YouTuber ETA Prime shows that PC emulation with fast cell phones is already possible today
A well-known hardware YouTuber impressively demonstrates on his channel how he plays games such as Fallout 4 or BioShock on a Samsung cell phone. The highlight: this is not cloud gaming. Instead, the games actually run on the smartphone, which is connected to an external screen.
That’s why this is important: the experiment shows how powerful today’s cell phones are and that blockbuster games could also appear on mobile platforms in the future. At the very least, the necessary performance would probably be available
In detail:YouTuber ETA Prime uses the app “Winlator” for this. This is a Windows emulator that is not available via the Play Store and must be installed via sideloading.
- The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3 and is therefore very powerful.
- For a desktop-like experience, it uses Samsung DeX. This gives you an interface on external screens that is easier to use with a mouse and keyboard – just like Windows.
- The frame rate always remains in the playable range, but not yet at a fixed 60 FPS.
Problems and challenges:The tinkerer also got games likeFar Cry,BioShock RemasteredandThe Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivionto run with playable frame rates, but there were repeated drops from this.
- In newer games it had to struggle with crashes.
- Steam could not start without problems.
- To install games, he has to use GOG so far.
Future potential:ETA PRIME’s next goal is to get Steam up and running. In addition, the smartphone’s performance could be further improved with active cooling and Snapdragon 8 Gen3. The experiment shows how much potential there is in cell phone hardware and what could be possible with future cell phones and ARM PCs. Qualcomm will soon be producing processors for Windows PCs – above all the Snapdragon X for Copilot Plus PCs
