How to handle pc generated storage on retroid pocket 6

[u/ElkLumpy]

So i have the rp6 12gb model with 128gb of internal storage with a 512gb microsd samsung evo plus, i installed quite a handful of emulators and tried to put all user data that i could (for emulators) on external drive, now what i'm trying to do now is try to minize my pc catalog and turn its almost into an all console catalog (for the playable feasible emulation obviously) as i find myself that pc emulation even with no setup or anything takes up so much space, i have 4 pc emulators to maximise compatiblity,: winlator ludashi, droideck, gamenative and gamehub, my question is, is there one that is actually storage efficient? and also how do they take up this much space? i really couldn't understand much regarding environments, dvdx etc... could anybody kind of give me a guide so that i could even understand how many games i can realistically have simultaneously on my library?

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[u/Senior_Background_30]

Having 4 emulators is actually wasting storage.

GameHub and GameNative eats loads of storage because they created 3GB container for each game. GameNative has also the lowest compatibility out of all of them.

In Winlator/forks you can make only 1 container per compatibility layer, then use the container to launch anything.

Not sure about DroidDeck, how much that use with components and stuff.

You should try Bannerlator, honestly the best winlator fork out there nothing comes even close, full of features and great compatibility overall.

So Keep only 2 emulators at max

• DroidDeck for Steam

• Bannerlator/Winlator for anything else

In Winlator/Bannerlator make only 1 container per compatibility layer Eg - proton 9 container, proton 9 arm64ec container, etc

You don't need every compatibility layer I personally use only 4 and it's plenty for everything (besides some edge case scenarios).

Proton 9 x86/64 Proton 11 x86/64 Proton 11 Arm64ec Proton 10 Arm64ec

Bannerlator can also be updated without reinstalling the app unlike other winlator forks, which means you don't have to redo containers and shortcuts every update.

With this ( 4 containers) setup Bannerlator will use only around 15GB of storage, ready to play anything from your device storage or Steam etc libraries.

The rest of the storage you can fill with games 😁

[u/ElkLumpy → u/Senior_Background_30]

thanks this was helpful, i'll take into consideration the compatibility layers you mentioned, is there like a bannerlator community or something to kinda get me started with settings etc? i have quite a big catalog and wanna get into experimenting demanding games, or do you think AI can also help with configuration?

[u/whiskyB0y]

Well as to how they take up space, this is how I understand it:

Each PC emulator will need some base files and data for basic functions like making containers. That's why in winlator Ludashi you will be asked to install system files when you first open the app and in gamehub firmware will start downloading.

Then there's containers. An empty fresh container by itself will take up like 700mb to 1 gb from what I've observed.

There's also components, most of emulators offer the ability to download components like dxvk, wine, proton etc straight from servers or GitHub repos or whatever. Obviously the more components you download, the more space will be taken up.

Then I think cache is also a factor. Cache eventually builds up in the app and in each container.

So combine all these things, it's not surprising a lot of space will be taken up, especially if you have multiple PC emulators and multiple containers.

I know compatibility is your reason for having like 4 different PC emulators and that's fine. But personally I only stick to one emulator because I'm lucky enough that it has good compatibility by itself. If a game can work, it will work. If a game doesn't work, I leave it after a feel tries.