote my own mods to make it play well.
I had a vast Switch collection before my Steam Deck, which I then sold because I emulated it all on the Deck so well.
Then you’ll find titles like BoTW which play far, far better through Cemu. Cemu emulates Wii U games, and Breath of The Wild on the Steam Deck is perfection - high FPS, higher resultion, mods, you can even tweak how much or how little cell shading you have, or fog on the landscape. It is the single best way to play BoTW.
In the end, I’d recommend a Steam Deck. You get:
- your Steam library
- GOG, Epic and Amazon titles through Heroic or Junk Store
- emulating every system through RetroDECK, with fun things like Retro Achievements, mods, texture packs etc
My biggest two issues I’ve found on specific Switch games has been Tears, which doesn’t run perfectly (but is playable) and Metroid Prime Remaster (there is a literally fraction split-second load time at each door)
I’d recommend the Steam Deck, because it can do so much more. If you have specific questions, you can reach me on Matrix if you’d like!
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 1 year ago
Heavy emulator user here, the Deck made my Switch obsolete but I did play Tears of the Kingdom on my PC so I can run it at 60fps. On the Deck, ToTK can struggle to reach even 30 in many areas without community modpacks. Smaller titles like the latest Zelda and Metroid run flawless.
However, the Deck can also run every other console up until Switch/PS3/Xbox 360 as well as my full Steam and GOG library and it has a full desktop on it.
If you don’t mind the tinkering to get the emulators configured, the Deck is a no-brainer for me.
If you want to save some money, you can also get the smaller Steam Deck. It is trivially easy to swap the SSD if you later decide you need more storage.
ModernRisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Oh wow, that the Steam Deck had such an effect on the usage of the switch.
I don’t really mind tinkering with it, already know my ways with emulation on PC. However, I have no knowledge on Linux and that’s what worries me a bit.
So the Steam Deck can run the PS2 emulation and play these games (just as the PC can?).
Most of the games of the Switch I’d like to play are the Mario games. I can name them all if necessary but will do it later (at the moment at work).
Can the Steam Deck run Breath of the Wild without issue?
domi@lemmy.secnd.me 1 year ago
If you know your way around PC emulation, you’re not going to have any problems. EmuDeck takes care of installing all emulators. You only have to manually add your key files, firmware, BIOS, etc. It works just like on Windows and the KDE desktop is in many ways identical to Windows.
www.emudeck.com
You might also want to check out KDE Connect. It is pre-installed on the Deck and can pair with your PC for remote input, file sharing, etc.: kdeconnect.kde.org
Yes, the Deck is an emulation beast. Finished Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Ico, Wind Waker HD and Echoes of Wisdom entirely on the Deck.
The less demanding games like the Mario Party games and Mario Kart run with no issues in all emulators.
For more demanding games like Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey, you might want to grab the last yuzu EA AppImage that released. You can find it quite easily by searching but you can also DM me if you need it.
For reference, the last release was version 4176 with an MD5 checksum of 9f20b0e6bacd2eb9723637d078d463eb.
There are 3 ways to play Breath of the Wild on the Deck:
I spent dozens of hours in Breath of the Wild on the Deck in yuzu to collect a few Koroks when I’m bored. Since I dumped my savegames from my switch, I just started where I left it on my Switch.
Ryujinx unfortunately struggles running Breath of the Wild, it runs the most demanding areas at about 20 fps. Which is on par with how the Switch natively runs the game but yuzu can reach 30 fps easily in those areas. Ryujinx also has quite severe shader stuttering when first entering an area, which yuzu does not have.
Cemu runs the game flawlessly, but it is the Wii U version. Doesn’t make much difference which version you play on PC since you can mod either to look good. I just played on yuzu because my savegame was from my Switch.