| Price | Free |
| Version | 5.1.0.1129 |
| Category | utilities |
| Developer | Bluestacks Systems, Inc. |
| Source | Windows & macOS |
| Rating | (4.7) |
To download BlueStacks for your Windows PC, go to the official website and then click the green “Download BlueStacks” button in the middle of the screen. As there is only a Windows version, you don’t have to worry about downloading the right platform.
If required, click “Keep” as indicated by the downward-pointing blue arrow at the bottom left of your screen to allow the download. Then, track the progress here until it’s completed. By default, the file should download under your “Downloads” folder.
You can run the BlueStacks installer by either clicking the completed download dialogue at the bottom of your browser window or by going into the downloads folder and running the “BlueStacksInstaller_*{version number}*.exe” file.
Either way, you might be prompted to Run SmartScreen in order to check whether the app is ok to run. Just click “Run” to continue. And click “Yes” to allow the app to make changes to your device.
That will start the step-by-step installation:
You will need a Google Play account to download, install, and play Android games, as well as sync progress across your Google accounts. The first time you launch BlueStacks, it should prompt you to register or sign in to your Google account. You can leave this until later to first browse the available titles, but you will need to sign in before downloading a game.
Once you’re in, you can browse all available Android games or search for them from the top-right corner. When you find a game you want to install, just click on its title card. If you haven’t done so yet, sign in to your Google account.
That will take you through to the Play store page for the game. Click the green “Install” button in the top right corner to download it. When the download and installation are completed, click “Open” to run the game. That will launch the game ready for you to play.
You can find controls and several other useful settings to the right of the game window, such as volume, toggling full-screen mode, and locking the cursor. To close a game, just hover over the game tab at the top and click the red “x” icon in the tab corner.
You can switch between games you have already installed and the available games by using the “My games” and “Game center” tabs at the top of the emulator.
Despite smartphones basically becoming as powerful as pocket computers, they are still far behind the average desktop or laptop PC. Some resource-intensive mobile apps can also result in reduced performance, which can be frustrating, especially when gaming.
Although some emulators don’t efficiently run on other platforms, one of BlueStacks key features is its performance optimization. It allows you to take advantage of the much more powerful desktop hardware to run mobile apps. This should result in smoothly running even the most demanding games and applications from your desktop computer.
Another benefit of this is that you can run multiple games smoothly at the same time. With many games making use of time-based mechanics to collect rewards, this can help you progress faster with multiple games at a time.
Currently, BlueStacks supports over 1 million games that are available on the official Play store. This means that all the best and most popular games currently on the market are supported. Most games are supported out-of-the-box, and BlueStacks adds support for games that need it if there is demand.
As part of the emulator, BlueStacks provides typical PC keyboard and mouse controls to play Android games with. PC is considered to offer the most practical and efficient controls thanks to the number of keys and the free-moving mouse. That can lead to better and less frustrating in-game controls than the limited options on a mobile interface.
You can even customize your controls for every game by assigning specific keys to specific in-game actions. This allows you to tailor your controls for every game for optimal performance.
Since macOS version 10.12, there is now a Mac-support version of BlueStacks available. This enables Mac users to also play Android games on their desktop or laptop computers from this version onwards. BlueStacks emulation is not yet available for iOS-specific games or apps, although most popular games are available on both Android and iOS.
The main advantage of BlueStacks is that you can play millions of Android games on whatever device you happen to be using. Progress syncs to your account across devices. Thanks to PCs being more powerful and effective, it can even provide better performance and give you an advantage over playing on mobile.
