Thinking about taking your mobile gaming relationship to the next level and learn how to play Android games on PC? Here’s everything you need to know about getting your favorite games running on the big screen with minimum effort involved.Back in the day, your run-of-the-mill Android device came with a mediocre processor and barely a gigabyte of RAM. These specs were decent for the simpler times when you expected your mobile phone to be, well, a mobile phone. Android manufacturers have improved the hardware to such as extent that there’s finally some room for serious mobile gaming.Mobile gaming is incomparable to PCs and consoles, but we’ve come a long way from Candy Crush and Angry Birds. Mainstream gaming studies like Rockstar and Electronic Arts have heavily invested in the mobile gaming platform for all the right reasons. But the smaller screen can hinder your gaming experience, giving you the itch to find out how to play Android games on PC.

How to play Android games on PC with BlueStacks

But how is it possible play games that are designed for the Android OS to work on your computer? All you need is a decent emulator to get things going, and we’ve selected BlueStacks for this project. This awesome Android emulator is all that you’ll need to help you understand how to play Android games on PC the easy way.Our testing rig: The system we used to test out this guide on how to play Android games on PC comes with a 6th generation Intel Core i5 processor. Paired with Intel HD graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 15.6-inch Full HD display, the system is running Windows 10 Home Edition. The performance of BlueStacks and the Android games you emulate may vary based on your system configuration.

Step 1: Setting up BlueStacks

BlueStacks is built upon the Android SDK Tools provided by Google to help developers in designing and testing their apps. BlueStacks has become popular as one of the favorite Android emulators for computers, along with its own BlueStack Gaming Platform.To get started, you need to download and install BlueStacks 3 on your Windows computer. Go ahead and visit the official BlueStacks website and download the software using the link given down below.

Download BlueStacks 3 for Windows

Once you’ve installed BlueStacks on your computer, the entire setup process should take just a couple of minutes. Right off the bat, you’ll be asked to set up your Google account with BlueStacks, just the same way you’d need to on a new Android device.BlueStacks will work like a regular device, with the difference that you’ll be able to use it on your computer. From installing almost any game from the Google Play Store (or even APK files) to running multiple screens of Android devices at once, you can do it all with BlueStacks.

Step 2: Configuring BlueStacks settings

The performance you get when you try out how to play Android games on PC completely depends on your computer. BlueStacks comes with default settings to provide you with a rich user experience. However, you might need to tinker with the Settings menu to gear up the performance of your Android gaming emulator.
  1. From the BlueStacks main screen, head over to Settings using the slide-out menu.
  2. Under the Display tab, choose the lowest Aspect ratio (1280 x 720) for maximum performance.
  3. Use the Engine tab, choose either OpenGL or DirectX depending on the one your computer system supports.
  4. Under CPU & RAM allocation, set the CPU cores to the maximum number and the Memory all the way up to the available amount.
Once you’ve made the changes, the BlueStacks application will need to reboot to bring them into effect. The available firepower solely depends on the hardware specs of your Windows PC, so make sure you fine-tune them accordingly.

Step 3: Installing an Android game on PC

With the software set up on your computer and the settings configured, you’re all set. Fortunately, you won’t need to run around fetching APK files to learn how to play Android games on PC. BlueStacks comes integrated with the Google Play Store to bring you support for hundreds and thousands of popular apps. 
  1. Go ahead and take a look at all of the apps and games that you can install with App Center.
  2. To begin, use the search bar and type in the game you want to install on your virtual Android device.
  3. The entire experience is familiar to the Google Play Store you’d use on your regular Android device. Simply hit the Install button and wait as the game downloads.
  4. Once the app is installed, it will automatically be added to the My Apps
 

Step 4: Setting up the controls

Once you have your favorite Android game installed on your computer, you’ll properly need to get used the new controls. Lucky for you, understanding how to play Android games on PC is made a lot simpler with keyboard remapping. BlueStacks not only enables you to remap the controls for each and every game but also comes with gamepad support.
  1. Once you’ve launched a game, you’ll be able to see the Keyboard controls UI button right at the bottom of the screen.
  2. Pressing the button will bring up the entire interface that allows you remap the virtual keys with your keyboard.
  3. You can also plug in a controller and use the hotkeys to configure any game with it.
  4. Moreover, the UI comes with special features for shooting games, MOBA games and even support for the accelerometer.
  5. Once you have reconfigured the keys, hit the Save button and you’re good to go.
After testing out BlueStacks with FIFA Mobile, we urge every football fan tries it out on their computer. However, the keyboard controls are less than ideal, so we recommend that you get a gamepad to go with it. The best part is that you can replace the swipe gestures with your mouse (works even better with a touchpad).

Wrapping it up

Back in 2012 when Android was on the verge of going big, BlueStacks was the only real way you could learn how to play Android games on PC. However, there’s plenty of fish in the sea today, with emerging names like Nox and MEmu that have made quite a name for themselves.To be extra sure that we present the best guide on how to play Android games on PC, we tested out other emulators as well. Although the others rank well, we did notice that BlueStacks not only outperformed them but offered better screen refresh rates.Albeit there are some compatibility issues and you may not be able to play all the Android games on PC. However, we tested a score of some graphic-intensive game titles on our standard gaming rig and the experience was pleasant.Is this guide on how to play Android games on PC just what you needed to take mobile gaming to the big screen? Have we skipped out on any details that could improve the gameplay performance with BlueStacks? Be sure to let us know in the comments section down below, or start a brand new conversation on the Updato Forum right now.

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What's my model number?

There are several ways to locate your model number:

Option 1
On your device, go to Settings, then "About device" and scroll down to "Model number"
Option 2
Often times you can view the model number inside the device, by removing the battery
Option 3
Using Samsung's model/serial number location tool

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