Directx 9 | Exagear Patched

Technical Report: Implementation and Performance of DirectX 9 in ExaGear Emulators

Date: October 26, 2023 Subject: Analysis of Graphics Pipeline and DX9 Compatibility in ExaGear Windows Emulator

1. Choose the Right Fork

Do not use the original 2017 ExaGear APK. Use ExaGear Wine 5.1 or Winlator. directx 9 exagear

• Winlator uses Box86/Box64 + Wine 7.1-9.x and supports DXVK (DirectX to Vulkan), which is far faster than WineD3D (DirectX to OpenGL).

Key limitation:

• ExaGear translates x86 CPU instructions to ARM, but GPU calls go through WineD3D, which converts D3D9 to OpenGL (desktop) → then to OpenGL ES via angle/translator → causing massive overhead.

3. Performance Analysis

7. Recommendations

6. Comparison to Other Solutions

| Solution | DX9 support | Performance on ARM | Ease of use | |----------|-------------|--------------------|--------------| | ExaGear | Poor to moderate | Low | Medium (pre-built) | | Winlator (Mesa Turnip + Box86/64) | Good (for Snapdragon) | Medium-high | Low (manual setup) | | Mobox (Termux + Box64 + Wine) | Good | Medium | Very low | | VMOS + Windows ARM | None (x86 only) | N/A | N/A | Winlator uses Box86/Box64 + Wine 7

Conclusion: ExaGear is now obsolete for DX9. Newer solutions (Winlator, Mobox) using native DXVK-ARM + Turnip drivers vastly outperform it. Key limitation:

The Red Zone (Does not work)

• BioShock (Requires DX9c Pixel Shader 3.0 advanced branching): Black textures only.
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Shader-heavy): Infinite loading screen.
• World of Warcraft (Retail): The launcher works, but the game engine disconnects due to packet timing errors.