How to download an android simulator. Koplayer emulator for weak PCs. Droid4x - Gamers' Choice

Well then. We have come to the most important part of the review, but can we choose an emulator that we can call the best without any twinges of conscience? Let's think about it.

• Firstly, it is worth noting that most of the presented software are solutions from Chinese developers who quickly “cool” towards the project and stop supporting it. This is actually why not everyone supports Android versions higher than 4.4, and the same software testing should be carried out on several versions of the OS.
• Secondly, it is impossible to name the best of the best for one simple reason - different software is designed for different categories of users. Let's try to distribute it wisely.

BlueStacks, Andy, Nox, MEmu– popular emulators, free, approximately equal in capabilities, functions, with similar implementation. All of them are designed for ordinary users, which need to install, run, press a button and get the result. Here you won’t have to set up anything for a long time - virtual reality will load immediately, and the user interface will delight you with its intuitiveness.

Looks good compared to its peers Nox App Player. The application player installs quickly, works stably, and supports all modern games. Provides the most convenient control and is not demanding on PC resources. It’s nice that the computer program is equally convenient for both gamers and ordinary users, and also does not bother you with advertising, unlike some popular alternatives. Another plus is that you don’t need a Google account to install “computer games” from a company store!

And a few more words about BlueStacks. The developers offer a fairly high-quality product with a package of essential services. For example, video streaming on Twitch.tv, as well as access to adapted versions of games with controls modified for PC. Among other things, BlueStacks performs very well in games. The emulation is of quite high quality, and there are minimal brakes, since the creators of the program removed unnecessary processes in the OS, reducing the load on the computer’s RAM and central processor.

Windroy is our winner in the “simple emulator” category. Its undemanding nature deserves special honor and praise. But if Windroy allows a maximum of “throwing birds”, then Droid4X you will pass demanding games that once migrated to Android from PC without discomfort. With this emulator you will want to conquer all the tracks in Asphalt, destroy all the enemies in Gangstar, and, of course, be nostalgic for Infinity Blade, but on a personal computer. Root access for using cheats is included.

There are three emulator options on our list that are suitable for professional testing: BlueStacks, Genymotion And LeapDroid. The first contender got here for the quality of execution. The second is for the variety of images - almost any top-segment cell phone is emulated, and the third is for the number of settings.

notice, that Genymotion And LeapDroid do not contain the virtual machine engine, but simply create images for VirtualBox. But Genymotion clearly does it better. The program database contains profiles of several dozen smartphones and tablets on different OS, up to Nexus on Android 7 Nougat. Moreover, the set is constantly updated - this is suitable for developers and testers.

As for LeapDroid– this is software for geeks and advanced users. If you want to spend a lot of time, but use trial and error to configure the emulator to work perfectly, we recommend downloading it for free. Support for opengl (hardware virtualization technology) will undoubtedly be a plus when choosing among analogues. However, the development environment is not disabled. The product is more household than specialized. It’s too early to include it in the best Android emulators.

P.S. advanced users will probably ask, where is the youwave emulator, which is so praised on other sites? The answer is that we have not tested products based on ICS and older versions of the operating system. We will say the same thing if you came to download the Android emulator on your Computer Amiduos or Koplayer - the applications are clearly outdated and have not been updated for a long time.

An Android emulator on PC is in demand by many. The need to run mobile applications and games on personal computers was the reason for the emergence of such programs. This allowed us to combine the power of a desktop PC with the capabilities of an Android. Not every mobile phone or tablet with modest technical characteristics could run some applications or games.

In today's review we will talk about popular emulators. Each of them has its own characteristics and advantages. All programs can be grouped as follows:

• Universal emulators. They cope well with their tasks, which are set for them by game lovers or Android application developers;
• For game lovers;
• For testers and program developers.

Important: Most emulators require computer processors to support virtualization.

The Russian language is not in the list, click on English and wait for a while. A window opens to activate the Play Market.

We agree to all requests, the setup is completed and the desktop appears. The layout of the elements on it and the Start menu are very similar to the usual Windows, everything is intuitive.

We launch the browser, the response is instant.

Installing applications is also very fast.

On the right in the settings panel you can control the location of the active window. By rotating it, the image also rotates.

This is convenient for games; Remix OS was created for them. Despite the fact that it is officially still being finalized, the emulator left a very pleasant impression. An important caveat is that it does not work on computers with an AMD processor.

Download Remix OS Player from the developer’s website - http://cn.jide.com/remixos-player

This emulator was created by the well-known company Google. At the same time, it is a development environment (IDE) for the Android platform. The program includes a set of tools that help developers create software and games.

After installation on the computer, the program window opens. It asks you to select a project or create a new one.

After selecting a project, the program itself opens.

It allows you to edit and assemble applications, rework code, etc.

Download Android Studio from the developer's website - https://developer.android.com/studio/install.html

The YouWave emulator is now offered in two versions - free (Free) and paid (Premium). The free version is based on the old Android platform. It can run significantly fewer programs than the newer Premium. Otherwise, there are no noticeable differences in capabilities between them.
Installation of the emulator is quick, and it is not demanding on computer resources. After installation the desktop opens

and access to programs.

The program interface is only in English.

Among the unique features, it is worth noting the ability of YouWave to work with virtual SD memory. Often games for Android are released earlier than for Windows. YouWave allows you to take full advantage of this.

A free emulator that supports unique features that similar programs do not have.

These include:

• using a mobile phone as a remote control during games;
• installing Android applications in AndyRoid directly from the operating system of your personal computer;
• low requirements for video resources. It can even work on the built-in Intel HD Graphics. This is due to the fact that the emulator is based on VirtualBox.

After starting the installation, the program downloads the necessary modules from the Internet, which will take some time. Next, the desktop and program menu opens. Interface in Russian.

To access the Play Store, authorization via Google is required.

DuOS

A relatively new Android emulator for PC from American Megatrends, it is offered in two paid versions: Lollipop and JellyBean. Free testing of any of them is available for 30 days. There are no completely free programs.

After installation and launch, you can configure the emulator according to your requirements using the menu in Russian.

More suitable for home use, working with applications and games.

One of the oldest emulators. It is suitable for those who have ancient versions of Windows installed on their computer. Lightweight and convenient, works only using the Windows kernel and does not require Virtualbox support. One nuance must be taken into account: there should be no spaces in the name of the folder where the emulator will be installed.

After launch, the desktop opens, select the menu and customize it to your liking.

Interface is English or Chinese. The official website is not available at the time of writing this review; you can download the emulator from the resource library.

The popular gaming-oriented emulator showed decent results even with computer-heavy applications. Its peculiarity is that you can bind your computer's keyboard to coordinates on the Droid4X screen. Agree, this is very convenient, especially in games.

After installing Droid4X and launching it, you can customize the program according to your requirements.

Now this emulator can only be downloaded from unofficial resources. The developer's website is not available. Therefore, if you decide to use and download from unverified sources, check with an antivirus before installing.

An interesting version of the Android emulator, more suitable for gaming on a computer.
Has the following advantages:

Now you can choose desktop settings and install games.

Although the interface is in English, it is intuitive. The emulator is not demanding on computer power. Provided to users free of charge.

MEmu

Few emulator developers provide such support for their programs. MEmu is “friendly” with AMD and Intel processors. In addition, it supports Android versions JellyBean, KitKat and Lollipop. It will run most software and games, which is a significant advantage.

The developer focuses the attention of fans of its software products on the high performance and compatibility of this emulator. Another plus is the interface is in Russian.

There is a display of the keyboard and joystick, as well as the transfer of information from virtual sensors. This is very convenient in games. In addition, you can run different versions of Android at the same time.

Download MEmu from the developer's website http://www.memuplay.com/

This emulator is positioned as a tool for application testers and developers. It supports hardware acceleration and Open GL. Plus is built on x86 architecture, which makes it noticeably faster than its analogues. The emulator can be configured for all kinds of devices and different versions of the Android OS. The list of supported devices is regularly updated.

When downloading the program, although it is free, you must register on the official website of the developer. Be sure to save them; in the future, this data will be needed to launch the emulator.

The name of the device will appear in Virtual Box, select the device and click “Launch”.

A window will open with Genymotion running, which you can configure according to your tasks.

At the moment, BlueStacks can be considered one of the best Android emulators for PC in Russian. The purpose of this program is games. This does not require Virtual Box virtualization. It supports multitasking software and has built-in features such as screen shake and location selection. In addition, it is possible to install apk applications by double clicking the mouse. Allows you to install software and all kinds of games from the Play Market.

from where you can go to the Play Store and install the game you are interested in.

Also, the required emulator settings are made on the desktop.

This is the most interesting and versatile Android emulator for PC today.

It shows decent results even on low-power computers and has such enviable functionality as:

• Display the keyboard for touch input;
• Built-in GPS controller setup;
• The ability to disable or enable superuser mode (root rights) with a single click;
• Support for various processors;
• Setting up the gyroscope;
• Configuring the number of processors and memory by size, model and IMEI.

After installation, you can select Russian or another suitable language and make the necessary emulator settings.

To summarize the review, let's say that the Android emulator is an indispensable program for many users. For game lovers, we recommend trying Nox App Player, BlueStacks, KoPlayer, Droid4X, Remix OS Player. For developers who create and test applications, Genymotion and Android Studio are definitely suitable programs. We haven't forgotten about the owners of old computers and operating systems. We recommend the unpretentious Windroy emulator for them.

A couple of years ago, I didn’t even think about downloading an Android emulator for my usual Windows computer. But the popularity of Google’s brainchild cannot but surprise; of course, this has affected the entire information technology industry - there are simply an unrealistic number of different applications and games that have come out that work exclusively on Android and can be downloaded from, which I wrote about quite recently. This is actually why it was decided to write this guide on choosing the best emulator - it won’t work in a nutshell, there’s plenty to choose from.

In fact, there are really many reasons why there is a need to run an Android Emulator on your personal computer or laptop. For example, application developers can test their programs before publishing it in the App Store on various configurations. Fans of a wide variety of games can use their favorite mice and keyboard over the years as controls in games - and this is really necessary (however, I don’t think they will replace gyroscope control). In any case, emulating Android applications on Windows is possible, and my task is to tell you about the best in this niche.

Two years ago I had the imprudence to install the game Hay Day on my tablet, and ended up stuck there for several days. The habit has done its job - playing on a computer is more familiar and convenient for me, but the online version does not exist in nature and it was decided to install the Bluestacks emulator. At that time, probably the only adequate option for running Android games on a PC running Windows.

Important Note: For some emulators to work, it is necessary to enable support for Intel VT-x or AMD-v hardware virtualization in the BIOS (or UEFI). Usually they are always active, but if you are experiencing problems with some of the emulators on the list, then check these settings. However, that’s not all, I noticed that when installing the Hyper-V component on the system, many of the above emulators simply refused to start - I never found a solution to this problem, so choose what is more important to you. (There are quite a few alternatives to Hyper-V and they do not conflict - this is not meant to offend Microsoft)

Since we are talking about virtualization in general, we should understand that the Android emulator is a rather power-hungry thing and requires a sufficient amount of RAM. You can see its quantity in the system properties (for beginners there is a detailed note on how to determine computer parameters -), if you have less than 4 gigabytes of RAM, then most likely you will not achieve comfortable work.

Do not forget that for correct operation and maximum performance, it is recommended to install the latest versions of drivers for the graphics adapter. I did not include commercial versions in this review, because I understand that most likely it is needed to satisfy interest, and in general, to see how it happens there.

Nox App Player is perhaps the best emulator

To be honest, I only recently became acquainted with this emulator, but nevertheless it deserves the first line in our review. More recently, I thought that Bluestacks was the best for our tasks, but I was very wrong (although it probably was like that before). Now there is healthy competition in this segment and many truly worthy options. Most likely, if you don’t have any problems with NOX App Player, then your acquaintance with Android virtualization will end there - you simply won’t find anything better. Everything works great even on modern Windows 10 and I didn’t find any problems with installation or settings, everything is intuitive and simple.

After installing and launching the program, and it installs quite quickly - literally a couple of minutes - we will see the familiar Android screen in front of us (unfortunately, not the latest version, but only 4.4.2, but this is enough to run a huge number of games and applications). The system already has Google Play Market pre-installed, so there should be no problems choosing what to play. There is a small note: be prepared to confirm your Google account, authorization in NOX App Player causes distrust from the “good corporation”.

Unfortunately, the program is not localized into Russian, but Android itself allows you to switch to Russian - you can do this in the same way as on a phone or tablet. But all the program settings will remain in English, but this is not the biggest problem, set it once and forget it.

Now let's move on to the settings (you can open them by clicking on the gear icon at the top of the program). We are interested in the “Advanced” tab - by default the emulator will launch with a resolution of 1280x720, for some this may be too much, or vice versa - too little, just select the one you need and restart the application. You can also configure your emulated device here, for example, Perfomance Setting - these are performance settings; as it turned out, even in the minimum configuration nothing slowed me down, which indicates good optimization.

For the test, I tried to install the game Need For Speed: No Limits - everything works extremely smoothly and there are no problems with the controls. Of course, racing is not the best example, but as far as I know, this game is quite demanding on resources, but everything works just fine.

I would like to write a few words about the action icons that are located to the right of the emulator window, let's go over some of them:

• It is possible to install applications from APK files from a computer; this function is useful if you have problems with the Google Play Store.
• You can select your location manually and the emulator will think that it is receiving the real coordinates of the GPS receiver, but we set them ourselves.
• Creating screenshots, I think there is nothing special to explain here - the most ordinary picture with the contents of a window at a certain moment.

What can be summarized after the mini description of the Android emulator Nox App Player? If you need to install Prescope, Instagram or similar programs, then this emulator is ideal for these purposes. There are no questions about the speed of operation, even heavy 3D toys work great, but you must understand that a lot depends on the performance of your computer.

UPD: If Nox App Player does not start for you or refuses to install, then most likely the username contains Russian characters. You can create a new user using only English characters or rename an existing one

You can download NOX App Player completely free of charge on the official website http://en.bignox.com/

Andy is my choice

I can’t say why, but I settled on this emulator - it seemed to me the most thoughtful and convenient. Unfortunately, the interface is similar to the previous one - in English, but Android itself is in the familiar Russian language. There were no particular problems with installation and startup; everything went like clockwork.

This Android emulator has a pre-installed application store and for the test I tried installing Township and checking how everything works. To be honest, I got stuck and lost for about an hour - everything works smoothly, doesn’t crash or glitch.

There’s nothing special to configure; I think it’s worth highlighting the emulator’s screen resolution settings if suddenly the window turns out to be too large or small. The settings are called up by clicking on the program icon in the taskbar next to the clock, the menu item is called Set Resolution@DPI, and here the desired resolution is selected. Naturally, after applying the parameters, the program must be restarted for the settings to take effect.

If you are worried that this emulator has few settings, then you are mistaken, it has everything you need. You can also configure the allocated amount of RAM (do not forget that it cannot be more than what is physically installed in your computer) and the number of processor cores. On this I think we can finish the description of this wonderful application.

You can download Andy Emulator Android by going to the official website http://www.andyroid.net/

Bluestacks is a former favorite

Bluestacks is probably the most popular and well-known emulator of the Android operating system for a computer running Windows. The big advantage of this program is the presence of the Russian language, but it is not quite an emulator - rather an environment for running games. This is probably why Bluestacks shows excellent performance in gaming applications; if you don’t need anything else, then you can choose this option.

Unfortunately, after the update, it is no longer completely free - you will be forced to install certain applications every day or will be asked to pay a subscription of $2 per month. However, no one is stopping us from removing unnecessary programs immediately after installation, but as they say, a residue remains...

The test game Hay Day installed and launched without problems and synchronized perfectly with the facebook account. I had no desire to play, but I didn’t have any problems with this emulator before and I don’t think there will be any now.

The main feature of Bluestacks TV is the ability to broadcast games online on Twitch. I think this feature will be especially in demand by streamers and will help make reviews of Android games simpler than ever before.

Complex and demanding games also launch without problems, but it feels slower than the same Andy or Nox App Player, so the choice is yours.

You can download the Bluestacks emulator by going to the official website of the program http://www.bluestacks.com/ru/index.html

Droid4x - Gamers' Choice

I often saw the Droid4X emulator in the comments - so I decided to test it too. As it turned out, it has a lot of problems - this concerns stability; during testing I constantly had problems. However, it has a lot of useful and necessary functions, so let's not discount it.

Of course, I can’t say that my computer is weak. (Core i5 and 24 GB RAM, HD5870 video card), but the configuration is quite old by computer standards, but I didn’t notice any hints of slowdowns in games, everything goes very smoothly. There is a fly in the ointment, I was never able to launch Plants VS Zombie 2 - the game constantly crashed and did not want to start under any circumstances, there were some problems with the keyboard that resolved themselves. The most unpleasant thing is that the emulator simply froze several times literally in half an hour of work, this will probably be very annoying. Maybe I have these problems specifically - it’s quite possible that everything will work stably for you, but, unfortunately, it didn’t work for me.

Of course, he also has a bright side - this concerns management. The fact is that out of the box it is remarkably adapted to the usual keyboard and mouse (scrolling left or right, zoom in or out using the mouse wheel - this is all native and familiar to us for a long time).

Droid4X also allows you to bind computer keyboard buttons to the desired areas of the screen, this can be very useful for games, in my opinion, this emulator was intended for games - there were no problems with the Play Market.

In general, the verdict is a good and productive Android emulator for a computer, but I have problems with it, as you will have - I can’t say, try it.

You can download Droid4X on the official website http://www.droid4x.com/

Genymotion - the best for developers

The Genymotion emulator is very different from all the programs presented on today's list; it allows you to emulate not only Android itself, but a wide range of real-life devices. It works quite quickly and supports hardware graphics acceleration, which is good news. The Russian language is not provided here, so some users may have difficulty mastering it.

The audience for this emulator is not avid gamers, but most likely software developers, and I simply was not able to run many games. To get the program we are looking for, we need to register on the site and the opportunity to download the distribution for personal use will become available to us. I recommend using the version with VirtualBox - it's first on the list. There is no need to launch VirtualBox separately - you launch Genymotion and it does everything without your intervention.

So, as I already wrote, there is the opportunity to select the version of Android and the model of the real device, I don’t think that this is a necessary function for the average user, and developers will certainly be happy with this functionality. Click Next and the emulator will automatically pull up everything from the Internet; all we have to do is fine-tune the application.

In the configuration, we can choose the number of cores and the amount of RAM for the device, and we can also change the resolution - everything is only the most necessary.

Next, we need to select our newly created device in the list and click “Play”; in a couple of minutes, the ready-to-use image of the system we have chosen will launch. The emulator's capabilities are well documented, but again, a language barrier may prevent you from working with the program.

You can download Genymotion as usual, on the official website of the program https://www.genymotion.com/. This emulator also has a paid version with extended functionality, but we are not interested in this, we are looking for the one that is For Personal Use and we are happy.

Test results and my thoughts

Currently, there are a lot of Android emulators, for almost every taste and color. I distributed them based on my subjective opinion and it is not necessarily the only correct one - it is possible that for you, the presence of some functions will be decisive and then the favorite of this review will not be Nox App Player or Andy, but perhaps Bluestacks - it is the only one who can stream to Twitch out of the box , and the price of 2 bucks, in general, is rather symbolic and does not hit the pocket of a modern gamer much.

2.Bluestacks

One of the most convenient options for running Android games on a computer. If you want Android just to play games on its platform, then this is your choice. A very convenient emulation, which is aimed only at running Android games and applications on a PC. But there is no Android OS environment itself, there is only its own GUI with shortcuts to the games that you have installed and Android only gives you the opportunity to play its games.

The Bluestacks emulator is easy to install and configure, so we won’t explain anything more. If you encounter any questions regarding the emulator, please visit its official website.

3.Android SDK

The Android SDK software is a game developer tool, which, of course, provides the ability to run any application for it on Android. But there is one big BUT in the operation of this system. The Android SDK is an extremely sluggish system that takes from 5 to 30 minutes to load, and the performance of the Android OS itself leaves much to be desired. It is for this reason that using the system is highly discouraged, but we have presented it here as a possible option.

If you still decide to use the Android SDK, then download it from the official page and start using it.

4.WindowsAndroid (Windroy)

The Android emulation environment WindowsAndroid is a pretty good job, combining the complete “inner world” of the Android OS, with all its settings and default programs. The emulator may be a little more unstable than BlueStacks, but it is a full emulation of the operating system. You can download the latest version of the emulator from the official website of the developer.

5. Android for PC + VirtualBox

And finally the turn has come to the last popular way to launch Android on your Windows OS. The whole point is to use a special Android for PC, which was discussed in the adjacent material, and VirtualBox, which will allow you to seamlessly install any operating system inside a running OS; in this case, you will need to install Android.

However, if you liked the option of using Android for PC more than its emulation, then just do everything as described in the material about it.

Greetings, dear tablet computer lovers. In today's article I have made a selection of the best, in my opinion, emulators of the Android operating system for Windows OS. Also, based on all the material received, I will try to highlight the best Android emulator.

The Android application store contains several hundred thousand different software products, both paid and free. Such an abundance of applications makes this operating system, along with iOS, one of the most popular and in-demand mobile operating systems in the world.

It is absolutely logical that with such, I’m not afraid to say, enormous popularity, various emulators appear on PCs, allowing you to open applications developed for Android on a regular platform. Below you can find a list of the most prominent and high-quality representatives of emulators for Android.

Genymotion

This emulator is perfect for testing your applications created for the Android operating system, all this is available thanks to the built-in OpenGL hardware acceleration. In the past, this project (emulator) was called Android VM, gradually it grew into a full-fledged one, and in my opinion, one of the highest quality products of its kind available.

Genymotoin software tool is a multi-platform emulator, which means that it is available for most operating systems such as: Windows, MacOS, Linux.

Of the large number of advantages and capabilities of this software tool, I would like to note the following:

• Quite an impressive base of supported devices for emulation. At the same time, the database is constantly updated, which, of course, is good news;
• Allows you to emulate a connection via a Wi-Fi network;
• Emulation of rear and front video cameras on the device;
• Ability to create screen casts.

This, of course, is not a complete list of all the advantages of this tool. I deliberately did not touch upon some possibilities because... they are unlikely to be understandable to the average PC user.

Despite all the capabilities and advantages of this emulator, of course there are also disadvantages, where would we be without them?.

• Applications created using Adobe Air Mobile are not supported by this emulator.

If you don’t know which tool to choose, I recommend starting your search with this emulator.

Windroy

Emulator website - socketeq.com

The emulator is the creation of Chinese developers. Of course, this program does not reach the level of the previous one, but it can still be used as an alternative tool. No special capabilities or advantages were noticed.

I would like to note the speed of this emulator; it is indeed somewhat higher than the speed of other tools. But, coupled with the number of “brakes” and “glitches”, this seemingly tangible plus fades. Perhaps by the time you read this article, the developers have eliminated the most obvious shortcomings and bugs. Suitable for Windows XP, 7, 8.

BlueStacks

Not quite an emulator, in the usual sense of the word. This product is rather an environment for running Android games on a personal computer running the Windows operating system. If you're looking for an emulator just to run games, you won't find a better tool than this one.

Among the advantages that this emulator has, I would like to note the fairly good speed of the application.

YouWave for Android

A small, simple program for emulating the Android operating system. If you compare it with other representatives of XP, 7,8) from this list, then YouWave is one of the most used tools. Still, simplicity and an intuitive interface are the two most important qualities of a good emulator.

In fact, this tool is not an emulator - it is rather an Android application development environment that includes, which is completely understandable and natural, means for testing and debugging created applications.

If you need an emulator for more complex purposes than “testing a toy,” then you can choose this tool. Available for most operating systems, including PC Windows (XP, 7.8).

If none succeeded to start

If you were unable to run any emulator, then you can use these. Because I haven’t tested them on myself, so I can’t say anything about them. Perhaps they will work great for you:

Andy is a new emulator, according to some users, it currently works without additional dances with a tambourine. I'll test it.

Nox APP Player is a good option.

IMPORTANT: If you have chosen a suitable option for yourself, then save time for others - vote for a working tool.