If you're feeling nostalgic for early console games, you don't need to fork over big bucks on eBay. Just load up an emulator on your modern devices. Here are the best ones for the most popular systems of yore.
DeSmuME is a freeware emulator for the NDS roms & Nintendo DS Lite and DSi games created by YopYop156. DeSmuME is also known as YopYop DS is written in C++ for Microsoft Windows and can play Nintendo DS homebrew and commercial nds roms. The emulator its self is in French (with full user translations to English and other languages). But even French version of DeSmuME is easy to navigate through menus as it has a similar users interface to DSemu. It supports many homebrew nds rom demoes as well as a handful of Wireless Multiboot demo nds roms. DeSmuME is also able to emulate nearly all of the commercial nds rom titles which other DS Emulators like iDeaS and Dualis aren't capable of running.
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 it’s a lot easier than it used to be. Some old favorites either left the space or became unusable at some point (Andy, AmiduOS, and Leapdroid), but everything else here should work okay for most people. Here are the best Android emulators for PC and Mac.
It’s also worth noting that Windows 11 has native Android apps support. You can read a tutorial on how that works here and you can even use the Play Store if you want to go through the effort. Google is also bringing Google Play Games to Windows 11 in 2022. Being able to run apps and games natively on Windows 11 may replace emulator use for a wide variety of use cases such as gaming or general productivity so keep an eye out for that.
In simple and precise words, it is a handy console that comes with a lot of great titles by various users.
Players love to play many Nintendo DS games and the popularity has gained by DeSmuME. The best part of this is that it is the open-source Nintendo DS emulator that can easily run both demos as well as commercial games successfully.
Every year, hundreds of retro video games are rendered unplayable as old consoles—from Super NES to PlayStation 1—stop working.
Many older games are available via PlayStation Now and Nintendo Switch Online, but what happens when a subscription service is no longer supported and companies stop storing games on their servers? Unless you have a DRM-free copy of a game, and a way to play it, you're at the mercy of game distributors and their bottom lines.
Enter emulators, which allow you to play game ROMs on modern platforms. There are emulators for every retro game console—some even support multiple systems—and a variety of operating systems. There are legal gray areas surrounding ownership of ROM files, while some emulators require complex setups, but they're one of your best options for a hit of old-school gaming nostalgia. Read on for your emulator options.
The three main uses for Android 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 LDPlayer, 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. Fortunately, Android Studio comes with the “Android Virtual Device” (AVD) which blows all other emulators out of the water in terms of performance and functionality. The only drawback for non-developers is that it comes with an installation of the space-hungry Android Studio and Android Software Development Kit (SDK). Of course, this is no problem for developers that already have all the necessary software on their machines.
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. Even so, in this day and age, we recommend going with a Chromebook (with reasonably decent specs) if you want to run Android apps in a laptop or computer environment. It’s better that way.
Finally, a bit of a disclaimer. At this time, no consumer emulators run the latest versions of Android. The only place you can find it is in Android Studio and it’s not for playing mobile games. Luckily, most apps and games still function on older versions of Android so this shouldn’t be a big deal. Most emulators run Android 7.0 through 9.0.
