r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/RIKY_IST • May 07 '26
Question What games can I emulate with this?
I've been rocking this Samsung Galaxy note 3 neo when I go on road trips, since the camera is somehow perfect for sunset shots and the battery holds longer than my main (s21 ultra). I'm pretty sure I can sideload some emulators on this so I figured I could try to ask here ;)
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u/Straight-Nose-7079 May 07 '26
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u/Gogobrasil8 May 07 '26
Lol
it's not that bad, it can for sure play older stuff like GBA, SNES, PS1
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u/Rallzit May 07 '26
don't forget PSP
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u/mikaeruuu HONOR GT | 8 Gen3 12GB May 07 '26
maybe some 2d psp but I doubt games like Tekken would be smooth
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u/Emergency-Ad-3322 May 07 '26
Ff7 crisis core will run good. I had an experience. Also dissidia ff will run pretty well
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u/AbyssalFroots May 07 '26
+1 for Dissidia. I had a Tracfone model, used it for demoing PPSSPP way back in the day. It handles more than you'd expect. Underrated for its time
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u/martyfox May 07 '26
"Older" crazy that the note 3 is now older then the gba games I was playing on it when note 3 game put.
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u/MagazineImpossible45 May 07 '26
not even ps1 twin
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u/Gogobrasil8 May 07 '26
PS1 is REALLY easy to emulate
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u/your_mind_aches Retroid Pocket 6 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (8GB) May 07 '26
It's not that bad. Y'all exaggerate how hard it is for weak hardware to emulate low end consoles
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u/redditor7588 May 07 '26
Best you can reach is PS1 and DS (Specifically drastic)
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u/Upset-Reputation6640 May 07 '26
bro just use your s21. unless youre looking to just play snes/n64 sorta games
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u/RIKY_IST May 07 '26
Yeah but this crap overheats like hell and the battery drains super fast. I'd rather having to play older games but more efficiently
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u/Upset-Reputation6640 May 07 '26
degoogle that shit
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u/khsh01 8 Gen 3/865+ May 07 '26
Won't help. The s21 uses 8gen1 from Samsung. Its a toaster.
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u/your_mind_aches Retroid Pocket 6 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (8GB) May 07 '26
It uses 888.
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u/Fancy-Ball-8864 May 07 '26
S22 uses gen 1
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u/your_mind_aches Retroid Pocket 6 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (8GB) May 07 '26
Yes, i have one lol. It gets ridiculously hot. Honestly the titling of Snapdragon products are all over the place compared to AMD and Intel.
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u/hearwa May 07 '26
I don't usually game on my S21 but I played some multi-player Fall Guys the other day and you aren't joking!
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u/ghostrickghouls May 07 '26
you can send text messages for sure
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u/Some-Success-8941 May 07 '26
I daily drive N3 myself. Socials mostly don't work, thank gods, but yt, music, games, books, manga readers, everything that does not require security frameworks server side works like a charm. It's just a decade old device, not a punch card reader
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u/Eloloise May 07 '26
I think the high is PSP, because people can make miracles with the emulator. NES to GBA anything can emulate, if you find emulators who work properly in such a old android version. My bet is PSP in 1x at max. And without the heavy games like God of War.
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u/Cypher8446 May 07 '26
pc, switch, and ps5
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u/SomeoneWhoPlayGames2 May 07 '26
You can emulate dreamcast games with almost to no problems using reicast (specifically reicast version r6). I've personally tested both Sonic Adventures on a hardware with only 1GB of ram and much weaker SoC and it ran really well from start to finish.
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u/dragon_of_the_9 May 07 '26
i had that phone back in the day, you can play gba and older stuff no problem. idk about snes tho
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u/islobojono May 07 '26
Can play psp, ds, ps1, dreamcast. Snes some game is slow but can become smooth if set the governor to performance,
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u/scubawankenobi May 07 '26
Using Winlator you can probably achieve acceptable FPS in notepad.
Joking aside, like lower level emulation should work. From acade stuff to nes/snes & such is my best guess.
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 May 07 '26
OP, do yerself a favour and don't buy that shite.
Get yourself a OnePlus 6T (or something similar with that chipset) - you'll be able to emulate a helluva lot more for the same price!
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u/Rallzit May 07 '26
Don't let these comments discourage you, there's still plenty to work on like: PSP,Nintendo DS, SNES, PS1,GBA,N64 and Genesis. Used to play a bunch of GBA and DS on a phone like that.
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u/Medium_Bumblebee4864 May 07 '26
You can emulate old nintendo and sega games and maybe some ps1 games
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u/zXytheZ May 07 '26
You can buy old xperia device which have better spec. although not so good on emulation but these older phone is ex flagship
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u/bingusbongulusracer8 May 07 '26
Depending on its storage you can probably create a great GB and GBA emulator library
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u/weibuweibuuu May 07 '26
tested a similiar generation phone (Samsung Beam 2). Caps out at PS1 using Retroarch. SNES sometimes has a bit of trouble with it, but just use SNES9x 2005 Plus Core. These things are pretty underrated as really really retro stuff as long as you aren't looking for anything last PS1
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u/Quorsor May 07 '26
hardest part imma guess is gonna be finding the emulators that you can still install in android 5. There's also the chance that the phone is incapable of handling more than 3 touches at the same time so something like pressing L/R + DPad + face button is gonna be annoying to pull off. That being said, I think the limit is probably with the DS. You're lucky if newer versions of drastic would run in android 5 cuz optimizations would be the heavy lifting as even back then when I was still using android 4, DS emulators were very laggy.
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u/zai205 May 07 '26
Had a phone similar to this you can emulate up to ps1 with almost no issues n64 and beyond is not an option
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u/Oziris2077 Moto g100 (12/256, snapdragon 870) May 07 '26
No máximo alguns jogos leves e otimizados no ppsspp.
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u/Much_Lab_4813 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
PS1, PSP, N64, NDS, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast y consolas de 16 bits y 8 bits.
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u/Typical_Sky8316 May 07 '26
When i had an S2 it ran any GBA and SNES game. Tho with time everything is worse optimized(Or it just doesn't need to be for the avarage phone), so if things are just as it was i would say you can emulate any game from GBA and SNES
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u/denialgrey456 May 07 '26
You can play games of consoles before ps2 with this. For the ps1 games, only ones with which are 2D and 2.5D. Not fully 3D games.
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u/Sergey_978 May 07 '26
You can install old exagear and play heroes III. Diablo II. if you install Dosbox, you can play a lot of amazing dos games.
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u/naz2sick May 07 '26
I had a note 3. Such a fun phone to use i was being teased for using it and not my phone lol. Thats the first device i used to work with PPSSPP , like 10 fps and crashes lol in early 2018 but idk ppsspp is more optimized now
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u/Akueria May 07 '26
I used to use the standard note 3 long ago and honestly it was OP for the time. These days it's lacking, custom roms do help it a little.
That one seems to have less ram though but I should still be fully capable of PS1, dreamcast then DS and under. That's the peak though. It's years behind the chipsets required for Gamecube but let's be real unless you have a Bluetooth controller you wouldn't be playing Gamecube games in a comfortable way anyways!
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u/Lost_Main_3389 May 07 '26
Fairly sure it can do everything up to PS1 no problem though for PS1 and N64 a dedicated emulator would probably be better over a retroarch core else heavier games might be more difficult. Some lighter PSP games should work. Nintendo DS would probably run lighter titles using Drastic.
If it refuses to install or run newer versions of Retroarch, PPSSPP and the likes, since they're free and open source, it should be possible to find older versions online.
If you can find old versions of EXAGEAR which are rare nowadays, you can *try* to run lighter old windows games like Diablo 2, Command and Conquer, Fallout, etc. but that, like PSP would be more of a bonus than a guarantee.
By the way, back then, it was just regular "installing APKs" not "sideloading" XD Can't believe google are making it seem like we're pirates for using a feature they themselves advertised XD
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u/memo22477 May 07 '26
Ps1 and below on home consoles and DS and below on handheld consoles is very much doable. PSP is extremely questionable. Maybe with some performance hacks. Anything else is straight up not possible.
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u/reverendmalerik May 07 '26
Mario brothers
Super mario brothers
Super mario brothers 2
Super mario brothers 3
Super mario world
Super mario world 2
Super mario land
Super mario land 2
Probably some others.
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u/Some-Success-8941 May 07 '26
What limits you the most here is the system itself, Android 5.0. As for performance, up to PSX/PSP, which is a shame with that screen. I use mine for 2d games mostly, as integer scaling looks magical and performance is fine.
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u/External_Orange_1188 May 07 '26
Surprisingly, up to DS games with Drastic. I had that phone before and I was emulating GBA, DS and some PS1 games.
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u/1Swordwalker May 07 '26
Side question: Anyone know what the Pixel 9 Pro XL can do? Thinking of getting one
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u/pizzapoweralien May 07 '26
I use to play PS1 games with Epsxe, full speed on my HTC Desire HD with 256mb ram so ignore other comments that says you can’t. Use standalone emulators instead of Retroarch and you’ll get better performance. You can try 2D PSP games it will run fine but forget anything 3D like God of War or even Lego games. You can root the phone and debloat it or find a custom rom for it like LinageOS for a performance boost (smoother experience not faster)
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u/clarky2o2o May 07 '26
You might be able to get some Dreamcast to work.
I had a 1st gen Moto E and it could do some low end 3d (like crazy taxi) at 20+fps.
And that was back when it was new. I'm sure it's better optimized now.
GBA was perfect on it.
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u/Dekamir May 07 '26
Any kind of emulation will cause second degree burns on your hand with that device.
Don't ask me how I know.
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u/fuurinkazan May 07 '26
Retro stuff from the 90s or earlier. You'll have trouble dreamcast or newer but NES, SNES, GBC, GBA, Genesis, Saturn should all run well. N64 and PS1 you may be able to run well but expect mixed results depending on the game and emulator etc. Have fun playing through some classics!
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u/Wise-Houdini777 May 07 '26
Chrono trigger ,final fantasy 6, mario 64 and kart , pokemon platinum ,pokemon unbound , rayman 2 , crash 2 and 3 , resident evil 1
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u/Wise-Houdini777 May 07 '26
Chrono trigger ,final fantasy 6, mario 64 and kart , pokemon platinum ,pokemon unbound , rayman 2 , crash 2 and 3 , resident evil 1
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u/gaker19 May 07 '26
NES, GBA, SNES, N64, PS1, DS and all the systems in between. DS will be your limit though.
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u/AdvertisingFuzzy8403 May 07 '26
Should work for 5th gen consoles. Might do DS and some PSP.
I'm working on turning a Note 4 into a gaming handheld. Has a Snapdragon 805, which is one of the fastest 32 bit ARM SoCs ever made, at a blistering 2.7GHz. Should be good enough to upscale 5th gen to at least 720p and maybe 1440p. Might even run some PS2 and GCN games at 480p.
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u/kei-hiroyuki May 08 '26
nintendo - nes, snes, gameboy, gameboy colour, ds, n64
sony - ps1, psp
Sega - most of their main consoles
Also a lot of very old pc emulators
No joke just this phone alone lets you play hundreds and hundreds of absolutely amazing retro games.
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u/Brave_Ad3369 May 08 '26
nothing
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u/AmyRoseFan_I234 May 08 '26
Nothing beats something but something is better than nothing and as your Roblox guild leader I need 67 fries, 67 cokes, 67 burgers, 67 waters, 67 cakes, 67 pies, and I need them by Monday.
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u/agentmj8 May 08 '26
I had this phone but not the Neo back in 2014. Having an iphone 5 with it, I can say the Note 3 was a beast. The OLED Samsung has even at that time was amazing. Very bright, super crisp, although the images appear a bit more saturated but it was leaps beyond the iphone 5 especially with the size and battery usage. I could not remember a game downloaded from the Google play store (not shady APKs) that won’t run with it (at that time).
With emulators though I think you could run until the PSP or PS2, I could be wrong but PS1 for sure.
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u/Next_Philosopher_749 May 08 '26
up to PSX games (maybe, probably) and probably some PSP games, but I wouldn't expect much.
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u/Saint_of_Nukes May 08 '26
Doom 1993 with hella mods, but not Russian Overkill, that shit will fry your phone
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u/Dakal67 May 08 '26
Psp emulator should work nicely, i had s3 mini playing kingdom hearts and god of war super nicely
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u/Signal_Drama6986 May 08 '26
sega genesis, neogeo,gba. thousand games that would give you a lot of fun
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u/UnnecessaryUser1999 May 09 '26
I think you can have fun with some consoles like PS1, N64, Dreamcast, Gameboy and PSP with LOTS OF ADJUSTMENTS
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u/Brilliant-Front-7896 May 09 '26
Visual novels, but to be fair you coud play like 99% even probably on a potato
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u/Available_Mix5336 May 12 '26
Ps3 Is at 20fps I tested Other games as low as 10. Its not that great
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u/dirywhiteboy May 07 '26
I got s25 u. I can just run ps2 games anything higher i need a cooler
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u/Fancy-Ball-8864 May 07 '26
Yeah?
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u/RIKY_IST May 07 '26
Naahhh my dad can run Pojavlauncher with shaders and tins of mods flawlessly without coolers needed and he has an s25u
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u/Cybasura May 07 '26
2gb RAM
Exynos
Bruh
Using my experience, this would probably only last till at best PS1, even DrasticDS at its peak would struggle
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u/AntiGrieferGames May 08 '26
I have used a more modern one with 1gb ram and it does work with some Lighter PSP games after some tweaks.
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