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Best emulators for Android in 2023
One of the best ways to play retro video games isn't with a used console but with an Android emulator. Here are some of our favorites.
If you have an Android smartphone and are reading XDA, then you're likely familiar with the litany of apps and other modifications you can make to any of the best Android phones. Emulators are one such perk of the Android ecosystem (while they exist on iOS, they're a lot harder to set up). These are some of the best emulators you can get on Android, covering devices from the PlayStation 2, the Nintendo Wii, and more.
Citra teases Vulkan support for better performance on MediaTek and Exynos
Citra is getting some pretty big upgrades that will improve performance for everyone, but especially MediaTek and Exynos users.
When it comes to 3DS emulation on Android, there's only really one emulator that works, and that's Citra. It's a port of the popular emulator from PC, and if you have a flagship Android smartphone with a Qualcomm chipset, the performance makes it one of the best emulators on Android. However, after a long period of silence from the developers, there are a bunch of huge changes just around the corner that will improve performance for everyone, especially MediaTek and Exynos users with the added support of the Vulkan API.
Citra, the Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android, gets a new feature that greatly reduces lag
Citra is a Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android, and it just got a brand new feature in the form of a shader cache that greatly reduces lag.
Citra for Android is a Nintendo 3DS emulator that you can install from the Google Play Store and has been under development for quite a while now. With unofficial Citra ports marking the beginning of 3DS emulation on Android, we have come a long, long way in the viability of playing 3DS games on your phone. Now, the popular 3DS emulator is getting one of the most highly requested features that should greatly improve performance.
Nintendo 3DS emulation: Official Citra for Android performance testing on the Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845
We tested the official Citra for Android Nintendo 3DS emulator performance on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845. The results are surprising.
Citra, the most popular Nintendo 3DS emulator, was officially released for Android onto the Google Play Store last week, and its performance has been at the forefront of the conversation. I'm sure anybody who saw its release wondered whether they could play their favorite Nintendo 3DS games on their Android smartphone or tablet, so I've spent the past few days playing games on various different devices powered by multiple different SoCs to see what kind of performance you can expect to get from your device.
Official Citra for Android releases as the first mobile Nintendo 3DS emulator
The official Citra for Android emulator has been released, and you can download it from the Google Play Store for free now. Check it out here!
We've already covered Nintendo 3DS emulation on Android numerous times, though earlier attempts were made possible by unofficial Android ports of the incredibly popular Citra emulator on PC. With the help of both developers of those unofficial ports, there's now an official build of Citra for Android. What's more, this Nintendo 3DS emulator is available on the Google Play Store for free!
Nintendo 3DS emulation is now viable on Android with an unofficial Citra port
Citra is a Nintendo 3DS emulator, and thanks to an unofficial Android port, it's now possible to actually play Nintendo 3DS games on your phone.
Many months ago, we talked about an unofficial Citra port which allowed you to play Nintendo 3DS games on your Android smartphone. While that specific build saw few updates, there's a new build that just got released by the developer of Dolphin MMJ, and it runs a whole lot better than before. On high-end devices, games like Pokemon X/Y and Persona Q are very playable, with very few visual bugs and minimal lag. It's obviously not perfect yet, but it's certainly on its way. I ran some tests to see what games work and don't work, and the results may surprise you. To use the Citra for Android emulator, you will need a smartphone with top of the line specifications at the moment. A Snapdragon 855 is basically a requirement to even get playable framerates.
Nintendo 3DS emulation is somewhat possible on Android with an unofficial Citra port
Do you want to play Nintendo 3DS games on your Android smartphone? You can now, though you'll need a very powerful smartphone to do so.
The Nintendo DS is one of the best portable consoles to emulate on Android, and with good reason. The emphasis on touchscreen controls in DS games translates well to smartphone gameplay, and the lack of buttons on Android phones can be rectified by using a Bluetooth or wired gaming controller. I was thinking about this and it got me wondering...what about the Nintendo 3DS? The 3DS is another handheld console with the same traits, and searching on GitHub, I found that there is actually a Nintendo 3DS emulator for Android smartphones. Meet the highly experimental Citra for Android port.