so I spent some time figuring out how to install and run SIFAS on android x86 running on a pc without an emulator
- a wifi usb dongle or any kind of wifi connectivity - might be avoidable if you find an app that can trick android into thinking it's on wifi
- your pc
- dedicated hdd/ssd for android, or knowledge on how to set up grub to dual boot with your other OSes
- a usb stick, 1GB or larger should be enough
- a touch monitor. I cannot vouch for any touch monitor right now, I use an asus VT168N where i removed the stand so i could lay it flat. it has low touch latency and I have used it for osu! in the past however it's way too big for SIF and viewing angles and resolution are bad. am currently looking into a 10 inch aliexpress touch monitor, will link if it ends up working well
- not having an emulator running on top of your OS has way better performance than running the game in an emulator. you will be able to take full advantage of your desktop gpu
- you can build a mid range gaming pc with used parts and a small touch monitor for < 500$ and it will run the game better than any tablet for the same price, as long as you don't need the portability, not to mention it doubles as a gaming pc instead of being stuck with mobile stuff. I'm running this on a 350 EUR pc and it does smooth 60fps easily
- you might already have a good enough pc to do this and not have a good enough tablet for sif, in which case buying a touch monitor is way cheaper than a new tablet
you need one ext4 partition on your drive. you can either
- wipe the partition table (easy to do if you're on linux) and let android installer partition it. keep in mind that it cannot do GPT so if you need that, partition yourself
- partition yourself with something like gparted live
if you want to wipe from linux, you can do
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-xxx bs=1k count=2048
where usb-xxx is the name of your drive (without the -part stuff)
I don't bother with dual booting, i have a separate ssd for android.
get android x86_64. i used android-x86_64-8.1-r2.iso from here .
burn the android iso to your usb stick. on windows, rufus should work. on linux, I use pv:
sudo bash -c 'pv < android-x86_64-8.1-r2.iso > /dev/disk/by-id/usb-xxx'
where usb-xxx is the name of your usb stick (without the -part stuff)
boot from the usb. usually this is as simple as having it plugged in on boot, but sometimes you might have to go into your bios/uefi and set boot priorities
select "install to disk" or whatever it's called
select your partition or partition as explained earlier
when asked, select yes at "install grub bootloader"
when asked, select yes at "install /system as read-write"
when it's done, reboot as instructed and unplug the usb so it boots to your new install
swipe up to open list of apps -> settings -> settings -> system -> about tablet and click 7 times on the build number at the bottom to enable developer settings. it will say "you are now a developer"
go back to settings and go to developer options, enable stay awake. if android goes to sleep it might not wake up on pc hardware
we will use qooapp to download the game without a japanese google account. qooapp for some reason thinks there's no internet unless you are connected through wifi, so I used a usb wifi dongle to connect to my wifi. if anyone knows some tool to trick android into thinking it's on wifi like on emulators, please link
swipe up to open list of apps -> settings -> android x86 options, enable native bridge. this is optional, it just lets you run apps that are only available for arm
swipe up to open list of apps -> terminal emulator
type
su
mv /system/bin/{su,bak}
mv /system/xbin/{su,bak}
to unroot, then press your power button and reboot
if you wish to re-root in the future, it should be possible to run the
renamed su with bak and rename it back to su but I haven't tested it
go here https://apps.qoo-app.com/en/app/6883 and click download with qooapp. it will start downloading a qooapp apk, install it then skip login if you wish and go to games and find love live all stars (it's at top atm)
start game, it should work fine. if it crashes on startup you likely didn't unroot properly or your android version is too old. I used android 8+