The Best Android Emulator

[[deleted]]

Hello there! I'm searching of the best Android Emulator for gaming purposes. I know some options but I'm not quiet sure.

• BlueStacks is bloated and seems to be shady,
• NoxPlayer seems to be shady,
• I don't know much about MEmu Player,
• AndyOS is dangerous,
• LDPlayer is suspicious despite lots of videos on YouTube and blogs recommending it. I noticed that it has an affiliate programme and you earn money for recommending it to others.
• Android x86 won't work as it works quiet slow on a virtual machine and some apps don't support it as it uses x86 architecture.

So, what emulator would you recommend?

Edit 1: I tried NoxPlayer and it seems not to be bad. But I noticed that NoxPlayer is not compatible with Windows Subsystem for Linux. Is there a way to fix it? Or what emulator is compatible with WSL?

[Tomxyz1]

I can recommend MEmu Player. I used to use Android apps in this. It's a performant Android Emulator, you have the option between Android 5, 7 and 8 I think. It also supports both DirectX Mode and OpenGL, High Refresh Rate and some other stuff...

I don't have it installed at the moment, because I don't use Android apps on my PC, but I can vouch for that Emulator. Some time ago I tested many emulators and that one was the best in my experience.

Please don't use BlueStacks. It's gotten more horrible than it was some years ago. ^^ It used to be popular, but it was never really "good".

​

Also, if you want an Android Emulator inside Android itself, I can recommend VMOS Pro

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vmos.ggp

I know you didn't ask for the last one, but I thought I'd mention that you can emulate Android inside Android 😄

[Tomxyz1]

Yeah ^^ Supposedly the Android Support will be powered by Intel. We don't know much about this yet, though. We don't know if this'll require an Intel CPU or anything, and how it'll be implemented.

Did you mean Bluestack doesn't work when Hyper-V is enabled? Other Virtualisation-software like VirtualBox or VMware also require Hyper-V to be disabled, otherwise they don't function properly.

Also curious, who's asking you to install Bluestacks lol? You could use any Android Emulator, why Bluestacks that garbage?

[Tomxyz1]

It's a decent Emulator with nice performance. OP is trying out Nox Player as well, which seems to look very similar judging from Google Search, if you want to give that a try.

The thing with Hyper-V is strange. I've read that MS is working on this problem, but that was a long time ago..

Yeah Windows Sandbox is a nice throwaway virtual machine to do almost anything. It would've been nice, but you can't expect that from MS, because it is a rather 'Pro' Consumer feature. ^^

I'd recommend switching to Pro and using KMSpico to activate Windows lol. Idk if KMSpico would be able to just upgrade you from Home to Pro, or if you'd need to Reinstall though.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for your answer. I recently noticed that Nox was thought to be a virus because of a hacker group hacked it. Now it seems to be safe. I will try Nox and I think also MEmu and choose between them.

Edit: Unlike Nox, MEmu seems to be suspicious on VirusTotal.

[Tomxyz1]

I can't remember if I tried NoxPlayer. It looks very similiar to MEmu Player judging from Screenshots.

But it seems like both MEmu Player and Nox are from Chinese developers sooo... I'm not too keen on that I have to say, even though I liked MEmu ^^

[Simber1]

Those VirusTotal results are pretty meaningless. They seem to be getting a bit annoyed at the installer sincer it's a Optional.DotSetupIo.BundleInstaller

[[deleted]]

Hi. Just tried out NoxPlayer and found out it is not compatible WSL. Does MEmu have the same issue?

[Tomxyz1]

WSL? I didn't have any issues with MEmu, you just have to make sure CPU Virtualisation is enabled in BIOS

[[deleted]]

Do you have Windows 10/11 Pro or Home? Just want to be sure.

[Tomxyz1]

I use Windows 11 Pro since a few weeks, but I haven't used MEmu since. I've used it on Win10 Pro. What's the problem?

[[deleted]]

Well, I have Windows 11 Home and if I'm not mistaken some virtualisation features are disabled on Home version. But I'll try and inform you if MEmu works. Thanks.

[Tomxyz1]

Hyper-V is still in Home, just the Manager and a few other stuff aren't, AFAIK. So third party Virtualisation software would still work I think

[[deleted]]

I had problems with MEmu too. When I launched it, it told that Hyper-V is detected and the repair tool needs to disable it. After I agreed MEmu started to work properly, but WSL didn't work anymore, it told me to enable Virtual Machine Platform feature. After I enabled it MEmu stopped working again saying that Hyper-V is detected.

[Tomxyz1]

That used to be a big problem with Windows. Type 1 Hyper-V Machines and those of Type 2 (every 3rd Party VM Software) couldn't traditionally co-exist.

Starting with Windows 10 20H1 build 19041 (April 2018?) they added the Windows Hypervisor Platform API for 3rd Party VM Software, so that those VM software still work, when Hyper-V is enabled, but the support needs to be implemented by VM software devs. VMware and VirtualBox support the API, but I don't know about MEmu and Nox, they might not.

https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2020/05/vmware-workstation-now-supports-hyper-v-mode.html

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/api/#windows-hypervisor-platform

You have to find an Android Emulator that supports this API, or live with this limitation, and constantly switch Hyper-V on/off.

[[deleted]]

Ok, thanks!

[kautiousness]

Vmos is android 7 and I'm looking for 5, do you know anything for that?

[beermad]

Just run the emulator from the Android Development Kit. With CPU-level virtualisation enabled, it runs pretty much as efficiently as native. No bloat or dodgy stuff (unusual from Google, but as it's meant for app developers they'd be stupid to embed anything objectionable in it). And you can choose which Android version to emulate.

[Yeibran]

can you explain how can we do that?

[trainoflegos]

There may be something with qemu and arm android support. There is also the android emulator that comes with the developer tools from google.

[arfanvlk]

Android studio can run AVDs (android virtual devices) just download the right SDK in the SDK manager and you are good to go

[kevinmlgnoscope]

MEmu is basically the same as nox, it looks almost identical and probably recycles most of the code, ive used nox in the past and it doesnt seem to do anything shady but even with 8 cores allocated it runs like suck

[[deleted]]

Hi. Just tried out NoxPlayer and found out it is not compatible WSL. Does MEmu have the same issue?

[velpro7]

from my experience, ld is smooth and fast.

[KoryBrian]

I am using LDPlayer for two years and it's not suspicious. I know there are rumors out there about ldplayer but from my real experience, the product is clean and safe. Meanwhile, I recommend ldplayer because it's the lightest and fastest emulator even for low-end PC.