Copyright escapistmagazine
There’s been something happening over on Android for a little while now. PC emulation has been getting better, and I don’t mean DOSBox or loading up a virtual machine. No, this particular side of emulation focuses on bringing native games from PC and running them on Android. Now, Xiaomi has come forward with an update for its Game Center App, which is confirmed to work on the Redmi K90 Pro Max and K90. Rather than having to use a third-party emulator like Winlator, Xiaomi is skipping the middleman and just bundling its own emulator into its phones. Xiaomi cuts out emulation middleman, does it themselves Announced by Sun Cun, the company’s Redmi Product Manager, over on Chinese social media site Weibo, the company has confirmed it supports Hollow Knight, Silksong, and Stardew Valley. Notably, these are less demanding games, but Silksong became a must-have on mobile for a certain sect of users. While the game has come to platforms like the Switch 2 and is incredibly playable on the Steam Deck, some players only have access to their phones. As such, Silksong went from release to playable on non-Xiaomi emulators rapidly. In fact, there’s now a sub-sect within it that is keeping tabs on an unofficial Chinese port to Android. I don’t know, maybe there is something in the “players want stuff everywhere” business. Xiaomi’s efforts in the emulator space also bring support for Steam Achievements, cloud saves, and Steam Friends. There’s also support for a mouse and vibration. Android developers have been cracking PC emulation on systems for what seems like months now. With even mid-tier phones sporting decent to impressive processors, it’s becoming easier to just brute force performance, especially for 2D games like Silksong and Stardew Valley. Phone chips are getting ludicrously powerful I caught wind of this at the very start of this year. At the time, the most impressive thing to pop up was a fully working copy of Red Dead Redemption 2. Early videos showed impressive performance, especially considering it was in an emulation environment on an entirely different architecture. However, these chips are getting so capable, we’re now starting to see other companies begin to poke around at it. One good example is our almost rolling coverage of Valve’s next headset. Within code bases belonging to the company, it’s strongly implied that they’re working on a version of its Windows to Linux translation layer, Proton, for ARM chips, which usually power mobile devices – or VR headsets. Since the start of the year, development has ramped up, with popular emulator Winlator now on a beta version 11. Last year, it started at version five. Obviously, it isn’t perfect, and it’s better suited to far older games or 2D titles. For those who enjoy tinkering and testing different emulators, well, there’s another one on the way for you to see if Cyberpunk 2077 will run on your mid-range phone.
