MSI and Android emulator BlueStacks positioned themselves as an alternative for Android gamers when they announced their collaboration on the MSI App Player back in June 2018. Even though Android code doesn't run natively on desktop machines, the developers claim speedier performance than on a Samsung Galaxy S10. Now, MSI has announced that the App Player will be able to display games in 240 FPS on supported hardware, a first in the Android world.
Read MoreNoxPlayer is the perfect Android emulator to play mobile games on PC [Sponsored Post]
Choosing an Android emulator for the best mobile gaming experience on PC can be a pain thanks to the vast assortment of options out there, but thankfully NoxPlayer is here to save the day. Its cutting-edge engine can easily surpass your mobile phone's performance so that you can expect a fast and smooth experience with the best app compatibility and proper physical keyboard/gamepad support.
Read MoreAndroid Studio device emulator now works with AMD processors and Hyper-V
Android Studio's device emulator used to be incredibly slow, even on capable hardware. Google has drastically improved the performance over the past two years, but a few issues remain. The Windows version of the Android Emulator uses HAXM, which only works on Intel processors. That means AMD-powered computers can only use non-accelerated ARM images.
Read MoreTencent Gaming Buddy lets you play PUBG Mobile on your PC
Tencent's release of PUBG Mobile has naturally garnered a lot of attention thanks to its high profile name and solid gameplay on mobile devices. But as we all are well aware, shooters often control poorly on touchscreens. This is why many players have resorted to using Android emulators to get their PUBG Mobile fix. The main reason, of course, would be to take advantage of the superior mouse and keyboard controls.
The problem is this isn't good for the player base since there is no way to evenly compete on a touchscreen device against those using a more tactile and precise control method.
Read MorePopular
Android P SDK and emulator images appear in Android SDK Manager
If you've been curious about the next version of Android, there's a hint that something special may be coming soon. Check the Android SDK Manager on this morning and you'll spot packages for a new API level: Android P. There are packages for the SDK itself, plus Android TV, Google APIs, and Google Play variants of emulator images for x86.
Read MoreAndroid Studio's Emulator reaches stable channel with Quick Boot for 6-second startup times, Play Store support, and an assortment of other improvements
Back in October, Android Studio 3.0 was set loose to the stable channel with improved support for the Kotlin language, platform technologies like Android Things, and many other new and improved features. At the same time, a major upgrade to the Android Emulator also went out to developers on Android Studio's canary channel. It came with quite a few enhancements, but the the headliner was Quick Boot, which can reportedly achieve startup times of less than 6 seconds. Today, this version of the emulator reaches the stable channel and the Android Tools team posted about many of the other valuable improvements this update brings.
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Latest revision to the official Android emulator increases performance dramatically
The Android SDK isn't something that normal users see all that often (except perhaps when they're unlocking the bootloader on a new phone), but developers still rely on it heavily. One of the components included in the collection of desktop tools is Google's first-party Android emulator. It's a way of running a simplified version of Android software on a computer for the purpose of testing apps. And as cool as that sounds, it's also kind of a hassle - like all emulators, it's significantly slower than using Android on native hardware. But that's changing with the latest release, at least according to Google.
Read MoreRemix OS now available as a virtual machine for Windows PCs
Jide's Remix OS has turned a lot of heads in the last couple of years, thanks to an interesting initial tablet offering and subsequent easy-to-install software for both PCs and a few Nexus tablets and even some retail hardware. The modified Android software, which uses a desktop-style window system for apps, is surprisingly robust and easy to use. Jide's latest move is to offer Remix as a virtual machine package, allowing Windows desktops, laptops, and tablets to run the Android ROM in a dedicated window alongside desktop applications.
Read MoreAndroid Studio 2.0 Hits Beta 2 With Faster Build And Deploy Times, Instant Run, Fast New Emulator, GPU Profiler, The Latest IntelliJ 15 Improvements, And Much More
The Android Studio team has been kicking out preview builds at a fevered pace since the first 2.0 preview hit the scene near the end of November, and it's finally paying off as the first real Beta is now rolling out. (The first beta has an issue, so this is actually labeled Beta 2). The jump from v1.5 to v2.0 is enough to suggest that this could be the most ambitious update to the IDE since it was launched, but the feature list confirms it. We've already covered some of the biggest features: instant run, GPU profiling, and a massively faster and more functional emulator.
Read MoreAndroid Tools Team Releases New Emulator With Vastly Better Performance And User Interface Features
Now that Android Studio is faring quite well for its core necessities, the tools team is tackling some of the bigger challenges. A couple of weeks ago, they featured a new ability to deploy a limited set of changes to apps without fully restarting them. This week they're shooting to take on one of the longest and most requested items on the list: a faster and more useful emulator.
Performance
The biggest boost to speed can be seen while running Android 6.0 on the new emulator. This comes from newly added support for Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), which allows the emulator to take full advantage of multiple processor cores on a computer.
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