Emulation on android is dead?

[BigTony]

Sure feels like it. Right as android handhelds were just starting to get really good and affordable everyone seems to have given up on the platform in favor of handheld PCs which are cool but are way too bulky inefficient and expensive. So many projects like citra and aetherSX2 are being abandoned it sucks. Am i just being overly pessimistic or is android gaming fucked?

 

[Yousef]

Sure feels like it. Right as android handhelds were just starting to get really good and affordable everyone seems to have given up on the platform in favor of handheld PCs which are cool but are way too bulky inefficient and expensive. So many projects like citra and aetherSX2 are being abandoned it sucks. Am i just being overly pessimistic or is android gaming fucked?

In my humble opinion, I would personally say no. I still game on it. But it’s worth mentioning I’m like 90% content just emulating 5th gen and below, NDS/PSP and below. I’m not super eager to play ps2 stuff on it cuz I have my steam deck for that and I typically don’t want too many large files clogging up my phone because file management is so much worse on a phone than on a pc imo because your phone carelessly saves larger versions of some data and makes it much harder to retrace your steps and track down said files. On pc it’s easy to sort everything by size. On phone it takes a few more steps plus i just plat rpgs on my phone which doesn’t require you to play the larger systems.

 

[Deleted member 612095]

No, I don't think Android gaming is dead. I play Xbox Game Pass on my Android tablet and it works well and there are always good things coming to the Google Play Store, I am satisfied with it.

 

[RetroLuvr]

I play most of my games on my redmagic android phone and its amazing. I get everything from NES to PS2 and 3ds. Yeah aether and citra have been discontinued but projects like nethersx2 and azahar have been continuing development where they left off. A guy named Mr. Sujano on youtube does news on the advancements in emulation pretty regularly and android emulation is mentioned a lot

 

[fake-kun]

Android gaming was ever alive?

 

[BigTony]

No, I don't think Android gaming is dead. I play Xbox Game Pass on my Android tablet and it works well and there are always good things coming to the Google Play Store, I am satisfied with it.

I use steam link a lot on my retroid pocket its crazy how good game streaming has gotten

 

[Tortuga]

What do you mean dead? There's is like 20 new gacha and online shooter slops every week

 

[BigTony]

What do you mean dead? There's is like 20 new gacha and online shooter slops every week

Specifically for emulation should have been more clear about that

 

[Facesforce]

Eh, the issue with Android emulation has always been Google.

I use my Samsung Galaxy as a emulator for psp and ps2, but it never really feels as good as a dedicated handheld.

As far as the handheld pc thing goes, well that's simply the future. It's always been moving this direction. Just give them a few years to minaturize the devices and get them onto phone hardware, and Android/Ios will eventually be a dead system, because why use Dos in this day in age?

That's kind of my feelings on it.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

iOS gaming is just on the verge and android is probably dormant but by dead.

 

[Graw]

And here I was thinking android gaming's better than it's ever been since android phones first came out. I can emulate nearly every console and early PC in existence, there's a ton of ports of PC and console games out there, both official and unofficial. I just started Blasphemous and 9 Years of Shadow on android, both native ports. I also picked up Prince of Persia the Lost Crown, also a native port. I have pretty much the entire SaGa series on android, a bunch of Final Fantasy games, Hollow Knight, Rain World and a bunch of different full on games. I just regret not knowing about phone GPUs before I picked up this phone. My next phone will definitely be one with a snapdragon chipset.

 

[thecrow2313]

Android gaming is not dead, it's just the beginning.

 

[job32]

In fairness, the android can emulate loads of games well up to ps2. There are lots of early pc games you can't emulate sucessfully and that's where these pc handhelds will take off. It's the decent crpgs that I would love to get my teeth into but most seem to have too many problems on android emulation. In saying that, I don't have snapdragon gpu on my phone either, so maybe that's a lot of the issue.

 

[Gbafan118]

I politely disagree with you on Android gaming being dead, mainly because I emulate games on my Android device using Snes9x EX+ and Retroarch for more consoles.
I also don't believe that Android gaming is dead, I think it's slowly growing overtime, possibly underground, I could be wrong.

 

[Sumea]

I think one thing I would mention, though, my experiences are throughout times from 201X to today, and I attempted playing on my android phones very lightly, though for a REASON:
Android seems to be really, really poor system for gaming. While iOS even early on, was really good. Android seems to have extremely variable input lag (Touch screen) and Sound vs. Video latency differences all around, and this is different from phone to phone, so have fun figuring out where your particular phone stands.
I wanted to use controllers with my android phones and every phone I had, one being nVidia Shield Tablet, made for gaming, but all of them handled bluetooth controllers horribly. Extreme latency at best, outright constant dropouts, stuck inputs and other unbelievably unplayable results. This has been a constant with DualShock 4's, 3's, and several phones from OnePlus, Samsung, Nokia (Now HMD in phone market) and so on. The best controller I have for android is 8bitdo's earlier pad that works the best; but still has significant input lag compared to anything else like a Switch, a Vita, etc.
From here, touchscreen latency is always better on android as I tested but touchscreen controls have not had anything revolutionary to make them feel good, they almost always suck for general gaming. While the default is to not play anything on my phone just about 30 days in a month, if I played something on my phone my favorite games were Professor Layton HD edition(s), Super Mario Run, and Sudoku. Phones are a real fun platform to play electric sudoku with, though DS Kawashima one is excellence without many assists baked in and enabled by default.

 

[Deleted member 384463]

Android gaming is not dead, it's just the beginning.

 

[Max]

Of course not, not for me
I'm still playing hack roms on lemuroid It improved a lot since the last time I used it.