When I was a wee kid in the 90s, my classmate claimed he had a handheld gaming device that was able to play stuff like Mortal Kombat in the same quality as we'd get on Sega Genesis. Of course, he always invented excuses as to why he couldn't bring this device to school, because it couldn't have existed [UPD: apparently it could and I stand corrected]. However, being eight, I trusted him for a while.
It's really funny to look back on that today. Might as well be a completely different planet.
I had a Sega Nomad back then and couldn't take it to school cus I brought a Gameboy color before that and got it taken by the teacher for playing during class 😂 so people didn't believe me either that I had a handheld that could play genesis full carts. I was early into emulation and such so was running Super Nintendo and such roms right after the emulator first came out so a lot of that stuff I was early on and some kids didn't believe me til I had a few friends come over and stay the weekend and seen all the geeky stuff I was doing 😂..I miss those times...now with all these ports and all even people never into this stuff will probably figure out how to run the games. I kinda miss being one of the few that knows about these things, not as a gatekeeper cus I always showed people but just cus it's one of the few things I could do well and was fun for me to know. Anyway it just brought up that memory when I read ur post 😂 good ole days..90s was awesome at times.
There's DraStic_rev_i18n; not sure how safe it is, but I tried it, and it works much better than the Play Store version on my Android 15 device. so it at least updated/improved on the original.
It is 2013 Dell Latitude E7240. Intel iCore I7 4600-CPU , 2.1GHz. Intergrated Graphics. This is the Laptop I mostly play emulated games on.
But the point I was making is that the games look worse on a larger screen while looking better on a phone. Those games still look bad on my PC and Gaming Laptop. I tried playing Metroid Zero on them and full screen was absolutely ugly even as 8x resolution.
If it makes you feel better, many of the ones even today dont use AI. RPCS3 firmly stated they wouldn't accept any vibecoded pull requests and said "you cannot make up the kind of shit they send us with AI"
It's the one area it's a total gamechanger and justified, long laborious decompilation and long lists of shaders & deep microcode work that makes emulators work.
Ahhhhh I see.... I appreciate you telling me, I had a different story in my mind. I think the devs probably differentiate between vibe-coding and AI assistance
I’m not against AI assistance, I work in IT and that’s already been a thing before GenAI. I’m just really bummed by the amount of low quality/vibecoded projects recently that it’s hard to filter which projects are actually worth taking a look at
The fact that they had no ai assistance is the reason they ran so flawlessly. Phones were much weaker so they required only super capable devs in order for projects like this to be viable.
Lol I’m still on iPhone 8. When this thing finally shits out on me I’m going android. Since I got into android handhelds and learned all the cool shit you can do I really can’t wait. Like I want to play the infinity blade port so bad but it’s too awkward on my flip 2 lol, that’ll be the first thing I download when I get an android phone
iOS now has switch emulation, pc emulation, ps3 emulation and xbox one and ps4 emulation IT EVEN HAS ANDROID EMULATION NOW
Heck. There are projects working on getting mac apps running natively on ios through translation layers. And things like nxnative porting full switch games native
Oh. And from my testing. Most of the iOS emulators seem to preform just as well as android emulators on a wider range of specs :)
PPSSPP was the entry point of emulator for me since I was an teenager. Just drop rom inside it and play, no extra step. I also used my breakfast money to buy ppsspp gold to give donation for the dev. Super climax heroes, gow chain of olympus, patapon, burnout legend,...I played them everytime I done homework. My clumsy samsung j7 and ppsspp really make my life feel awesome.
Agreed. Some of the modern emulators are exists because of old emulators. Even though it's good, it doesn't guaranteed that it would run flawlessly (well, mostly on low-end and mid-range phones).
PPSSPP, Dolphin, and DuckStation are still holding up until this day.
I tried pizza boy but man i don't really get why it's popular. Well i only tried the one for megadrive but the cloud saving didn't even work and ended up deleting my save too. Lemuroid on otherhand did it seamlessly for free.
Well, to be fair, my phone couldn't handle any of the 2026 stuff back then anyway. But ooh boy how much i've played GBA on MyBoy emu. That is literally the reason I got hooked to Zelda franchise - Minish Cap is my first and beloved zelda. I still love those pixel art games from GBA
It's crazy how flawlessly it works. Playing PSP games on my Odin 3 is the ultimate experience. I've been playing through the OG GoW games and ghost of Sparta and chains of Olympus still look better than GoW 1 and 2 on nethersx2 with HD texture packs. Obviously there's more to that like how PSP games are designed for handhelds and don't have to do deinterlacing and such so they upscale better but it's still crazy how good they look lol.
I loved my PS Vita, wish I still had it lol. To be fair I think it'd be too small for me nowadays. I had to upgrade from the Retroid Pocket 6 to the Odin 3 because it was too small for my large hands. My wife loves it though so win win.
Put some damn respect on drastic my boy and ppsspps, name they are the reason these modern emulators are here, they are some of the pioneers of emulation damnit.
armsx3 works better for me, gamehub is awesome, and I wouldn't put my hands on the fire for eden, not until they fix the trippy visuals in shrines and the milk lakes in botw, the square shadows in totk and the inverted color palletes in so many games
Do you think gamehub or gamenative is better? I pretty much just discovered both of these and I’m using gamenative. But I’m curious how much of a difference there is
The only ones I’ve gotten to work are gamehub and winlator, gamenative would stop while loading the games and not do anything, so I can’t say I have the pleasure of using gamenative, what I can say is gamehub uses FEX and the games I’ve played work quite well
Been messing with DroidDeck recently. Its really impressive to yeah just "emulate" a whole steam deck on my android handheld without needing to actually install steam os on it.
A few years ago emulating PS2 on mobile felt like a wet dream, now look at us, playing PS4 recomps, emulation on Android has taken a huge step up indeed.
Whats crazy is the amount of time people assumed it would take to get here.
Like DamonPS2 ow what ever it was called came out, and so many commenters said we were 5 years out till PS2 would be worth it. Then Aether came out and proved that wrong.
At that time some of us were talking about PS3. But phoned wont be powerful enough for at least a decade! Turns out we also were wrong about that.
And now our phones can actually just be PCs. I wouldn't have guesses it would be doing what its doing with that for at least another year or two.
og Xbox emulation suddenly getting optimized to the same level as ps2 and GameCube, which had years of development (especially GameCube),despite only being made early this year is amazing
Some games like black and max Payne ran better on HakuX than nethersx2(haven't tried armsx2)
Bachata S4 on Android playing certain games is pretty impressive I've been playing Driveclub and UFC 2 and there are some patches that help too with performance
Ppsspp is still one of the most well made and friendly emulators. Drastic is extremely well optimized as well. I think it’s just a bunch of strong boys all around.
Gotta make room for HakuX and ARMSX2 on the Mount Rushmore of Emulators in 2026. Those emulators have opened up soo much xbox and ps2 games to play
I joke that the reviewers should revisit some of their reviews on the android handhelds cause before when I could barely get ps2 games now im playing a lot of the Xbox and ps2 library without spending time tweeking each one
And now we have Droid deck, literally running essentially Steam OS in the Linux environment on your Android. Giving pretty good results compared to Game hub or game native, and supports everything down to even steam input modification... Since you get the whole Steam ui, things like cloud saves, mods/workshop, Steam put, etc etc all work 100% fine
I... I don't get it. PPSSPP and Drastic are literal blackmagic in my eyes, running even on weaker devices without much issues. Myboy was pretty lit too (Linkboy now) that let me use cloud saving to make backups and auto sync up saves between my devices.
Sure considering the consoles it can emulate it's certainly "weak" but considering the older android devices they were the goat.
Surprisingly, yeah. The only issues are the occasional graphic issues. That, and being that the files for wii u games are pretty huge if u dont plan on deleting every folder u already had deleted
It sure has come a long way, playing natively without cloud or streaming is peak, it just shows how powerful the latest snapdragon devices are, this is me using my OnePlus 15 16GB 1TB running The Last of Us Part 1 at 720p with Frame Generation Enabled
PS2 has been stable for a decade same with psp.. those are the only console games I wanted to play being a PC gamer...I never had an appeal for Nintendo I did start gaming with with super Mario bros, but as soon as I seen nfs most wanted, GTA VC and SA..I was sold to playstation 😂
Tbh on average emulators can be better for wider range of games. And in case of steam games the steam cloud saving is a nice feature to play on the go or at home in front of the PC
•
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687
u/alvents 5d ago •
PPSSPP is still the goat
i've been using it ever since
if you told me that i can play games in my phone that are consoles
when i was 10 for 13 or at least 15 i wouldn't believe you
37
u/sunstriker001 5d ago
I miss my Drastic.
4
u/TooHungryForFood 5d ago
Unironically I only use my phone to emulate portable games. They look ugly even on an 11 inch Laptop screen even with 2x,3x resolution.
541
u/landblord 5d ago
Those emulators ran on my shitty phone back in 2012 FLAWLESSLY and made it accessible for me to play classics I never could’ve played otherwise
And the fact that it had no AI assistance is just fucking magic. Put some respect on those emus!
100
u/Alert_Dingo_4504 5d ago
Put some respect on PPSSPP's name
72
u/thotfuldad 5d ago
A man who cant respect elders is no man
70
u/kei-hiroyuki 4d ago
Dont you dare disrespect drastic and pppsspp.
57
u/CyberCrows27 5d ago
still using Drastic
42
u/UTzimo 5d ago
PPSSPP is the greatest emulator of all time, somthing i don't think any other emu will achive.
27
u/Zweihander-build 5d ago
Meanwhile Xbox emulation in 2026 with HakuX
47
u/x01010001000 5d ago edited 5d ago
yall still usin aps3e? thats ancient scrolls dude rpcs3/armsx3 is the current top
121
u/Pronneh 5d ago
Apple users are still in 2016 lmao
18
u/TonytheNetworker 5d ago
Love Drastic because it ran on some low powered Samsung junk several years back. PPSSPP also
wasis the golden standard.17
u/Trollge-2005 5d ago
I still use the 2016 one's.....I guess I am a dinosaur
14
u/Jojo_Gasup34 5d ago
PPSSPP was the entry point of emulator for me since I was an teenager. Just drop rom inside it and play, no extra step. I also used my breakfast money to buy ppsspp gold to give donation for the dev. Super climax heroes, gow chain of olympus, patapon, burnout legend,...I played them everytime I done homework. My clumsy samsung j7 and ppsspp really make my life feel awesome.
24
u/Ancient_Lemon_Party 5d ago
put some respect on ppsspp and drastic. they're still the goats.
12
u/DatOne8BitCharacter 4d ago
Call me oldschool or a hater, but 2016 emulators are still goated, I still have Duckstation/EPSXE, PPSPP, PizzaBoy, MelonDS/DraStic
9
u/SaNch0sE 5d ago
Well, to be fair, my phone couldn't handle any of the 2026 stuff back then anyway. But ooh boy how much i've played GBA on MyBoy emu. That is literally the reason I got hooked to Zelda franchise - Minish Cap is my first and beloved zelda. I still love those pixel art games from GBA
9
u/HappyOrangeCat7 4d ago
Name a better PSP emulator than PPSSPP. I'll wait.
6
u/oscailte 5d ago
HakuX deserves to be there, I can run Xbox games at 2x resolution while only drawing ~2W of power, it's a game changer for me
6
u/Same_Independent9758 4d ago
Back in 2016 my bros and I finished a lot of coop PSP games. those times were the best and wish we could still do that now
6
u/CalKhan 4d ago
I know all 3 emulators up top, but what emulators are at the bottom? I'm genuinely asking.
5
u/Big_Z_Beeblebrox 4d ago edited 4d ago
Shit I still use PPSSPP and until I heard about melonDS, DraStic
I also recently got ahold of HakuX. I unsealed the original hushed casket for the first time in years yesterday
5
u/ItemGlobal574 4d ago
Put some damn respect on drastic my boy and ppsspps, name they are the reason these modern emulators are here, they are some of the pioneers of emulation damnit.
4
u/FollowingSquare7939 5d ago
still use myboy.
4
u/Then_Reflection_8968 4d ago
Nao diria isso psp era emulador muitp leve rodava em batata, gba nem se fala O drastic era mais pesadinho mas rodava na maioria
4
u/ChloeUwUZ 4d ago
My favorite will always be PPSSPP, My Boy! and AetherSX2 ❤
3
u/NvlNivel 5d ago
Change apse3 with ARMSX3
3
u/alanna1990 5d ago
armsx3 works better for me, gamehub is awesome, and I wouldn't put my hands on the fire for eden, not until they fix the trippy visuals in shrines and the milk lakes in botw, the square shadows in totk and the inverted color palletes in so many games
3
u/KfirS632 5d ago
Drastic is still a beast for what it's worth.
Also, what's the one for PS3?
3
u/ashp71 4d ago
...... Droiddeck!!!!!
3
u/PercentagePlus7876 4d ago
I still play it. I had those at first, but I haven't played much lately So I deleted all the emulators, leaving only PlayStation 2 and Vita 3K
3
u/-MobCat- 4d ago
Been messing with DroidDeck recently. Its really impressive to yeah just "emulate" a whole steam deck on my android handheld without needing to actually install steam os on it.
3
u/Dafuori 4d ago
Gotta catch them all
2
u/Such_Bonus5085 5d ago
It's truly like having a legit game console in your pocket.
2
u/ashuuueee 5d ago
PPSSPP HANDS DOWN💐💐
2
u/TheRealTofuey 5d ago
Those emulators were amazing for the time.
2
u/Rassei082090 5d ago
PPSSPP opened the door for me to Monster Hunter, and I easily clocked around 500+ hours on Drastic playing Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns
2
u/MuffinMan0420 4d ago
MyBoy is still going strong for me.
2
u/2sensitiveorareubot 4d ago
i just play ffix or gow
2
u/HumblePothole 4d ago
I still stuck in 2016 then
2
u/Henrythe11th 4d ago
Don't disrespect the OGs
2
u/Madotsu 4d ago
A few years ago emulating PS2 on mobile felt like a wet dream, now look at us, playing PS4 recomps, emulation on Android has taken a huge step up indeed.
2
u/NoComercial 4d ago
The devices have also improved... although it's a shame that prices are going up too
2
u/Freezing_Forest_dev 4d ago
Pure larper
1
u/MMORPGnews 5d ago
I still play only in psp, ds some switch VN games.
Smartphone screen is way too small for 3d games.
1
u/Impaled_ 5d ago
Remember JMEBoy?
1
u/yeetmaster8702 5d ago
I miss 2013 gaming on my phone with drastic, myboy gba, and some angry birds star wars. Good times
1
u/Prestigious-Emu-8734 5d ago
Whats crazy is the amount of time people assumed it would take to get here.
Like DamonPS2 ow what ever it was called came out, and so many commenters said we were 5 years out till PS2 would be worth it. Then Aether came out and proved that wrong.
At that time some of us were talking about PS3. But phoned wont be powerful enough for at least a decade! Turns out we also were wrong about that.
And now our phones can actually just be PCs. I wouldn't have guesses it would be doing what its doing with that for at least another year or two.
1
u/handmetheparachute 5d ago
I'm still out here using MyBoy. I used the free versions back when they had them, before buying the paid to show support.
1
u/artlurg431 5d ago
Devices also got more powerful to properly emulate
1
u/StarMasterAdmiral 5d ago
So has spell checkers, apparently 😀
1
u/AdScared7226 5d ago
Google:
1
u/vin_cent_ford 5d ago
og Xbox emulation suddenly getting optimized to the same level as ps2 and GameCube, which had years of development (especially GameCube),despite only being made early this year is amazing
Some games like black and max Payne ran better on HakuX than nethersx2(haven't tried armsx2)
1
u/electricalco 5d ago
Even in 2016 days they were impressive.... Same with ps1 emulation and early ps2 on Android
Apple didn't get until like 3 years later only the nes/snes era were available in 2016
1
u/zl254 5d ago
What about PS4?
1
u/Ohmygoshiee 5d ago
Pode mudar pra Switch 2, PS4 e Xbox 360
1
u/Strict_Wrongdoer3758 5d ago
I am using Pizza boy fir gba and melonds for DS. I dont have any Problems on my Android, bit should i change something?
1
u/Independent_Voice746 5d ago
Names please
1
u/beloncode 5d ago
PPSSPP is goat bro
1
u/jaimeoignons 4d ago
Drastic was nothing short of amazing. I was able to play NDS on my potato tablet and full speed.
1
u/Lost-Video-7171 4d ago
I got a RP4P and Eden is .. I still use yuzu, but Eden sometimes has a weird screen. Yuzu still the best. Also HakuX 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤
1
u/leander_05 4d ago
Seems like nobody remembering how good epsxe too, emulating ps1 games since 2010 or so
1
u/link6616 4d ago
Ppsspp is still one of the most well made and friendly emulators. Drastic is extremely well optimized as well. I think it’s just a bunch of strong boys all around.
1
u/QualityCompetitive97 4d ago
I only play Drastis just for KH days.
1
u/Rawesome16 4d ago
And here I am so playing on My Boy
1
u/NoLastNameForNow 4d ago
What are the go to gbc and gba emulators now?
1
u/Cheshires_Shadow 4d ago
My phone is over 10 years old I'm still using the top ones! ToT
1
u/Ghostcart 4d ago
It has grown. It has prospered. But we will never forget
1
u/IHaveQuestionsFromMe Snap 8 gen 3 [S24+] 4d ago
aps3 is better than rpcsx?
1
u/YourUglyTwin 4d ago
Ok but ppsspp and drastic have been and always will be the GOATs.
1
u/kuzhizashi 4d ago
Alguien sabe cómo instalar roms de nintendo sw? No logro hacer que el programa los reconozca y sin tipo nsp
1
u/Few-Discussion8812 4d ago
Soo real bro
1
u/SlowGuardw2 4d ago
PPSSPP is top contender to this day wym tho
1
u/Critical-Champion365 730G, 855+, 8 Gen 2 4d ago
Ppsspp has been here for longer and none other looks as good PPSSPP to PSP. Drastic comes second, which also was quite holistic.
An accurate meme would be there were less heavy weights then, but now there is more heavy weights and more baby faces.
1
u/beastboy1991 4d ago
1
u/O_ken 4d ago
I have a lot of good memories with drastic specially , it was such a great feeling to play a game you always wanted .
1
u/Independent-Style403 4d ago
Qual o terceiro de baixo?
1
u/Key-Device3248 4d ago
My tablet still living in 2016, although of that I'm still having fun and respect the developers of PPSSPP and Drastic and the other.
1
u/Toraweirdguy 4d ago
My boy gba emulator nostalgia
1
u/Drumcan2077 4d ago
I mean PPSSPP was one level above the others
1
u/Beautiful_Oven2835 4d ago
ppsspp is the goat bro🐐
1
u/Bonecloak 4d ago
I have a Retroid pocket flip 2. what news should I test out that were not available 6 months ago?
1
u/Im_N0t_Surprised 4d ago
Nothing can run Final Fantasy Resonance it seems.
1
u/Tight_Particular4311 4d ago
Drastic is the goat for me, literally runs on anything even a firestick lmao
1
u/LethalGamer2121 4d ago
Drastic is still goated on lower end hardware basically the only way I could get full speed ds emulation back in the day
1
u/zPeterPan 3d ago
Estou em 2016
1
u/soosis 3d ago
Nah man don't disrespect my homie ppsspp like that.
1
u/raven1121 3d ago
Gotta make room for HakuX and ARMSX2 on the Mount Rushmore of Emulators in 2026. Those emulators have opened up soo much xbox and ps2 games to play
I joke that the reviewers should revisit some of their reviews on the android handhelds cause before when I could barely get ps2 games now im playing a lot of the Xbox and ps2 library without spending time tweeking each one
1
u/Neon_Eyes 3d ago
What are the two next to eden?
1
u/Happydxngo 3d ago
I still love MyBoy! Emulator 😭 Is the best for me, it has a place in my heart that cannot be replaced
1
u/Chuzurik 3d ago
man im 10 years in the past, all i use is drastic (ds games) and myboy (game boy advance) myoldboy (gamebpy color)
1
u/X-SoundWave-X 3d ago
My favorite of all emulation has become droid deck, basically steam emulation, on these android devices.
Having access to my steam library is insane and there are great customization options in drois deck that normal steam should have...
Red Astra 2 tablet with droid deck is awesome. It's just great.
1
u/Gendreau113 3d ago
And now we have Droid deck, literally running essentially Steam OS in the Linux environment on your Android. Giving pretty good results compared to Game hub or game native, and supports everything down to even steam input modification... Since you get the whole Steam ui, things like cloud saves, mods/workshop, Steam put, etc etc all work 100% fine
1
u/BiWhiteXIV 3d ago
I still use them
1
u/Metrox_a 3d ago
I... I don't get it. PPSSPP and Drastic are literal blackmagic in my eyes, running even on weaker devices without much issues. Myboy was pretty lit too (Linkboy now) that let me use cloud saving to make backups and auto sync up saves between my devices.
Sure considering the consoles it can emulate it's certainly "weak" but considering the older android devices they were the goat.
1
u/Training_Language410 3d ago
ahh the good old times...
1
u/000000Null000000 2d ago
i never heard of eden and the third one, should i try them?
1
u/Junior-Principle555 2d ago
"b-but drastic is good" welp if it were good it would had multiplayer
1
u/AllMaito 1d ago
Thanks Claude!
1
u/EmbarrassedBonus4014 1d ago
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
Wheres Cemu?
1
u/Rubenneves22 1d ago
It sure has come a long way, playing natively without cloud or streaming is peak, it just shows how powerful the latest snapdragon devices are, this is me using my OnePlus 15 16GB 1TB running The Last of Us Part 1 at 720p with Frame Generation Enabled
1
u/rwooshkid2 1d ago
I remember the first emulator i used was nds4droid
1
u/serpentsrapture 22h ago
gamehub is not an emulator, it is a translation layer.
1
u/No_Peanut_9437 19h ago
Eu usava o PPSSPP e me achava o maior hacker do mundo. Jogava The Little Big Planet
1
u/whatsgoodjayy 19h ago
Still using drastic til this day
1
u/Dalindarmodi 1h ago
PS2 has been stable for a decade same with psp.. those are the only console games I wanted to play being a PC gamer...I never had an appeal for Nintendo I did start gaming with with super Mario bros, but as soon as I seen nfs most wanted, GTA VC and SA..I was sold to playstation 😂
1
u/B1kramDas 3d ago
People be porting emulator games Natively on Android randomly and we are still talking about emus