PC android emulators
4 watchers
Mar 2023
7:21pm, 1 Mar 2023
19,656 posts
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rf_fozzy
OK, so I need to run an android app through my laptop to monitor and view my solar PV array. The app won't function on my phone. Rather than have a new phone, I thought I'd simply download an emulator and run it off my laptop. After all, I don't need to be plugged into the monitor all the time. Can anyone recommend a decent emulator for Windows? Googling tells me that Bluestacks is the best, except it seems to take ages to load after I've installed and even when it does, it's **very** slow and clunky. Don't want to do anything other than run this app, so don't care about it doing anything else, but would like to be a bit speedier than 30s to load and then 10s of hanging every time I ask the emulator to do anything. Recommendations please. |
Mar 2023
7:27pm, 1 Mar 2023
20,399 posts
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larkim
My experience in the past with emulators is that they are invariably slow as they are compiling and running OS in software rather than on the chips that would normally carry the load with specific isntructions coded on the chip (though the x86 architecture that most PCs are built on is similar to the architecture for Android devices these days as they've moved away from ARM I think).
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Mar 2023
7:38pm, 1 Mar 2023
1,312 posts
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Sam Jelfs
Windows 11 by any chance? If so, you can ruin the apps directly in Windows using the windows subsystem for Android, androidauthority.com |
Mar 2023
7:42pm, 1 Mar 2023
18,465 posts
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Cerrertonia
Blue stacks works well enough to be able to play games without any noticeable slowness. So I suspect there's something specific to the PV app that is proving problematic, most likely the way it communicates with the hardware. Not sure what to suggest other than try a different emulator. [Very, very few consumer products using Android on anything other than Arm, Larkim] |
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Mar 2023
7:42pm, 1 Mar 2023
19,658 posts
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rf_fozzy
Oh, that looks better than an emulator Sam. I'm still on Win10 I think (need to check which laptop is running which version). I'll have to have a play with that. |
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Mar 2023
7:44pm, 1 Mar 2023
19,659 posts
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rf_fozzy
Cere - it takes about 30-40s to load Bluestacks and then it hangs when I try to load/do anything through the emulator.
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Mar 2023
7:47pm, 1 Mar 2023
19,660 posts
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rf_fozzy
I haven't got as far as the PV app yet!
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Mar 2023
8:07pm, 1 Mar 2023
19,661 posts
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rf_fozzy
To give an idea of how sluggish the emulator is, it's taken nearly half an hour to log into the play store and download a 42MB the solar PV app. It's now attempting to install.... |
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Mar 2023
5:22am, 2 Mar 2023
20,403 posts
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larkim
Blue stacks works well enough to be able to play games without any noticeable slowness. So I suspect there's something specific to the PV app that is proving problematic, most likely the way it communicates with the hardware. Not sure what to suggest other than try a different emulator. [Very, very few consumer products using Android on anything other than Arm, Larkim] Apologies, you're right - I'd read about them implementing Android on x86 and missed that ARM was still dominant! |
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