Emulation on Android

A number of years ago, I was the first documented person to install New Threat 1.5 to the iOS version of Final Fantasy 7 using a jailbroken iPhone 8 (as far as I know) and posted my findings to Reddit.

When I moved back to Android, I was unable to recreate my little trick due to how permissions had recently changed.

I wanted to attempt loading New Threat 2.0 via winlator, so I got to work, and wanted to share with my fellow Lemmings.

Since New Threat 2.0 is available via standalone installer AND 7th Heaven, I wanted to use the iro file from 7th Heaven. The installer would be as simple as installing the mod on your PC copy, then moving the changed file structure to overwrite files in your FF7 install on Winlator. Too simple. Too easy.

This is merely a POC for installing 7th Heaven mods to FF7 through Winlator as 7th Heaven is an absolute monster to get running on Winlator.

This tutorial goes on the assumption you have a completely clean install of FF7 from Steam on a PC as the work will be done there to set up the folder structure, as well as a fresh RUNNING install of FF7 via Winlator. Strap in, it's a long one.

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Starting the install

1. Download your chosen mod. We'll of course be using New Threat 2.0 in this example. Download the iro and find the path it downloaded to. The default path is ..\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FINAL FANTASY VII\mods\7th Heaven

2. Inside 7th Heaven, go to Tools tab > IRO Tools > Unpack IRO tab Unpack your IRO to a new folder called NT somewhere on your machine.

This should spit out the following file structure:

-ConditionalMidgalBat/
-ConditionalVolcano/
-hext/
-New Threat - Sega Chief/
-OptionDifficultyModifier/
mod.xml
no_change.png
nt_preview.png
Readme.txt

We won't need any of the loose files, just the folders.

3. Make a new folder here called direct.

4. Take the contents of the New Threat - Sega Chief folder and move them into this direct folder

You should now have the following inside of ..\NT\direct\

-battle\
-battle.lgp\
-char.lgp\
-flevel.lgp\
-kernel\
-menu\
-music\
-music_ogg\
-world_us.lgp\

You can ignore step 5 if you wish as NT has a default scene.bin to set the difficulty

5. Open the OptionDifficultyModifier folder, and choose which difficulty you'd like to use, either Struggle or Relax. Inside of either folder you choose, there is another battle folder. Copy this and paste it into your direct folder. It will ask you to overwrite - choose yes.

6. Back to the root of our NT folder, if you'd like to have materia slots with 3 links, open the OptionMultiLinkedSlots folder > open the Enabled folder. Copy this kernel folder and paste into your direct folder. It will ask to overwrite, choose yes.

7. Copy the contents of the ConditionalVolcano and ConditionalMidgalBat folders, paste them into your direct folder as well.

8. Now go download FFNx from here: https://github.com/julianxhokaxhiu/FFNx/releases

I chose the stable FFNx-Steam-v1.23.0.0.zip release instead of the Pre-Release 1.23.0.26 version. - keep this zip after unzipping it.

10. Unzip this archive directly into your Final Fantasy VII folder and overwrite when asked.

11. Open 7th Heaven and start FF7 with New Threat enabled. Just get to the New Game prompt and quit. This should change out your ff7_en.exe for a different one - a backup is automatically created in the FINAL FANTASY VII folder under 7H2.0-BACKUP.

Go back into 7th Heaven and Disable New threat.

12. Now, copy your direct folder AND the hext folder, then paste into your Final Fantasy VII folder so that direct, hext, and ff7_en.exe are visible in the same location. It may ask to overwrite or merge, say yes.

Now, here's the kicker. 7th Heaven automatically deals with the file paths properly unlike FFNx does alone, so we need to change some folder structures. While vanilla FFVII DOES have a ..\data\battle folder, it does NOT have the files inside in the same place, so FFNx will not know to redirect the vanilla files to our New Threat files. We need to fix that.

13. Inside of your direct folder, find the battle folder. NOT battle.lgp, JUST battle. Create a new folder called lang-en inside of the direct folder and copy your battle folder inside of it.

You should now have ..\Final Fantasy VII\direct\lang-en\battle

14. Go back to your direct folder, and find the kernel folder. Copy this kernel folder into lang-en the same way you did the battle folder from the previous step.

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Testing the install

1. Now, with our mods in the correct position, double-check in 7th Heaven that New Threat is disabled, and launch FF7 VIA STEAM just to confirm the mods are being loaded directly by the game.

2. If you get the prompt to choose Scenario A or B after choosing New Game, that's an excellent sign! Choose Scenario B and Standard difficulty, then start the game.

3. Take note on if you see Tifa come off the train. If so, open your menu and check Cloud's magic. If he has fire, ice, AND bolt, move forward until the scripted battle with the two MP enemies.

If you actually start a battle with two MP enemies, you should be in the clear! The hard part is over with!

If not, something is screwed up!

If all of the above worked, New Threat is working in FF7 without 7th Heaven doing the injecting, so now it's time to move it over to your Winlator install!

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OPTIONAL

I chose to name the folder containing the mods direct due to FFNx already being set to look for this folder by default. You can change this folder name by opening the FFNx.toml file and change line 499 from "direct" to whatever you want.

If you want to set up multiple mod folders, you can rename your direct folder NewThreat and change "direct" to "NewThreat" or whatever you'd like, then change this line again later to match the new mod folder name later to run it instead, just follow this guide loosely for other mods and give it a different name in the root of your FINAL FANTASY VII folder.

Keep in mind, these folder names are case sensitive so be very specific in your naming if you change it.

Not as easy as 7th Heaven on a true Windows box, but it's as good as you're gonna get through Winlator.

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Moving the install to Winlator

1. Zip your direct folder (you can exclude the 7th Heaven folder if you wish), your hext folder, and your ff7_en.exe files together and copy them over to your device in a directory that Winlator can access.

If you did the optional step and renamed your direct folder to something else, add the FFNx.toml file to this zip as well.

We zip these files together because there are a TON of tiny loose files in these folders and we all know how Windows Explorer loves to take its sweet time with thousands of small files.

2. Copy over the FFNx-Steam-v1.23.0.0.zip you downloaded earlier as well to the same location.

3. Find your ff7_en.exe and rename it. I renamed mine to ff7.exe.bak personally.

4. In this order, move the unzipped files into your FF7 install on Winlator:

- ff7_en.exe
- FFNx zip contents, overwrite when prompted
- direct folder
- If you changed the direct folder name, now copy over the FFNx.toml, overwrite when prompted

This should be enough to get it going.

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Conclusion

And that's it! Load up FF7 via Winlator and give it a shot.

This took way longer than I'd have liked but hey, it works. If you have issues with this or another mod install, post here and I can try to help you out.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/50874223

Hey everyone, I am currently in the market for a tablet. My requirements are that it has pen support(either proprietary or usi I don't care), an unlockable bootloader, and a fairly powerful snapdragon processor (preferably 8 gen 3 or 8 elite or something). I would like it to be around 10 inches closer to 9 would be better. I don't know if that's possible though. If anyone has any ideas then that would be extremely helpful.

Edit: I forgot to say what I would use it for lol. I would mainly be using it for note taking since I'm in college but I might also do some switch or PC emulation on it as well.

Lowered settings as much as possible and about 20fps it is medium or lowest. OnePlus Pad 2

You can use Obtainium to fetch the apk from their Forgejo instance.

Is this possible?

I have a hankering for some Left for Dead, Halo and Fable

Despite I more or less handle myself in the PC world, I am a complete ignorant when it comes to Android, and in my country for some reason the Xioami Note 12 have a very good (I've never had a Xiaomi device) and I would like someone to help me decide if it is a good purchase or not in my case, and even better if someone can give me details that I am not taking into account, and I say this because according to some forums and comments I read, depending on the processor of the device sometimes Yuzu does not run and sometimes Skyline either. And also in many comparisons that I found people in the comments for reasons I do not understand defines the power of the device according to the amount of storage it have, as they say "The 128GB version of the Xiaomi Note 12 is worse than the 256GB version", does that make sense?

As I mentioned, I'm really lost on how to decide a good purchase of a device, the most logical is to look for generic comparisons but it's a bit more complex than PC, or so it seems to me.

For example, in my country they have the Xiaomi Note 12 (128GB 8GB, Snapdragon 685 6nm) at the same price as the Xiaomi Redmi 12 (256Gb 8Gb RAM, MediaTek Helio G88) and I do not see any sense that they cost the same because according to what I researched the Xiaomi Note 12 has a better CPU, then the price difference with the Xiaomi Redmi 12 is compensated with double the storage?

I want to clarify that I have no expectations of playing BOTW at 4K or any of the latest Pokemon, my expectations are to play quiet things like Celeste or Hollow Knight or some rogueslike, do you think any of these devices are able to emulate Switch with a playable experience?

Edit: Something I forgot to mention, why some models say 6GB+4 RAM or 4GB+6, etc. What does that mean?

Thanks!

I've got a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 running stock Android 13 and I've paired a real Wiimote via Bluetooth and confirmed that it is connected. In Dolphin (ver 5.0-19870), I've set my Wii input to "Real WiiMote" and I've plugged in a USB sensor bar.

I can navigate dolphin with the Wiimote + Nunchuck (I can navigate the game select menu with the joystick on the nunchuck or the D-pad and launch a game with the A button), but for some reason, none of the input works in-game. The B button will open and close the in-game Dolphin menu and the Home button will minimize the Dolphin app and take me back to my launcher, but that's it. I can't interact at all otherwise.

It doesn't give me any options to configure the Wiimote's controls, unless I'm emulating a Wiimote. With the "Real Wiimote" option, I can't seem to configure anything.

Does anyone know what the problem might be or how I can fix it?

Thank you!

I know Daijisho automatically scrapes, which is cool, but I'm not always crazy about the way it scrapes box art. I have an emulation station setup on my PC and I'd really like to copy the box art images from there and import them into Daijisho, but I can't find where those images are stored on my Android device (Retroid Pocket 2+, if it matters).

I know you can fix them individually, but it'd be way easier if I could do it in bulk.

Does anyone know how to do this or if it's possible?

EDIT: Okay, it looks you (kinda) can do it! You have to go one platform at a time, but you can move your pictures to your device's storage, hit the edit icon on a platform in Daijisho, and select "Import Preview Media" at the bottom. You will have to select Box Art, Title Art, and Screenshot folder seperately for each system, but it's still a lot faster than doing individual games.

I am looking for an app that can emulate another android device.

A few years ago I used vmos but:

• it looks really sketchy
• it requires an account
• quick online search tells me some features are locked behind a paywall

I looked for alternatives but they all seem pretty sketchy and I will propably login with a Google account so idk.

My requirements are:

• At least Android Nougat (7.0+)
• GMS
• pass the Google security checks (I think it was called safetynet at some point
• not to slow as I want to play a game

The reason I need this is that I want to use a modified version of a game next to the original version.

I hope someone has a suggestion for me, Thanks in advance.

I really wish this game had a native android port.

I decided to crosspost this from the post I made on the FMHY instance.

This won’t work for every emulator, since some PC emulators do not use the same save format as an Android emulator, but I have never had a problem that I couldn’t get around using this method. That said, Android emulator ports tend to work best with their PC counteparts. For example, PPSSPP Windows plays best with PPSSPP Android.

This method is pretty expensive, but I think it’s absolutely worth it if you’re an emulation enthusiast like me.

Create a copy of any save file you would care about losing. There is a potential to lose that file if things aren’t done correctly, and while the file would likely be stored in the trash bin of Google Drive, it could prove difficult to find out which specific file you’re looking for.

Download AutoSync from the Google Play store and connect it to your preferred Google account*. Save files are not usually that big, so you don’t need to buy extended cloud storage. AutoSync** was $10 US when I bought the ultimate version, so be prepared to spend at least that.

Create a folder on Google Drive that you want to store all of the saves for all of your systems. Create subfolders in that folder named after the systems that you want cloud saves for.

Locate the third tab on the right of AutoSync named “Synced folders”

Name the folder pair name whatever you want, but the “remote folder” option should point to the cloud subfolder that you want your saves located in.

The local folder should point to the folder that’s located on your device that hold’s a particular emulator’s saves.

The “sync method” option should be set to “Two Ways”

When you’re done, hit “Save” near the top right corner of the AutoSync app.

Congratulations! You now have created your first cloud backup for emulator saves. If you want to pair them to a respective emulator on PC, read ahead.

Download and install Insync on the Windows machine that you want your saves to download to.
Sidenote: Insync is pretty expensive. I paid $70 for a lifetime license. It is by far the most elegant solution for the task at hand. Good thing is, it allows you a two week trial to see if you like it before you buy it. It also has several Linux ports, if you’re looking

Find where an emulator saves its files, and to and then right click it. A context menu should show up.

On the context menu, select Insync, then select the “Sync” option.

Select “2-way sync”

Select “My Drive”

Select “Merge with Folder”

Using the Insync menu, locate the corresponding cloud folder with the saves in it that you want to have downloaded onto your PC. Double click any of the cloud folders to find subfolders.

When you’re finished, hit “2-way sync now” on the bottom right corner of the Insync app,

And that’s it! You can now have saves carry on between PC and Android without having to think about it. I’ll be happy to help out if you have any questions. Feel free to ask.

*The company that makes Sync apparently has other options for Mega, Dropbox, and Onedrive. I imagine they perform similarly, but I can speak to their quality because I haven’t used them.

** This app has also been named “Sync” and “DriveSync.” They are the same app

Played some GBA games on it with touch screen controls but really want to use a controller to play PS1 and PSP games.

Controller + clip, snap on, whatever.

Too many on Amazon are not compatible with this phone, though. I need some recommendations

I'm enjoying FFXII Zodiac Job System (International Edition) on the Aether/PS2 emulator, and using a Rom hack to simulate the Zodiac Age dual job experience from the newer release.

Maybe I won't lose my save files this time xD

I'm looking to get a dedicated Android handheld for some Android games as well as some PS2 GC emulation. I also will probably use it a lot for streaming games from my gaming PC at home. I already have a Steam Deck and Switch OLED. I also have a controller for my Z Fold 4 but I hate having to work with on screen control only apps. I just wanna pick up a device, start a game and play. I'm looking at either the Retroid Pocket 3+ for it's size and great reviews, but I'm also interested in the Odin Lite but I hear mixed reviews on that one. What do you suggest?

EDIT: Pulled the trigger on the RP3+. I think it's a good compromise of price / performance

I'll start with GTA: Chinatown Wars and Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

Let me know your suggestions!

Up until now I was using an XBOX One controller with a clip for attaching your phone, which worked well but was quite unergonomic. I had to keep my wrists in an awkward angle, which made my fingers go numb after a short amount of time.

Now I got me the Gamesir X2 Pro and I couldn't be happier. The Switch form factor is SO MUCH MORE ergonomic and with the USB C connection there's no latency at all. It's finally fun to play emulators on the phone (or to stream from my gaming PC).

The buttons are rather clicky, so the acustics can get a little annoying, but haptically they feel great. The build quaility is pretty satisfying all around.

Totally recommended if you're into phone gaming.