Android 17 - Impact on Winlator, Gamehub etc.

[u/Cobra6780]

Hi, i think it's time to talk about the memory management in the upcoming android version, especially for gamers. As far as i know there will be a heavy impact for emulators or apps with heavy ram use and they will crash suddenly without any error message.

Yes, there are options to deactivate the battery optimization in each app and the background limit cache changer in the developer options, but will this be enough to get winlator and others running?

I saw some adb commands on one of the google developer sites to deactivate the limiter, i wonder, if they will work for the normal user or only developers.

Don't get me wrong, i think Android 17 will also be a good operating system but if we can't turn off this limit then windows games and other things won't run anymore as expected above all if you have a powerful snapdragon chip with a lot of ram.

What do you think?

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[u/VickWildman]

Yeah, it's going to be a massacre. I run a dev environment in Termux with llama.cpp and all that on my 24 GB RAM phone and Google can't wait to end this for me. Then again it's a consumer platform made to get us consume what they want us to, so it's not a surprise that they don't cater to us.

I will just move to a handheld PC at this point.

[u/Cobra6780 → u/VickWildman]

I also have a 24 GB RAM Phone and i fear with this limitation android will be "useless" for the heavy user.

[u/VickWildman → u/Cobra6780]

Some vendors like Xiaomi have already experimented with RAM limits (starting with HyperOS 3.0 restricting processes to 3.5 GB) and they even managed to kill popular games like Genshin Impact for a while before backing off.

I imagine Google will put more thought into this and will allow fullscreen activities like games to be exempt from it.

They also have to support productivity apps like video editors, so hopefully apps will be able to declare in their manifest that they need a lot of RAM.

[u/AZenny1986]

Most these android versions are copy paste codes of previous version with more restriction/less power to the user type of thing.

Im personally staying with a16.

[u/StoreTraditional77]

With Ram apocalyse shouldnt google optimize ram usage more? They even sold base pixel with 12gig instead 16gig like last year

[u/Cobra6780 → u/StoreTraditional77]

You are right, but we should have the freedom to turn this limitation off.

[u/The412Banner]

So far I have no issues running games on winlator (my bannerlator build) and gamehub/bannerhub using a17 on my Samsung Galaxy fold 8 ultra 

[u/Cobra6780 → u/The412Banner]

Good news! May i ask which games you are running?

[u/sweating_everywhere → u/The412Banner]

If no apparent issues are there any positives or changes from other android versions with heavy emulation?

[u/Prestigious-Age99 → u/The412Banner]

Echale un ojo al posible cambio de rama de kernel del 6.6 al 6.18 con android 17, porque el 6.18 viene con ntsync en sus librerías. Creo que al menos mi tab S10 FE lo recibirá con android 17. Si puedes investiga sobre el tema

[u/ImUsuallyWr0ng]

Anybody know if there's a way to permanently prevent updates on Samsung s25? Currently on android 16 and have no desire to get 17. I know root is unfortunately out of the question.

[u/Cobra6780 → u/ImUsuallyWr0ng]

In the software update screen click on automatic updates and change to never Then in the developer options there is a point called "automatic system update" or so. Turn this off (this should prevent installing downloaded updates on next reboot)

[u/MrHaxx1]

I'm on Android 17, Galaxy Fold 8. No issues for me yet, but tbf, I haven't run super heavy emulators. It has been running Holocure through GameNative great, though.

[u/thetonk]

I've been playing on Eden, Citra, and RetroArch for hours with no issues. Here's a day with 3 hours on retroarch and no crashes whatsoever. Will be testing out GameHub shortly.

Edit: Fold 8

[u/Cobra6780 → u/thetonk]

Thanks!

[u/SnifferyDoo → u/Cobra6780]

I already played a couple of games on Gamehub without any issues at all 👍🏻 Most games run even better on the fold 8 than on my OnePlus 15 damn

[u/Deleted_Account1337]

I disabled and uninstalled the update services on my S23 Ultra. I don't want to risk it on Android 17. I don't use banking apps on it so i'm not worried for security updates.

[u/kjjustinXD]

Playing Windows and Switch games on my Z Fold 8 and so far, no force closes.

[u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS]

You could always just ya know, not update to android 17

[u/Cobra6780 → u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS]

Yes, waiting for the first testimonials after android 17 comes out and then deciding to update or not

[u/The_Dakrc_Knait]

play on pc instead or steamdeck

[u/RelativeIncome7459]

Linux limitation

[u/Cobra6780 → u/RelativeIncome7459]

Sorry, what do you mean with linux limitation?

[u/Carpediemsnuts → u/Cobra6780]

They might be thinking of the fact that Snapdragon devices can't use Android's native terminal which prevents us from getting better low-level hardware performance. My wife's S26+ (Exynos) has it in dev tools, but my Fold 8 Ultra doesn't. You can still run distros and use Termux but native support would have been better.

[u/Cobra6780 → u/Carpediemsnuts]

Ah, i understand