Review DraStic - DS Emulator for Android Devices Review

[bobmcjr]

To run the drastic Nintendo DS emulator properly, your phone needs to have an ARMv7a processor with NEON support.

For whatever reason, nvidia purposefully leaves out random features from there graphics chips so devs have to use their proprietary software, even if the chips might be completely capable of running those features. For Tegra 2, it was neon, for tegra 4, its opengles 3.0.

 

[Kirito-kun]

It runs very smoothly and is completely playable... but it seems to crash relatively often. Maybe once in very 20-30 minutes of gameplay. The emulator would just randomly exit for no reason.

My device is a Galaxy S2 (Exynos Dual/Internation version) running Android 4.2.2. Anyone else has this issue?

 

[kristianity77]

Running totally fine for me on the Galaxy Note 2 although admittedly only tried Mario And Luigi, Plants V Zombies and Dragon Quest 9 so far. All of which run close to perfect. Havent tried anything else yet as i need to get me some kind of physical pad for it (am not rooted) and still dont know whats best to try

 

[notmeanymore]

I'll try to get to Astrid's chamber in Phantom Hourglass and check, but according to Exophase it does have mic support.

Thanks for the update. I already downloaded the app and can confirm that I can shout objection loudly into my phone whenever I please.

 

[Jaspiter]

Great. I just finished the first 4 chapters in Ace Attorney, didn't think it was going to be such a great game ^^

 

[Jaspiter]

For whatever reason, nvidia purposefully leaves out random features from there graphics chips so devs have to use their proprietary software, even if the chips might be completely capable of running those features. For Tegra 2, it was neon, for tegra 4, its opengles 3.0.

I thought it had something to do with that but seeing as Tegra 3 was just Tegra 2 with NEON support, a few additional instructions, and an additional memory channel, I thought it was more than just NEON. Guess it was just NEON lol : P

 

[jonpagecr]

Running totally fine for me on the Galaxy Note 2 although admittedly only tried Mario And Luigi, Plants V Zombies and Dragon Quest 9 so far. All of which run close to perfect. Havent tried anything else yet as i need to get me some kind of physical pad for it (am not rooted) and still dont know whats best to try

I am currently using Moga Pro pad, and works perfectly with this emulator.

 

[Satangel]

Installed this just to test out how it'd work on my Galaxy S1. And I must say, AMAZING!
So easy, so smooth, so userfriendly, very impressive. Even on my aging Galaxy S1 Pokemon White worked quite well, about '80%' FPS in the general world, which is kind of playable.
But I'm very very happy with this, and no seriously thinking of buying a decent tablet or upgrade my phone, just for this. Just works very well tbh, even the touchscreen controls weren't that much of a hassle. And so easy to set up!

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

Installed this just to test out how it'd work on my Galaxy S1. And I must say, AMAZING!
So easy, so smooth, so userfriendly, very impressive. Even on my aging Galaxy S1 Pokemon White worked quite well, about '80%' FPS in the general world, which is kind of playable.
But I'm very very happy with this, and no seriously thinking of buying a decent tablet or upgrade my phone, just for this. Just works very well tbh, even the touchscreen controls weren't that much of a hassle. And so easy to set up!

The NVIDIA Shield is the ultimate emulation device paired with this and Retroarch. I'd personally get a Nexus 7 2013 if I were you, though. Nice form factor, incredible screen, and powerful CPU.

 

[Satangel]

The NVIDIA Shield is the ultimate emulation device paired with this and Retroarch. I'd personally get a Nexus 7 2013 if I were you, though. Nice form factor, incredible screen, and powerful CPU.

Not available here, and I don't want to spend over 250 EUR, I doubt it only costs that much

I'm looking at the Nexus 7 2013, looks excellent indeed. Is 7 inch enough though, I have a Galaxy S1 which is 4 inch already. If I'd buy a tablet it's maybe better to go for 10 inch, because those 3 extra inches don't really warrant a purchase of another device. Then I'm better off buying an S3, that's 4,8 inch and only 1 device I need to buy. And Drastic will work just as good on S3 than on Nexus 7

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

Not available here, and I don't want to spend over 250 EUR, I doubt it only costs that much

I'm looking at the Nexus 7 2013, looks excellent indeed. Is 7 inch enough though, I have a Galaxy S1 which is 4 inch already. If I'd buy a tablet it'd be better to go for 10 inch, because those 3 extra inches don't really warrant a purchase of another device. Then I'm better off buying an S3, that's 4,8 inch and only 1 device I need to buy. And Drastic will work just as good on S3 than on Nexus 7

Drastic will likely run fine on anything from the last two years. True, 3 inches isn't that much better, but the screen resolution and color would be a lot better. The Nexus 10 will probably see a refresh in the coming months. I'd get that if you want a bigger device. Nexus 5 is rumored for October too. Said to be modeled after the LG G2. Snapdragon 800, 1080p screen, and 2GB of RAM for under $400 would be pretty nice.

 

[Satangel]

Drastic will likely run fine on anything from the last two years. True, 3 inches isn't that much better, but the screen resolution and color would be a lot better. The Nexus 10 will probably see a refresh in the coming months. I'd get that if you want a bigger device. Nexus 5 is rumored for October too. Said to be modeled after the LG G2. Snapdragon 800, 1080p screen, and 2GB of RAM for under $400 would be pretty nice.

I'm not going over 250 EUR, so 400 USD is too much.
I am thinking of buying a tablet, but would like to know more about the emulation (capabilities) that are possible. NDS and PSX/N64 and anything is possible (although I haven't googled the last 2). How about 3DS and PSP games? Is it powerful enough to do that? PS Vita? Xbox? PS2? NGC?

I'm talking about a Nexus 7, 2013.

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

I'm not going over 250 EUR, so 400 USD is too much.
I am thinking of buying a tablet, but would like to know more about the emulation (capabilities) that are possible. NDS and PSX/N64 and anything is possible (although I haven't googled the last 2). How about 3DS and PSP games? Is it powerful enough to do that? PS Vita? Xbox? PS2? NGC?

I'm talking about a Nexus 7, 2013.

Oops, keep forgetting about price. Uh, the N64/PS1 are the most modern home consoles that emulate decently on Android. AFAIK, There isn't even a good Xbox emulator on desktops, much less phones. PS2 might be possible in another year or two. Dolphin emulator is in the process of being ported. Runs games at like 2FPS. PSP is possible.... PPSSPP is the best, and only PSP emulator on Android right now. Runs about 10-20 games at playable speeds and is constantly improving. Vita and 3DS don't have emulators yet on any platform.

 

[Satangel]

Oops, keep forgetting about price. Uh, the N64/PS1 are the most modern home consoles that emulate decently on Android. AFAIK, There isn't even a good Xbox emulator on desktops, much less phones. PS2 might be possible in another year or two. Dolphin emulator is in the process of being ported. Runs games at like 2FPS. PSP is possible.... PPSSPP is the best, and only PSP emulator on Android right now. Runs about 10-20 games at playable speeds and is constantly improving. Vita and 3DS don't have emulators yet on any platform.

Ah yes Xbox indeed, scratch that.
I'm mainly talking pure specs wise, is the Nexus 7 2013 powerful enough to run PS2 games. Powerful enough to run 3DS/PS Vita? I understand it's not possible atm, but if the specs are good enough, it's only a matter of time before it IS possible.

I realize this is a hard question to really answer, but it never hurts to ask a question

 

[Quietlyawesome94]

Ah yes Xbox indeed, scratch that.
I'm mainly talking pure specs wise, is the Nexus 7 2013 powerful enough to run PS2 games. Powerful enough to run 3DS/PS Vita? I understand it's not possible atm, but if the specs are good enough, it's only a matter of time before it IS possible.

I realize this is a hard question to really answer, but it never hurts to ask a question

Well, the general rule of thumb is, that the hardware needs to be approximately 7x faster than the HW being emulated. IMO, by the time a viable PS2, 3DS, or Vita were to arrive, we'd have moved on to the Nexus 7 2015/16. I can't honestly tell you, though. You'd better off asking an Emulator Dev like Squarepusher. Report back here when you get something, man. I'd like to know what you get

 

[Deleted User]

Playing on a Note II, running amazingly well. 100% speed on Heart Gold (No drops)

 

[captaineos]

Heres my only real issue: The touch screen is not as responsive compared to a real DS.

I spent an entire day emulating Ouendan 2 on a Samsung Galaxy S4 but kept loosing no matter what. I always use a Targus stylus. My timing skills seemed to have evaporated so I dug through storage to bring out my DS lite (had to anyway but its a long story). Sure enough I was almost perfect on the second try. Back to the S4/Drastic combo and its a MICRO second too slow to win the game.

No frameskip as its not necessary. Tried all the options, no filter, multi threaded, latency etc but yeah its just not as good as the real thing.

Proof:

 

[LightyKD]

I'm bringing this thread back! Anyone here still using this emu?

 

[ChaosBoi]

Aside from some minor graphical glitches (Hotel Dusk), it runs perfect on both my Nexus 7 2013 tablet and my Note 4.

 

[loco365]

I use it every now and again, it's a really nice emulator imo and it's worth the money you pay for. I did find the latency to be an issue (Especially Rhythm Heaven), so time-based games won't work nearly as well as they would on a real system.