Hadley Simmons/Android Authority
TL;DR
- The ARMSX2 emulator has just received a major update that brings better support for devices with Mali GPUs.
- This is great news if you have an older Pixel phone, a MediaTek-powered device, or a budget Samsung handset.
- The update also brings features like disk swapping, new internal resolution options, and FPS limits.
AetherSX2 and its NetherSX2 fork remain the two best PS2 emulators on Android, but ARMSX2 is another promising project. It’s still early days for this initiative, but the developers have released a major update for devices without Snapdragon processors.
ARMSX2 team announces version 1.0.8 of PS2 emulator discordAnd the biggest addition may be integrated support for devices with Arm Mali GPUs.
The team explained, “Mali support has been significantly improved in ARMSX2 1.0.8. Mali users no longer need to rely on a separate Mali-specific build to benefit from recent graphics fixes and compatibility improvements. These fixes are now included directly in the main ARMSX2 build.”
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More specifically, those with Mali-powered devices should see fewer graphics issues, better behavior when using the OpenGL renderer, and more games with playable or stable performance. The team says you may need to set blending options maximum and turn it off Show GPU on statistics To avoid seeing a black screen.
This is great news if you have a MediaTek-powered phone, as Mali GPUs are used in most of the company’s Helio and Dimensity processors. This is also great news for many Pixel phones, as all Tensor chipsets prior to the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 used Mali graphics. Some budget Samsung phones also use Mali graphics.
This isn’t the only big change coming as part of this ARMSX2 update. The emulator now offers hostfs support, better emulation of the PS2’s VU1 hardware, support for disk swapping, an FPS limit, and new internal resolution options (i.e., 0.25x, 0.5x, and 0.75x). The latter two options should help if you’re trying to emulate PS2 games on low-powered hardware.
It’s worth noting that ARMSX2 uses x86-to-arm translation right now. This means that it is not as performant as PS2 emulators like NetherSX2, which are built from the ground up for the Arm architecture. However, the ARMSX2 refresh is in the pipeline, and it actually skips the translation in favor of the original release. So if the current release doesn’t play properly on your device you might want to wait for this version.
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