Emulation on the Logitech G Cloud: A Mixed Bag

I decided to try out the Logitech G Cloud, an Android device with impressive specs for emulation. I started by testing MAME, which is notoriously difficult to emulate. Unfortunately, I didn't get much better performance than I did with my previous device. I tried various settings and tweaks, but nothing seemed to improve the experience. The MAME emulator was still running slowly, even on the easier-to-emulate tracks.

I moved on to try some other games, including Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. To my surprise, this game emulated perfectly at 1X resolution using Vulcan backend and the Logitech G Cloud. I also tested a couple of 2D Shrubs and Crash Bandicoot, which played smoothly as well. However, when it came to harder-to-emulate titles like Gran Turismo 4, things got a bit more complicated.

I tested Gran Turismo 4 at 1X resolution with Vulcan backend, and while the performance was smooth, there were occasional dips in frame rate, especially when driving at long distances. However, overall, I was impressed by how well this game ran on the Logitech G Cloud. Playing it on a handheld device is a great experience.

One of my favorite PS2 games, Gran Turismo 4, was another test subject for the emulator. At 0.75X resolution with no hacks enabled, we couldn't quite hit 60 FPS. However, with the help of some hacks, the frame rate did improve slightly, but it still wasn't perfect. I noticed a lot of frame skip going on, which is something that has always bugged me in PSP emulation.

I also tested God of War 2, another PS2 classic. At 0.75X resolution with no hacks enabled, we struggled to hit 60 FPS. However, enabling some hacks did improve the performance slightly, but it was still far from perfect. The game was more playable, but I could still feel the frame skip.

The Logitech G Cloud is a powerful device, and it's clear that it's capable of running many popular emulators at full speed. However, with prices starting at 350 dollars, I have to wonder if this is really worth the investment. Compared to other x86 handhelds on the market, such as the Steam Deck, which starts at 399 dollars for its base model, the Logitech G Cloud seems overpriced.

Overall, my experience with the Logitech G Cloud has been mixed. While it's clear that the device is capable of running many popular emulators at full speed, I'm not convinced that it's worth the price tag. There are other options available in the market that offer similar performance for a lower price point.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign hey what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again with your favorite handheld the Logitech G cloud and today we're going to be testing out some emulation on this device now I'm sure a lot of people who are watching this are very familiar with this device yes it's definitely overpriced for the specs we have here and coming in with the price tag like this you'd be better off getting the steam DAC but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are going to be picking this up or maybe have already pre-ordered it waiting on it to ship or just received it so in this video I want to see how it handles our favorite emulators we're going to start off light and move all the way up to PS2 go with everything in between there but uh before we get started here I do want to admit that I've actually been enjoying the design of this device and the feel Logitech released this as a cloud streaming device and with the CPU we have here coming in with a price tag of 350 I personally just don't think it's the right choice to pick something like this up when there's much better handhelds on the market either for cheaper or just a little bit more with a lot more power my launcher here might look a lot different from what you've seen on this device and that's because we can actually run this in tablet mode or we can use their game mode which they have their own launcher built in I'm in tablet mode with one of my favorite launchers known as the TV launcher this is the pro version we can totally customize it change the background and it does work with the built-in controls really easy to navigate and personally I just kind of like the way this setup looks over their stock launcher that they have built in but yeah I mean this thing has a 1080p 7 inch IPS display we've got a 6000 milliamp hour battery a Snapdragon 720g which is a few years old now as making this video in 2022 and as you can see we've got just kind of that stock Android Launcher there but I'm using the TV launcher so running it in kind of that stock Android mode yeah you can customize it a bit but you know that's about it you can install a different launcher if you want to basically we've got a lower powered Android tablet with some controls attached but that's not going to stop me from running some of my favorite emulators on this device and first up we've got some Game Boy Advance super easy to emulate we knew it was going to run really well here I'm using retro arch with that mgba core and you know when it comes to the easier to emulate stuff you want to go with some PC engine NES SNES FBA Neo Geo you're not going to have any trouble with it including PS1 here's bloody Roar 2 and I'm using duckstation I've upscaled this to 2x resolution with that core in retro Arch and it's playing really well foreign I also wanted to throw some N64 in here and this should perform just as well using a retro Arch core like moo pen but what I'm using here is a standalone emulator known as mupin 64 plus FZ you can get it from Google Play but yeah I mean any N64 emulator should work really well on this device even the harder to emulate stuff like double 07 and Conker's Bad Fur Day another one I tested here was Sega Saturn with one of my go-to tests Sega rally this does give lower end chips a run for its money especially using the yobasi and Shiro core and retro Arch as you can see here it's running great and you could go with the Standalone version if you want to moving up a bit to Dreamcast using the re-dream emulator and you know if you're into emulation you know this emulator it does work really well on low end chips and I was able to upscale to 1080p that was the max I tried but we could probably go higher but there's really no point given that we have a 1080p display here and even Crazy Taxi 2 at 1080p performed great so yeah I mean as long as the game's compatible with the emulator you're not going to have an issue with it and if you did want to use the flycast core for some Naomi and a Thomas wave we do have more than enough power for that also taking a look at some PSP emulation using the Standalone version of PPSSPP really there's only a couple we need to test here just to know what kind of performance this thing's going to put out so first I tested kind of an easier to emulate game we've got Ratchet and Clank size Matters 3x resolution Vulcan back in running rate now this was locked at 30 FPS on the PSP but there are hacks out there that we could go to 60 with it I just didn't install anything but you know when it comes down to it you've got to test out God of War so here's Ghost of Sparta at 2x resolution I actually originally went into this at 1X thinking I just need to leave it there but as soon as I tested 2X and it worked this well I just left it there we're still using that Vulcan back in and we're good to go with God of War I also tested out chains of Olympus same kind of performance 3DS is kind of a different story it's really all over the place and it's kind of really all over the place on even higher end chips so I went through and tested the official version of Citra from Google Play I also tested the enhanced version and I was basically getting the same kind of performance I tried a few tweaks in both of the versions of Citra that I tested on this device and yeah I mean really we've just got a lower end chip this does rely on opengl and hopefully they add Vulcan down the road one thing that kind of impressed me was GameCube emulation now the Dolphin Emulator has come a long way and especially with some of the new developments opengl back in is the way to go on these Snapdragon chips and it looks like even these older chips can handle some of these games pretty well and the version of dolphin that I'm using here is the official version actually from the website it's a development version it's changing all the time I also tried mmjr2 or mmj2 whatever they're calling it now and I got much worse performance in all of the games that I tested unfortunately it's not going to run everything so harder to emulate game here is Automotive stuff no matter what I did here I tried opengl Vulcan tried some hacks and I just couldn't get this game to run at full speed another one I tried was F0 GX and we were only running at about 25 FPS even on the easier to emulate tracks but it does look like there's some easier to emulate games that will run on the Snapdragon 720g and the final thing I tested here was some PS2 emulation using ether sx2 so yeah this is such a great emulator it kind of just came out of nowhere and now it's kind of taken over the scene when it comes to uh you know Arm based PS2 emulation on Linux and Android here's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 we're at 1X resolution Vulcan back in and it's fully playable on this device I also tested a couple 2D shrubs and Crash Bandicoot the Wrath of Cortex same kind of performance here you can play those games on this device I also went with some harder to emulate stops just to see what this thing would do foreign this is kind of a no-go unless you're using hacks and then you got a bunch of skipping going on I mean it's really up to you you could get this to run at 30 FPS if you want to but with all of those hacks on it does have a bunch of frame skip going on and personally I just don't like it I also tested one of my favorite PS2 games of all time Gran Turismo 4 at 1X with that Vulcan back in and I will admit there are some dips every once in a while especially when you have a long draw distance kind of down the track there but overall it is a playable experience and I was kind of impressed that this little chip was able to handle this game it's actually really fun playing this on a handheld and I know we've got the new Gran Turismo I've got it on PS5 absolutely love it I'm a huge fan of the forza franchise I just really love racing games and this was always one of my favorites so I personally like testing it out but we've got one more here for PS2 and that's God of War 2. so even at 0.75 X resolution uh on the safe preset with no hacks running in the background using that Vulcan back in we can't quite hit 60 with the Snapdragon 720g and by the way with everything that I tested I'm at the safe preset with The Ether sx2 emulator and like I mentioned with Soul Calibur 3 we could turn a few hacks on sorry this is like so blown out by this white screen in the background but with those hacks enabled it does feel a little more playable I mean we don't have those major dips but there is a lot of frame skip going on this is something that has always bugged me especially with the PSP emulator but you know with PS2 I personally can feel it I can see it and this isn't how I want to play the game but some people might be totally fine with this I mean if you own one of these devices and aren't planning on returning it then yeah you could probably get by playing these harder to emulate PS2 games with some hacks on so yeah the Logitech G cloud is totally capable of running a lot of our favorite emulators at full speed but you know I wouldn't recommend going out and buying one of these at that 350 dollar price tag now this is actually the second video I've done on the Logitech G the first one I mentioned you know that 350 dollar price tag is way too high for what we have here but if it was released two years ago with these same specs everybody would have went crazy for something like this but you know with all of the x86 handhelds on the market right now and especially the steam deck the base model coming in at 3.99 then you know this isn't a super good deal and I completely understand that this wasn't brought to Market to compete with the steam deck but the comparisons are definitely going to be there especially with the price tag of 350 on this thing but that's gonna wrap it up for this one really appreciate you watching I kind of just wanted to get this video out of the way I had a lot of people asking about emulation on this thing and since it's running Android I figured I'd go ahead and make a quick video if there's anything else you want to see running on this device be it a native Android game a native app or some more cloud gaming just let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"