The easiest way to emulate Windows games on Android

While the best smartphones on the market pack plenty of power, emulating full-fledged PC games for Android devices has always been a challenge. Sure, the Renegade Project technically allows you to install Windows 11 on a smartphone. But it's only compatible with select devices, requires an incredibly high level of setup, and is prone to deal-killing glitches. As such, it's not something the average user would install on their Android phone.

The other popular emulator, QEMU, meanwhile, continues to struggle with performance issues, even on the high-end Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5. And I've spent enough time with Exagear to realize that trying to get a 3D app to work on it would be a futile endeavor. So my expectations were pretty low when I plunged headfirst into the Winlator rabbit hole, although the emulator blew me away with its simple interface and rock-solid support for 2D games and older 3D titles.

What I like about Winlator

Simple user interface and straightforward installation process

While I like emulators, I'm not a huge fan of how difficult they can be to set up. But compared to Mobox – and even Horizon-Emu – installing Winlator is a breeze, as all you need to do is install a single APK file on your smartphone and you're good to go. Initializing containers is also a painless process, although you may need a bit of trial and error to figure out the best combination of settings for each game. While I have a number of complaints about the control options available in Winlator (which I'll get to in a moment), setting up on-screen controls or physical gamepads doesn't require a lot of effort.

It is great for playing 2D games

For most of my testing, I used my Poco F5, a mid-range phone with a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 processor. It's not the best processor you can use with Winlator, but it ran most of the 2D games I threw at it without a problem. I started with the least hardware-intensive games I own: Kill the princess And Hollow Knightand both games ran consistently at over 30FPS at a resolution of 1280×720. To up the ante, I installed Signal And Ori and the Blind Forest on my Winlator container and after adjusting a few settings, I managed to get it running at playable frame rates after reducing the resolution to 800×600. Other 2D titles, like Darkest Dungeon, Axiom EdgeAnd World of Horror required similar sacrifices in terms of resolution, in addition to the necessary changes to the DX Wrapper and Box86/64 settings.

Old 3D games mostly work well

After going through my repertoire of 2D games, it was time to raise the bar even higher by testing my favorite titles in 3D. I started with the original Deus Exand my Poco F5 had no problems running the old-school game at playable frame rates. Next, I tried FEAR And Dead Space (2008)and to my surprise, both games ran at almost 60 FPS on medium settings and 960 x 544 resolution. Fallout3, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DanaAnd Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night gave similar results, but I had to create separate shortcuts with my own optimizations to run the games properly.

Encouraged by my previous successes, I tried to give the original Crysis a round, and the result was interesting to say the least. At a resolution of 800×600, I was able to start the game by switching the Box86 and Box64 presets to stability modes. Next, I reduced all settings to Low and after disabling Joyos On my Poco F5's HyperOS, I managed to get the game running at almost 30 FPS. Well, on paper, the game runs at playable frame rates, but there are a lot of performance issues that make it difficult to have fun blasting away enemies with the Nanosuit.

What I don’t like about Winlator

Performance issues with just as many crashes

To continue my previous statement: It is possible to “play”, Crysis On a smartphone with Winlator, only the devices with the most powerful CPUs can run the game without performance issues. On my Poco F5, the water textures and certain light sources were buggy and the frame rate constantly dropped below 20 FPS every time a group of enemies appeared.

Unfortunately, Crysis is not the only game that has these problems. The older Assassin's Creed Games run at terrible frame rates, while certain games like Only cause 2, Sunless skyAnd Disco Elysium would crash shortly after takeoff.

Furthermore, like other emulators, Winlator runs much better on a Snapdragon processor than its Dimensity and Exynos counterparts, so if you want to run some of the more demanding titles, you'll need something as powerful as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. And yes, I intentionally mentioned SD 8 Gen 2 instead of Gen 3 because the latest version of Winlator doesn't support the flagship Snapdragon mobile chip. Having tested the app on other devices like the Poco M6 Pro and Samsung Galaxy M34 5G, I can confirm that your average non-Snapdragon CPU – and even a budget SD chip – aren't going to be good enough to deliver a decent experience in 3D titles.

Limited game library and long loading times

I mentioned earlier that you can only run games on Winlator that don't have DRM protection. While there may be an exploit that allows Steam to run on Winlator, if you value your sanity, I advise against it. Unlike Mobox, which allows you to run Steam after a few workarounds, GOG is the only way to legally acquire game files for Winlator. However, since the library is not as extensive as Steam's, you won't be able to play lightweight games like the older Final Fantasy And Stories from titles, although they should run fine on the emulator.

And then there are the exorbitantly long loading times when installing or starting games. For example, games with many assets, such as Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana And Dragon Age: Originstook hours to install. Likewise, certain titles, such as Crysis, Hollow Knight, and even Kill the princessit takes a while to boot after you launch them from their containers.

The controls still need some fine-tuning

I have to give Winlator its due credit: the app has a built-in controller and an RTS keyboard template that you can customize to your liking. Additionally, Winlator recognizes external keyboards, mice, and controllers, so you can play Windows games using gamepads and good old keyboard and mouse controls. But depending on the game, mouse sensitivity can range from fine to completely insane. After testing both the virtual controller and four physical USB mice, I had to spend some time getting used to the emulator's mouse sensitivity.

As for external keyboards, Winlator registers the Esc And Input keys. A simple workaround is to install the Key Remapper application on your current container and bind the inputs to the appropriate keys. Fair warning: you may need an additional macro key for Escsince Winlator the Escape key on all three of my keyboards as a valid input. I had no problems with this when using my Redragon K585, as the one-handed keyboard has many extra keys. But a suitable replacement key for Esc was a real pain on my primary mechanical keyboard.

Another gripe was that I had to remap my external gamepads to keyboard and mouse buttons more than once. But as someone who uses both the GameSir G8+ and X4 Aileron frequently, I can say that they work pretty well with the emulator, and I dare say that in terms of controls, Winlator is far better than its closest competitors. That's because Horizon-Emu and Mobox rely on InputBridge for controls, which is much more complex to calibrate than Winlator's built-in features.

Winlator: A phenomenal concept that is still in its early stages

Winlator is by no means the ultimate Windows emulator for Android devices, and given all the issues and bugs in the app, it needs a lot of tweaking and compatibility updates before it runs well on most devices. Still, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed with the emulator.

Sure, it can't run most 3D titles – or even certain 2D titles – at 1080p 60FPS on the most powerful phones. But just the ability to run Windows games on Android without rooting the device or spending hours installing random drivers is just incredible. There are a lot of glaring issues with it, but for an experimental emulator still in the early stages of development, it's definitely worth a look. Since I last wrote this article, we've already seen a lot of performance updates, and with version 7.1 offering better frame rates than ever before, I wouldn't be surprised if Winlator could run modern PC games by 2025.

Winlator

Winlator is a free x86_64 emulator that allows you to run Windows games on your smartphone. Although optimal performance requires a powerful smartphone with a powerful processor, Winlator still allows you to emulate Windows games on most high-end Snapdragon mobile chips.