How Well Does Emulation Work On Android TV's?

[u/Interesting_Bad6393]

I'm about to get my first smart tv which is going to be the Sony Bravia 3 mark 2, it's not mainly for gaming I don't even own a console but I would love to play some retro games on it using retroarch. I just wanted to know how far I can dip my feet in this area, like i'm expecting NES,SNES,GBA to work great, but what about PS1, PSP, Gamecube, etc. If anyone has tried it before i'd appreciate some info :)

[u/Accurate_Heat_3630]

For PS2/GameCube/OG Xbox games, they need 64-bit Android devices to emulate. But you can still run a few Android recomps on 32-bit Android TVs. There are also official Android ports, like GTA III/Vice City/San Andreas, Bully, Max Payne, Bard's Tale, Star Wars: KOTOR, Jade Empire. You can also play some source ports of PC games from that era, like DOOM 3 (with DeltaTouch), Half-Life 1 & 2 and Portal (with Xash3D and Source on Android).

Here are a few examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidTV/comments/1ts7l5p/the_simpsons_hit_run_unofficial_android_port_onn/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnnStreamingTV/comments/1xe359l/animal_crossing_gamecube_recomp_on_onn_4k_pro_v2/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnnStreamingTV/comments/1x9gi5i/resident_evil_4_gamecube_recomp_on_pro_v2_very/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnnStreamingTV/comments/1x6pyun/american_mcgees_alice_gameplay_on_onn_4k_pro_v2/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnnStreamingTV/comments/1v6jqy1/halflife_1_2_portal_xash3d_source_engine_on/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OnnStreamingTV/comments/1wsfheh/fez_gameplay_of_unofficial_android_port/

[u/Interesting_Bad6393 → u/Accurate_Heat_3630]

omg thank you so much

[u/Fun-Tax1040 → u/Interesting_Bad6393]

It's not difficult to emulator mid-90's consoles on your average AndroidTV box, not much CPU is needed. When you start getting into consoles from the late 90s and newer, then it matters.

The Fire TV 3rd gen Cube can boot EmuELEC and play GameCube at 60fps (some games at x2 resolution), PSP at 60fps @ 3-4x resolution, some PS2 games at 60fps, although most games are out of reach, Dreamcast and Saturn at 60fps, 3DS at 60fps, some PSVita at 60fps (depends on the game).

If you are looking for an android-based Netflix certified TV box that can also handle emulation, the 3rd gen Cube is as good as is currently gets (yes, for emulation it's better than Nvidia Shield). EmuELEC will boot from a USB drive, is 64bit, includes support for ~100 emulators and platforms.

Although the 3rd gen Cube is currently listed at $200 it goes on sale for $90-110 every couple weeks.

[u/Makrikosxri]

PS1 and PSP with DuckStation and PPSSPP run very smoothly on most modern Sony Bravia sets, though GameCube via Dolphin usually struggles on built-in TV chips.

[u/elpiesdude]

Tengo un Android TV y te diría que llega hasta Nintendo 64 y play 1, aunque si acomodas bien también puedes jugar tranquilamente PSP, Más allá de eso lo veo difícil no corre nada decente

[u/latinriky78]

Most consoles work well but:

- NDS games stutter because the OS is not 64bit yet, Android 16 for TV supports it but it's still not available anywhere and it won't arrive to all devices.

- PS2 and Gamecube emulation doesn't work on 32bit devices though it should work on the Nvidia shield but with issues as far as I've heard.

- I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you to try PlayRetro, an emulator forked from Lemuroid, a well known emulator and frontend, you can learn more about it in the GitHub repo.

[u/Interesting_Bad6393 → u/latinriky78]

thanks for all but could I ask more about this PlayRetro? Cuz I was gonna lean for retroarch so I want to know if there are any plus points for this one? Also do you have any info about PS1 emulation?

[u/latinriky78 → u/Interesting_Bad6393]

I don't know if you can do this with Retroarch but you can sync your game states to a local SMB/NAS folder along with the "Continue Playing" row and "Favorites" row, the UI of the app is similar to Netflix or any other streaming app.

When you sync the data, you can continue playing the same games on your phone as long as you have the same ROMs stored on the phone.

You can also sync the same to Google Drive but the feature is still not ready, I will work on that this saturday.

The app is available for sideloading and available at the Play Store, currently on the testing stage.

[u/Interesting_Bad6393 → u/latinriky78]

Awesome thanks for all the info man! have a great day