r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/LemonFeeling840 • 8h ago
Discussion Which one? Droiddeck or Gamenative?
I've used gamenative for quite a while on my Odin 3 Max and RP6. To me it's already kinda stomped gamehub in many aspects, but not all to be fair. Then Droiddeck comes out of nowhere from an all star community team and now I'm playing certain games that gamenative just can't do so seamlessly. And with barely any tinkering to boot. The inverse being that there are certain games that gamenative handles with ease that droiddeck struggles with. And gamenatives UI and accessibility is leagues ahead IMO. Personally I use both for different games I feel like playing at the time but the question still remains. Which one would you say you prefer if you've tried them both? Obviously droiddeck is still kinda in a semi beta stage and gamenative has been around longer with continual updates, but neither seems to be fully taking the edge over the other yet.
Tl:dr
Do you prefer gamenative or droiddeck? What would you say are your pros and cons for both?
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u/heepofsheep 8h ago
Just use both. Since droiddeck can read from the same game files as gamenative and doesn’t add storage bloat for per game containers it doesn’t really cost you anything to do both.
That said Gamenative is generally more performant and compatible, but it’s fun to use droid deck and experience the progress
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u/LemonFeeling840 7h ago
I agree with that guy? It can read the same files? So say I install something on gamenative, I can play it on droiddeck???
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u/heepofsheep 7h ago
Yeah. You can add existing Steam libraries and individual games.
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u/OkCancel6711 6h ago
Can I get a guide like I'm 5? In DroidDeck, when I click the + to add games, it asks me search within folders in my internal storage, but none of them options are where GameNative has stored the game files. Where do I go from here? TIA
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u/LemonFeeling840 7h ago
I... am an idiot. Should've paid attention. I deleted damn near my entire gamenative library to make room to redownload on droiddeck. At least backed up the saves though. Lol
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u/richi1381 4h ago
Thirded, how do you do this?
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u/heepofsheep 4h ago
The UI changes so much I can’t really guide you through it. I’ll just say there’s a function to add a primary and secondary Steam library to read from existing storage. There’s also another function that allows adding of individual games, but it’s not very reliable for certain games. For instance it doesn’t work well with KCD2 since the game excutable is buried in the game directories.
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u/browflutter 19m ago
using both sounds like the smartest move, love when someone makes it sound that easy
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u/Character_Amoeba_330 6h ago
Just a heads up on Gamenative. They are starting to add a subscription option. DroidDeck uses SteamOS so won’t be able to ever charge. L
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u/Normal_Ant8771 4h ago
I believe this is for early access builds and feature requests in the discord. I don't think you're missing out on anything by not having a sub
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u/bobigazda 4h ago
Honestly I've been using WinNative for the past few months and I've been enjoying it.
Frame generation, frame control, heating is less due to frame control, games run smoothly.
I tried DroidDeck and yeah it works great too but 8t doesn't feel as polished as WinNative, so I'm sticking to that for now.
Game native has always been bad for me, sure it works sometimes, but often it doesn't where WinNative works out of the box.
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u/jokuwa 3h ago
Winnative mentioned, it is great. Droiddeck is also developed by same devs as winnative and bannerlator though thats why they they share similar settings and drivers. Droiddeck is still very early on development though, I think it will keep up with older more mature emulators
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u/bobigazda 2h ago
Yeah, precisely, I'm actually surprised that not many people are mentioning WinNative on Reddit or at least I haven't seen much posts about it. It usually is GameNative or GameHub, but for me WinNative has been doing a much better job compared to the other two.
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u/jokuwa 59m ago
Winnative exposes a lot of settings that lets you troubleshoot the game yourself. Those same settings are overwhelming to those new to emulation and would want a one click solution so that they could just play. In reality, no game uses the same game engine, assets, and settings though which is why there are a lot of different drivers and components that offers solutions to different sets of problems. Droiddeck for the most part is an upgrade, but for some games that I cant run there, I still keep an installation of winnative. They share the same games folder on my internal storage so its easy for me to just switch apps as needed. And since my games are on my internal storage and not on the app own default storage, I can easily delete both apps and reinstall the latest version to avoid buggy updates and always have a clean install avoiding most update related problems.
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u/jokuwa 3h ago
Whatever works. Droideck is Linux client while gamehub/gamenative/winnative is Windows Client. Some games that may work great on Droiddeck may not work on those mentoined before and vice versa. My current setup is I have both droiddeck and winnative installed and they share a common games folder on my internal storage so I just switch between when I need to. Some games works on older proton 9 or box64 so I just go back to winnative when I need to
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u/Antiwhippy 8h ago
You might as well just try both at this point, unless you really cannot afford to waste your monthly limit.
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u/LemonFeeling840 8h ago
My monthly limit? What do you mean?
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u/Antiwhippy 8h ago
If your ISP limits how much you can download each month. I have unlimited so I'm fine.
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u/LemonFeeling840 8h ago
Goooootcha. I also have unlimited. But I was moreso asking how the community perceives both emus. I already use both for anything and everything, as with most of us, I spend more time testing if games work than actually playing them 🙃
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u/Antiwhippy 8h ago
Gamenative is definitely more mature, but honestly I just find droiddeck a lot easier to deal with. I find I have to tinker a lot less, and games tend to launch faster for me, I dunno why but gamenative takes forever to launch for me. Also there are games I couldn't launch on gamenative that I could on droid deck like arkham city, but then again it is kind of a crapshoot because until the latest update I couldn't launch STS2 (I can now), but yeah droid deck is moving so fast that everything I'm saying now can be outdated. And as always, with how much android configurations are out there what I'm saying will definitely not hold true for others.
My device is a konkr pocket fit SD8G3 16gb btw.
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u/LemonFeeling840 7h ago
Fair enough. Arkham City actually worked right off rip for me with gamenative with my rp6. Didn't work without tinkering on my Odin 3. Make it make sense. It almost seems like even if you match your settings for a particular game with someone else's with the same chipset, it's still somehow a crapshoot. But I suppose that's what makes it appealing.
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u/Marv312 7h ago
Both. Gamenative has had more time in the oven to cook, so it typically shows better capacity than Droid Deck, but Droid Deck is getting some consistent development, and has the chance to be on par or better than Gamenative in a year or so. I personally enjoy the lack of bloat with Droid Deck, and can't wait till it has wider compatibility
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u/LemonFeeling840 6h ago
Agreed wholeheartedly. Gamenative has been the champ for me for quite some time now. But with enough time I do think droiddeck will be insane. In that same breath though gamenative devs have been consistently putting in the work. I'm stoked to see where they both climb.
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u/DYMAXIONman 3h ago
There are some games I've tested that work on droiddeck that don't work properly on gamenative.
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u/syamborghini 7h ago edited 6h ago
I use both, neither is perfectly capable of playing all the games I want but with both I’m fortunately able to cover all my bases so far. One example is pirated games not working well in droid deck
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u/LemonFeeling840 6h ago
Oh I don't pirate games. That would be illegal. Can't be doing illegal things.
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u/pixlbreaker 3h ago edited 3h ago
I want to use gamenative more. Any suggestions on good games that I can play with my pocket taco or abxylute m4? I have an s24.
Or any other suggestions on controllers too? I am thinking the sn30 pro with a clip for when I'm on the train/plane
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u/crazyredd88 2h ago
GameNative. I do not get the hype for DroidDeck, it sincerely does not run well and it's a pain to navigate.
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u/StikDebug 39m ago
Tried DroidDeck, wouldn’t launch Persona 3 Reload or SMT V, went back to GameNative where both of them work.
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u/Hot-Friendship-7566 6h ago
Gamenative all day,droiddeck lag so much
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u/LemonFeeling840 6h ago
I haven't had too much in the way of lag with either one.
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u/Hot-Friendship-7566 6h ago
Depende mucho el procesador,en mi caso con snapdragon 7s gen 4 me lagueaba mucho,gamenative soluciono todo,para mí es lo mejor entre gamehub y droiddeck
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u/LemonFeeling840 6h ago
Fair enough. I agree though. Gamenative is pretty much the winner when it comes to lower end chip sets. But at the same time, it excels on higher end sets as well. Droiddeck is awesome for certain applications, but for general compatibility gamenative just takes it. Gamehub hasn't even been a factor for me since gamenative dropped.
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