There are a lot of new android emulators in the market nowadays, and your trusty emulator might not work as well as some of the newer arrivals. In this article, Gurugamer is going to showcase a benchmarked tier list for all top tier emulators to see which one is the fastest.
About Emulator Benchmark
All testing is done with settings as consistent as possible between emulators, and otherwise their most optimal configuration + setup ( so things like having Hyper-V turned on or off where needed for best performance, etc). Antutu is the only benchmarking tool that works on all emulators - GFX Bench, 3dmark...etc do not consistently work. After all, we can't really get a comparison if the benchmark only works in one of the emulators.
Everything was tested at 1920x1080, 120 fps (unless otherwise noted), 4 cores and 4 GB memory since this was the highest some of these emulators would go. I did test Bluestacks at 240 fps in a few results just to see if it would make a difference but it actually scored a little worse than 120 fps. Also went through the pain of comparing DirectX to OpenGL for some of the emulators. 64-bit binaries were used where available. My system is a relatively recent clean install of windows and has up-to-date drivers.
Android Emulator Performance Tier List 2023
- S Tier: Mumu 6, Mumu X, and LD Player
- A Tier: Mumu Nebula, Bluestacks 5 Nougat w/ Hyper-V (OpenGL), Bluestacks 5 Pie no Hyper-V (OpenGL)
- B Tier: Bluestacks 5 Nougat w/ Hyper-V (DirectX), Memu w/ Hyper-V
- C Tier: ??
- D Tier: Nox (OpenGL)
- F Tier: Nox (DirectX)
LD Player
- Score: 1805586
LD Player scored fantastically, the best of the bunch. The drag and drop to install APK is nice. This one had me disable Hyper-V and all the other virtualization stuff, which I would have needed to MuMu as well anyways.
Mumu 6 and Mumu X Beta
- Vulkan Score: 1764475
- DirectX Score: 1696085
- MumuX Score: 1713480
Mumu 6 and Mumu X Beta all scored great as well. In the same ballpark as LD player. Sure one or the other is slightly faster but I would put it all in the same tier of performance. Mumu 6 runs on android 6 but will be more stable, this is likely better for older games, while Mumu X is running on android 12 and will have the best support for newer games.
LD Player is running on Android 9 and is probably best used for older games as well, but is also more likely to be more stable than Mumu X. Strangely enough, I found the graphics to look different between Mumu and LD Player. Mumu has a softer, foggier look, that is light in color, LD player has a more contrasty, saturated, darker look.
Bluestacks
- DirectX Score: 1030524
- OpenGL Score: 1453436
Bluestacks had corrupted/broken textures that showed as weird neon colors so even though it scored pretty decent I don't think I would trust it much. The OpenGL version was also significantly faster. The 240 FPS results were worse than the 120 FPS results by a bit too. The Nougat 64-bit version with hyper-v is a little faster than the Pie 64-bit version without hyper-v, however, I think having the new Android version for its newer APIs and better compatibility with newer games/apps make the tradeoff worth it. Textures also seemed less broken in the pie version.
Memu
- DirectX Score: 1029829
- OpenGL Score: 1049744
Memu scored decently. UI/UX didn't feel as snappy and responsive as Bluestacks but I would probably still use this instead since it actually displayed textures properly.
NoxPlayer
- Score: 706711
Nox not only felt slow but also scored the worst here. Switching to DirectX completely broke it, and would make my entire PC hang until I forced a reboot with the physical power button. Disappointed with Nox here.
Mumu Nebula
- Score: 1263806
Mumu Nebula did not score as well as this group even though I changed the compatibility-focused settings towards the same performance-focused ones I used for the other emulators where I could. I guess that's the caveat of it being a compatibility-focused emulator with a focus on running on lower-end hardware. Still scores better than most of the emulators tested here.
What is the best Android Emulator to use in 2023?
My highest recommendations go to Mumu X and LD Player for sure, these are the only ones I will be keeping installed for myself. LD Player and Mumu 6 are the fastest stable releases but LD player's Android is 3 versions higher. Mumu X manages to keep that same performance, while being the only contender here to support Android 12, making it the best choice for any newer games that might need newer APIs to run well, with the caveat of it still being a beta release. Since there's no best one size fits all, and different emulators will run better for different games I like the idea of keeping at least two different emulators, then you can use whichever one will work better for your specific game.
Just remember, as with anything on PC, your results may be very different. No two PCs are alike. Everything affects performance - the chips, who manufactured the parts, what software is running, I could go on. What runs well on one PC may run badly on another, and vice versa.
Anyone who wants to use an emulator to try a few out with your favorite games just to be sure which one runs best on your system.
>>> Read more: How To Set Up CEMU Emulator To Play Wii U Games On PC