Slippi for Android

An unofficial Android port of Project Slippi (the Ishiiruka fork of Dolphin), built and tuned for the Ayn Thor handheld but expected to run on most recent ARM64 Android devices with Adreno or comparable GPUs. A separate x86_64 build is available for Intel/AMD Chromebooks that run Android apps.

Status: Plays Melee online via Slippi netplay (direct-connect, unranked, teams) at full speed on the Thor, with ranked queues disabled in this Android build, with both the official GameCube USB adapter (WUP-028) and the device's built-in controls. Sign-in is handled by the official slippi.gg flow embedded in the launcher; the calibration wizard lets you tune stick deadzone and response curve per-stick and per-controller-port; on-device button remap is in. Vulkan is the default graphics backend. Full Slippi replay support too — netplay matches auto-save to the device, and an in-app browser lets you watch them with a touch-friendly seek / pause / fast-forward HUD. Training Mode (Community Edition) is built right into the launcher — tap a button and the app downloads the latest version and sets it up for you. Low-latency audio (Oboe / AAudio with selectable buffer presets) and a refresh-rate-cap-lift during emulation round out the latency story.

This is a personal / hobbyist port — no warranty; treat it as such.

Not affiliated with Project Slippi; it builds on top of their work. For the official desktop launcher, go to https://slippi.gg.

Install

1. Download the right APK from the Releases page.
   • Android phones, tablets, handhelds, and ARM Chromebooks: slippi-android-vX.Y.Z-android-rN.apk
   • Intel/AMD Chromebooks: slippi-android-vX.Y.Z-android-rN-x86_64.apk
2. On the Android device, enable installs from the file manager / browser you'll use ("Install unknown apps" → that app → toggle on).
3. Open the APK and install.
4. First-launch flow:
   • Pick Melee 1.02 NTSC ISO (the launcher copies it into app-private storage so the C++ side gets a real fopen-able path).
   • Sign in via slippi.gg — tap the green sign-in button. An in-app browser opens to slippi.gg/online/enable; log in as you would on the desktop. When you hit Download on that page the launcher captures the resulting user.json directly into <app-files>/dolphin/Slippi/user.json and the account card updates to show your display name + connect code.
     • Power users who already have a user.json on disk can use the small "Already have a user.json? Import it" link instead.
   • Pick a graphics backend — Vulkan (default) or OpenGL. Vulkan has lower CPU overhead and is recommended; OpenGL is available as a fallback.
   • (Optional) ⚙ Calibrate sticks — see the live preview, set deadzone + response curve per stick. Defaults (2% / curve 1.5 for main, 10% / curve 2.0 for C-stick) work fine without running the wizard.
   • (Optional) 🎮 Remap buttons — per-device and per-adapter-port button mapping with a color-coded GC layout.
   • Tap PLAY for a live match, ▶ REPLAYS to browse + watch saved .slp files (importer + bulk-delete + share are in the browser; netplay matches auto-save into it), or TRAINING MODE to set up Training Mode Community Edition. The first time you tap it the app downloads the latest version, patches your vanilla ISO on-device, and tells you how much extra storage it'll use before committing. After that, "Play" boots straight into training. When a new Training Mode version drops, tap "Check updates" → "Update". Tap "Remove" to free the storage back up.

Important: If you are creating a new Slippi account, create it and log in once through the official PC / Mac / Linux launcher before trying to log in on Android. New accounts cannot be used in the mobile app until that desktop launcher step is complete.

Install with Obtainium

1. Install Obtainium.
2. Add this app with the GitHub source URL: https://github.com/MaxLaurence/slippi-android
3. If Obtainium asks for an APK filter, use this for normal ARM64 Android devices: ^slippi-android-v.*-android-r[0-9]+\.apk$ For Intel/AMD Chromebooks, use: ^slippi-android-v.*-android-r[0-9]+-x86_64\.apk$
4. Install the latest release.

The release package ID is org.ishiiruka.slippidolphin. In-place updates require every published APK to be signed with the same release key, so builds from other sources may need to be uninstalled before switching to this update channel.

What works

• Slippi netplay: direct-connect, unranked, teams. Ranked queues are disabled in this Android build.
• Official GameCube USB adapter (WUP-028 / WUP-028-NA), including hot-plug and 4-port local versus.
• Bluetooth controllers and on-device gamepads.
• JIT-backed native cores for ARM64 Android and x86_64 Chromebook builds. ARM64 is the primary tested path; x86_64 is intended for Intel/AMD ChromeOS devices and depends more heavily on the Chromebook's Android container and GPU driver behavior.
• Both Vulkan (default) and OpenGL ES 3.2 backends, runtime-toggle from the launcher.
• Player names, connect codes, chat messages.
• Slippi sign-in via embedded slippi.gg WebView (no Firebase key shipped in the binary).
• Per-stick calibration: deadzone + power-curve response, with a single-screen wizard that shows a live stick visualization. Defaults are sane; calibration is optional.
• Per-device + per-adapter-port button remap with conflict detection.
• Per-port stick calibration for each adapter slot (i.e. each player in a 4-controller local match can tune their own stick).
• Raw evdev stick read on supported devices (bypasses MotionEvent saturation when the Android driver clips early).
• Replay browser + playback — every netplay match auto-saves to the replay folder shown in the replay browser. Users can choose a folder; the app uses a staging path only while native Slippi is writing the file. In-app browser parses each .slp for stage, characters, duration, date and shows them in a sortable list. Tap a row to watch; the HUD gives you play / pause, ±5s jump, scrubbable seek bar, and a fast-forward toggle. Bulk delete (older than 7 / 30 days, or all), per-row delete, and Android-share-sheet export for sending .slp files to other apps.
• Training Mode (Community Edition) built into the launcher — tap the TRAINING MODE button and the app fetches the latest release of TrainingMode-CommunityEdition from GitHub, patches it into your vanilla ISO on-device, and lets you launch into it with one tap. Storage cost is shown up front (peak during build + final size). "Check updates" surfaces new versions whenever they drop; "Remove" cleans the patched ISO + any cached files back up. No need to track down xdelta tools or move files between a desktop and the device.
• Low-latency audio — Oboe (default), AAudio, and OpenSLES backends with a launcher-side preset picker (Low / Balanced / Stable burst counts). Tap the green "Audio: …" status text on the launcher to switch presets without restarting.
• Lifted refresh-rate caps — the launcher temporarily raises the system's peak_refresh_rate / min_refresh_rate settings while emulation is running (so battery-saver caps don't pin you to 60Hz mid-match) and restores them on exit. Requires WRITE_SETTINGS granted manually on sideloaded builds.
• Vulkan swap chain prefers MAILBOX over IMMEDIATE on Android (avoids the BLAST compositor's deferred-frame queueing) at minImageCount; emulator thread pinned to performance cores; multi-threaded PerformanceHintManager session targets the emu + GPU + audio TIDs (auto-discovered) at 60Hz cadence; netplay client thread runs at -8 priority.

What doesn't work / known limitations

• On-screen touch overlay exists but hasn't had wide device QA. It's available behind the Touch controls link on the launcher; the default is to hide it whenever a physical / built-in controller is detected.
• Slippi Jukebox (in-game music) is force-disabled because the Rust cpal Android backend SIGABRTs on init; in-engine music still plays.
• First boot of a new game compiles ~hundreds of shaders (~5–10s on Adreno 740) before the first frame.
• The Thor's onboard stick reports saturated raw values past ~1/3 of physical travel for some firmware revisions. Calibration helps inside the unsaturated portion; for the strongest input precision, use the GC adapter.
• ChromeOS support is ABI/package-level and still needs per-device QA. Use the x86_64 APK only on Intel/AMD Chromebooks; ARM Chromebooks should use the normal APK. The custom Qualcomm/Turnip driver path is ARM/Adreno-specific, so x86_64 Chromebooks use the system ChromeOS Android graphics stack. Direct USB GameCube adapter passthrough can vary by Chromebook model and policy.

Build from source

See Source/Android/README.md for the full build / install / debug workflow.

The short version:

git submodule update --init --recursive

export ANDROID_HOME=/opt/homebrew/share/android-commandlinetools
export JAVA_HOME=/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@17
export PATH=$HOME/.cargo/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH

# Debug APK (signed with your debug keystore, fast):
./Source/Android/gradlew -p Source/Android :app:assembleDebug

# Chromebook / Intel-AMD ChromeOS debug APK:
./Source/Android/gradlew -p Source/Android :app:assembleDebug -PandroidAbi=x86_64

# Distributable / release APK (signed):
./Source/Android/gradlew -p Source/Android :app:assembleRelease

# Chromebook / Intel-AMD ChromeOS release APK:
./Source/Android/gradlew -p Source/Android :app:assembleRelease -PandroidAbi=x86_64

Output APKs land at Source/Android/app/build/outputs/apk/{debug,release}/. The default ARM64 build keeps the standard app-debug.apk / app-release.apk names. The x86_64 build gets an ABI-specific filename such as slippi-android-3.6.0-android-r7-x86_64-release.apk.

Credits

• Project Slippi — the netplay, matchmaking and replay stack this port depends on.
• Training Mode Community Edition — the Melee training-mode patchset this Android port can download, patch and launch on-device.
• connoranastasio/Ishiiruka-rocknix — the ROCKNIX port that was a useful reference for the JitArm64 emitter patches and several CMake-side build fixes.
• Dolphin Emulator — the original GameCube / Wii emulator everything else builds on. The upstream README is preserved at Readme.upstream.md.

License

GPLv2+, same as upstream Dolphin and Slippi.