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So for those readers who might be unaware, EmuDeck is the premier way to play retro games on Steam Deck. It’s basically a collection of emulators tied together in an easy to setup package.

Personally, I have just a small collection of retro games I play, but no matter what size your collection is, it can and will accommodate your entire archive.

So what’s so special about this new version? Well it isn’t a complete overhaul, (I expect that would be version 3.0) but there are some nice improvements that make it rise above a regular update.

• Integration selection during setup

What this means is you can pick and choose how you want your roms organized at the beginning of the installation process. For those with large collections of retro games that would benefit from a frontend software to keep it organized, the ESDE option will add Emulation Station to Steam automatically and organize your files within that.

For those with smaller collections, the Steam Rom Manager integrates the individual games directly into your Steam deck library as Non-Steam games.

Any readers who have used EmuDeck before will immediately recall that both options have always been part of EmuDeck. But the key difference here is now it’s less work to make it happen. Just select and it’ll do the rest. Before, one would need to use Steam Rom Manager after setup to add either the games or ESDE or both and honestly it has mixed results sometimes. This new version should make both options easier.

• New emulators!

EmuDeck now supports newcoming emulators Azahar for 3ds and Citron for switch! Citron is supported on a BYOD basis (bring your own download) meaning if you find and download it yourself EmuDeck will get it set up for you. Windows users also get access to the Supermodel(Sega Model 3 Arcade, Model2 (Sega Model2 Arcade) and BigPEmu (Jaguar) emulators.

• Other improvements and tweaks

Improved Bios Checkers and better parsers in Steam Rom Manager, along with a new help guide and a new location in your drive for Emudeck’s file to live in. Future updates will feature a new program to organize your rom library.

Did you know Oreo is a ripoff? It’s true: the first cookie recipe to have two chocolate cookies held together by white stuff is Hydrox, established in 1908. It was made by Sunshine Biscuits for 91 years, when it was discontinued three years after the Keebler elves bought Sunshine. Keebler got bought by Kellogg, and Kellogg later sold Keebler to Ferrero. It wasn’t until 2015 that Leaf brands acquired the Hydrox rights and brought it back to market.

These days, Oreo is King, and for decades used it’s marketing clout to push Hydrox off shelves. These days, the only way to get Hydrox in to either buy it on Amazon, 6 boxes to a case, or if you can convince your local supermarket to stock it, Leaf brands is more than happy to distribute it to your neighborhood store.

Last week, I was randomly wondering what happened to Hydrox and discovered it could be ordered on Amazon. I know people are generally leery of purchasing anything on Amazon that goes into your mouth, but I took the risk – For Science!

The box arrived on Christmas eve, pretty good considering the original delivery estimate was the Saturday after Christmas. Naturally I dug in right away, and ate quite a few.

First: the cookie:

I feel it’s ever so slightly, just a tad more crumbly than Oreo. Now granted, this could simply be due to the fact of it being shipped to my door, but my typical Oreo experience doesn’t involve nearly as many broken cookies as this first case of Hydrox. In terms of taste, the chocolate flavor shines, but not quite as much as an Oreo cookie. Its close, but not to close to call. I have to give this to Oreo.

Cookie scores:
Oreo 10/10, Hydrox 9/10.

Next, The White Stuff: Hydrox is the clear winner here. Not only is the Hydrox white stuff not as cheaply-sweet tasting as Oreo, and not only is it enhanced with vanilla flavor, but there’s more of it. It’s not quite equivalent to a double stuff Oreo, but you can see the difference right away. Oreo’s White Stuff is basically sugary lard and honestly the least interesting part of the cookie unless you are A: Weird Al, or B: going for one of the myriad of other flavors, like Dark Chocolate, Peanut butter, or Tiramisu, to name a few. That is outside the scope of this article though, as those flavors are not the same as The White Stuff.

White Stuff Scores:
Oreo 6/10, Hydrox 10/10.

Dunkability: ok, this one is pending because I haven’t dunked any cookies in decades due to lactose intolerance. I literally thought of it now while trying to end this without a third category. Thanks to my recent personal discovery of Lactaid pills, I can investigate after all! But not tonight. I need to get a new box of Oreos, and stock up on Lactaid pills, and the stores are closed where I am right now.

See you soon for the dunkability report, and send me your thoughts in the comments!

So I have a Steam Deck, and if you have one you know most games sold on Steam have a compatibility rating. On valve’s rating scale, a game is Verified, Playable, Unsupported, or Unknown.

Verified means it works out of the box, Playable means it works but there may be some little things that impact the experience, like launchers not supporting gamepads and needing to use the touchscreen or touchpads to start the game; or games where the text is too small on the Deck’s screen get this rating as well.

So this rating system is all well and good, and it’s clearly better than nothing, but Valve hasn’t tested every game, and you might want to play a game in your deck that says Unsupported or Unknown. That’s where ProtonDB comes in.

So The Steam Deck runs on Linux, not Windows, which is why Valve developed Proton, to run Windows games on Linux at a compatibility never before seen with predecessor programs like Wine or similar commercial solutions like Crossover for Mac. ProtonDB is a website designed to cover the gaps in Valves Deck compatibility ratings. It rates games as Native, Platinum, Gold, Silver, bronze or borked. Native means it is a game specifically designed to run on Linux. Platinum is reserved for those Windows games that run perfectly without any tinkering whatsoever. Gold means a tiny bit of tinkering, such as switching over to a specific version of Proton instead of the default, and silver means more tinkering than Gold. Borked means no amount of settings or files changed will get it to work.