Qualcomm could finally fix a major issue with PC emulation on Android

There’s no shortage of PC gaming emulators on Android, allowing you to run a variety of games on your phone, tablet, or handheld. However, you often need to install unofficial GPU drivers for the best performance and compatibility. Fortunately, it sounds like Qualcomm could bring improvements in this regard.

Tech YouTuber Geekerwan reports that Qualcomm plans to improve support for PC game emulation on Android via its official GPU drivers. The YouTuber noted that they tried Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth: Wukong on a phone with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series chip. They reported that both games ran properly in DirectX12 mode using a translation layer.

There might also be more good news for PC emulation fans, as Geekerwan claims Qualcomm is considering drivers with proper DirectX12 support on Android. This would be a big deal, as recent high-end Snapdragon smartphone chips haven’t included DirectX support. This should theoretically bring more performance and stability improvements to PC games running on Android.

There are still some questions about Qualcomm’s improved support for PC game emulation, though. It’s unclear whether these improvements will require a device running the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series chips or whether they’ll be available to existing devices as part of a GPU driver update.

Nevertheless, this would be good news for emulation on Android, as many cutting-edge console and PC emulators require unofficial Turnip GPU drivers for the best results. We’ve asked Qualcomm about these apparent improvements and the prospect of DirectX12 support on Android. We’ll update the article as soon as the company comes back to us with an answer.