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ES-DE, or EmulationStation-DE, got a new update a couple of days ago that added in some nice new features and much better support for new emulators. The graphical frontend is a program that implements a UI to navigate all of your installed emulators and ROMs/games all in one very appealing place. ES-DE is my favorite of all of them, and can be used on any computer whether it be Windows, Mac, Linux, and of course, the Steam Deck.

ES-DE

The new update adds three new emulators that can be used on the Steam Deck, with a bunch more for Android and Windows. On the Deck, we have support for Mandarine (3DS), DREAMM (DOS/Scummvm), and Kronos (Sega Saturn). We also have support for the AppImage release of melonDS, which is wonderful to see. We also have some updates to SDL, fullscreen mode for melonDS, a decreased memory footprint, and translations for 4 new languages: Catalan, Dutch, German, and Korean.

There are some other minor updates and additions that can be seen on the Steam Deck, like the new Nanum Square Neo Korean font, but the bulk of the rest are primarily for Android and Windows. Windows has three new alternative emulators for Neogeo, Saturn, and bbcmicro, while Android has experimental support for running in multi-window mode, support for SWF Player for flash games, and experimental support for the Wii U system.

You can check out the full changelog on the ES-DE Gitlab page.

EmulationStationDECoinopsTheme

ES-DE can be downloaded individually from their website or you can get it in your installation of EmuDeck or RetroDECK. I highly recommend using this frontend, especially if you want a gorgeous looking UI for all of your ROMs.

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Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
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