PS2 emulation on Android just got a big upgrade on older Pixels as well as MediaTek devices

There are many advanced emulators on Android, and Snapdragon-powered devices are usually the best way to run these apps. A big reason for this is that custom Turnip drivers are exclusive to Snapdragon-toting devices, bringing performance and stability gains over the default GPU driver. Now, there’s good news if you have a non-Snapdragon phone or handheld and want improved performance for PS2 games.

ARMSX2 v2.8.3 has been released on GitHub, and the latest version of the popular PS2 emulator for Android also includes the so-called MaliSX2 GPU driver. MaliSX2 is a Vulkan driver for devices with Arm Mali GPUs. MaliSX2 can be found in the GPU driver list under Settings > Renderer.

The team says you should expect better performance in many games compared to using the system GPU driver. It specifically notes that Ace Combat 4 and Ace Combat 5 were previously unplayable, but now run at full speed.

The driver was included in the previous version of the emulator under the name “libmali,” but only supported the Mali-G615 and G715 GPUs. This latest release, on the other hand, now supports GPUs like the Mali-G57, Mali-G68, Mali-G77, and Mali-G78.

In any event, this is fantastic news if you have an Android smartphone or tablet with a Mali GPU. This includes older Pixels and Galaxy flagships, as well as some budget Samsung and Motorola devices. It’s also good news for Android handhelds like the ANBERNIC RG477M and the Lenovo Cloud Gaming C700.

This isn’t the only notable ARMSX2 change in this update. The new version also fixes a major bug that saw massive power drain when leaving a game paused and the app in the background. This bug resulted in the Retroid Pocket 6 dropping from 76% to zero overnight.