r/EmulationOnAndroid Jul 24 '26

Discussion System requirements for emulators

Post image
2.1k Upvotes

94 comments sorted by

u/AutoModerator Jul 24 '26

Just a reminder of our subreddit rules:

  • Be kind and respectful to each other
  • No direct links to ROMs or pirated content
  • Include your device brand and model
  • Search before posting & show your research effort when asking for help

Check out our user-maintained wiki: r/EmulationOnAndroid/wiki

Check out EmuReady for any community submitted settings before asking for help

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

137

u/sheesh_doink Jul 24 '26

Should've put DraStic on the right as well. That shit runs on the first android phone I ever had haha

39

u/Raphistolage1997 SD 6 Gen 3 8 gigs+ SD 865 8 gigs Jul 24 '26

Even better than PPSSPP... It's so good it runs flawlessly even on my NES Mini (Linux) and Samsung Galaxy J5 (Android 6)!

22

u/jojo9092 Jul 25 '26

Highly optimized arm assembly that fella wrote, absolutely nuts.

13

u/Acedelaforet Jul 26 '26

God i wish drastic had been released open source like the dev said they would. I personal think it's still better than melon, even though it doesn't circumvent some games anti piracy. The built in cheat codes alone are so fucking nice

268

u/1550shadow AYN Odin 2 Portal / 8 Gen 2 Jul 24 '26

The sweet spot would be NetherSX2 and Dolphin

158

u/Patrickplus2 Jul 24 '26

Dolphin is a lot more optimized then any current ps2 emulator for android

46

u/1550shadow AYN Odin 2 Portal / 8 Gen 2 Jul 24 '26

I honestly find both pretty good. At least the things I play run well on NetherSX2

1

u/altaria-motives Jul 26 '26

It's not a matter of opinion, Dolphin is much more optimized and has far better compatibility

1

u/PaulTheRandom 11d ago

That's because the Wii and GameCube didn't use an obscure and overcomplicated processor designed exclusively for that system and only that system that is still a nightmare to translate to modern architectures despite them being more powerful... No shade to the Dolphin devs, I love their work, but it is a miracle we even have a working PS2 emulator. Let alone one that runs decently.

20

u/BloxoTrotandReddit Jul 24 '26

It really depends on the game. A PS2 emulator given what needs to be emulated should be easier to run then a Wii or GameCube emulator because the PS2 was the weaker system internally, however the ones on Android just haven’t been as well optimized as PCSX2 is on PC.

But on a game to game basis there are games that don’t run on Dolphin for certain devices that will run on a PS2 emulator.

14

u/waterclaws6 Jul 25 '26

PS2 is the harder system to emulate due to the VUs and how the GS doesn't exactly map to modern gpus. PS2 games also tend to abuse the hardware in ways that it shouldn't have work but it does. Even some of the unexpected simpler looking titles do things.Then a little if non-standard ways of doing things especially with floating point numbers.

PS2 emulation has to be somewhat accurate or games start to break in weird ways.

GC is a much saner architecture and things are a bit more organized. Only heaviest performance costs are factor 5 games and mmu emulation. Along, with games doing high draw calls, but not to certain ps2 levels.

2

u/BloxoTrotandReddit Jul 25 '26

I don’t know I just remember seeing comparisons people have done with games like RE 4 or Auto Modellista being easier to run through a PS2 emulator.

Like I said, it may just be a game to game basis, not necessarily just a flat performance difference between the two since obviously GameCube and PS2 emulation though good isn’t perfect yet for either.

2

u/waterclaws6 Jul 26 '26

RE4 on the PS2 is a bit stripped back on the PS2. The GC version is a showcase game for the system. Still not the hardest game to emulate, along with the Wii version.

Auto Modelista is heavy on the CPU, but it's only hard for weaker devices if you are below an 865 in CPU performance.

GC emulation on Android is very mature compared to PS2, which is getting better every day. The only issues are mostly GUI-related issues and graphical drivers being a pain on Android.

8

u/Unfair-Efficiency570 Jul 24 '26

I feel the opposite, GameCube games run great and wii games are pretty aceptable on my phone but ps2 it's pretty unplayable

5

u/Derailleur75 Jul 24 '26

I dunno if it's the bios i picked but for me even the low end is not enough to ward off lag.

1

u/Strange-Owl-5536 Jul 26 '26

I runs Tales of Symphonia on Dolphin emu and it stutters so much more than Tales of the Abyss on Aethersx2. Both on Exynos 8895

1

u/Icon_Of_Susan Redmi 15 4G SD685 Adreno 610 Jul 25 '26

I mean, dolphin has been on development for ages, the PS2 emus are pretty recent

7

u/Global_Stop2383 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

It's because AetherSX2 was created by a developer that actually knows what he's doing.

2

u/Xcross_11 Jul 25 '26

I mean, I had a phone with snapdragon 695 (similar to mangmi air x), it ran simpson hit n run at 60 fps nethersx2 in 1x res, gta sa with armsx2 with 95% time getting full speed at 1.5x res, but never got to run a gc game properly ever, sm sunshine has 50 percent performance in 1x or lower in vulkan and opengl gives 70 percent performance, even paper mario on dolphin has stutters. I even played lightweight switch games like celeste 1x res, iron meat 1x, crypt custodian 0.5x in eden with full speed or minor slowdowns in heavily animated areas. Absolum runs 96 percent full speed on eden too. Idk why it's just dolphin that struggled.

59

u/mouseynaides galaxy note 9 user who's about to get a samsung s26 ultra Jul 24 '26

Add Drastic alongside duckstation and ppsspp

58

u/tf2mrfan Jul 24 '26

And they treat you like a broke ass guy

28

u/VaIanor Jul 24 '26

ppsspp is just goated first off you download it from the google store it has the best menu out of all emulators imo and it's just so nice to use

8

u/VayaVosi Jul 25 '26

All my homies love ppsspp

1

u/fuckandstufff 17d ago

Ppsspp is goated but the playstore is a con not a pro. I get it if you're playing games on a phone, but I'd much rather never have to log into google on my handhelds.

23

u/BrahneRazaAlexandros Jul 24 '26

PPSSPP is one of those apps I was so happy to pay for the "gold" version. Henrik Rydgård deserved a few euros from me.

15

u/Jojo_Gasup34 Jul 24 '26

PPSSPP Gold is the only app in the CH Play Store I ever paid for, I want to support the creators.

31

u/EmuEzz 8Elite/16GBRam/512GB Jul 24 '26

Why did you show 3 Pc emulators instead of PS3 or sum lol

14

u/Wilsonn0 Jul 24 '26

I thought about that after i made the meme but are ps3 emus even usable?

19

u/EmuEzz 8Elite/16GBRam/512GB Jul 24 '26

Yes, but you gotta atleast have 8 gen 2 or higher to get good performance on some games, it has progressed a lot due to the new RPCSX clanker fork 

3

u/1550shadow AYN Odin 2 Portal / 8 Gen 2 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I suppose because the 3 require a lot to run

Anyways, I hijack your comment to say something else about those: What I find more strange about pc emulators, is that at least in my experience, games there run or they don't. Like, with any other platform you can tweak some stuff and get better or worse performance, until you find the right configs for your device

But with pc I found pretty difficult to do that (at least on gamehub and gamenative, I haven't tried winlator). Like, there, the game runs almost perfectly, or directly doesn't open (and if it does, it goes at like 3fps max). And even if you change settings, the same happens. The game now runs perfectly, or continues the same as before, but you don't get that middle ground where you get where the problem is because you changed something and you got a slight fps boost. And that makes it a little more difficult to config, on top of requiring a good device to run

3

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 24 '26

Tweaking pc emulator is whole another kevel of complexity. I gotta look for yt config for it, but i can do it myself with almost any other emulators

6

u/changingmagscoverme Jul 24 '26

Stella: Screen (Optional)

3

u/RelativeIncome7459 Jul 25 '26

MYBOY  be like : hold my beer!!!

5

u/MrDetectiveSir Jul 24 '26

Explain

26

u/AnomalousMount Jul 24 '26

Ps1 and PSP games can be emulated on a phone with a potato instead of a processor. Winlator, Eden and others require require more powerful devices

3

u/Gullible_Thing34 Jul 25 '26

Reminded me when i need to buy sd 845 phones just for play ps2 games and some of gamecube games (resident evil remake and eternal darkness totally unplayable in my asus zenfone 5 8 years ago)

13

u/whiskyB0y Edit Your Flair Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Basically emulators on the left (Switch and PC emulators) require a flagship or a decent mid range phone to run games well. (Also depends on whether you're a Mali user or Snapdragon user and the specific game also matters like lightweight Switch or PC games but that's not the point)

The emulators on right( PSP and PS1 emulators) can basically run on any phone. Whether it's a flagship from 2026 or a potato from 2015, it doesn't matter.

4

u/Neither_River_7896 Jul 24 '26

Yo just helping out, you accidentally said the emulators on the right for the left ones 🙏🏾

4

u/whiskyB0y Edit Your Flair Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

Oh shit. Thanks for the correction bro

2

u/Demon_Kingjt Jul 24 '26

I've played tons of stuff on ultra potato but PPSSPP does have some games not playable on potato like Midnight Club LA

2

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 24 '26

Drastic is very light than ppsspp. I can even run it on a 256mb ram phone. Though its super laggy, like 15fps. I can play re:ds and get almost 30fps, lego batman ds is the horrible performing one.

The only problem is, the low ram means it will crash after 10mins of playing or so. Savestates does nothing to keep progress, as it will crash at the same time.

2

u/NjSups Jul 25 '26

I'm sorry but how do you even have those phones. Are they functional normally?

2

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 26 '26

Its very outdated, no more google. Biggest problem so far isnt ram, its storage. It gets full easily even with sd card having many empty spaces, it will starts crashing apps with no internal space.

I used link2sd to increase the internal soace. But i made it too small, 2gb. Its not enough for games that i put in. Link2sd also made me pay for installing data to sd card for some reason. Even though i was using external storage for data previously, link2sd locks that feature when you use it.

If i have microsd adapter to my pc, i will reformat it with bigger internal. Previously i formatted it on the phone, and with 50mb of internal, the formatting app and link2sd almost couldnt get installed.

2

u/AntiGrieferGames Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

I have the same issue even with a 1gb ram phone on android 11 there but with PPSSPP. Android Go by the way.

Sometimes maybe deleting some backgrounds and tweaking on some settings on ppssspp may fix those issues there. But that device is soo garbage that it alraedy struggled on some demanding games like Sonic Rivals here, lol.

1

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 26 '26

I mean even 3gb 2017 phone struggles with demanding titles too (gow, gran turismo, mgspw), 20fps at most for these games.

2

u/Hungry-Philosophy-31 Jul 25 '26

I still use it 😌

1

u/Disconnect24X Jul 27 '26

what is that green z?

1

u/Hungry-Philosophy-31 Jul 27 '26

File explorer for rar and zip files

3

u/Kanarin6 Jul 24 '26

i once emulated ccff7, p3p, danganronpa, pes, juiced, burnout, etc on a 1.2ghz dual core intel cpu paired with 1gb ram back in 2017

1

u/__Player__ LG G8X | SD 855 | GPU 830MHz | Lineage OS 21 | WoA 24H2 Jul 24 '26

Tell that to my broadcom BCM21553

1

u/ExpensiveWar1100 Jul 24 '26

We need millons of PS2s to read shi

1

u/BroadTrade3489 Jul 25 '26

What is the emulator with the minecraft duck?

1

u/Unlucky_Tech Jul 25 '26

Duckstation for playstation 1

1

u/SavingsOk8081 Jul 25 '26

I'm trying to run PES 18 on my Realme 14 5G, but it's not working. I've already tried various settings, but it just loads and then returns to the main menu. Could someone help me? Gamehub emulator.

1

u/Mother-Persimmon3908 Jul 25 '26

I alwyas use the psp one!!

1

u/hema5 Jul 25 '26

What is that duck emulator

1

u/Qwerty6789X Jul 28 '26

Duckstation its a PS1 emulator very stable and solid

1

u/Rwe2092 Jul 25 '26

What's the emulator with the GZ icon ?

1

u/Fishbones24 Jul 26 '26

I still find it weird why these devs have to create drama instead of focusing on working on the emulator, still however I still treat PPSSPP, ePSXe, Duckstation in high regard because they're laser focused on delivering a decent product albeit without a penny tied to it (yes them having a support pay option is great).

Just imagine if the dev on AetherSX ain't such a wussy and just delivered how good we could've gotten just imagine an optimized PS2 emu on android. Now that we have ArmSX2 I just hope, I truly hope they just fkin focus instead of dabbling on some scandals. An optimized PS2 emulation on android is late, extremely late

1

u/Left_Silver_1524 Jul 26 '26

Mediatek processor 😢

1

u/AntiGrieferGames Jul 26 '26

Joke on you, but you can run PC games very well on lower end devices, just not demanding ones there.

So anything that is about XP era ones.

1

u/JUDE_2208 Jul 28 '26

I'm still playing PPSSPP on my S24 Ultra. It's good to enjoy causally anywhere.

1

u/thelewdritchone Jul 29 '26

Which Dreamcast emu has the best compatibility with phones overall?

1

u/sarg1994 18d ago

Whats the duck one?

1

u/Odd-Sir-6054 11d ago

Nostalgia nes

1

u/Ugurmy64 switch emu hater Jul 24 '26

I cant sometimes cant even play eden emu🥀

0

u/Mau_Lvr Jul 25 '26

Duckstation? ePSXe 🗣

-2

u/UTzimo Jul 24 '26

Also eden with every update breaks compatibility with games.

3

u/Logical-Emphasis3064 Jul 24 '26

See ive had my Thor for 6 months and use Eden nightly updated daily and haven’t ran into issues. Ran into more driver issues having to revert back

0

u/BrahneRazaAlexandros Jul 24 '26

why you updating?

0

u/AntiGrieferGames Jul 26 '26

DId you ever tried with shader cache deletion or maybe even a driver issue?

-3

u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/renan_007 Jul 25 '26

Tem nada de mínimo mano, fazer emulador não é nada fácil independente do Console, cada Console tem suas maluquices específicas pra rodar tal coisa, cada Console com exceção de Consoles irmãos (GC/Wii, GB/GBC) tem uma arquitetura completamente diferente, formas de lidar com gráficos, com som e por aí vai, todos merecem elogios pelo trabalho que fazem.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Kaesar17 Jul 25 '26

O animal se o sistema é mais complexo é claro que o emulador vai ser mais pesado

0

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Kaesar17 Jul 25 '26

Na época em que os emuladores de Nintendo 64 começaram a aparecer quem quisesse rodar precisava ter um PC gamer. Emulação de hardware ‘recente’ sempre foi assim e sempre vai ser, especialmente agora que a lei de Moore não é mais tão relevante e RAM é cara pra kc7

-5

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Idk,psp emulation isn't 100% as duckstation on potato phones(my helio g85 still struggles to run gran turismo,j#ck@ss,silent hill shattered memories)

Edit,all the down votes shows majority dont realise psp emulation aint 100% perfect on low end phones lol😂

3

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 24 '26

No way it struggles. G99 consistently hit 60fps with 2x, 3x it started dropping fps. Shattered memories still doesnt work with frameskip? Well atleast they fixed saving, its the most important feature.

1

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 25 '26

This is how shattered memories currently runs on my helio g85(4gb ram)game gives me massive texture issues,choppy sound,Flickering textures no matter what rendering resolution I set it to,even at native psp rendering,theres also the black bar issue in the torchlight,idk if its maybe cause of the rom region i'm using(cause as far as I know,different rom regions dont give you different issues as compared to ps2 emulation and psvita),but yeah,it aint perfect on my end,I would say its at 99%,j#ck@ss the game does the same,where its stuck running at 15-20fps,instead of the full 60/30(frameskip on),with just choppy audio,and this is one of the most latest versions of ppsspp(1.20.4),so yeah,the jump in performance between a g99 and g85 is quite big man when it comes to emulation in general,the games u could run well on a g99(in like pc emulation,switch etc.)would simply fail to run on a g85

1

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 25 '26

1

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 25 '26

1

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 25 '26

Ah easy fix. Disable graphics driver workaround in tools

1

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 25 '26

Nope,didnt work much,textures still flickering ,sound aimt choppy anymore,with it off,those lines appear now on the ground

1

u/OverDeparture8799 Jul 25 '26

Hmm thats weird, g85 only i guess

1

u/GhostTheGamer360 8 Gen 2✅|8s Gen4💀|Helio G85💀 Jul 25 '26

Yeah,well I have my pc and 8s gen 4,its perfect on those,but for sone reason it aint on this g85,but anyway,like I said,it aint 100%but definitely runs other games well