Changes

Like with [[Nintendo DS emulators]], the computer mouse is used to emulate 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 emulators|iOS ]] equivalent (ipa IPA files), their innards can be opened as a regular zip 7z file.

! scope="col"|[[Emulation Accuracy|Accuracy]]

|[[Genymotion]]|Windows, MacLinux, LinuxmacOS|[https://www.genymotion.com/fun-zonedownload/ 2.11{{GenymotionVer}}]

|[[BlueStacks]]|Windows, MacmacOS|[http://www.bluestacks.com/ 3.56.74.1828{{BlueStacksVer}}]

|QEmu QEMU (before v2.5) / VirtualBox (after v2.5)

|[httphttps://www.memuplay.com/ 5.06.2]|{{✓}}|VirtualBox|High|{{✓}}|-|LDPlayer|Windows|[http://en.ldplayer.5net/ 3.41]

|[https://www.bignox.com/ 6.02.5.3]

|[http://xeplayer.com/ 36.80.1.010]

|[http://www.koplayer.com 1.4.10551056]

|Windows, MacmacOS

|[httphttps://youwave.com/ 5.711]

|[http://www.android-x86.org 78.1-r1rc2]

|Android Emulator (AVD)Studio

|[https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator3.html 262.1.3]

|QEmuQEMU

|[httphttps://anbox.io/ Git]

|{{✗✓}}

|[ARC Welder <br /><small>(Google Chrome)</small>|Windows, Mac, Linux, macOS<br/>Chrome OS

===ComparisonComparisons===;[[Genymotion]]:An A closed-source Android emulator with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics and USB host support, available for Windows, MacmacOS, 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 to add features only useful for Android app developers.

;Bluestacks[[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.apk files.

:A free Android emulator with very good accuracy, sometimes outperforming BluestacksBlueStacks. ;LDPlayer:An Android emulator also with good accuracy. When testing games along side Nox, LDPlayer shows to have better performance/compatibility with games.

;andyroidAndyroid

: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 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.

:(With the 'e' suffix) uses VirtualBox, but still offers better performance than BluestacksBlueStacks. The Play Store is installed by default and has no stability issues found in Windroy. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/comments/31lklr/misc_windroye_for_pcfaster_than_bluestacks_262_mb/ A related Reddit topic can be found here.]

:A project by KDE that aims to run Android applications on Linux using KDE5 and Qt5 technology. The project is infancy state and only known to run on latest Kubuntu versions. It currently lacks ARM processor emulation, so not many games will run. It is however known to play [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SC6c_ih_Ac Flappy Bird] and can show [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju_R8ftiIp4 Spotify's login screen]. It uses modified [[QemuQEMU]] to emulate the Android operating system. Last major update was March 2016 and seems abandoned.

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.

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 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.

Many commercial games refuse to run if the device is "rooted" (hacked to allow access to the deep portion of Android OS) in order to reduce cheating and pirating. If the emulator is rooted by default, it must be unrooted manually before the game can be played.

Some games are very aggressive that they detect Custom ROMs (unofficial firmware) or Android emulators (like the ones listed in this page) by the variety of ways like checking the existence and absence of system files in order to prevent the game from running in any unauthorized environments. These games are very difficult or plain impossible to play on emulators without resorting to cracked versions of the games. Solutions exist, like using MagiskSU (bundled with the Magisk flashable zip) and hiding root on anything Google Play related or installed apps that check for it.

The latest Kingroot's .apk will do the job when loaded inside BluestacksBlueStacks. It's that simple.

Alternatively, you could use Universal Bluestacks [[BlueStacks]] Rooting Software on an existing Bluestacks BlueStacks installation. Before opening it, go to the folder where Bluestacks BlueStacks is installed under Program Files, and run "HD-Quit.exe" once.

Then, from the extracted "Bluestacks BlueStacks RootEZ 32_64", open as administrator "Bluestacks BlueStacks RootEZ.exe". Click "Automatic Detect from Installed Bluestacks", enable "Enlarge System (Root.fs) Size to 400MB", and click "I'm ready for Step 1". A command-line window should appear. Now just wait until "Preparing Complete" appears. Then, click "Go for Step 2" and wait until "Rooting is Complete" appears.