Android gaming on Linux just not possible?

[Haswellx86]

The only reason I am considering to use Windows again is because I really do miss playing some android games that I got into for whatever reason back then (I really have grinded a lot of time into it). I have taken some look into the available options, but some of them are just not emulation at all which really limits what you can do, while others are not gaming oriented at all. A gaming android emulator at least should have customizable controls, but that too is hard to find on the Linux options. Is android gaming on Linux just straight away not possible?

[Sauron]

these are the options: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Android#Run_Android_apps_on_Arch_Linux

 

if none of them work for you you can either buy an android phone or run a windows emulator - which doesn't necessarily mean using windows since wine and proton exist.

[Haswellx86]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

which doesn't necessarily mean using windows since wine and proton exist.

You mean to say to run the emulators under wine and proton? That is so not gonna work.

[Sauron]

Just now, Gat Pelsinger said:

You mean to say to run the emulators under wine and proton? That is so not gonna work.

Why not?

[Haswellx86]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Why not?

oh no no noo.

 

Just many plain games have a hard time running under them, and you expect to have such a high level program to be able to run? I have not tried proton yet, but wine cannot run a lot of advanced programs especially if they interact with something low level.

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

oh no no noo.

 

Just many plain games have a hard time running under them, and you expect to have such a high level program to be able to run? I have not tried proton yet, but wine cannot run a lot of advanced programs especially if they interact with something low level.

It's not really about it being "advanced" or not, it's about what libraries and api calls it expects. I've looked it up and it seems the most popular emulators don't run very well but that's not a given. Certainly something you shouldn't just dismiss without even trying or reading up on it.

[Guest]

If you don't have a NVIDIA GPU and use Wayland you can try using Waydroid.

 

For gapps and arm support (translation layer) you can also checkout waydroid_script.

[Haswellx86]

@Nayr438

 

I have tried Waydroid, but it doesn't have gaming capabilities. Like I at least need to be able to map my keyboard to touch controls.

[Guest]

I'm not sure what you mean by gaming capabilities, but can you not use something like Key Mapper?

Even tho development has mostly stopped it should still work.

https://github.com/keymapperorg/KeyMapper

 

Waydroid will probably be your best option on Linux outside of maybe Genymotion ( never used it, but has a Linux build )

[Ralphred]

Just run Android-x86 in a VM, the combined overhead between the host and guest will less than windows OoTB, as long as you don't run NoobOS with all the options set to on.

[goatedpenguin]

10 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

The only reason I am considering to use Windows again is because I really do miss playing some android games that I got into for whatever reason back then (I really have grinded a lot of time into it).

Dualboot/qemu/waydroid/anbox(not developed anymore so thats a long shot canolical made one for the cloud or smth like that I think).

This post might have some answers and more ways to meet your requirements but honestly if you rlly need windows either just switch and use WSL or dualboot which is what I do. What games are you also specifically talking about? 
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5724384/running-android-apps-in-linux

[wasab]

You can always download android studio and run the emulator it shipped with. 

[thevictor390]

17 hours ago, Sauron said:

It's not really about it being "advanced" or not, it's about what libraries and api calls it expects. I've looked it up and it seems the most popular emulators don't run very well but that's not a given. Certainly something you shouldn't just dismiss without even trying or reading up on it.

The gaming-suitable emulator on Windows is Bluestacks and its derivatives, they use hardware virtualization and do not work in WINE. Really they are more than just emulators.

I have heard good things about Waydroid but have never tried it.

[xAcid9]

If you have Radeon gpu, give PrimeOS or BlissOS a try.

 

You can either use it in VM with opengl acceleration or dual boot. 

[wasab]

Pretty sure virtual box can emulate android too. 

[MootEndymion752]

Hopefully BlueStacks gets a Linux version

[thevictor390]

19 hours ago, wasab said:

Pretty sure virtual box can emulate android too. 

VirtualBox cannot emulate anything. There are Android versions that are designed for PCs and those can be run in a virtual machine using VirtualBox. But as with most VM solutions graphics performance is not great.

[wasab]

2 hours ago, thevictor390 said:

VirtualBox cannot emulate anything. There are Android versions that are designed for PCs and those can be run in a virtual machine using VirtualBox. But as with most VM solutions graphics performance is not great.

yeah, i can imagine but we do have plenty game console emulators, nientendo/playstation/xbox emulators etc with solid performance for the most part. 

[goatedpenguin]

2 hours ago, thevictor390 said:

VirtualBox cannot emulate anything.

VMWARE is better and virtualbox can emulate if you setup a passthrough for enough graphics performance but its not designed for game emulation in mind. 

[thevictor390]

4 minutes ago, wasab said:

yeah, i can imagine but we do have plenty game console emulators, nientendo/playstation/xbox emulators etc with solid performance for the most part. 

Virtual Machine software is more general use and targeted towards businesses. It does not allow you to run software that you could not already run, instead it allows you to run it in a protected (virtual) environment without affecting your main OS. VirtualBox has poor graphics performance as it is not one of its main goals. The reason you could run Android in Virtualbox is because you can also install Android onto your computer, as a dual-boot or in place of Windows/Linux.

Game console emulators have a lot of work put into graphics because, well, without it they would be rather useless.

[thevictor390]

1 minute ago, goatedpenguin said:

VMWARE is better and virtualbox can emulate if you setup a passthrough for enough graphics performance but its not designed for game emulation in mind. 

That's not emulation, the game still has to be able to run on your hardware.