GameHub: A New Era for Windows Emulation on Android
The Windows emulation scene on Android has been making rapid progress in the past few years, but it wasn’t until recently that it truly became approachable. GameHub, a new app from the controller company GameSir, streamlines the Windows emulation experience in a way that anyone can understand, and it’s now available on the Google Play Store starting today.
GameHub, which launched earlier this year as GameFusion, is an all-in-one application that allows you to play PC games on your Android device. It can connect to Xbox Cloud Gaming directly from the app, launch local streaming apps like Steam Link, or, most importantly, play Windows games via emulation.
There are a few ways to load games onto GameHub, and none of them require piracy. For DRM-free games, you can simply drag and drop the game files onto your device. This is how I played the GOG version of Silksong on my phone the weekend the game came out.
More recently, GameHub has also added support for Steam downloads. In other words, you can now log in to your Steam account and download games from your library directly from Steam’s servers onto your Android device. It also supports Steam Cloud saves, so you can pick up where you left off on your primary gaming machine.
Not all games will work perfectly, with 3D titles requiring a powerful flagship processor to run at all. Others may require lowering the resolution, changing translation layers, swapping drivers, and more, which thankfully is easy to do via GameHub’s settings menus. There are even pre-configured translation parameters ranging from “Extreme” to “Compatible” to help get games running.
However, it’s worth noting that GameHub isn’t without controversy. The app appears to fork code from several other open-source projects, such as Wine, without attribution. It’s also closed-source, so it’s more difficult for the community to make improvements or add features.
Regardless, the official version of the GameHub app is the one that will receive new features first, as it’s under very active development. It’s available completely for free, with monetization likely coming via GameSir controller sales. You can download the official GameHub app from the Google Play Store now.
