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'''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, though no open source emulator with a high degree of game compatibility exists yet.
Like with DS emulators, the computer mouse is used to emulate touch screen touchscreen 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.
|-
|Android Emulator (AVD)
|Windows, linuxLinux
|[https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator.html 26.1.3]
|{{✓}}
|{{✗}}
|}
The VM column describes what backend technology the emulator uses. Emulators labeled with "VirtualBox" sometimes needs the user to install [https://www.virtualbox.org/ Oracle VM VirtualBox]. Usually , it is installed automatically.
===Comparison===
;Genymotion
: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. Except for pay-to-remove "free for personal use" watermark on the screen, 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 [http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2528952 ARM processor emulation] (what you need essentially here to play the commercial releases) as well as [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/genymotion-users/JpO8HR39PR0/NpSkrnsB8d8J 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
:Also commercial with a free option (requires a google account). 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 install a file manager to copy game cache when loading your own apks.
;MEmu
;Google Chrome
:Can open apk files using the ARC Welder extension, though their emulation on PC is average at best. Here's a [http://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iIbxaftAu_ho5rv9fUlXSLTzwU6MbKOldsWXyrYiyo8/edit#gid=0 compatibility list] and a [https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeapks dedicated subreddit]. Google has announced [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/the-play-store-comes-to-chrome-os-but-not-the-way-we-were-expecting/ Play Store for Chrome OS], but it works on a different "container" technology that is embed to embedded in the Chrome OS. In addition, Google will [http://blog.chromium.org/2016/08/from-chrome-apps-to-web.html discontinue Google Chrome apps on PC], so any major updates to ARC Welder for PC is unlikely.
;Windroy
:(Without the 'e' suffix) is a fast Android emulator that does not rely on VirtualBox or any similar technology. It isn't accurate though. While Google Play store can be installed with some tinkering, not many games can be installed (due to not faking device names) and will spawn multiple harmless-yet-annoying app_process.exe crashes. Official The official site is down since July 2016, so any updates are unlikely.
;Windroye
;Android x86
:An open-source project that aims to port the 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.
;Anbox
:A project that aims to run Android applications on Ubuntu distributions. Currently , it is on alpha state and only known to work on Ubuntu 16.04. Anbox requires custom kernel modules to run because unlike other emulators which emulates emulate the whole Linux kernel, this one uses the host system's Linux kernel directly.
;Shashlik
===Emulator Conflict===
Many emulators, such as Droid4x, andyroidandroid, 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===
===ARM Applications===
Most commercial games are developed and published only for devices with ARM CPUs such as most smartphones and tablets. However, the PCs we regularly use contain x86 CPUs, so these games cannot directly run. Some emulators like Bluestacks have ARM emulation by default, and in some others like Genymotion , it is possible to install ARM emulator manually. The ARM emulator requires Intel CPUs to work correctly and not guaranteed to work with all games.
===Games with root/Custom ROMs/Emulator Detection===
