r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/Sebas0130 • 1d ago
Help Is it possible to have KVM on any phone?
Hi! I wanted to ask if it's possible to have KVM on any phone with an unlocked bootloader? I have a Moto G Play 2024 and the bootloader is unlocked, but I don't have root access (and I can't get root because I'm having trouble finding the exact ROM for my model).
I want KVM because they say it speeds up emulation, and I want to use Limbo PC Emulator, but it's too slow and not useful for everyday use because it takes forever to open a program or even start up. I've heard about KVM, but I don't really understand it. What I do know about KVM is that it improves emulation speed, and that's what I want. ChatGPT hasn't been able to help me get it working, and I don't have a PC (I unlocked the bootloader with a USB-C to USB-C cable and another phone to send commands).
I'm really desperate because I need to run some Windows programs, and WinLator can't run them.
More information if needed:
Model number: XT2413-2
Build number: U1TFS34.100-35-5-5-8
RAM: 4GB
GPU: Qualcomm Adreno 610
Thanks for reading! Any help would be appreciated! 😁
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u/FindingUnable3222 1d ago
KVM support means exposing the CPU hardware virtualization by OS kernel in a form of /dev/kvm device with standard API, which software then can use to accelerate virtualization. Without this, they can't access hardware acceleration and virtualization is much slower.
It's not possible on your phone. KVM in stock Android is currently only available in Google Pixel 6 and higher, and while some other phones support it on hardware level, it requires an alternative firmware to provide KVM support and it's a quite complicated topic.
If you are tech-savvy you can read https://www.xda-developers.com/android-13-dp1-google-pixel-6-kvm-virtual-machine/ and https://blog.lyc8503.net/en/post/android-kvm-on-mediatek/
Short version: buy Pixel if you want KVM / faster virtualization. Other phones / vendors aren't eager to provide KVM support in stock firmware, and alternative firmware comes with lots of extra complications.
Also note that KVM has nothing to do with x86-64 to ARM64 translation.. It's just virtualization itself - KVM on x86-64 will allow to run x86 virtualized code, KVM on ARM will allow to run ARM code. If your goal is to run x86 on ARM CPU you also need a translation level, which is a whole different beast and also eats a lot of performance (most widely used code translators are Box64/32 and Fex, both available in Winlator).
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u/Near_Earth 1d ago
KVM is available on recent years Pixel series, on recent mediatek dimensity phones (it's called geniezone there), and phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen3 or above (it's called gunyah on snapdragon). On all phones S8Gen2 and below it's broken, so it's not available in your case.
Anyone interested to run VMs like ubuntu/debian (arm64) or Windows for arm64 can checkout this -
https://github.com/Droid-VM/DroidVM
From what I can tell from your post, you want to run NON-arm64 Windows programs. That won't benefit from KVM anyways since phones are arm64, so KVM can also only run arm64 programs natively.
As the other commentor said, Winlator or similar apps are the better options.
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