Key Takeaways
- Mobox offers better performance and compatibility with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones, while Winlator has a simpler setup and better controls.
- Both emulators have their pros and cons, with Mobox being more suitable for emulation veterans and Winlator for those seeking an intuitive UI.
- Legally acquiring games can be a hassle, but GOG is recommended for both Winlator and Mobox users, though you can try to run Steam games on Mobox.
It’s quite common to see ports of your favorite PC games on consoles (and vice versa), but not many titles developed for Windows and consoles make their way to Android. Luckily, emulation has evolved quite a lot over the last few years, and it’s even possible to run most 2D and certain 3D PC games on your smartphone.
To make things even better, you have the option to pick between Mobox and Winlator, two amazing emulation tools that can create containers to run games and apps developed for Windows. Both emulators have their pros and cons though, and while some may prefer the performance-heavy Mobox, others might wish to go with Winlator. So, in this article, we’ll compare every aspect of these apps to help you decide which one’s better for your emulation needs.
Performance
Winner: Mobox by a longshot
When I tried Winlator for the first time, I was amazed the app could run 2D at playable FPS. Not only that, but Winlator could even maintain decent frame rates in 3D titles like Dead Space (2008) and F.E.A.R. on my Poco F5. But in order to target 60 FPS, I had to dial the resolution down to 960×544 and reduce some graphical settings. Similarly, 2D titles were playable as long as I set the resolution to 1280×720. That’s before you include all the modifications to container settings required to maintain decent in-game performance.
Meanwhile, Mobox is far more powerful than its rival, and can easily achieve over 30 FPS in most 2D titles at a whopping 1920×1080 resolution. Leaving aside select Steam titles whose performance was crippled by the Steam client running in the background, Mobox has rock-solid frame rates in 3D games, including the original Crysis.
Sure, Winlator’s newer updates have overhauled the emulator’s performance, but it continues to lag behind Mobox when it comes to sheer FPS. Additionally, in all my tests, Mobox had almost zero crashes when running games, which is a far cry from my experience with even the latest version of Winlator.
Ease of installation
Winner: Winlator and its simple UI
Unlike Mobox, Winlator has an extremely simplified setup procedure: all you have to do is install the emulator’s .apk file from the official GitHub link and create a container for your Windows games. And that’s it. While you may need to create custom shortcuts and modify the container settings for most games, Winlator has a simple UI that even beginners can navigate with ease.
Then there’s Mobox, which requires a terminal emulator like Termux for installation and renders output via the Termux-X11 app. Once you’ve installed these apps alongside the third-party Input Bridge utility (which we’ll get to in a bit), you’ll have to run some terminal commands to set up the emulator, and it can take a while for Termux to download the packages and create the container. Calibrating the emulator is just as complex, and you’ll need to modify plenty of settings on Termux, Termux-X11, and inside the Mobox container if you want the best performance.
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Device compatibility
Winner: Mobox (barely)
Both Mobox and Winlator favor Snapdragon chips over Mediatek Dimensity or Samsung Exynos CPUs. Likewise, phones with Adreno GPUs (especially Adreno 7xx graphics) provide the best performance in both apps.
Unfortunately, the non-modded version of the Winator doesn’t support the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, and you’re bound to have a terrible experience if you use the emulator on a high-end phone that’s armed with the ultra-fast CPU. Since it’s unable to run games on the most powerful Snapdragon chip, Winlator has an Achilles Heel in the compatibility department. Sure, there are modded releases of the emulator that can work with the new chips, but even they are prone to stability issues.
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Meanwhile, the default version of Mobox works flawlessly with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones, making it the better emulator for gamers whose phones utilize this ultra-fast chipset.
Game library
Winner: Mobox, and it’s not even close
Like most emulators, legally acquiring games can be a bit of a hassle, and this tradition continues in both Winlator and Mobox. For Winlator users, GOG is the only platform where you can grab legitimate copies of your favorite games. That’s because GOG lets you download DRM-free setup files for games, which you can install inside the Winlator container on your smartphone.
Earlier versions of Winlator technically supported Steam once you completed an extremely long procedure. However, the latest releases of the emulator refuse to boot the Steam client. You could install an outdated version of Winlator and use it to emulate games. But I wouldn’t recommend doing so, because the performance overhead from running the Steam client combined with the fewer optimizations of the older releases will result in terrible performance in even the lightest 2D titles.
Although GOG remains the recommended way for Mobox users to grab game files, it’s possible to install a modified version of the Steam client on your Mobox container. I’ll admit, setting up Steam is a bit complex. Plus, since you have to sign in and verify your account every time you restart the container, Valve might decide to flag your account as suspicious and, in the worst-case scenario, you could permanently lose access to your games. Nevertheless, the fact that it’s even possible to run Steam titles increases Mobox’s game library by multifold.
Controls
Winner: Winlator, hand-down
When it comes to controls and gamepad support, Winlator is miles ahead of Mobox. For starters, the former has two built-in controller profiles: the Virtual Controller, which is exactly what its name implies, and an RTS profile that pins most of the keyboard and mouse buttons on your screen. The emulator can detect any physical gamepads connected to your phone and provides an intuitive interface for you to bind their buttons to KB+M inputs.
That said, you might run into some issues when the emulator doesn’t detect specific key presses from an external keyboard. However, an easy fix involves installing the Key Remapper utility on your Winlator container and rebinding the problematic keys with the help of the app.
On the other side of the emulation spectrum, Mobox can’t accept any input besides mouse clicks via the touchscreen interface. As such, your own option is to install a third-party utility called InputBridge. Besides being rather complex to use, the app doesn’t let you map the left/right mouse buttons to the triggers on your controller, so you’ll have to map these inputs to the remaining buttons instead.
The only advantage Mobox has over Winlator in the controls department is that it works well with external keyboards without requiring you to remap certain keys. But otherwise, Winlator has much better built-in controls and is easily the better choice for those who prefer physical gamepads.
Load times
Winner: Mobox
Another victory in Mobox’s favor is that the emulator has short boot times on most games, especially in the case of 3D titles. On the other hand, Winlator can take a couple of minutes just to enter the main menu on games like Crysis, Cupheadand Ori and the Blind Forest. Heck, some games even crash right before the game starts running, forcing you to go through the loading screen with slightly different container parameters.
Mobox is quite different in this regard, as the emulator can boot most games fairly quickly. Setting up shortcuts in Winlator can somewhat reduce the time it takes to enter your favorite game, but the emulator still can’t match Mobox’s quick load times.
Mobox vs Winlator: Which one should you use
Mobox will serve you well in most cases
If you’re an emulation veteran and don’t mind spending an hour setting up an emulator, Mobox is hands-down the better option. It’s surprisingly fast, has better stability, works on most devices, and can even boot Steam games. Its terminal interface may look daunting at first, but it’s fairly easy to get accustomed to it.
More powerful
Mobox
Mobox is a free emulator capable of running Windows titles, including Steam games, at high frame rates. Unfortunately, the app isn’t very intuitive to configure, and it can take a few hours to get everything up and running.
But for folks who want a painless setup procedure or an intuitive UI, Winlator provides a decent alternative to Mobox. Despite its cons, it has significantly better controls and, unlike Input Bridge, it can map any key to the trigger buttons of your physical controller.
Easier for beginners
Winlator
Winlator is a free x86_64 emulator that lets you run Windows games on your smartphone. While it requires a beefy smartphone with a powerful processor for the best performance, you can still use Winlator to emulate Windows games on most high-end Snapdragon mobile chips.
Nevertheless, both emulators are free to use, so there’s no harm in trying out for yourself. Of course, storage might be a problem, but you should be fine with installing both emulators and a handful of games as long as your smartphone has over 100GB of free space.