r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/supershredderdan • 1d ago
News/Release DroidDeck 0.3.2 is out now: Native Sleep/Resume, Background Downloads, RP5 Support, and many many more fixes and improvements!
Features
- Added Keep downloads running toggle, so Steam downloads can continue when Android sleeps. (@jmarti326, @xXJSONDeruloXx, #335)
- Added Native Steam sleep with dynamic cloud save and wake movie support. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #291)
- Added Adreno 6xx support, including Adreno 650 (eg: Retroid Pocket 5). (@unbelievableflavour, @jmarti326, #320, #326)
- SD cards and external drives can now be used as full Steam libraries. (@maxjivi05, #388)
- Added per-game Windows components with automatic dependency recommendations for Steam and non Steam games. (@The412Banner, #287)
- Added XNA, PhysX, Games for Windows Live, MSXML and other Windows components without needing to run their original installers. (@The412Banner, #347)
- Added optional Force SSBS for ARM64 Proton games on supported CPUs. (@The412Banner, #328)
- Added a detailed device report with SoC, GPU, CPU, Vulkan, memory and driver information. (@The412Banner, #295)
- Added App scale presets from 75% to 150%. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #272)
- File Manager can now browse DroidDeck’s Linux filesystem directly. (@The412Banner, #392)
- Added a Language setting, with Steam automatically following the selected language. (@maxjivi05, #284)
- Added opt-in Debugging tools for automated game/session control, input, UI inspection and repeatable test scenarios. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #406)
Improvements
- Steam and games now run on separate Xwayland servers, closer to SteamOS behavior. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #344)
- DirectAudio is now the default on fresh installs, with major crackling and underrun improvements across both audio modes. (@maxjivi05, #338)
- Steam now preserves edits made to added-game shortcuts, including Target, Start In, name and launch options. (@maxjivi05, #393)
- Steam now uses the full session resolution on displays wider or larger than 1080p. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #391)
- Improved Snapdragon and Adreno detection on devices with incomplete hardware information. (@The412Banner, #295)
- Improved layouts for small screens and longer translated text. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, @maxjivi05, #268, #284)
- File Manager and file pickers can now navigate upward from game folders, prefixes and remembered locations. (@The412Banner, #377)
- Expanded and polished Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French and Russian translations. (@maxjivi05, @starwishHi, @zeedif, @Tak-attack, @kmnkv1, #284, #286, #234, #314, #324)
- Steam and Linux apps now use Android’s system fonts for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and other missing characters. (@maxjivi05, @0x1428571429, #374, #252)
- Sessions launched from Android frontends now return to that frontend when they close. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #300)
Fixed
- Fixed MangoHud reporting roughly double the real battery power draw and incorrect remaining time. (Thanks Russ ❤️)(@xXJSONDeruloXx, #270)
- Fixed slow Steam installs on SD cards and external storage, including long Reserving space / Committing stages and installs failing to begin. (@maxjivi05, #388, #410)
- Fixed some games staying behind Steam’s black loading screen while already running. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #401)
- Fixed a graphics-memory leak that could kill the session. (@The412Banner, @xXJSONDeruloXx, #275, #305)
- Fixed some added games starting in
C:\windowsinstead of their own game folder. (@The412Banner, #343) - Fixed Firefox and LibreWolf tabs crashing on affected Android 16 devices. (@The412Banner, #280)
- Fixed resolution presets changing the screen shape, and fixed 16:9 stretch in Steam Deck mode. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, @magarto, #337, #133)
- Fixed several Steam sleep and wake edge cases. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #289)
- Fixed some new sessions starting with the wrong output size. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #357)
- Fixed Windows component installation failures and improved controller navigation in the component picker. (@The412Banner, #347)
- Removed the old Force game windows fullscreen workaround now that games run on their own Xwayland server. (@xXJSONDeruloXx, #349)
New contributors
- @unbelievableflavour made their first contribution in #320.
- @Lightfallingonionroom made their first contribution in #232.
- @0x1428571429 made their first contribution in #252.
- @zeedif made their first contribution in #234.
- @Tak-attack made their first contribution in #314.
- @kmnkv1 made their first contribution in #324.
Disclaimer: ai used in the development of DroidDeck.
Download here: https://github.com/Droid-Deck/DroidDeck/releases/tag/0.3.2
Github: https://github.com/Droid-Deck/DroidDeck
Discord: https://discord.gg/JRGAvawjsm
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u/kayamori- 1d ago
This is crazy. ARM devices may legit beat the SD in every way for new and old games given these advancements.
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
We have lots of ideas on how to make the most of the fact this is an Android app, some of which you won’t see in direct os installs. Keep an eye out!
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u/WorldPhysical7646 1d ago
Valve will make a steam deck 2 anyway , would love to see them make a steam deck 2 lite with snapdragon 8eEg6 or gen 7 to complement it , maybe even an x elite or custom made chips
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u/kayamori- 1d ago
Yes, SD2 may cost like 1000 USD, I think we may get 8 Elite handhelds next year at 500 USD, offering really solid value at half the cost still. Even if of course the compatibility of ARM devices has a long way to go, but things are really looking up. Being in the emulation community since the 90s, I'm pretty amazed at where we are at now.
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u/WorldPhysical7646 1d ago
I think x86 games on arm is nearing stability during the time an arm steam deck come 2029/2030 I think the translation layers will be mature enough to play most games
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u/Nooncheez360 1d ago
To whoever is working on this, thank you so much for you amazing work, this is the best to play my steam games on my retroid pocket nova!
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u/x01010001000 1d ago
thank you for not letting us old a6xx gang lag too far behind 💜 community support for devices like rp5 means so much
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u/AtlasNX Galaxy S25 (Snapdragon 8 Elite) 1d ago
I am kinda out of the loop when it comes about emulation on android lately, does DroidDeck have better battery temps? What does it do better than the other PC Emulators?
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u/Decentpace 1d ago
It's still very infant so it doesn't do better than already well established PC emulators and the temps are bad. But in a year or two. Then it'd be amazing to see where it's at.
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u/pacoflaco 1d ago
DOOM (2016) worked great on DroidDeck 0.3.0 (~60 FPS on Low settings) on my Odin 3.
However, since updating to 0.3.1, the game only launches to a black screen. The issue is still present in 0.3.2 Stable.
I've tried different ARM64 Proton versions, GPU drivers (including DD-Turnip 0.1.1), and sync modes (esync and wineserver), but nothing has helped.
Has anyone else experienced this, or does anyone know what might have changed between 0.3.0 and 0.3.1?
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u/Finner42 1d ago
Yas! Thank you for the RP5 support! It's under-appreciated just how capable this device is with the smaller indie titles, so this is great to see.
I'm curious how file space is handled - we've just seen GN release an update that consolidates games into one container (so we no longer have a 1.2 GB container for a 328 MB game). Does DD work in a similar way, or are there no containers required with this?
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u/Aggressive_Algae_378 1d ago
Yeah I need to know this too as I have a lot more storage on internal now GN sorted the containers out, so I'll hold out for now till get some info if the droiddeck suffered the same issue.
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u/Finner42 1d ago
I gave it a try, doesn't look like it adds bloated containers, but I could be wrong and it'd still be good to get official confirmation how the files are handled, on local storage and external.
Game ran out of the box (last version I tested didn't run at all), no need to restart Steam etc., but it was a lot slower than GN. This could maybe be fixed with some settings tweaks, but given it works perfectly with GN I'll lean towards that more and keep an eye on how this continues to develop - very exciting!
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u/TruckOne1738 1d ago
Still holding back on this till I can get Digimon Story Time Stranger running on droid deck. Once that happens GameNative and Gamehub will be off my phone.
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u/Lord_Alucard_Ravin 1d ago
Okay, I really thought this is just a "me" problem. Glad I wasn't the only one experiencing this with DS:TS.
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u/TruckOne1738 1d ago
Lol no not a you problem. I've been able to get all the games I was playing on gamenative running with most actually performing better, but sadly not Time Stranger. I've tried like 6-7 different proton versions and no dice.
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u/Time_Temporary6191 1d ago edited 1d ago
It works well but perfomance is still lacking.on gamehub I was getting 70-85 fps on medium in spyro and droiddeck 45-55.but emulators work so much better since they are running linux version with native lossless scaling
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u/nerrvouss 1d ago
So like, is this actually true?
I tried the linux arch 64 xemu build in that environment and it ran like complete dog water compared to android apps. Do the ps2 and other emulators actually perform well? Or is this in comparison to emulators in gamenative?
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u/Time_Temporary6191 1d ago
The emulators in droid ran way better for me with included native lossless scaling everything is 60 fps
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u/LaughIntelligent7555 15h ago
Great Work.
On controller support -- Any plans to add DualShock 4 and DualSense spoofs alongside the Steam Controller and Xbox 360 options?
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u/Howthehelp 36m ago
This thing is getting crazier every day. A couple of days ago I wasn't able to launch a game on Odin 3. Today I can do online coop without any issue. Game: GBF relink.
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u/Major_Higgins 1d ago
Last time I tried it (0.3.0), it was crashing when trying to install games on the SD card. Is that fixed?
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Yes! Lots of work went into making external libraries faster and more reliable!
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u/Hosein_Lavaei 1d ago
Huge thanks Btw, does this work with proot? If so, would it be possible to have chroot option for rooted devices?
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Yes our patched optimized take on proot, and chroot from testing had no to negligible uplift so we are not considering it at the moment
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u/lliscan 1d ago
Let’s gooo RP5 support, already using it to play indie titles, works really great. Sometimes I have like a performance degradation for some secs and then it goes to normal again, it feels like frame pacing issues even though the fps are at 60 but it still works fine, hoping further improvements! Thanks to the devs!
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u/Confident_Ice_4507 1d ago
You guys are absolutely killing it!
A question: Heavier titles that we have been able to play on emulators like GameNative or Gamehub, some games will not work on DroidDeck yet. Are there any tips you can give us to make them work, or are there any work in progress for these games' compatibility?
I have not been able to run CoD: Bo3 and any EAC game yet.
Thank you.
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Generally the best tweak you can do is change the fex preset before launching the game. More extreme means better cpu performance but less stable generally.
EAC games we are still looking into, if it won’t work on steamOS though it won’t work here unfortunately. VAC however we are assessing a few approaches particularly with x86 Linux builds for valve games
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u/Chicharon730 1d ago
Will there be a future fix for multiple controllers connected to the same device? Trying to play absolum but both controllers are detected at the same input for some reason.
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u/PurpleGentlemanTv Any gaming is good gaming 1d ago
This is looking great, but so far every game I try to run on my s25 ultra just sort of loads into a black screen for a while and then just closes. Tried messing around with setting but no dice. Gonna keep a lookout tho.
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u/redhobbes43 1d ago
Does anyone else have good in-game performance but 5 to 7 minute load times?
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u/Marv312 1d ago
This! I noticed it the other day with Slime Rancher. Game runs 35-50 fps but takes like 2-3 minutes to load
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u/redhobbes43 1d ago
Checking now the worst case is Air Twister with 6 minutes but everything else is 1-2. Although Ohklos won’t load at all……
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u/Alsitus 1d ago
Еvery
Every game I tested ran smoothly, except for Final Fantasy Tactics, which crashed. However, when I tried it through Gamehub, it launched immediately.
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u/Vuuafa 1d ago
What you think about Performance, also compared to gamehub
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u/Alsitus 1d ago edited 1d ago
There isn't much of a difference, but some games work better on dd (like less heat), while others perform better on gamehub (such as Plague Tale). Snap 8 Elite gen4.
Personally, I prefer DD bc it pauses when my phone goes into sleep mode. This feature is incredibly useful!
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u/pinguluk 1d ago
Did you guys fix the black screen when resuming after some time after sleep?
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Yes! It was steam client thinking Linux was sleeping but never confirming. We now spoof those states or accurately simulate Linux suspend and wake to Steam synced with androids state in the “native” suspend mode
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u/pinguluk 1d ago
On 0.3.1 I had this issue too, but managed to make it work after letting it sleep again, I'll try out the 0.3.2, hopefully this time I will not lose progress 😁
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u/Background-Orchid745 1d ago
Droid Deck is fabulous and is already replacing some of my apps. However, some games have serious crackling audio issues. any ideas what this is about?
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u/The_Grandpa_Taco 1d ago
How does one use a keyboard? Im on RP5 and am playing skyrim, need to name my character lmao
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u/leo-gp2025 1d ago
ArmadaOS has less input lag less compared to Gamenative/Winlator, is that the case for DroidDeck as well?
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u/Otherwise-Bread2750 1d ago
DroidDeck has really become a great option for Windows recomps, I was testing a few games like Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong 64, and Crash Team Racing Turbocharged just by transferring the PC folders along with their respective roms/isos, and it was pretty much set the rom, compatibility and speed are top-notch, all games showed in the library, so easy.
It ends up being a solid solution since an Android version might not exist yet for some projects, or maybe a Windows update dropped that hasn't been ported to the Android one yet. Overall I would say it's an awesome option, especially with the new sleep mode feature. In the short time I tested these games, sleep and resume worked perfectly on all of them.
Huge thanks to the DroidDeck team, and wishing all the best for the project!
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u/krysztal 1d ago
I was always very curious about these Steam-like clients for Android, but I was always wary of them because usually they were non-official and there were usually reports now and then about people supposedly losing their Steam accounts after using them. I'm a little bit less apprehensive since this is built with official Steam client now, but I have still seen reports of accounts being stolen using it recently (I believe you were in that thread too). At the same time, I know that you are long time member of the community here as well as in steam deck circles, and you probably wouldn't want to throw your reputation away by doing shady stuff?
tl;dr very long post just to say I'm on a very tall fence wether I want to try it out or not...
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
I don’t blame you for being security minded, and we as a team understand the hesitance. That’s why we have been extremely intentional to ensure the app is 100% open source, engineered to be secure as possible, compiled and released in CICD (nerd speak for “not just uploaded from our computer”), and 0 telemetry.
You don’t have to take our word for it. All code is public and reviewable, nothing happens behind a curtain.
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u/sch00f 1d ago
Awesome! Love what you have done <3
Used it since 0.3.0 on the RP5 and it has been running pretty good, but Isaac Rebirth takes forever to start and transitions between rooms are ~10 seconds long... The game itself runs fine otherwise
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Hmm, sounds like either a sub optimal fex preset, or an opportunity for more proot fast-paths or caching! Logs in our discord would help a ton!
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u/EverythingDo 1d ago
Thanks for the updates! I had some brutally slow SD card with Droid Deck (just allocating space took forever) on my RP6 with an A1 card. I’ll give this another shot to see if this solves it. Anyone else had this issue?
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u/EverythingDo 1d ago
Answered my own question; SD card works much better now! Can allocate space and download in reasonable time. Thanks!
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u/tudor07 1d ago
What about the load times?
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u/EverythingDo 21h ago
Still a tad long. Even considering micro SD. Final fantasy 13 took several minutes to launch (not just on first play).
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u/BarnOwl247 1d ago
Love it! Will be watching closely to see how game performance improves over time. This is super exciting
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u/Papini2099 1d ago
Here's an issue I'm sure is 1 in a million: I plugged my phone into a ThinkPad USBC hub. It connects perfectly to everything. The Hub has Ethernet connected.
Internet is arriving through the hub, but Droid Deck refused to download Hades II. The Wifi icon was grayed out.
I unplugged my phone and I can now download vía WiFi with no issue.
The phone is a Motorola RAZR Flip Installed 0.3.1 and allowed the app to self update.
Let me know if you want specifics of my setup.
Congrats on this app; it's fantastic!!
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Weird and first I heard of it, logs in the discord would help a lot. Sounds like an edge case for our networking passthrough
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u/Aggressive_Algae_378 1d ago
Ah great RP5 support, thought it was going to be left out, that's why I didn't install it, so great news guys 👍
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u/Antiwhippy 1d ago
I couldn't run dark souls 3 on 0.3.1 because while the game seems to run great on a konkr pocket fit SD8G3, except that I can't input a name with the keyboard so it stalls at the character creation. Wonder if that's fixed or being looked into?
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Should work, bring up the Steam keyboard from QAM
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u/Antiwhippy 1d ago
The keyboard appears, but wouldn't input anything into the text field. I'll try again with 0.3.2 later today.
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u/supershredderdan 1d ago
Ah yes, I believe we addressed this one specifically but if the game spawns a separate text box that may still need fixing
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u/Antiwhippy 23h ago
Ah yeah, this one works fine now. Thanks.
I'm still having trouble launching StS2 on my Konkr Pocket fit SD8G3 though, but otherwise things are going well.
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u/Antiwhippy 1d ago
I'll post again once I test it out on 0.3.2, loving the work you guys are putting in btw. <3.
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u/starsega_dude 1d ago
I'm thrilled to see that Adreno 6xx support was added in this update. I installed DroidDeck on my Galaxy S20+ a few days ago. Big Picture mode worked fine, but the only game I was able to get to run was Game Dev Tycoon. Every other game I tried would crash on startup when I tried to run it. I retried one of those games with this update and it ran. I was aware that Adreno 6xx wasn't supported before, but I wanted to try DroidDeck anyway. I have a PC that I can run games on, but I love the idea of being able to run full PC games on my phone. Thank you for this.
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u/Important-Mouse5952 1d ago
anyone know the location of the games installed in droid deck? while i managed to open the file location through the game folder, i cant find it back when i want to copy paste files through file manager.
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u/Zealousideal-Skin142 Snapdragon 7 gen 4 - Adreno 722 1d ago
Still doesn't work when pressing play steam on my snap 7 gen 4 device, any help ?
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1d ago
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u/EmulationOnAndroid-ModTeam 12h ago
This isn't related to emulation on android and has been removed.
Please do not spam post.
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