Difference between revisions of "Android emulators"

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(Emulators: Re-added Android x86 <!-- and Shashlik in the comment -->. Just treat it as UltraHLE or ZSNES.)
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Revision as of 07:08, 31 August 2015

This page is about emulating Android apps and games on PC as it is slowly building off an important library of exclusives, and emulation coupled with CheatEngine is certainly interesting. If you're interested in emulators for your Android phone, check this page instead.

Android is a mobile operating system (OS) based on the Linux kernel and currently developed by Google. Unlike iPhone, as well as older cell-phone models and older Japanese Galapagos mobile phones, emulating Android software on PC is more developed.

Like with DS emulators, the computer mouse is used to emulate touch screen presses (which can be less than ideal in many cases), and the keyboard emulates the button controller add-ons. Some emulators support X360 controllers as well with some more tweaks.

Android apps come in the apk file format (occasionally coupled with obb files). Just like its iOS equivalent (ipa files), their innards can be opened as a regular zip file.

Emulators

PC
Name OS Version Free USB Link VM Accuracy Recommended
Genymotion Windows, Mac, Linux 2.4.0 (Official Site) ✓ (Non-Dev Versions) VirtualBox High
BlueStacks Windows, Mac Official Site Original Mid
Droid4x Windows, Mac Official Site Original High
DuOS Windows Official Site ? Mid
andyroid Windows, Mac Official Site VirtualBox Mid
Google Chrome Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS duh Original Mid
Xamarin Android Player Windows, Mac Official Site VirtualBox ?
Android x86 Multi-platform Official Site N/A Low

The VM column describes what backend technology the emulator uses. Emulators labeled with "VirtualBox" requires the user to install Oracle VM VirtualBox.

  • Genymotion is an Android emulator with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and USB host support, available for Windows, Mac and Linux. In its latest versions, it has pretty good compatibility with commercial games. It's a commercial product though, aimed at software developers and QA teams. You'll need to create an account and download the free non-commercial use license available (paid builds add features only useful for Android app developers).
    • Setting up the emulator itself is not too hard, but a bit of tinkering is required to add the Google Play store and ARM processor emulation (what you need essentially here to play the commercial releases) as well as Xbox 360 controller support. Not noob-friendly, but if you're experienced enough with Android to know your way around a rooted filesystem it shouldn't be too hard.
  • Bluestacks is also commercial with a free option (no account required). It's less good than Genymotion, and doesn't handle USB cable emulation. Previous versions used to come with an installer with adware, comes with junk apps within the emulator, and has a non-intuitive uninstaller, but that's no longer the case today. It includes Google Apps by default, though you'll need to "root" it to load apk files to your liking.
  • Droid4x has good accuracy but forcefully uninstalls VirtualBox, so it cannot co-exist with Genymotion and Xamarin.
  • andyroid works too, though the company behind it did adware before previously.
    • Just like Genymotion, Andyroid also use VirtualBox, but with a twist: if it detects an installed virtualbox during installation, it will delete it and will refuse to work. Beware!
  • DuOS, not to be confused with a similarly-named Nintendo DS emulator by Roor, is a relative newcomer to the Android emulation market, made by American Megatrends i.e. the very same people behind the BIOS/UEFI firmware your PC may be using. Emulation is modest at best, with games and apps such as DraStic struggling on lower-end hardware. And to top it all off, it ain't free either.
  • Recently, Google Chrome can open apk files too, though their emulation on PC is average at best. Here's a compatibility list and a dedicated subreddit.
  • Xamarin Android Player is also a newcomer to the Android emulation market. Not much is known about this as $25/month subscription is required for use.
  • Android x86 is a open-source project that aims to port Android operating system to x86-based netbooks. While it can be run on virtual machines like VirtualBox, it does not have 3D graphics emulation and cannot run most games. Genymotion is (or at least used to be) a closed-source fork of Android x86, designed exclusively to be run on VirtualBox.


Emulation issues

Lack of Release Notes and Update History information

While some emulators such as Genymotion do have version history on their website, most other emulators do not have such history pages, making it difficult to track updates as well as regressions.

Emulator Conflict

Many emulators, such as Droid4x, andyroid, Genymotion and Xamarin cannot co-exist on the same machine because they will uninstall each other. This can be a problem if one game runs only on one of these emulators but the other games do not work on it.

Google-related Libraries

Likely due to licensing issues, most Android emulators do not come with Google-related applications and related libraries preinstalled (Google Play Store, Play Services, Play Games client, etc) and requires the user to manually install them. Many games verify the existence of Google-related components at the start and refuse to work if some or any of them are missing.

See also