76
Pixel 10 finally gets its long-promised GPU driver upgrade, but the real test starts now
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Android
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Too bad android gaming sucks as much as 10 years ago
I wild say it's worse but also not that bad. Play store has become much worse on helping you find good games and mostly promotes crappy adware games. There are still plenty of good games tho.
You mean you don't want to spend half of your game time watching ads? Or using a touchscreen because no phone company will make a slide out controller phone?
Maybe take a look at emulators then? Modern phones are capable of running many retro games, including WII and PS2 games.
Additionally, it is possible to run PC games.
Yep got myself a nice controller for the phone and use it for emulator heaven and Moonlight.
That's basically all I play on my phone, but it doesn't qualify as "android gaming" IMO.
If emulators and winlator do not count as android gaming, then emulation and wine/proton do not count as Linux gaming lmao.
Yes, running emulated games on a PC doesn't automagically make them PC games, "lmao".
Also wine is not an emulator, as its name clearly states, it makes things run natively so we should more generally talk about "PC gaming" there.
If you still want to make a distinction between games born for Windows and games born for Linux, then yes, those are not "Linux gaming".
However it is totally off topic here since not only Linux has been improving a lot in the last decade, but also the games developed for Linux have been getting incredibly good (for free).
So, yeah... I don't know what you were trying to convey with your comment but now you are a little more educated about gaming than you, apparently, were before.
You are welcome.
you are playing a game on android, you are gaming on android. ez
Yeah... no.
So is the line you're drawing the emulation layer needed between ARM and x86? Or is it the difference between emulation and translation?
If this exact same fex+proton software was run on a snapdragon laptop under Ubuntu is that really that different? Do you count apps running under Java bytecode as emulation? Because that's a vast majority of android apps. The distinction between translation, native gaming, and emulation is ultimately kind of meaningless if you get a good experience out of it.
Android is technically Linux under the hood, so it can (and has) been making use of the improvements to Linux gaming.
If by "android gaming" you mean you want to see a world where games are published to the play store in addition to Steam and consoles, you should probably give up on that. The play store is too ridden with actual malware to make that a reality. Even if games got released there, people would complain that they aren't free because all of their other phone games are. If you want to play games on your phone with a Bluetooth controller and get a decent experience, it's already here.
I want to see games developed for android that are good and not some shitty gacha, some crippled spin off of PC games, some idiotic microtransactions stuffed disgrace or other crap that looks like it comes from 2015.
It's really not that complicated.
Also, emulating is very cool, however what's the last AAA PC game you played in your phone?
But yeah, nothing exist because it's all translation of bytecode at the end of the day, right?
Excuse me for sending an incredibly clickbaited YouTube video, I don't play AAA's since honestly IMO they're not as good as indies anyway. However, according to this cyberpunk runs (albeit I'm guessing that's on low) on newer phones: https://youtu.be/ACPXNADIjKw
I'm sure other AAAs from even just a few years ago could run fine. The only problem is that most android phones don't have enough storage for AAAs anyway. A "native" android release wouldn't change that.
Right, because it's all about the storage if we don't have decent android games.
I think some ps2 games should be able to run on lower end phones (not sure since I never tried). When I'll get games comparable to like FFX or Shadow of the Colossus (the first two that come to mind) I'll finally be satisfied with android gaming.
Until then all the p2w shit and other crap, or even 5yo PC games at low graphic settings on flagship phones, won't cut it.
Luckily my current phone will probably be my last android device too.
Again, indie games exist and can easily be run on most phones through Winlator/GameNative. The Nintendo switch is basically an 8 year old midrange phone processor and that still got games, plenty of steam titles will run fine on even a low/midrange android phone.
So you want games comparable to what came out in 2001 and 2005, but a 5 year old AAA is too old for you? What????
If you're saying this because you're switching to iPhone, I wouldn't get my hopes up on the situation improving. It's equally as bad on iOS. If you're saying that because you're getting a Linux phone or a non-smartphone, fair enough but those don't have any games, let alone emulated ones.
Yes and for the hundredth time, they were never developed for android, so android gaming scene is still a complete money making shitshow.
Maybe after playing so much crap you have forgotten what a game should be. Those were good games even with very low hardware requirements, which means there is no excuse for hardware or software limitations here, there is just no interest (and there never was) in making decent games for android.
You are wrong, but not surprising to jump to such idiotic conclusions for an android fanboy who can't even admit android games suck ass.
Did you actually read my comment? It's actually impressive to get those takeaways from that...
Anyway, if you want to twist my comments into something that makes yourself pointlessly mad I can't stop you. Your definition of an android game seems to be Google Play malware, so I don't think you'll ever get what you want.
Sure bro ππ
There are android apps combining fex/box64 with proton in order to run full Windows games now. Android may actually be a semi-viable gaming platform in the near future.
GameNative is one that works as a full steam client but there are a few others that give you more control like Winlator (both on GitHub)
You can actually play games pretty decently on them, especially indies like hollow knight and Celeste.
Yes, still not android games, are they?
We have had decent android phones for like 10 years, at least, yet the best you can on them is emulating other platforms.
Honestly if I can play all of the new indie games on my phone I don't really care whether or not they're "android games."
By your logic the steam deck doesn't have any games since most of them rely on proton to work.
As I was saying to another user, yes the steam deck kinda has no games, although I'd argue that PC gaming includes wine/proton too since they aren't emulators.
Anyway, I too am happy emulating stuff on my phone, but a few years ago I thought we were going to get more than this and they left me waiting basically.
Was enjoying asphalt legends til I hit the 8 hour mark (on steam legion go s, but its the same game) and then it became clear how much they want you to pay to progress, feel like they give you some wins early on, then suddenly every car is just a bit faster than yours even if your rating is higher. (Not the campaign, that's just a tedious grind, you progress so slow it reminds me of warthunder where you eventually realize you are better off working a minmium wage job and spending that money in game as the progression is 20x faster than playing the game for that amount of time.
I never played that but I perfectly know the feeling. In fact I think it's not only a matter of hardware and software anymore, they just make more money like this and don't care anymore.
Minimum effort, maximum gain. Sadly.
There are decent paid native games on android. You can try those.
Can you mention some of those?
I'm also fond of Hungry Cat Picross and LogicWiz Sudoku, but I'm sure there are other good apps for these games.
All of them (some of which I like and played) are old or look old.
Nothing wrong with looking old, especially when we talk about indie games, but that's not the peak android gaming experience I was expecting years ago.
That makes sense because I like pixel art. If you're into polygons you might want to check out:
And soon Warframe. You can pre-register to be notified when it releases.
I would suggest removing genshin impact from the list and insert Wuthering Waves instead. It's a copycat that improves on every aspect if GI, while also being somewhat better game in general:
Honestly, considering both games have shitty story telling and shitty story that no one cares about in general, just the last point should make Wuwa superior. The fact that genshin impact devs aren't adding dialog/cutscenes skip button, while providing shittiest "stories" written by 5 years old, for every minor quest in the game β infuriating me.
Nice, they'll finally port a 2013 game on android.
Can't wait.
2025 Warframe and 2013 Warframe are very different animals. The game just got a massive update.
So it's not a 12 years old game anymore?
Minecraft is a 2025 game then?
I'm surprised no one mentioned big ports, like Alien: Isolation, some Telltale games, Life is Strange, Red Dead Redemption, GTA series, Hitman, Subnautica, etc. There also was announced Tomb Raider port. It's not a lot, but still, l would consider this a better example of "good paid games" on Android, compared to something like genshin impact.
Dead cells, 9th dawn RPG 3, pocket rogues, vampire survivors, titan quest, undead horde, quest of wizard, star traders frontiers, doom and destiny, tesla vs Lovecraft, out there omega edition, rusted warfare, grimvalor, exemplars of elaed, solar 2, Interstellar pilot 1 & 2, galaxy on fire 2, mindustry, zombotron, the quest series, majesty, majesty northern edition, Minecraft, starrows, uncivic, beholder, data defence, kingdom rush series, seven days rpg, endless sky, tallowmere, Halls of torment, bit dungeon 2 & 3, delight games, magic survival.
You can also check this post for non-gacha games: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/40095267
Thank you, I looked up all the ones I didn't know and, as I said in my first comment, we are still stuck with 10 years old gaming.
Not saying that the games suck (although some look like crap honestly), my point is that after a decade of hardware and software "updates" the bottleneck is still there and basically unchanged.
And that is unacceptable considering the price tag of some devices.
What bottleneck are you talking about?
I agree for pixel phones. For everyone else you have options. you can game at medium to high settings on upper midrange dimensity 8300/8400 phones, snapdragon 7+ gen 2/3, 8gen 2, 8s gen 3, and other phones.
What's the last modern game you have played on your phone?
I have listed all the games that I have played and still keep installed on my phone. Others like Real Racing 3 require powerful hardware which my phone does not have unfortunately.
What exactly are you expecting here?
The same I've repeated since the beginning, just something that doesn't look like it's from the 2015 Play Store.
Even that Real Racing is from 2013 bro... literally released that year.
Sorry, I meant Rush Rally 3. Anyway, there's GridAutosport, Wreakfest.
Oh ok, that's just 6 years old and from the screenshots it looks like crap.
Is there anything else than cringe racing game with shitty graphics?
There's the final fantasy series. But, honestly you are expecting way too much. People are not willing to give $1 for a useful app. Forget throwing 10-30 times that amount for a console quality game.
If that was true we'd have no more console games, or games in general, not even indie games.
There's quite a good chess-themed roguelike available for free this week
osu!stream is peak mobile gaming
...though I literally cannot name any more examples. And that game doesn't need Vulkan.