How to Emulate on Your Android: A Beginner's Guide to Gaming on Your Phone

Gaming on your smartphone is no easy task. It takes a lot of patience, perseverance, and skill to play games smoothly. Whether you’re playing a simple game of Candy Crush or an in-depth RPG like The Witcher 3, there are some best practices to follow that will ensure that your gaming experience is as enjoyable as possible. Emulation is one way to go about it, but there are other ways too! Here's how to emulate on your Android device for the most seamless gaming experience.

What is Emulation?

An emulator is a piece of software that lets you play the old games you might have played on the old consoles or computers. It has a simulated environment that looks and feels like it was running on the hardware of the original hardware. The main advantage of emulation is that it allows you to play games you couldn't buy on any store. There are actually two types of emulators, Android and Windows. The main difference is the software that runs on Android vs. the software that runs on Windows. The fact that Android is open-source means that any app developer can customize the Android version. How to Emulate on Your Android: Which Emulator to Use? You'll probably have to buy one of the emulators listed in the next section.

Why Emulate on Android?

Don’t believe it? Read on, and you’ll find out. Emulators are a way for you to play Android games on your PC without jailbreaking, root, or any other exploits. They allow you to play Android games on your PC, Android TV, Android phones and tablets, and even Android Wear. However, Android has a couple of really useful features that emulators can't always emulate. To put it simply, emulators are not a silver bullet for playing Android games smoothly. The fact is, emulators are difficult and frustrating for a number of reasons: Not all Android devices are made the same, and thus, emulators can’t be made to run on all of them. So if a particular game doesn’t run smoothly, you can’t simply install an emulator and expect everything to be hunky-dory.

Finding a Good Emulator

The most obvious way of emulating games on your Android device is using an emulator that is specifically made to run on Android. There are a few games that can be emulated through Android, but to get the most out of these games, you’ll need an emulator that can handle as many different types of games as possible. Below are a few of the most popular Android emulators: Expand on the list with our favorite Android emulators. If you want to get the most out of the game, you’ll want to use a game that is graphically up to snuff, and will also require a fairly decent processor and system memory for the best experience. Popular games that are run through Android emulators include: The Android emulators listed above are currently our favorite, but there are others available as well.

How to Play Games Using Your Phone

For this guide, we're using Google Play. Before we begin, you need to make sure that your Google Play Store version is up to date. To check, press the app icon in your app drawer and select Settings. Scroll down until you see Google Play Services, and make sure that it says version 17.0.0 or higher. Before you proceed, we recommend you download the Virtual Console Android app. It's free and lets you play emulated games on your Android device that's running Android 4.0 or higher. If you can't see the Virtual Console Android app in the Play Store, we recommend you try searching for it here. Once you have the Virtual Console Android app installed, go ahead and open it up. Next, go ahead and select Install to begin the installation process.

Conclusion

Yes, emulation is possible on your Android device. The benefit of emulation, aside from giving you access to all those games from your childhood, is that it helps to remove many of the flaws found in actual Android phones. While an emulator itself can be a great tool in your gaming arsenal, it’s not a replacement for your smartphone. As always, the bottom line is: never download anything on the Internet without researching it first. Always try to make sure that what you’re downloading is safe for you.