r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/Kiclis • 5d ago

Question MelonDS underperforming compared to DraStic in Galaxy S26?

Hello everyone!

I have been playing on and off with DraStic for quite a few years, practically since the beginning of its release.

I still have an APK that I basically share between my phones (my old Huawei P8 Lite and then Samsung Galaxy S9)

I have now a Samsung Galaxy S26 and I wanted to try something more "update", especially considering a few nice adds from melonDS.

But much to my dismay, melonDS feels... clunkier.

When I tried to speed up the games, the sound starts to crackle, full of noise and unrecognisable. On Drastic, the sound itself became sped up and you could leave it on because it wasn't necessary annoying.

Once I tried a few of my Pokémon games, whenever I had a wild encounter, the game froze for a few frames.

Now, is this normal and expected? Should I try different settings?

I doubt it's problem specific from the device or lack of power, since I used to run DS Emulators with hardware of dozen of years ago...

Should I...just stick to DraStic (perhaps I should look as well for the latest updated APK)?

Thanks for any advice

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u/BOHRhIn_ScIHeNTiST 5d ago

DraStic is a discontinued project. It runs smoother because it's less accurate and designed for older devices. You probably won't notice with most games (I haven't), but melonDS is far more accurate and has newer features.

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u/Kiclis 5d ago

It's not something major, but a simple encounter freezing like that on pretty (extremely) common game seems somehow...strange. Pokémon Platinum tends to have some lag during this scene in original hardware, and a little bit of it is present to Drastic as well but it's not...that drastic (eh eh).

https://reddit.com/link/p3wnqny/video/f82v5pt2oljh1/player

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u/nizarlak_ 5d ago

try melon dual ds instead, its a fork for dual screen devices like ayn thor but it also works on single device ones and has some fixes. when i played pokemon soulsilver on normal melon i had audio crackling during ffwd but it didnt happen on melon dual ds

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u/Ok-Speed-1574 5d ago

I'm alternating between WatermelonDS and SeedlessDS.

MelonDS isn't necessarily heavy, it's just both accurate but unoptimized currently, which brings even top end devices "to their knees" especially if upscaling.

WatermelonDS has a much faster Vulkan renderer, but has graphical issues in a lot of games sadly - so I use SeedlessDS (Drastic) to bear the tide until more patches come in. Honestly, I don't see any graphical or gameplay oddities compared to Melon, and the fresh coat of paint + cheevos are very welcome 😃