I tried gaming on a Googlebook — here's the good (and bad) news

We’ve waited a while, but the first Googlebooks are finally on the market. These laptops run on a so-called Googlebook OS platform, touted as a hybrid of Android and Chrome OS. The big draws of Googlebooks are features like deep Gemini integration, Android app support, and the ability to stream apps from your phone.

Can you actually play games and emulators on Googlebooks, though? That was one of the first thoughts I had when I realized I’d be getting a review unit. So, I thought it would be a good idea to find out.

The results? They’re … mixed.

The x86 versus Arm conundrum

One significant consideration with Googlebooks is that the first laptops run either x86-based Intel chips or Arm-based Snapdragon processors. The vast majority of Android apps are built for the Arm architecture, although Google has confirmed that it uses a translation layer to run them on Intel-powered Googlebooks. The company claims that this layer enables “near-native” speed and responsiveness, while adding that 96.6% of the top 10,000+ most-used Android apps ran without issue on Intel-based Googlebooks.

In any event, I’ve got the Intel-based ASUS Googlebook 14 rather than a Snapdragon-powered laptop. So this should give us a good idea of what to expect in a worst-case scenario with Googlebooks. Otherwise, the laptop also comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. The addition of a 3K OLED touch screen with a matte display should also make for a pleasant gaming experience.

There’s good news for most Android games

Oddly enough, one apparent bug I noticed was that I can’t actually load the “games” section in the Play Store. I could visit the search tab and use the preset genre buttons to find games, or download games via my library page, though. Thankfully, this bug disappeared a few days later, while three colleagues with Googlebooks never had this issue in the first place.

Otherwise, I’m glad to see that you can map touchscreen controls to the keyboard. That’s useful for games that don’t have native keyboard mapping.

We start things off nice and easy by trying a 2D title, Game Dev Story. This 2D management game was released in the early 2010s and should therefore have ridiculously low system requirements. Thankfully, this title worked almost perfectly. The game was easy to control with the trackpad, and performance was very smooth, as you’d expect from an ancient 2D mobile game.

What about a more recent 2D game? I gave endless-shooter Brotato a try, and I was pleased to see that the game automatically mapped movement controls to the WASD keys. Performance was also fluid here, though there was some slowdown in the later stages when large numbers of enemies appeared on-screen.

In other words, it tentatively looks like even an Intel-powered Googlebook should have no problem running 2D Android games. But what about 3D fare? I kicked things off with War Thunder Mobile. This action-focused multiplayer title ran smoothly for the most part, but there was significant judder for a second or so when a notification came in. Keyboard mapping also leaves a lot to be desired. You’ve got some basic mappings here, but you have to click and drag on the touchpad to move your airplane, rather than just sliding your finger. Thankfully, the gamepad controls are more thoughtfully mapped and work really well.

Genshin Impact is another good workout for mobile devices, but there’s bad news on the ASUS Googlebook 14. I’m able to boot up the game, but the ground fails to render. This means your character looks like they’re floating. Furthermore, there’s no keyboard mapping at all, while my Xbox One controller doesn’t work either. The controls menu does offer a “control type” option, but it lists only the touchscreen. I’m guessing that this game will run better on a Snapdragon-powered Googlebook.

I also briefly tried Grand Theft Auto Vice City Definitive Edition. The game was very playable for the most part, and gave me headroom to crank up the resolution. The title offers your choice of touch or gamepad controls, along with a few controller-related options. Disappointingly, keyboard and trackpad/mouse controls aren’t supported at all — meaning you’re out of luck if you can’t use a controller but still want physical input and a button-free screen.

I then tried chaotic racing game Wreckfest. This is a port of the eighth-generation console game and is virtually identical to the original title. I had no performance issues, and the game offers a few graphical options for your convenience. The only major disappointment is that there’s no keyboard support at all, forcing you to use the system keyboard mapping utility. However, the game supports touch controls and physical gamepads just fine.

Finally, I briefly tried Diablo Immortal, and I’m glad to report that the game had no graphical issues and ran at a very playable speed. That’s a relief, as Samsung’s first AMD-powered phones experienced major graphical glitches back in the day. The downside is that the game doesn’t natively support keyboard controls, although I was pleasantly surprised to get somewhat playable controls via keyboard mapping. At least the game supports controller input without issue.

I should also note that some of these Android games didn’t boot up with the full-screen view. This means you have to manually enter full screen by hovering over the maximize button and selecting the “Full screen” icon. However, you can’t easily take screenshots in full-screen view, hence the windowed screenshots here. Man, I miss the power and volume down combo on Android phones.

Can you emulate games on a Googlebook?

While Genshin Impact was the only game I tested that had severe glitches on the Intel-powered Googlebook, I expected that emulation would be a problem on this machine. Not so much because it’s a Googlebook, but because this model is running an x86 chip instead of an Arm processor like virtually all other Android devices.

I started off with DuckStation, which remains the gold standard for PS1 emulation on several platforms today. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ace Combat 2 and Driver ran smoothly, including the FMV sequences. I was also able to scale up the resolution to 3x just fine. Staying with the fifth generation of consoles, I installed the prominent Nintendo 64 emulator M64Plus FZ and ran games like WrestleMania 2000 and Super Mario 64 with playable performance. It also detects my controller just fine, but I was pleased to perfectly recreate my 2000s keyboard mapping for WrestleMania.

PSP emulation is a little more demanding, but stalwart emulator PPSSPP delivered great performance in TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge and Metal Slug Anthology. However, I did notice that touch screen navigation was very inaccurate. Fortunately, I was able to navigate and play smoothly with a gamepad.

What about something more ambitious, like PS2 emulation? We installed ARMSX2 and NetherSX2 on our machine. I could set up the former emulator without issue, but games immediately crashed when I tried to boot them. This happened regardless of our choice of graphics renderer. Meanwhile, NetherSX2 showed a black screen when trying to start games. Disappointing, but not unexpected given the laptop’s underlying chip and architecture.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the fact that the Dolphin emulator for GameCube and Wii actually ran games. I played titles like Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros: Melee, and Dave Mirra’s Freestyle BMX 2 with very smooth performance for the most part. I did encounter a weird controller-related problem, as turning off the on-screen controls also somehow disabled my gamepad inputs. Thankfully, this problem seems to have resolved itself in a later play session. Either way, I’m glad that GameCube games ran with almost no major hitches.

PC gaming is a tough test for any Android device, and GameNative is arguably the best way to run PC games on Android. The good news is that the app installed just fine on my Googlebook. I could also navigate the app via my keyboard and trackpad, while I was able to download and install games without any problems. Unfortunately, these games refused to start when I pressed the “Play” button, or I’d be greeted by an endless loading screen. This isn’t a surprise on the Intel-powered laptop, as GameNative is intrinsically focused on getting x86-based Windows games running on Arm hardware.

There’s also a GameNative fork dubbed GameNativeX64. As the name implies, this is meant to run on x86-powered devices. That should bode well for my Googlebook, right? Unfortunately, all of the games I tried displayed a black screen and didn’t play audio. It’s still early days for that project, so here’s hoping it eventually delivers good compatibility and performance.

Finally, I tried Xbox 360 emulation via the XenDroid emulator, but I couldn’t get any games to work. In fact, the app actually crashed immediately after launching. Ouch.

You can play games on Googlebooks, but there’s a caveat

The decision to release Googlebooks with x86-based chips is an interesting one from an app compatibility perspective. My experience with the Intel-powered ASUS Googlebook 14 suggests that the vast majority of Android apps will run fine. Things aren’t so rosy for gamers.

Stick with native Android games from the Play Store, and you’ll generally see great results, even with more technically complex titles. Genshin Impact is the biggest exception, as it’s effectively unplayable on Intel-powered machinery due to graphical glitches. Meanwhile, more than a few titles fail to account for the keyboard — not ideal if you forgot to bring your controller. But at least the OS lets you remap touch controls to your keyboard.

Results are far more hit-and-miss on the emulator front. PS1, N64, PSP, and even GameCube emulation worked well, but PS2 and PC emulation is a complete no-go right now. That’s a shame for PC gaming in particular, which is built on this architecture in the first place.

Obviously, there’s more to running PC games on a Googlebook than having the same architecture, but it’s still frustrating to be so close yet so far away. Ultimately, you’re clearly better off with a Snapdragon-powered device if you want the best gaming experience on a Googlebook. But you’ve still got plenty of options on an Intel-powered machine.