Top 4 Ways To Play PC Games On Android in 2024

Mobile games are great, but sometimes you may want the full-fat PC gaming experience without ads, in-app purchases, or free-to-play limitations. Of course, you could fire up your gaming PC, but what if you wanted to continue gaming on your Android phone or tablet? Well, there are ways to play PC games on Android. Here’s how.

Game Streaming

If you have the equipment—and a fast enough network connection—then playing PC games on Android via in-home streaming or cloud gaming will likely offer you the best experience. This method runs the game on separate hardware before beaming the output to your device, allowing you to play AAA games with intensive graphics on even modest Android tablets.

Let’s check out three of the best game streaming options for Android that are available across the globe.

Steam Link

Steam Link lets you stream PC games directly to your Android device, whether a phone, tablet, or Android TV device like the Nvidia Shield. It works over in-home networks and the internet and offers a surprisingly decent overall experience, provided you have the equipment.

The main downside of streaming via the Steam Link app is that it requires you to set everything up. You need a gaming PC, access to the games, and a stable enough network or outbound connection to stream data from your Windows PC to your tablet. Valve and Steam don’t offer anything other than the medium to connect both devices.

If you have all of those, Steam Link is a great way to play PC games on Android without subscription fees, waiting times, and dodgy servers. If you’re interested in finding out more, check out our guide on how to use Steam on a tablet.

Nvidia GeForce NOW

Nvidia’s GeForce NOW (often abbreviated GFN) is a cloud-based game streaming service operated by graphics card manufacturer Nvidia. GFN works like Steam Link but runs games on Nvidia’s servers, so you don’t need a powerful gaming PC.

GeForce NOW has a vast library of games, with more than 1500 at the time of writing. You can purchase games on the service to play or link your game libraries (Steam and Epic, for example) to access your favorite PC games through GeForce NOW without repurchasing them.

Depending on your region and subscription tier, GeForce NOW also lets you run games on ultra-high-end hardware, including Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards. You can turn on all the ray-tracing eye candy you want without splurging on a $1000 graphics card. But even if that’s not your thing, GeForce NOW still offers an enjoyable cloud streaming experience.

I tested GeForce NOW and had a decent time streaming games to an Android tablet. GeForce NOW emulates mouse input OK (for navigating menus) and has proper touch control for Android, so you can play games without connecting a dedicated Bluetooth controller. We recommend doing so, but you should be able to get by without one in less complex games.

Unfortunately, technical issues meant I had to connect to the Singaporean service provider, which increased the latency and reduced the overall quality. Even then, slower-paced games like Wasteland 2 were really enjoyable. Action games such as Hotline Miami and open-world games like Horizon Zero Dawn didn’t feel quite as good, sadly, but they were still reasonably playable.

To get the best possible experience, you’ll want to connect to a server that’s as near as possible to you. Unfortunately, some locations may not have a nearby GFN server, which will impact the overall quality of your experience. You can check Nvidia’s list of servers and service providers here.

If you have a nearby server (and a fast enough internet connection), then GeForce NOW should offer an excellent experience that rivals local gaming for the most part. This represents a great way to bolster your Android game library, adding some PC gaming flair to all the best Android games the OS has to offer.

Nvidia GeForce NOW is a primarily paid service. Some countries have access to a free tier, but this tier only has limited slots. Paid options also differ depending on the country or service provider.

For example, US-based customers only have Priority ($9.99/month) and Ultimate ($19.99/month) subscription tiers. In contrast, the Singaporean provider offers multiple one-off game time options (starting at 3 hours for S$2.99), three monthly tiers, and one annual tier.

GeForce NOW is available on the Google Play Store.

NetBoom

NetBoom is probably the most popular game streaming service on Android currently. Like Nvidia’s GeForce NOW, NetBoom runs games on its servers and beams the output to your tablet over the internet.

However, unlike GeForce NOW, NetBoom has a much smaller game library (around 300 games), primarily focusing on popular big-ticket titles such as FIFA 23, Red Dead Redemption 2, WWE 2K23, and the recent Spider-Man games. Of course, you still get some indie games, but NetBoom is more geared toward the mainstream gamer.

While NetBoom does let you link your Steam account to the service, I didn’t manage to get it to work. None of my games showed up to play, likely because there’s little to no overlap between the games NetBoom provides and those associated with my Steam account.

NetBoom is a fully premium service, with the option of paying a regular subscription (starting at $9.99 monthly) or one-off game time purchases via Coins. The latter begins at 1200 Coins for $6.99, with 120 Coins offering 1 hour of game time. So, the pricing is competitive, but what about the experience?

Sadly, I did not have a good gaming experience with NetBoom. Every game I tried was stuttery and laggy, even on a reasonably fast 800 Mbps connection and when connected to my Asus router’s 5GHz band. It wasn’t the fault of the Honor Pad X9 I tested with, either, as GeForce NOW games ran much better.

Action games were unplayable, and even slow games didn’t feel great. Not a good look for a service that focuses on big-ticket action and sports games like FIFA 23 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

I probably don’t live close enough to a NetBoom server to get a good experience, and you may enjoy the service a lot more if you do. But since NetBoom doesn’t seem to list its server locations, it’s all just a roll of the dice. Not cool.

Besides, even if you luck out with the servers, I doubt NetBoom can offer a comparable experience to Nvidia GeForce NOW. The game library is much smaller, and the overall user experience feels cheap and far from GFN’s slick, premium presentation.

If you really want to try NetBoom out, I recommend going for the cheapest Coin purchase to see how you get on. NetBoom is available on the Google Play Store.

PC Games Ported to Android

PC gaming has been around for a long time, and there’s a huge library of older, classic titles developers have ported to Android. These won’t be cutting-edge titles, but many of them are still a lot of fun and are worth checking out. Highlights include:

• Fortnite
• Doom and Doom 2
• Grand Theft Auto 3
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Star Wars: KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2
• Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition 1 and Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition 2
• Max Payne Mobile

The Android version of Fortnite remains surprisingly faithful to the PC version, with handy improvements such as a redesigned menu and great touch controls. The game requires more processing power than you might expect, but it’ll run great as long as you have a modern, mid-range tablet. Check out our list of the best tablets for Fortnite for some recommendations.

Beyond Fortnite, I’m a particularly big fan of the Doom and Doom 2 Android ports. They run great on almost any tablet and have surprisingly usable touch controls. It helps that they don’t have any vertical aiming, which keeps things simple and easy to play. The gameplay is as good as ever, of course, with the signature fast-paced gunplay present and accounted for.

Grand Theft Auto 3 also translates surprisingly well to Android. I like the dynamic touch controls that change based on whether you’re in a car or on foot, and the performance is surprisingly good, even on an entry-level tablet. The addition of checkpoints and autosaves is helpful for mobile play, too.

It’s not quite 100% faithful to the original, but most of you likely won’t notice the minor differences. I haven’t tried the other two ports, but I expect them to be of similar quality.

Emulation

You may have heard of Winlator, a PC emulator for Android that promises to let you run PC games (and other Windows applications) on Android devices. While that may seem perfect, the reality is that compatibility is spotty, with many titles not running that well (or at all).

If you’re tech-savvy and just want to experiment, then Winlator might be worth checking out. However, I think most of you are better off streaming games to your Android tablet or spending time with one of the many excellent PC-to-Android ports.

Conclusion

Playing PC games on Android is possible, but maybe not quite in the way some of you may hope. Game streaming is the closest to a full-on experience you’ll get, but it comes at the cost of latency and some image quality. In contrast, Android ports of PC games run much better but often aren’t quite the same as the PC originals.

Until emulation becomes a valid option, however, these are your best choices to get your PC gaming fix on an Android device.

Interested in more cross-platform gaming and emulation? Check out our guide to playing Android games on PC.

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