There are a lot of valid reasons why someone would want to run Android emulators on their PC. App developers may be trying to test their application before shipping it out. Gamers may want to use a mouse and keyboard on their games. Maybe you just want it there to have it. In any case, Android emulation on PC is possible and we’re going to take a look at the best Android emulators for PC. Please note, the process can get quite technical and some of these require a bit of a learning curve. The market slowed down a lot in recent years with many old favorites (Andy, AmiduOS, and Leapdroid) permanently leaving the space or becoming unusable. You can find out about their fates at the bottom of the article.
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J2ME Loader is a J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) emulator for Android. It supports most 2D games and also 3D with some limitations (Mascot Capsule 3D games don't work). Emulator has a virtual keyboard, individual settings for each application, scaling support. There are plenty of ways to create a game for Android and one important way is to do it from scratch in Android Studio with Java. This gives you the maximum control over how you want your game to. 14 best Android emulators for PC and Mac of 2019! Android app and game developers like to test apps and games on as many devices a possible before launch. Usually the Android Studio emulator. Download java emulator apk 1.2.6.3 for Android. This app lets you run J2ME loader applications directly on your Android device. Most of us like to play java games on android. Today I will show how to play java game using Java Emulator For android. J2ME Loader is the perfect Java emulator to play Java game on Android Phones.
Who uses emulators?
There are three main uses for emulators. The first is the most common and it’s for gaming. Gamers can use emulators on their computers to make some games easier to play. They don’t have to rely on the battery life of their devices and the existence of macros and other tricks help the process. In most cases, these little tricks aren’t illegal (in most games) so nobody really has a problem with it. The best Android emulators for gaming include Bluestacks, MeMu, KoPlayer, and Nox.
The second most common use case is development. Android app and game developers like to test apps and games on as many devices a possible before launch. Usually the Android Studio emulator is fine for this kind of work. However, Xamarin and Genymotion are excellent for this type of use as well.
The final main type is productivity. This isn’t nearly as common because Chromebooks are cheaper and better for using Android apps on something other than a phone and most productivity tools are cross-platform. Any gaming emulator works as a productivity emulator to an extent. However, those with hyper specific use cases and a little knowledge can try ARChon and Bliss. The full list is below. Enjoy!
Android Studio’s emulator
Price: Free
Android Studio is the default development console for Android. It comes with a bunch of tools to help developers make apps and games specifically for Android. As it turns out, there is also a built-in emulator that you can use to test out your app or game. The setup is rather complicated and it can take a long time. Thus, it’s not one we would recommend for consumer level use. However, developers can simply use this tool as their emulator for testing their apps. It also supports Kotlin in case developers want to try that out. It’s too much of a pain for regular people, but it’s excellent for developers.
ARChon
Price: Free
ARChon isn’t a traditional emulator. You install it as a Google Chrome extension. It then gives Chrome the ability to run Android apps and games (albeit with limited support). It’s not an easy emulator to get running. You’ll have to install the thing to Chrome. From there, you have to obtain APKs and load them in. As an added rub, you may need to use a tool to change the APK in order to make it compatible. There are a lot more steps to make this work than most other Android emulators for PC. On the plus side, though, it works with any operating system that can run an instance of Chrome (Mac OS, Linux, Windows, etc). We linked to the official GitHub where you can find detailed instructions for its use.
Bliss
Price: Free
Bliss is something a little bit different. It works as an Android emulator for PC via virtual machine. However, it can also just flat run on your computer through a USB stick. This is definitely a power user option and not recommended for simple. As a VM install, the process is fairly simple, if tedious. The USB installation method is even more complicated, but it lets your computer actually run Android natively from boot. That makes Bliss a super unique emulator if you can make it through the steps to the end. Of course, it only really runs well if your system is compatible so be prepared with a backup of your current operating system. The system runs Android Oreo and that’s among the newer versions of Android offered on an emulator. This is a bit of a diamond in the rough, but again, we only recommend this one to the tech savvy. You can also find more info about this on its XDA-Developers thread here.
Bluestacks
Price: Free / $2 per month
Bluestacks is the most mainstream of all Android emulators. There are several reasons for that. For starters, it’s compatible with Windows and Mac. It was also one of the first that worked really well that still gets regular updates. The emulator targets mobile gamers. There is a stigma with Bluestacks because it can feel a little bloated at times. Bluestacks 4 (launched in 2018) aimed to fix that with mixed results. It also includes key-mapping and settings for many games installed. That should help make things much easier. It’s one of the heaviest emulators on the list. However, it also has the most features for better or for worse. Recent updates put Bluestacks at Android 7.1.2 (Nougat), one of the most recent of any emulator. The update to Bluestacks 4 also improved speed, even on older computers. Hit the button below to check out one of our favorite Bluestacks games and don’t worry, there’s a button to download Bluestacks at the bottom of that page as well.
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Droid4X
Price: Free
Droid4X is currently available, but it’s a tough one to recommend. It’s one of the classic Android emulators for PC and t features a simple design that should easily work for a lot of people. It markets itself towards gamers and boasts support for simpler, casual games. However, like most Android emulators, you can do productivity stuff if you want to. This one is not in active development anymore. Its last update was March 28th, 2016. Thus, we recommend you tread with caution as this could be a buggy and unstable product. Droid4x is also Mac compatible. We have the Windows version linked up, so Mac users will need to search a bit for it.
Genymotion
Price: Free with paid options
This Android emulator is mostly for developers. It lets you test your apps on a variety of devices without owning them. You can configure the emulator for a variety of devices with various versions of Android to help suit your needs. For instance, you can run a Nexus One with Android 4.2 or a Nexus 6 with Android 6.0. You can easily switch between virtual devices at will. It’s not great for consumer uses, but Genymotion does offer their services for free for personal use. It’s most useful feature is its availability on both your desktop computer and the cloud. Those without powerful computers can make Genymotion’s servers do all the work for them.
KoPlayer
Price: Free
KoPlayer is a newer Android emulator for PC (comparatively speaking). It has also managed to fly under most radars until recently. Its main focus is for gaming. You’ll be able to use key-mapping to emulate a controller with your keyboard. Players will also be able to record game play and upload it wherever they want. The install process is easy enough and it seems to work okay. It runs in a virtual machine like most other Android emulators for PC. It’s a middle of the road option and it’s also usable for productivity. There is the occasional but, but most emulators on the list have them. It’s not bad for a free option.
MEmu
Price: Free
MEmu is another of the up and coming Android emulators that seems to do quite well with gamers. One of its biggest features is support for both AMD and Intel chipsets. Most work on AMD processors, but it’s nice to see developers specifically pay attention to AMD’s platform. Additionally, it supports Android Jelly Bean, Kit Kat, and Lollipop. You can even run multiple instances at once for multiple games or testing features. It aims itself at gamers much like Bluestacks and similar emulators. However, it’s also quite usable as a productivity tool as well. Its most recent update was in late December 2018 according to its blog and that means its development is still in full swing. We appreciate that.
Nox
Price: Free
Nox is another Android emulator for PC for gamers. That includes the usual stuff like key-mapping with your keyboard, actual controller support, and even the ability to key-map gesture controls. For instance, you can assign the function to swipe right to an arrow key and use that in a game without actual hardware controller support. It’s a lot of fun and seems to work rather well most of the time. It’s also entirely free and in active development. The demo video below is rather old and it definitely ran better than that on my laptop.
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PrimeOS
Price: Free
PrimeOS is kind of a standout in the Android emulator space. It’s not actually an emulator. You install this as a partition on your computer and it boots up running native Android. It’s a gamer-focused Android experience, although you can totally use this for productivity if you really want to. PrimeOS includes a gaming center, support for mouse and keyboard, and access to most Android apps and games. To be frank, it almost runs like ChromeOS minus all the Chrome parts. You can multitask, watch video content, or play games as you choose. We haven’t tested this one in-depth yet as it is new in 2019 from an Indian start-up. We’ll update the article if we noticed anything peculiar about it.
Remix OS PLayer
Price: Free
Remix OS Player by Jide is one of the newer Android emulators for PC (comparatively speaking). It runs Android Marshmallow and that’s still relatively new compared to many of the others on the list. The installation process is pretty simple and using it also fairly easy. It caters mostly to gamers. There are a few gamer specific features along with a customizable toolbar. It boasts features like running multiple games at once. That said, it’s a fairly clean emulator so it’s still perfectly usable as a productivity tool. The site seems to be down for the time being and the lack of updates likely means this one is going to get old very quickly. Still, you can download it on Fosshub if you really want to try it out.
Xamarin
Price: Free / Enterprise options
Xamarin is an IDE similar to Android Studio. The difference is that it can plug into things like Microsoft Visual Studio for an even larger development environment (for better or for worse). Also, like the Android Studio, this comes with a built-in emulator for app or game testing. In case it wasn’t readily apparent, we only recommend this one to developers. The setup is simply too tedious for regular consume use. Xamarin’s emulator is not as powerful as something like Genymotion, but it’ll get the job done if you intend on using this and it’s also configurable for your needs. It’s free for personal use. Companies and larger teams may have to negotiate a payment plan.
YouWave
Price: Free / $29.99
YouWave is one of the older Android emulators for PC. It’s been around for a long time. Its last update was in 2016, though. That makes it fairly current. The free version uses Ice Cream Sandwich. Forking out the $29.99 will get you the Lollipop version. We didn’t experience any major issues with either one. The installation process was easy enough. It doesn’t have any game specific features but it will still play games. That makes it good for light gaming and productivity. We haven’t seen a meaningful update in quite a long time, though, so even its Lollipop version is woefully out of date. We don’t recommend the premium version, but the free version works nicely for those who want an older emulator that runs older Android.
Build your own
Price: Free (usually)
As it turns out, you can build your own emulator. Here’s how it works in a nutshell. You need to download VirtualBox (linked above). You then have to download an image from Android-x86.org. From there, it’s just a matter of finding one of the many guides online and following the steps. This is easily one of the more difficult methods, but still not quite as tedious or difficult as setting up a whole IDE like Android Studio or Xamarin. We don’t recommend you try without a tutorial and a little prior knowledge. It won’t work well, it’ll be buggy, and unless you’re a coder, it’ll be difficult to fix. Still, it’ll be yours to customize as you please and who knows, maybe you’ll make and release an emulator that’ll adorn this list someday.
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If we missed any of the best Android emulators for PC, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists! Here are what happened to some old classics from the list:
- Leapdroid was purchased by Google and no longer operates.
- AMIDuOS closed its doors officially on March 7th, 2018. Those who bought it can still get an installer if you follow this link and follow the instructions.
- Andy began using some seriously not great development tactics, including suspected bitcoin mining without user permission. Until they get their stuff together, they are exempt from this list.
- Most of the rest simply haven’t been updated or in active development in years and don’t really work well anymore with newer operating systems and hardware.
There are plenty of ways to create a game for Android and one important way is to do it from scratch in Android Studio with Java. This gives you the maximum control over how you want your game to look and behave and the process will teach you skills you can use in a range of other scenarios too – whether you’re creating a splash screen for an app or you just want to add some animations. With that in mind, this tutorial is going to show you how to create a simple 2D game using Android Studio and the Java. You can find all the code and resources at Github if you want to follow along.
Setting up
In order to create our game, we’re going to need to deal with a few specific concepts: game loops, threads and canvases. To begin with, start up Android Studio. If you don’t have it installed then check out our full introduction to Android Studio, which goes over the installation process. Now start a new project and make sure you choose the ‘Empty Activity’ template. This is a game, so of course you don’t need elements like the FAB button complicating matters.
The first thing you want to do is to change AppCompatActivity to Activity. This means we won’t be using the action bar features.
Similarly, we also want to make our game full screen. Add the following code to onCreate() before the call to setContentView():
Note that if you write out some code and it gets underlined in red, that probably means you need to import a class. In other words, you need to tell Android Studio that you wish to use certain statements and make them available. If you just click anywhere on the underlined word and then hit Alt+Enter, then that will be done for you automatically!
Creating your game view
You may be used to apps that use an XML script to define the layout of views like buttons, images and labels. This is what the line setContentView is doing for us.
But again, this is a game meaning it doesn’t need to have browser windows or scrolling recycler views. Instead of that, we want to show a canvas instead. In Android Studio a canvas is just the same as it is in art: it’s a medium that we can draw on.
So change that line to read as so:
You’ll find that this is once again underlined red. But now if you press Alt+Enter, you don’t have the option to import the class. Instead, you have the option to create a class. In other words, we’re about to make our own class that will define what’s going to go on the canvas. This is what will allow us to draw to the screen, rather than just showing ready-made views.
So right click on the package name in your hierarchy over on the left and choose New > Class. You’ll now be presented with a window to create your class and you’re going to call it GameView. Under SuperClass, write: android.view.SurfaceView which means that the class will inherit methods – its capabilities – from SurfaceView.
In the Interface(s) box, you’ll write android.view.SurfaceHolder.Callback. As with any class, we now need to create our constructor. Use this code:
Each time our class is called to make a new object (in this case our surface), it will run the constructor and it will create a new surface. The line ‘super’ calls the superclass and in our case, that is the SurfaceView.
By adding Callback, we’re able to intercept events.
Now override some methods:
These basically allow us to override (hence the name) methods in the superclass (SurfaceView). You should now have no more red underlines in your code. Nice.
You just created a new class and each time we refer to that, it will build the canvas for your game to get painted onto. Classes create objects and we need one more.
Creating threads
Our new class is going to be called MainThread. And its job will be to create a thread. A thread is essentially like a parallel fork of code that can run simultaneously alongside the main part of your code. You can have lots of threads running all at once, thereby allowing things to occur simultaneously rather than adhering to a strict sequence. This is important for a game, because we need to make sure that it keeps on running smoothly, even when a lot is going on.
Create your new class just as you did before and this time it is going to extend Thread. In the constructor we’re just going to call super(). Remember, that’s the super class, which is Thread, and which can do all the heavy lifting for us. This is like creating a program to wash the dishes that just calls washingMachine().
When this class is called, it’s going to create a separate thread that runs as an offshoot of the main thing. And it’s from here that we want to create our GameView. That means we also need to reference the GameView class and we’re also using SurfaceHolder which is contains the canvas. So if the canvas is the surface, SurfaceHolder is the easel. And GameView is what puts it all together.
The full thing should look like so:
Game Java Android Tanpa Emulator
Schweet. We now have a GameView and a thread!
Creating the game loop
We now have the raw materials we need to make our game, but nothing is happening. This is where the game loop comes in. Basically, this is a loop of code that goes round and round and checks inputs and variables before drawing the screen. Our aim is to make this as consistent as possible, so that there are no stutters or hiccups in the framerate, which I’ll explore a little later.
For now, we’re still in the MainThread class and we’re going to override a method from the superclass. This one is run.
And it goes a little something like this:
You’ll see a lot of underlining, so we need to add some more variables and references. Head back to the top and add:
Remember to import Canvas. Canvas is the thing we will actually be drawing on. As for ‘lockCanvas’, this is important because it is what essentially freezes the canvas to allow us to draw on it. That’s important because otherwise, you could have multiple threads attempting to draw on it at once. Just know that in order to edit the canvas, you must first lock the canvas.
Update is a method that we are going to create and this is where the fun stuff will happen later on.
The try and catch meanwhile are simply requirements of Java that show we’re willing to try and handle exceptions (errors) that might occur if the canvas isn’t ready etc.
Finally, we want to be able to start our thread when we need it. To do this, we’ll need another method here that allows us to set things in motion. That’s what the running variable is for (note that a Boolean is a type of variable that is only ever true or false). Add this method to the MainThread class:
But at this point, one thing should still be highlighted and that’s update. This is because we haven’t created the update method yet. So pop back into GameView and now add method.
We also need to start the thread! We’re going to do this in our surfaceCreated method:
We also need to stop the thread when the surface is destroyed. As you might have guessed, we handle this in the surfaceDestroyed method. But seeing as it can actually take multiple attempts to stop a thread, we’re going to put this in a loop and use try and catch again. Like so:
And finally, head up to the constructor and make sure to create the new instance of your thread, otherwise you’ll get the dreaded null pointer exception! And then we’re going to make GameView focusable, meaning it can handle events.
Now you can finally actually test this thing! That’s right, click run and it should actually run without any errors. Prepare to be blown away!
It’s… it’s… a blank screen! All that code. For a blank screen. But, this is a blank screen of opportunity. You’ve got your surface up and running with a game loop to handle events. Now all that’s left is make stuff happen. It doesn’t even matter if you didn’t follow everything in the tutorial up to this point. Point is, you can simply recycle this code to start making glorious games!
Doing a graphics
Right, now we have a blank screen to draw on, all we need to do is draw on it. Fortunately, that’s the simple part. All you need to do is to override the draw method in our GameView class and then add some pretty pictures:
Run this and you should now have a pretty red square in the top left of an otherwise-white screen. This is certainly an improvement.
You could theoretically create pretty much your entire game by sticking it inside this method (and overriding onTouchEvent to handle input) but that wouldn’t be a terribly good way to go about things. Placing new Paint inside our loop will slow things down considerably and even if we put this elsewhere, adding too much code to the draw method would get ugly and difficult to follow.
Instead, it makes a lot more sense to handle game objects with their own classes. We’re going to start with one that shows a character and this class will be called CharacterSprite. Go ahead and make that.
This class is going to draw a sprite onto the canvas and will look like so
Now to use this, you’ll need to load the bitmap first and then call the class from GameView. Add a reference to private CharacterSprite characterSprite and then in the surfaceCreated method, add the line:
As you can see, the bitmap we’re loading is stored in resources and is called avdgreen (it was from a previous game). Now all you need to do is pass that bitmap to the new class in the draw method with:
Now click run and you should see your graphic appear on your screen! This is BeeBoo. I used to draw him in my school textbooks.
What if we wanted to make this little guy move? Simple: we just create x and y variables for his positions and then change these values in an update method.
So add the references to your CharacterSprite and then then draw your bitmap at x, y. Create the update method here and for now we’re just going to try:
Each time the game loop runs, we’ll move the character down the screen. Remember, y coordinates are measured from the top so 0 is the top of the screen. Of course we need to call the update method in CharacterSprite from the update method in GameView.
Press play again and now you’ll see that your image slowly traces down the screen. We’re not winning any game awards just yet but it’s a start!
Okay, to make things slightly more interesting, I’m just going to drop some ‘bouncy ball’ code here. This will make our graphic bounce around the screen off the edges, like those old Windows screensavers. You know, the strangely hypnotic ones.
You will also need to define these variables:
Optimization
There is plenty more to delve into here, from handling player input, to scaling images, to managing having lots of characters all moving around the screen at once. Right now, the character is bouncing but if you look very closely there is slight stuttering. It’s not terrible but the fact that you can see it with the naked eye is something of a warning sign. The speed also varies a lot on the emulator compared to a physical device. Now imagine what happens when you have tons going on on the screen at once!
There are a few solutions to this problem. What I want to do to start with, is to create a private integer in MainThread and call that targetFPS. This will have the value of 60. I’m going to try and get my game to run at this speed and meanwhile, I’ll be checking to ensure it is. For that, I also want a private double called averageFPS.
I’m also going to update the run method in order to measure how long each game loop is taking and then to pause that game loop temporarily if it is ahead of the targetFPS. We’re then going to calculate how long it now took and then print that so we can see it in the log.
Now our game is attempting to lock it’s FPS to 60 and you should find that it generally measures a fairly steady 58-62 FPS on a modern device. On the emulator though you might get a different result.
Try changing that 60 to 30 and see what happens. The game slows down and it should now read 30 in your logcat.
Closing Thoughts
There are some other things we can do to optimize performance too. There’s a great blog post on the subject here. Try to refrain from ever creating new instances of Paint or bitmaps inside the loop and do all initializing outside before the game begins.
If you’re planning on creating the next hit Android game then there are certainly easier and more efficient ways to go about it these days. But there are definitely still use-case scenarios for being able to draw onto a canvas and it’s a highly useful skill to add to your repertoire. I hope this guide has helped somewhat and wish you the best of luck in your upcoming coding ventures!
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