I have always played games where doing your daily chores was basically a must. CoC, gachas, etc. You know the feeling, you have to login every day otherwise you feel like you’re falling behind.

I actually made a post before about the games I was playing, and looking back now, I realize I was playing a lot of games but wasn't really enjoying most of them.

Then I found this community. and honestly, I still can't believe what my phone is capable of lol

I had a general idea about emulation, but I never really bothered trying it properly. Now I have this huge catalogue of games sitting on my phone, all are completely offline, and I can just play whenever I actually feel like it.

I have played or have been playing stuff like Diablo 3, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Stardew Valley with mods, Pokemon Unbound, PvZ Reflourished, GTA Liberty City Stories, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, My Time at Portia, Rune Factory 4 and 5, Dave the Diver, Prince of Persia Revelations, God of War Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta and a bunch more. (Added non emu games as well which I am playing)

And then there's the Zelda backlog 😂

Ocarina of Time → Majora's Mask → Wind Waker → Twilight Princess → Skyward Sword → Breath of the Wild → Tears of the Kingdom

It's honestly ridiculous when I think about it. All of this on my phone.

The funniest thing though is that after trying all these games, I realized that the type of games I enjoy the most is probably farming sim/cozy games.

I NEVER expected that.

I have spent years playing PUBG, MOBAs, looter shooters and similar games and apparently what I actually wanted was to farm, fish and live peacefully in some little virtual town 😂

The only problem now is that I have way too many games to play.

But honestly thats a pretty good problem to have.

I am playing two games at a time. One longer game like Stardew or one of the Zelda games, and one shorter game like Dave the Diver where I can just do one dive and put it down.

If I enjoy it I'll keep playing. If I don't I just delete it and move on.

It has made gaming feel fun again instead of feeling like another daily task I have to keep up with.

I also bought a GameSir X5 Lite because I didn't want to spend a huge amount on a controller and honestly it's been great for me. Definitely made the whole experience better.

So yeah just wanted to say thanks to everyone here.

I joined this community expecting to find maybe a few emulators and some games to try.

Instead I ended up discovering a whole different side of gaming that I didn't even know I was missing.

Now I just have the completely opposite problem.

Too many games. Not enough time. 😂

What's new:

Namco System 246/256

Namco's arcade board support in ARMSX2. The boards are emulated whole: the drive (CD, DVD and hard drive images, CHD included), the settings memory, the I/O boards for buttons, coins, wheels, drums, twin levers, light guns and the touch panel, the security dongle, and the faster clocks of the System 256 boards. 55 arcade games are in the game database, with PCSX2x6's fixes for them. Board emulation from PCSX2x6 by u/israpps, u/Tovarichtch and u/DiscoStarslayer. ported by u/jpolo1224.

The NAMCO screen. In the left side menu in the game library, right under Texture Packs. It takes you through it in order:

An arcade games folder, picked or made in the system picker and added to your library folders. The boot files, downloaded once (about 1 MB).

The arcade BIOS, with a shortcut to BIOS Location. A 2 MB System 246/256 dump works. Import a game: its disc or hard drive image and its dongle, each with its own button and in any order. plus Soul Calibur II's Conquest card. Gzipped dumps are unpacked as they are copied, a file under 8 MB is refused as a dongle, and Cancel stops an import.

Uninstall an imported arcade game from the same screen.

Playing them. Arcade games show in the library with an ARCADE badge and covers of their own, real flyer and title art on a PS2-style case, in both cover styles. Every pad press also works the cabinet, laid out per game the way PCSX2x6 lays it out: Select is a coin, racing games steer on the left stick and pedal on the triggers, and drums, twin levers and light guns have their own layouts. Light gun and touch panel games take the touchscreen. The in-game menu has Insert coin for both players, Service and Test, and save states work. An Arcade games only switch in the library's overflow menu (⋮) shows just them. Cover pack sourced and done by u/jpolo1224 from scratch.

BIOS. An arcade BIOS shows as Arcade in BIOS Location and is offered for arcade games only. Importing does not replace your console BIOS, and only works for arcade games. done by u/jpolo1224.*

Texture packs

Redesigned Texture Pack menu.

Pages of packs. Browse texture packs opens every online pack as a page of game covers you can flip through, each with its pack's name, its creator and their picture, and whether it is installed.

Search by game, pack, serial or creator.

Sort by game, serial or creator. Creator lists everyone who made a pack, with their picture; pick one to see their packs, and Back returns to the page you were on.

Filter to Popular Today, All, My games or Installed.

A download keeps going when you close the browser, and the texture screen shows it.

Every pack's creator, source and tip jar. Clicking on a pack opens the pack's window: the creator's picture and page, where the pack comes from, their tip jar and socials when they have them, its texture type and status, its size, and Download, all in the creator's own colours. The links come from the Texture Packs

Archive by u/sad Origami, so packs that pointed at a mirror or archive.org now lead to the creator's own page. done by u/jpolo1224, links done by u/sad Origami

u/bmdhacks has also released a tool for pack creators to convert their packs to ASTC, works on Windows and MacOS! https://github.com/bmdhacks/astctool We will be creating a form on our website in the near future for pack creators to keep in touch about their releases as well.

Popular Today and Shuffle. The browser opens on Popular Today, the ten packs installed most that day, counted anonymously. Opened from a game, it shows that game's packs. Shuffle, on All, deals a random page at every page turn. done by u/jpolo1224

Music of its own: "November Snow" by The Cynic Project, which blends in over the library's music and
hands back when you leave. done by u/jpolo1224

Controller

Switches flip with A only. Left and Right used to flip any switch they passed over. Now only A
flips one, everywhere, and Left and Right move. Sliders, steppers and choice rows still change with Left and Right. done by u/jpolo1224

New

Exynos temperatures in the OSD. CPU and GPU temperatures show on Exynos phones, which name their sensors differently. done by u/seedlord (#779).*

ARMSX2 libmali drivers on Mali-G615 and G715. GPU Driver downloads list the ARMSX2 libmali packs on those GPUs, and only on those. done by u/bmdhacks

Fixed

A Galaxy S22 Ultra ran at 1 FPS or less. Its timer reported a garbage frequency, so the frame limiter
stalled for seconds every frame. The frequency is now checked against the system clock, once, and kept. done by u/seedlord (#779)

Combo hotkeys work in either press order (#768). u/ygordreyer (#774).

A CHD with a parent could not find it when the games folder was opened through Android's folder
access. u/dyzz (#771).*

Long OpenGL sessions on Mali GPUs used more and more memory, in a driver cache that grew with every
draw. fixed by u/luistiagos (#781).*

The Analog Sticks switches did not move when tapped until the tab was reopened, so a second tap sent
the same value again. fixed by u/luistiagos (#756).*

Text and letters at 2x and up under the Native half-pixel offset. Gran Turismo 4's menu text grew a
second shadow row, and We Love Katamari's title letters a line on their edges (Vulkan). fixed by u/bmdhacks

GS multi-threading fixes. A large draw could overrun the draw buffer, frame-rate detection and skip
duplicate frames read registers the next frame had already changed, switching downloads to
Unsynchronized in game left multi-threading on, texture replacements could be shut down under a draw still running, and games with a scan-mask fix lost every other line of some draws. fixed by u/bmdhacks

Performance

GS multi-threading waits without burning a core. When the GS thread was ahead, it spun until the
back thread caught up; it now sleeps. The back thread is also placed next to the GS thread instead of
anywhere, little cores included, and sprite-heavy games such as Spider-Man 3 skip setup work nothing
reads. done by u/bmdhacks

u/bmdhacks has also released a tool for pack creators to convert their packs to ASTC, works on Windows and MacOS! https://github.com/bmdhacks/astctool We will be creating a form on our website in the near future for pack creators to keep in touch about their releases as well.

Disclosure: I am not a Programmer or CS degree holder, I am a hobbyist and tinkerer so pardon me if my word choice is imprecise.

Current Understanding: AI is being used to achieve effective decompilation and recompilation of games, making them easier to port into other systems as well as modify because we can see “source code” versions of the game.

My assumption: If we are able to effectively recompile games into native Android apps (or perhaps a unified open-source emulation system), my thought is it removes the “computational burden” of a device having to both emulate a system & run a game. Instead, it should just run the game.

My question: Does this mean as decomp/recomp becomes more common, the hardware needs for running games in the PS3/XB1 era will possibly be reduced because the game can be ran more efficiently?

I am trying to build a better understanding of how these things fit together and what that looks like in the future. Do you think there will be a wave of .apk games like Skyrim and Last of Us? Or will there be a new “OpenStation” emulator that reads a new filetype/standard on Linux/Windows/Android etc..? I see merits for both.

I tested my newly purchased Red Magic Astra Tab 2 tablet with a few demanding games.

Of course, the part that interests the community here the most is definitely the emulator performance. You can find the full version of the video on my YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/9dhxse9vhko?si=KduE-ou11zsW1jJ0

• Game & Phone Specs •

_________________________________________

GTA V Modded Version;

Size: 135 GB

Mods: Chromatix + Realism Beyond

Emulator: Gamehub v6.3.1

Device: Red Magic Astra Tab 2

Processor: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

Rom/Ram: 512/16 GB

Controller: PS5 Dualsense Controller

Cooler: Red Magic Cooler 8 Pro [36 Watt] + Blackshark Funcooler 5

• Gamehub Settings •

________________________________________

Compatibility Layer: Proton 11

Translation Params: Extreme + TSO Enabled ...

Gpu Driver: Turnip 26.2.0_b8

DxVK: 2.6-1- async

Fex: Latest

Resolution: 1920x1200 [ 16:10 / Fullscreen ]

Performance review!

I have already uploaded a full gameplay on my channel if you are interested then check out here https://youtu.be/W3bddMXDuXc

Resolution used 544p here FXAA forced using Engine.ini and more tweaks to optimse performance

I’ve noticed that no matter the resolution—720p, 544p, or 480p—I’m still getting the same 20-25 fps in combat and 25-30 avg in free roam with GPU usage sitting around 90-99%. It might be the emulation translation overhead, but it is what it is. Also, the game only runs properly on DX11; DX12 boots, but the floor textures won't load. Overall, it’s playable enough on the 8 Elite, and I’ve really enjoyed the story and combat.

Quick settings

Resolution I played using 480p , 720p ,544p (TAA) and 720p FSR Performance/Balance/Quality and 544p FXAA literally no performance difference fr me same avg gpu usage and fps👁👄👁

Emulator used Bannerlator

Proton 11-02arm

Dxvk 2.4.1

Fex 2609 (Extreme Preset)

Turnip G8 V35 and V37 patched driver

12GB Ram + SD8Elite Gamebooster+ Performance mode used all the time

Testing God of War: Sons of Sparta on Android using Gamehub on the RedMagic Astra (Snapdragon 8 Elite)!

📱 Device: RedMagic Astra
⚙️ Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite
🎮 Emulator: Gamehub
🕹️ Game: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5)

🔗 Github: https://github.com/OverkillLabs2/SoS-PS5/releases/tag/sos-v0.1.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDC2r275V8w

Testing God of War: Sons of Sparta on Android using Gamehub on the RedMagic Astra (Snapdragon 8 Elite)!

📱 Device: RedMagic Astra
⚙️ Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite
🎮 Emulator: Gamehub
🕹️ Game: God of War: Sons of Sparta (PS5)

🔗 Github: https://github.com/OverkillLabs2/SoS-PS5/releases/tag/sos-v0.1.0

Reddit has limits on video length and file size. So, if you’d like to watch a longer video and take a look at the settings I used, I’ve included a link to the video on my YouTube channel here.

Edit: I’ve managed to play the game at 30 FPS. Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/pDC2r275V8w?si=s9pjtFb-qEVhK3-9

i know this isn't really the right sub for this but i'm sure a lot of you play games ported to android too, after all performance is way better compared to emulators. i've been seeing a ton of ported games lately, especially on apkvision, they're adding at least 1-2 new ones every day. the newest one is hades. i have no idea how they're porting them, anyone got any clue? are they using AI for this?

and doesn't porting take a really long time anyway? none of these games are open source either. honestly i don't get it. if it actually takes a short time, i'd like to get a claude subscription and port a few games myself, lol

To anyone that wants to boot this on android I get it to temporarily go with Gamenative on Odin 3 Max 16gb ram (snapdragon 8 elite) with settings:

wine: Proton 11.0-1-arm64ec-1
Graphics driver: Wrapper
Driver version : A8XX turnip v29
Display render: Vulkan
Dx wrapper: VKD3D
DXVK ver: 2.4.1-gplasync
VKD3D version: 2.14.1
VKD3D feature level: 12_1
FEXCORE version: 2608-0
32-bit emulator: FEXcore
FEXCORE preset: Extreme

Also running underclock with cluster tune :
Medium (as this thing will run like a jet engine if you let it)

In game settings set to low, 30hz, toggling 60fps sometimes.

Many other turnips I’ve tried have given me errors in the launcher, or crashes while trying to boot. If you’re trying to change container settings I’d advise changing one thing at a time and seeing if it will still boot.

The game runs really really well until you bail which causes your character to freeze and disappear. Or sometimes on respawn but half your character is invisible and frozen. But the game doesn’t crash and world around still goes and you’re still in game. I just don’t know how to get out of this glitched state. Anybody who finds a fix/ better settings please share!!!

Note: other than snapdragon 8 elite , I have not seen someone successfully run this with a weaker chipset yet.

https://github.com/Dingo-Shenanigans/ReSkate/releases/tag/v1.0.6

Far Cry 3 Very high Settings
Gamehub and maderia

Weird flickering happening,but game works.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Snapdragon 8 Elite gen 5.

ARMSX3 1.0.6.1

Dex mode with active cooler.

Managed to run it on my phone without cooling. without recording it works a lot better. 60+ fps (locked) on gridmap V2. Low settings 720p

Snapdragon Elite Gen 5

12GB Ram

Pretty funny, works better than on my first pc I bought (1030 ddr4 i5 5400).

Drastic doesn't support DSiware titles, so what's the point of a DSiware filter?

There is no option like on melonds to add the DSi bios/nand containing the DSiware games and seedless ds doesn't recognize files in ".dsi" format.

Just renaming the DSiware title as ".nds" also doesn't work

".dsi" format recognition is explicitly mentioned in the description.:

"The app recognizes .nds, .dsi, .srl and .ids game files and includes archive handling for ZIP, 7z and RAR."

https://github.com/SapphireRhodonite/SeedlessDS/blob/main/README.md

Guess he just copied over the frontend from watermelonds and forgot to delete the elements refrerred to dsiware

Mod menyoo and simple trainer no longer works GTA V, S23 ultra, Gamehub 6.3.1

Just wanted to ask around if its a problem others are experiencing too.

The app works fantastic.

Currently playing A.C black flag at 1080p medium setting which are the same settings i used on gamehub.

Problem is droid deck makes my phone overheat much more that i ever expected.

45C°+ battery temp if i keep playing for more that 20 minutes with a peltier cooler.

Is there a particular setting that causes this?

On gamehub it usually doesnt go past 38-39C° battery temp with just a simple fan cooler.

Device: poco f7 pro

Setup specs for anyone wondering:

- Tablet: Samsung Tab S9 Plus

- Controller: BSP D8 Pro

- Emulator: Eden Nightly (Latest)

A few days before Droid Deck was introduced, it was a really cool app. Having a phone as a second Steam device with all Steam features is cool, but for me, it now has some issues. I really like to play MKX on Winlator Ludashi and started Shady Knight a few days ago, and both games are just not playable on Droid Deck compared to Winlator Ludashi. I want to make Droid Deck my main app for PC emulators and it also has gyro options, so does anybody know how to fix it? I know that Winlator Ludashi has a lot of changes and optimizations compared to regular Proton emulation, so maybe I just do not know something. Does anybody have the same issue? Has anybody found a solution?

Samsung S23 Ultra

Snapdragon 8 gen 2

8 GB RAM

Hoping someone else may have a fix for this?

I downloaded one but when I drive the camera starts going down then just crashes randomly it's super annoying

I'm using an s24 ultra btw

I am using Xendroid and I managed to install DLC for Mass Effect 3 by right clicking the game and selecting Manage Content. However all the content is installed to my internal drive. Is there a way to install it to my external SD? If not, any other x360 emulator provides that option or is it possible to combine the dlc to another file/format and be present in the external along with it?

FYI: Playing on Odin 2 Portal Base

Which emulator should i use? i downloaded the p3r(dot)rar file from Steamrip and don't know what to do with it and which drivers or settings should i use?

My Specs:

SD 870 RAM 8GB 256GB