Drastic DS Emulator draining battery too much on Motorola Droid MAXX 2?

DaveB_55

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2009
9
0
18,510
I'm trying to run the Drastic DS Emulator, and while it runs fine even in power saver mode, I feel as though my phone is using to much battery power during play compared to others accounts of battery usage. When I play, usually with my phone at the lowest brightness settings it will use up 7-8% of battery life per hour.I have disabled alot of apps and bloatware and data sync and fetch services all with the intention of increasing battery life.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/1z31o2/drastic_emulator_users_does_it_drain_your_battery

In this thread showcasing the emulator, a person with LG Volt is able to sqeeze about 40 minutes of play out of his phone and only manages to use up 2 percent. Considering my phones Increased battery capacity it still tends to use around 8 percent an hour despite the countless tweaks to my phone. Am I missing something here in regards
to native phone battery usage or kernal settings? The Top 3 apps currently using my battery are My screen 29%, Drastic emulator25%, and cellphone standby at 22%. Is there anything I can do to tweak my phone to further increase battery life?
 
Solution
So you are running "Marshmallow" that could be part of your issue then. As the other devices are running older OSs. "Marshmallow" uses more resources, especially if you have made the SD card "Internal" (you didn't mention if you had or not). But I would hazard a guess that the OS is part of the problem too. But even so, you are getting a very good amount of time for running that on a phone.
Having gone and read the thread you linked, I find nothing there with the information you posted. They all show large drain on their different devices. The worst I saw being 1-2% per minute, and the best being just under 5% an hour.

However, most of them do seem to get much less play time than you are. Which would tell me that your device is handling it better.

The only suggestions I would make is....

1. Turn off or even disable any and all apps you don't need while playing. You can always restart them and restart the phone when you are done.

2. Try playing over WiFi instead of over the phones data directly. Data usage usually drains a battery faster than WiFi (if you have a good strong WiFi connection that is).

3. Be sure your device is fully updated and the emulator is fully updated. Any issues they have had, including drainage issues, would be looked into and updated. Make sure you check updates for it regularly.

4. Make sure your device is fully charged before you start.

5. You might also want to look into if there is a battery that has a higher capacity for your phone.
 

DaveB_55

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2009
9
0
18,510


I would like to apologize for the link that I gave you as it was the wrong one. I meant to give you this one. The very last post asks "how big is the battery drain for this emulator?" There is a reply from someone saying:

"Pretty low, as with most emulators.

I have a LG Volt, and play emulators for about an hour and a half daily on the bus.

My phone has been on battery now for just under 8 hours and is currently at 80%. Drastic accounts for 10% of battery usage today according to my battery stats, so we're talking playing on the bus for 40-45 minutes drained a whopping 2 or 3%. (EDIT - checked the actual time, it was 2% total battery use for ~36 minutes this morning. So basically 3-4% battery drain per hour, which has been on par with my experience. On my old tablet with a smaller battery life, it was about 7-8% per hour)

The Volt does have a 3000mAh battery, fairly good and long lasting. If you have a smaller battery (2200mAh tends to be common in lower end phones) YMMV."

As you can see, he states that he yields only 3-4% battery drain per hour on his 3000mAh battery, yet with the 3760mAh battery on my Droid MAXX 2 I use up about 7-8% battery per hour, and this is with disabling all of the possible bloatware, data sync and fetch services as well as using Battery Saver mode.
 
So you are running "Marshmallow" that could be part of your issue then. As the other devices are running older OSs. "Marshmallow" uses more resources, especially if you have made the SD card "Internal" (you didn't mention if you had or not). But I would hazard a guess that the OS is part of the problem too. But even so, you are getting a very good amount of time for running that on a phone.
 
Solution