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We’ve also seen two major developments in recent times. The first is that GameNative has become one of the most polished, capable, and popular PC “emulators” on Android. We’ve also seen the rise of custom Turnip GPU drivers for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chips. Without these unofficial drivers, devices with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips and earlier were considered better for PC games.
Between these developments and my prior experience with PC gaming apps, that got me wondering. Could Samsung’s last two generations of Galaxy flagship phones, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite family, deliver a lightweight gaming PC experience when plugged into an external monitor? I’m not expecting to play the latest and greatest games, but is this a viable alternative to using my work laptop after hours?
Hadlee Simons / Android AuthorityI’m using a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra hooked up to an old Jsaux dock, which is typically used for the Steam Deck and similar handheld consoles. I’m also running the GameNative app due to its integrated Steam support. My plan here is to try out various PC games, only really switching between the system GPU driver and the community-driven Turnip drivers. Does switching drivers reveal a big difference in performance and heating?
I started with some lightweight 2D games, and I was able to play games like Baba is You, Mina the Hollower, and Battleblock Theater at smooth speeds regardless of the GPU driver. Temperatures were also very reasonable here. It’s not a clean slate with every lightweight game, as Call of Duty 2 (2005) simply encountered a Steam-related error and refused to boot up regardless of the GPU driver.
I then switched to 3D titles from the late 2000s to early 2010s, and encountered a few pleasant surprises. Crysis actually runs at a good pace at 1080p with low graphics. There is some noticeable judder during firefights, but I played this game on Xbox 360, so I’ve seen worse. It’s not a complete surprise, as colleague Rob Triggs showcased Crysis on the ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro last year. But it’s still crazy to see Crysis running on a smartphone. Temperatures did hit peaks of around 68 to 70 degrees Celsius, but it didn’t stay in this range, and the phone itself didn’t feel like a furnace.
Tetris Effect is caught in an awkward middle ground. It’s not quite as demanding in theory as older action titles, nor is it exactly a lightweight 2D title. Nevertheless, the Galaxy S25 Ultra delivers smooth performance here regardless of the driver. It did seem like the system driver yielded slightly higher peak temperatures in the 60s, though. Deus Ex: Human Revolution also turned in respectable performance with both system and Turnip drivers. The classic title mostly ran at 60fps, with occasional big dips to the high 30fps range. It’s also worth noting that I experienced some micro-stutter even when it ran at an otherwise smooth frame rate. I also noticed temperatures in the low 60s.
Another notable game during this era is Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. One major issue with the title is that it takes a long time to initially boot up, to the point that I thought the game had frozen. Loading screens and settings menus also hang for a few seconds here and there. However, I found that playing this game with a Turnip driver yielded fantastic results, as the title never deviated far from its 60fps frame cap. Temperatures do reach the low 70s, though. 2011’s Dishonored also ran really well on the Galaxy S25 Ultra via DeX regardless of the driver, lending more credence to my belief that recent Android flagships can handle older or lightweight PC games just fine.
What about demanding games, though? I installed 2015’s The Witcher 3, which was a tough test for older PCs and consoles at launch. The encouraging news is that performance was generally playable during my brief time with the title. I did find that looking around with the mouse resulted in plenty of judder, making for a somewhat disorienting experience, but I feel like the switch to a 30fps frame cap helped. I also found that sticking with the Turnip driver yielded temperatures that mostly stayed in the high-50s, occasionally hitting 70 degrees. By contrast, the system driver seemed to deliver temperatures around the 60-degree range.
My final test was Cyberpunk 2077. The game already exceeded my low expectations by actually running on the Galaxy S25 Ultra via DeX. However, the frame rate generally stayed in the low teens to around 20fps while using the Turnip driver. It wasn’t quite a slideshow, but it was definitely a slow-motion affair that wouldn’t be playable for most people. This was accompanied by temperatures ranging from 60 to 70 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the game crashed twice when driving through a specific area. So it’s definitely not a stable affair. This experience is still better than switching to the system driver, as the title crashed before entering gameplay. Furthermore, graphical glitches meant save game text wasn’t visible (e.g., dates and times). Still, it’s freaking Cyberpunk on an Android phone. How crazy is that?
My initial impression of gaming on DeX via the Galaxy S25 Ultra last year was mostly positive, although I complained about the lack of support for bypass charging and ultrawide resolutions. Readers noted at the time that an app needs to be added to the Gaming Hub if you want to run it with bypass charging. Meanwhile, the latter feature requires the Good Lock MultiStar app (thanks, Chaldon Pretorius!). I can indeed report that ultrawide monitors are supported via MultiStar. I’m also annoyed that you can’t use or add apps to the Gaming Hub without a Samsung account. Furthermore, I would’ve still liked the ability to activate bypass charging without adding an app to this hub in the first place.
Samsung also teamed up with Google to rebuild DeX in One UI 8. This resulted in a host of missing features compared to One UI 7’s DeX, but I also stumbled across a horrible controller-related bug. Using a controller in One UI 8’s DeX was frustrating, as the analog sticks would stop working as soon as the S25 Ultra’s screen turned off. My keyboard and mouse worked just fine, though. Thankfully, Samsung fixed this issue with the One UI 8.5 update. So other Galaxy owners wanting to use DeX for gaming should update to One UI 8.5 if they haven’t already. However, I do worry about people with older Galaxy flagships that are stuck on One UI 8.
Otherwise, I found that DeX handled my wireless keyboard and mouse just fine. This support also opened the door to classic PC games that aren’t compatible with gamepads. So it’s been fun to go back to games like Crysis and other titles without gamepad support.
Hadlee Simons / Android AuthorityWhen I first tried PC games on the Galaxy S25 Ultra via DeX over a year ago, I was a little disappointed to see that GameHub didn’t run anything I threw at it. This wasn’t unexpected, though, given the lack of all-important Turnip GPU drivers for the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. Fast-forward to mid-2026, though, and not only do we have a slick PC gaming app in GameNative, but we also have a ton of unofficial GPU drivers for Snapdragon 8 Elite series chips.
These developments didn’t mean I expected to play the latest blockbuster PC titles on my phone via an external display, or even some of the most demanding games from six or seven years ago. However, I was hoping for a lightweight gaming PC experience, and the S25 Ultra certainly met these expectations. Furthermore, while there’s still some fiddling required to get some games running in GameNative, it’s definitely an easier experience than GameHub, Winlator, and other rivals.
This setup won’t meet everyone’s requirement for a lightweight gaming PC solution, though. Some games simply won’t work due to compatibility issues, anti-cheat measures, or other reasons altogether. I also wish more mainstream flagship phones had cooling fans, if only so temperatures don’t reach crazy levels. Because all this heat can’t be good for the S25 Ultra or its battery over time. Still, it’s nice to know that I can play some of my favorite older PC games in a pinch.
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