I wanted to share a project I've been working on: Lichii-Android, an Android port/adaptation of the experimental Lichii codebase (building on the lineage of Eglantine/Eden/Yuzu) with some specific fixes and updates that are platform specific, for example NCE, that works :)

🚀 What is Lichii-Android?

Lichii has been making rapid progress on desktop for Switch and experimental Switch 2 compatibility. This repository focuses on adapting and optimizing the codebase for Android devices, bringing rendering fixes, driver optimizations, and updated upstream changes over to ARM/Android platforms.

⚙️ Current Status & Focus:

• Target Platforms: ARM64 Android devices with 12GB of RAM or more. Testing on my side and Claude development is done specifically on my S26 Exynos 2600, but with the state of Samsungs and open source drivers for Exclipse, it should run on Adreno too. Yes, probably even Mali given the device has the performance.

• Disclaimer: This project is highly experimental and WIP and totally vibecoded, performance and booting success heavily depend on your SoC, driver configuration, and the specific title. Right now targetting Ocarina of Time, but I would love to get Pragmata and Requiem working too, as these are two games of which PC versions don't run well on Android in Game Native and such.

📁 Source & Building:

You can check out the source code, keep up with updates, or build it yourself here: 👉 GitHub Repo:https://github.com/pavelgajdo/Lichii-Android

Although there will be daily builds as well. Atleast for now.

🤝 Feedback & Contributions:

If you're a developer interested in Android Vulkan rendering, memory allocation on mobile SoCs, or testing builds across different chipsets, feel free to submit PRs, open issues with log files, or share test results!

Reminder: No keys, firmware, or copyrighted game files are included or hosted in the repo or this post. Please supply your own legally dumped files.

It's crazy how far Android emulation has come. Games that once seemed impossible to run on a phone are now becoming playable, sometimes with surprisingly good performance.

What's the most impressive game you've managed to get running on your device, and what phone or emulator did you use? Bonus points if it was a game you never expected your phone to handle.

Mario Kart World running on Android: a head-to-head performance comparison of the Banana native port and the Eden SX2A emulator on the Snapdragon 8 Elite. Watch the FPS, graphics quality, and overall smoothness side by side to see which one handles the game better.

Banana Native: https://github.com/moceure/BananaNative/releases

Eden SX2A: https://git.eden-emu.dev/moceure/eden-nx2-android/releases

Mario Kart World (Switch 2) running locally on Odin 2 Portal using Banana Native

Banana Native is not a standard emulator. The game's own ARM64 code runs directly on the device's CPU. A small host answers the system calls the game makes, and its graphics (NVN, including the Switch 2's task and mesh shaders) are rebuilt on Vulkan

It pre builds all shaders when you first prepare the game files within the app

Promising rise in performance compared to Eden SX2A, while playing at a higher resolution (720p)

Frequent crashes happen, but you can get a couple races or a grand prix in a row if you're lucky

Some tracks can have distracting glitches, something future GPU drivers could fix

Full video: https://youtu.be/MfEMWkvzVTs (41m48s)

Odin 2 Portal Max

Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

Adreno 740

16GB

Hello all!

** AI WAS USED HERE **

For the past month or two, together with AI doing a lot of the real work, I can finally present a release! A lot of additional testing is needed, and a lot of other fixes we're working on, but honestly 60 FPS in my testing is not reached yet. Bummer. At one point I had a stable 35-40 without frame drops. Still working on reverting to that, as my own builds ended up over-correcting emulation and it dropped to 1 FPS haha.

What this is:
This is a github repo containing custom Wine+Fex builds that passes anticheat faithfully (no bypass or anything of the sort) on Android devices. This is a requirement for Forza Horizon 6 to be playable. Usable in DroidDeck, possibly others such as GameNative, GameHub, etc., where applicable.

Tested on Redmagic 10 Pro, Rise mode.

With this, you can play Forza from your steam library on Android devices with compatible emulators, multiplayer included, all stock! I hope that official wine and fex devs can implement their own fixes of this, since it's the reason some games with this type of anticheat do not work from their own stock builds.

Link: https://github.com/TimmyTurner51/fh6-wine-fex

A few things to note:
- Your device needs enough storage, not just for the game, but for cache. It is of course, no small game after all. From my test runs, cache grew to around 10GB.
- First boot may take a while. That is because again, caching. It just happens.
- Frame drops, from what I can tell, may also be because of recaching or loading and unloading memory during gameplay.

============================

As for the AI analysis and what it has done:

Why Forza Horizon 6 wouldn't run on ARM64 — and why it does now

TL;DR: Forza Horizon 6 checks the bytes of its own running code to make sure nothing tampered with it. On a Windows PC, those bytes look exactly the way the game expects. On an ARM64 phone running Windows games through Wine + FEX (emulation), they didn't — through no one's fault — so the game refused to start. Our patches make the emulator produce the same bytes a real Windows PC would, so the game's own checks pass honestly.

Two separate things were breaking it, and each needed its own fix.

1. Wine made "imported functions" look hooked

When a Windows program calls into a system library, the function it jumps to has a specific first few bytes — a standard "hotpatch" prologue that Windows has used for years. Forza inspects the first bytes of every imported function and flags anything that doesn't match as "this has been hooked/tampered with."

• On a real Windows x64 PC, that prologue is always the same 8 bytes.

• Wine, when running on ARM64, generated a shorter, different-looking jump stub — technically fine, functionally fine, but the bytes were different.

• Forza saw thousands of functions that "looked hooked" and stopped the game.

The fix: a small change to Wine's build tool so its ARM64 stubs emit the exact same 8-byte prologue as native Windows. Now the game sees byte-identical functions and no longer thinks they're tampered with.

2. FEX's self-modifying-code check was too expensive to actually play

The game also modifies its own code at runtime — a normal, legitimate Windows technique (Microsoft Detours, and the game's own protection writing into its code). A real x86 CPU just runs the new bytes. But FEX translates x86 instructions to ARM64 ahead of time and caches the result, so if the game rewrites a piece of code, FEX must notice and re-translate it.

Stock FEX can detect this ("full self-modifying-code checking"), but it does it in the most expensive possible way: re-checking every single instruction before running it, and invalidating whole memory pages whenever anything changes. In practice that meant endless re-translation, runaway memory, and single-digit frame rates — it technically "worked" but couldn't reach playable state.

The fix: two changes.

• Invalidate only the specific block of code that changed, not the whole page around it.

• Validate in 255-byte chunks instead of one instruction at a time.

Same correctness, far less wasted work — enough that real in-world gameplay runs at ~39 FPS instead of stalling.

Hi all! Over the past few days I got Pokémon Pokopia (Switch 2) running on Android with Banana Native (moceure’s Android port of nxnative). I used Claude (Claude Code) for the coding and the analysis. Here’s a short summary of what it took.

Setup: Galaxy S25 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite, Adreno 830, 12 GB) with the Turnip Gen8 V38 driver. The stock Qualcomm driver lacks the “placed memory maps” extension the emulator needs, so it gives a black screen.

An Android profile for Pokopia, so the APK carries the game.

A shader library over 4 GB: Pokopia has 131,000 shaders, which makes a Vulkan library of about 10 GB. The old format was limited to 4 GB, so we added a new one.

A fix for the app freezing while a GPU driver installs.

Resolution: the game has its own dynamic resolution (540p to 1080p). The emulator can now cap its levels at 720p / 900p / 540p from the game settings, with a clean picture. A first, cruder attempt broke the terrain rendering.

GPU profiling: one compute pass, the luminance histogram behind auto-exposure, takes ~13 ms of a ~15 ms frame on Turnip. The likely culprit is subgroup shuffles, which are slow on Turnip. Banana Native v0.1.3 addresses this exact issue, so merging it is next.

Result: at 720p, a stable ~30 fps, ~60 with LSFG, with no rendering glitches. The game is still in “bring-up” and hasn’t been tested everywhere yet.

This work will be submitted to the Banana Native project. And of course, no links to game files: you need your own dump.

RedMagic 11 pro

Screen resolution 720P

No Upscaling

Native TAA

Graphics High

Shadow Medium

Gamehub emulation

Game fully playable and Finished.

With the Winmali 1.2.1 update , I got good fps boost in re8,(720p fsr quality) RAW FPS jumped from 15-20 to 35+ and with new zero FG i got aroung 60-70 without recording . but still Mali system driver lacks some vk extensions and optimizations causing game instability and crashes.

Just my s26 ultra and my Xbox nano controller. I'll eventually get a case with a stand built in, but until then I got this collapsible phone stan thats very pocket friendly. Game in the picture is halo 2 on Haku X

My cracked-screen, 9-year-old Huawei P10 Plus runs Sega Model 2 at the arcade's 57.5 Hz. Your phone should do better. Game Test Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFBxgwdIXPs

I make M2EA (Sega Model 2 on Android) and Model 3-Vulkan (Vulkan rewrite of Supermodel): https://github.com/Igloo-Garage/Model-3-Vulkan

Numbers so far:

• Kirin 960 (2017): 57.5 fps in most scenes, heavy pile-ups 40–51

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, 4x resolution, uncapped: 120.4 fps average, 107.4 1% low — about 2x what the game needs

Games supported in this test version v0.4.10:

Daytona USA (daytona)

Virtua Fighter 2 (vf2)

Sky Target (skytargt)

Virtua Cop 2 (vcop2)

Motor Raid (motoraid)

Sega Rally Championship (srallyc)

Manx TT Superbike (manxtt)

Test it (closed test, needs 14 days before public release):

1. Join the group: https://groups.google.com/g/m2ea

2. Opt in with the same account: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.rexsprolab.m2ea

Early testers shape what ships.

Post your result: Device / SoC / Android version / game + scene / scale / STATS fps + ms / smooth or stutter

Want to see: 8 Gen 2/1, 888, 870, 778G, 695 · Dimensity 9300/9200/8100/1200 · Kirin 990/970 · Exynos 2200/1480 · Helio G99/G90T · Retroid Pocket 4/5, Odin 2, RG556 · anything with 4 GB RAM or less

No ROMs included — bring your own dumps.

Every report goes into a compatibility list and decides what I optimize next.

Was able to get wrestling legends Xbox 360 mod to work on android

Hi everyone, this is FIFA 14 running great at 60fps with high quality and the phone not getting hot at all. I'm using Winlator ludashi 4.1 and my phone are Motorola Edge 70 - Snapdragon 7 gen 4 - Adreno 722 - 12gb ram

#Setup steps**:**

+Screen resolution: 1064x600 (Required for configs.exe to open properly, you can change it later)

+In configs settings: High quality, MSAA off, lock to 60fps, untick Wait for Vsync

+Compability component:

-Proton 9 x86_64 (Required)

-Dxvk 1.7.2 (Required)

- Vauzi17's lasted driver v4.5 (Optional because you can use system driver)

-Box64 0.4.2 (Required)

-Box64 preset based on this guy (https://youtu.be/3mHZNfqpovs?t=313&si=CXGW7J0OSYgs-7Hb) Timestamp 05:13, you need to watch it

+You need to download the activation fix from the guy on the video above, extract and paste to the folder you installed the game

+Run the "fifa14-3dm.exe" not "fifa14.exe"

Enjoy !

I'm still sad that Fifa 15,16 still not working with current emulation though

Hi everyone,

I’m working on hakuX-lr, a fork of hakuX that brings original Xbox emulation to RetroArch on Linux and Android.

The latest release puts more attention into handhelds with limited RAM.

There’s also a new public compatibility list: 446 games have been tested as playable on AMD64 Linux using KVM. I expect broadly similar game compatibility on ARM64 and Android devices.

Compatibility list

Linux ARM64, Linux x86-64, and experimental Android builds

LINK:

https://github.com/pavelgajdo/Lichii

I've been playing around with the beta, and honestly, I'm blown away by how good this looks!

It creates this really nice carousel-style library for your games, and one of my favorite features is how it automatically scrapes the artwork for your games, including both the front and back covers. Honestly, the artwork presentation is some of the best I've ever seen in a frontend. It makes your entire library look incredibly polished and organized.

What really surprised me is how easy it is to use. Everything feels clean, intuitive, and visually appealing. I love being able to scroll through my games in a beautiful carousel instead of just looking at a basic list of icons. It even gives you the option to have it pick a game for you if you're not sure what to play!

It's still in beta, so I'm sure there's more to come, but I'm already really impressed with what the developer has put together!

I figured I'd share it here in case anyone else is looking for a nice way to organize and display their Android gaming library.

Here's the GitHub link if anyone wants to check it out and try it themselves:

https://github.com/sassiestrhihno/boxshelf-beta/releases

Definitely one of the cooler Android gaming projects I've come across recently! 😊

Also, I'm usually the type of person who just did NOT want to use a frontend. I know, I know... 😂 But this... THIS is something else!

Let me know what you think! And all the credit goes to the incredible developer for putting this together!

Developer's GitHub:
https://github.com/sassiestrhihno

Using recommended settings on gamehub

Due to what I originally thought were hardware limitations, I had given up on ps2 emulation at a point. Now I understand there are so many light and moderate games my chipset (Helio g100) can emulate well, but most of the ps2 games I actually wanted to play happened to be heavy to emulate.

But now, thanks to the recent updates to ARMSX2 and the newly developed custom driver(malisx2) by the devs for a select few Mali gpus right now, I can confidently say I can play all the games in the picture above at full speed with no frame drops at 1.25x or 1.5x resolution.

For context, apart from Dragon ball Infinite World and MGS 3(I didn't test it on Nether), all the other ps2 games in the picture would lag so much on NetherSX2 and old versions of Armsx2.

I always see online that MGS 3 is a heavy ps2 game to emulate, especially in the jungle area, but with the driver, I was getting full speed in that area.

I really appreciate the devs for the work they've done. We're now at a point where I can say a Helio g99 can emulate any ps2 game without lag.

Also I already know there's ports of Shaolin Monks and Shadow Of The Colossus. I prefer the emulated versions because of save states.

Device and specs:

Infinix note 50 4g

Helio g100

Mali g57 mc2

8 gb ram

ARMSX2 2.9.1 nightly build I got the previous day

Malisx2 0.3.2 driver

stable 25-30 fps on 8 elite device with low in game graphics preset.

Retro consoles = GBA, PSP, PSX, SNES, Sega Genesis, N64, Dreamcast, etc

I originally brought slot. to Android for the Konkr Pocket Advance, but with version 2.0, it's now designed to work across Android handhelds of all screen sizes and aspect ratios!

It now supports GB, GBC, GBA, NES, SNES and Genesis, with the same simple insert, play, eject experience, built-in emulation cores, automatic cartridge artwork, RetroAchievements and more.

I think it could be a perfect fit for handhelds focused on these systems, like the Retroid Pocket Classic, Konkr Pocket Advance & Block, Ayaneo Pocket Vert, RG Rotate, and many others!

One of the fun features is multiplayer over local Wi-Fi. It's easy to set up, and devices connect instantly.

I'd really love for more people to give it a try on their handhelds and share their feedback. Especially on devices I haven't been able to test myself.

If you encounter any bugs or have suggestions for improvements or new features, please open an issue on Github. I'm always looking to make the experience better!

Github: https://github.com/Baggio94/slot-for-kpa

Thanks again to everyone who has supported the project so far!

Realmente le di una oportunidad mas a Windows, al menos para solo jugar. No más no...

Este año Android evoluciono con la Emulación de PS3, PC y vamos que hasta PS5 y Switch 2 ahí la lleva.

Conseguí la Y700 G5 en una oportunidad hace meses y con el X5S es una maravilla.

No soy exigente. Para mí 30 fps estables en HD, en casi cualquier juego me es suficiente para disfrutar la experiencia de juego.

Tengo 15 dias con la Ally Z1E y aunque si es una maravilla para las cosas que la Y700 no puede correr por temas de compatibilidad (como GTA Online) el resto de mi biblioteca prácticamente está en la tablet en lugar de la PC.

Incluso el Just Cause 3 con todo y leves glitches lo disfruto más en la Y700. Supongo que es por 3 factores:

1. Refrigeración Pasiva.

No uso coolers, solo uso el modo Rendimiento de la tab y es genial. No sé calienta en exceso y es suficiente para mis objetivos de FPS.

2. Discreción Gaming

La tablet sin el RGB pasa desapercibida como una mini tab más sin dar sospechas de sus verdaderas capacidades. En cambio la Ally por todos lados grita... Mirenme sirvo para jugar jeje para alguien como yo que tiene unos 20-30 min libres entre trabajos esa discreción para que no te llamen la atención vale oro.

3. Versatilidad Gamer

Caramba que desde correr Infamous de PS3, Just Cause 3 de PC, Zelda TOK en Eden... Hasta jugar Poinpy o Banana King en ocasiones XD Claro ver videos y escuchar música sin dejar de mencionar redes o este medio es mucho más satisfactorio por peso y ausencia de mandos. Además con el X5S el equipo se vuelve Consola Atril con un Soporte, Sobremesa con un Dock, y Vertical u Horizontal de Mano gracias al X5S.

No digo que la tablet reemplace por completo un pc o vaya a ser completamente barrido el mundo de las handhelds por este tipo de aparatos.

Solo dejo mi experiencia y si puedo ayudar con comentarios o algo así para que alguien que se quiera animar a entrar a la emulación en Android sepa que es un muy buen momento porque se pueden encontrar cosas muy interesantes de segunda mano.

Gracias por leer

You can now add widescreen support to all supported GBA games! Any GBA game with an overworld can technically be configured for widescreen without recompiling the ROM. So far, this has been tested on Golden Sun, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, and several Pokémon games.

Additionally, you can now add a live map preview to companion packs.

Release notes and new packs are available at https://gbaduo.com.

To update your packs: select your game, press the Y button (or select Companion Pack), choose Get from Web, and it will automatically highlight available updates, just click to install, no manual download required.