Playing ISO and BIN/CUE Games on the Deck?

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

I'd love to play some of my older disk-based games on the Deck, but I'm not sure how I could do this under Linux. If Windows Dual-Booting is ever coming I'm sure it'll be less of an issue, but for Linux I only know of CDEmu and a few others which work fine in Pop!_OS but there are no flatpak versions available and they all require system file access from what I can see. Is there any way?

[Taktloss]

Well its Linux instead of flatpaks you could use pacman command in the Terminal.
You can even mount ISO Files directly with Linux or what might be easier use Lutris to setup the game.
Havent tried any of it myself ;)

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

The problem is that the disk needs to be in your disk drive. I don't know what "you could use pacman command in the Terminal" means
I'm looking at Dolphin right now and there seems to be no way to mount the BIN/CUE file

[Taktloss]

SteamOS comes with a Package Manager so you could try to use that
https://ostechnix.com/create-virtual-cd-and-dvd-drives-using-cdemu-in-ubuntu-12-10-linuxmint-14/
Explains how to install CDEmu on Linux.
You find the Terminal/Console in System when you click the SteamDeck Logo on the bottom left.
Or as said try lutris you can install it from Discovery
Anyway i would just crack it ^^

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Far as I know Steam Deck only supports software that does not need access to system files due to the immutable file system.

I know where to find the terminal but I don't know what your sentence "use pacman command in terminal" means

"I would just crack it" how? I don't know how to do that. The game needs to be installed first, too, so how could I install it without the disk

[Taktloss]

You could do many things especially since the game seems to be pretty old if its on a CD.
Install it somewhere else on a Windows PC copy the files over network or USB Stick on the Steam Deck and use a NoCD crack :P.
and with pacman i mean the package manager that comes with this Linux version.
For example you just enter "sudo pacman -S cdemu-client" in the terminal and it should install cdemu.
But still i would try Lutris which is available in Discovery (blue icon on the Taskbar) first maybe there is something build in there to mount iso files or so. No clue never really used it ;)

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Copying the files over sounds simple in theory but in practice many old games install vital files to various locations (even some modern games do this). There may be config files in the User Documents folders, there may be vital game files in the AppData folders, and it may write to the registry. Many games also come bundled with essential software like older DirectX versions or MicrosoftVC. I have no idea how to check where a game installs stuff to, and some games will not work unless you copy over all of those things

Installing CDEmu fails with messages of files not being writable, not a surprise considering it's an immutable file system as I said

Lutris unfortunately has no mounting capabilities

[Taktloss]

Then you could convert the bin/cue file to an iso and just use the mount command.
Would look like this
sudo mkdir ~/media/example
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/example.iso ~/media/example

[BezaoBuilder]

You should be able to mount any ISO with a supported filesystem with:
sudo mount isofile.iso folder_to_mount.
You could then use Lutris or Steam to run the file with a Windows compatibility tool such as Wine or Proton.

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Publicado originalmente por Taktloss:

Then you could convert the bin/cue file to an iso and just use the mount command.
Would look like this
sudo mkdir ~/media/example
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/example.iso ~/media/example

That's not an option because then the game will not have music

[BezaoBuilder]

You could use bchunk (a command line tool) to convert the bin/cue files to an iso and then mount it. You could temporarily enable developer mode to download bchunk like "sudo pacman -S bchunk". Or you could choose to not enable developer mode and type "pacman -S -r /folder/to/install bchunk"

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

Publicado originalmente por Taktloss:

Then you could convert the bin/cue file to an iso and just use the mount command.
Would look like this
sudo mkdir ~/media/example
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/example.iso ~/media/example

That's not an option because then the game will not have music

Why?

[Taktloss]

What game are we even talking about :P ?

[@R+5]

First, which iso games you want to play? depending in which game, you may need to use a different approach for each one.

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

The problem is that the disk needs to be in your disk drive.

thats not true. you can mount an image directly from a folder, if you know how. well, as long as the os is able to read it, and has what it needs to read it.

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I don't know what "you could use pacman command in the Terminal" means

it means you need to read and watch tutorials.

search about manjaro:
its also available in kde desktop, which makes it very similar to steam os v3. most tutorials for manjaro should also work. search in yt things like "manjaro pacman tutorial introduction", "manjaro pacman mount (image from file or -image type-)", "kde dolphin mount (image from file or -image type-)"

trying to install and run directly a game you mounted, specially if its a windows game, its not a good option. you may have luck installing it but not running it, because it is going to miss dependencies and things you may need to install and change manually.

To install games with less problems, you will need to install something like lutris (a game manager that has preconfigured installers for many non-steam games).

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I'm looking at Dolphin right now and there seems to be no way to mount the BIN/CUE file

thats because you need to download the option first.

you need to learn how to search and find things, and explore the os. in the dolphin file manager check the menus, and the option to add additional options is there.

[Zoot]

Publicado originalmente por BezaoBuilder:

You could use bchunk (a command line tool) to convert the bin/cue files to an iso and then mount it. You could temporarily enable developer mode to download bchunk like "sudo pacman -S bchunk". Or you could choose to not enable developer mode and type "pacman -S -r /folder/to/install bchunk"

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

That's not an option because then the game will not have music

Why?

Some games have their music stored as CDDA audio tracks on the CD. They are not part of the filesystem in the image.

[@R+5]

also, if what you want is to play an image file in a emulator, you usually dont need to mount it: most emulators can mount them directly from the folder you use.

[Schorsch Wadschinken]

Publicado originalmente por BezaoBuilder:

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

That's not an option because then the game will not have music

Why?

What do you mean why? Because the disk has redbook CD audio and that doesn't work as an ISO

Publicado originalmente por Taktloss:

What game are we even talking about :P ?

Literally any game with CD audio, my current example is Earthworm Jim Special Edition, but there really are a lot of games with CD audio

Publicado originalmente por @R+5:

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

The problem is that the disk needs to be in your disk drive.

thats not true. you can mount an image directly from a folder, if you know how. well, as long as the os is able to read it, and has what it needs to read it.

It is true for games with disk-based DRM
I might be wrong about Linux but in Windows many games would only work with an emulated drive, whereas mounting it with Windows's own tools from the file explorer didn't work

Publicado originalmente por @R+5:

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I don't know what "you could use pacman command in the Terminal" means

it means you need to read and watch tutorials.

No, stop being an elitist. Stop it
I cannot even begin to search for a tutorial if I can't even understand the sentence structure. It did make very little sense. Fun fact, I already know how to do what that user suggested, I just didn't understand the sentence. And I already said the file system was immutable, so it was an unfruitful suggestion to begin with

Publicado originalmente por @R+5:

Publicado originalmente por We Be Leaving You:

I'm looking at Dolphin right now and there seems to be no way to mount the BIN/CUE file

thats because you need to download the option first.
you need to learn how to search and find things, and explore the os.

Seriously, stop
bad elitist
Telling people half the story and expecting them to figure out the other half with no hints that there's any more to it is not how you teach them
I mean what, should I look for the option to mount BIN/CUE now? Is that something you didn't tell me that's part of the OS? Or is that impossible? Who knows?
I already googled for these things, if I'd found anything useful I'd not have asked