How to run Battlefield Vietnam on an Android tablet or phone

[Phal]

First things first, since you’ll be installing an APK from an external source, you need to allow your system to install sideloaded apps. For this, open Settings, then “Security and privacy” then “More security settings”, then “Install unknown apps”, there allow your file manager (in my case the default “My files”) to install unknown apps. Be sure to disable this again after finishing with the installation.

There are many more sophisticated and capable solutions out there, but Winlator provides an excellent plug-and-play experience and controls are easily configured.

Now, head over to Releases · brunodev85/winlator · GitHub to download Winlator

Once downloaded, start your file manager and run Winlator-9.0.apk and wait for the installation process to finish.

Now, go to your apps list/dashboard and check to see whether Winlator is installed.

Now open Winlator, in the upper right corner you will find a symbol resembling a +, tap it to create a new container.

Now, this is really extremely simple and it shouldn’t be too important which settings you’re using. But the settings depicted in the images are the ones I’ve had most success with, namely resolution 1920x1080, WineD3D as a DX Wrapper and GTX 1080 as a GPU. The rest I’ve left unchanged.

Now just hit the tick box and you’ll have finished creating your new container.

Now upon opening Winlator you should be presented with a new container in your listing (Container-1 by default) next open it by clicking the play-shaped icon.

This is your home screen, by default a file manager window will be opened upon starting up your container.

Head to your “D:” partition which lists your default Android/Samsung One UI “Download” directory. You should also download your game there (VKHD installer in my case)

Now, just install Battlefield Vietnam as you would on a regular Windows PC. Running the game also simply entails heading to your C: directory as would be the case on any Windows PC. Desktop shortcuts should work flawlessly, too.

I’ll write up some more instructions outlining how to set up the controls later. But this is all there is to the installation.

[Trident]

Thats good. We all know thats possible - modern tablets(even not so modern) have a hardware that allow you run this old game.
But some of us still wait a video from u how u play with us on a tablet

[Phal]

Well, I’ll be off travelling for a few weeks soon and chances are that I won’t be having Internet. Who knows, maybe I’ll be playing with a PC by the time I get back. But until then, I’d rather stick with a tablet than buy twice.

By the way, interestingly it’s not necessarily a given that even an old game will be running well on a modern phone. Running x86 applications on an ARM device in real-time slows things down considerably. Winlator in particular is known to not work too well with Mali GPUs (part of that renowned Exynos SoC Samsung likes to put in their European phones and even some mid-range tablets that get sold internationally). If I run BFV in FHD I only get about 30fps, and that’s on a high-end Snapdragon that was released not so long ago. I am playing on 1366×768 which provides a smooth experience for the most part.

Any mid-range, non-Mali phone or tablet from 3 years ago or newer shouldn’t be having any problems running BFV with 800x600 and an acceptable framerate, though.

[Phal]

First, head to your BFV directory and start bfvietnam.exe (or start the game by making use of the desktop shortcut)

This will, not too surprisingly, look like this.

Now comes the crucial part. Swipe up from the bottom and tap your back button which should now be appearing in the lower right corner.

Now a menu should appear, providing you with a variety of different settings and options. For now, just tap Keyboard.

This will bring up your regular on-screen keyboard, you can already do this earlier during the loading screen (if you’d like to skip the intros for instance)

To close the keyboard, just hit your back button again several times.

Now, repeat the same exercise and swipe from the bottom up again. This time rather than tapping Keyboard, go for Input controls instead.

Select RTS from the drop-down, now there are all kinds of fancy profiles or presets one can import or configure, but I found I am content with just using a ever so slightly edited preset.

This contains arrow keys, all the letters from A-Z in the upper right corner (in a sliding menu, tap and hold to move them sideways) as well as all numbers in a similarly designed menu. I find myself using these controls for all but chat messages, for which I’ll be pulling up the regular on-screen keyboard. I’ve made small addition in that I’ve added a “MLB” fire button because I found it to be rather annoying that clicking on any empty space would count as a left mouse click.

Now, if you want to edit your controls (and I suggest you do, at least as to remap the arrow keys to WASD, since I’ve made the mistake of remapping my game controls rather than my keys which took like forever)

Once again, swipe up and back arrow to get to the menu.

Now, go to input controls again, only this time tap the gear to get to the setttings page.

It should look like this.

Now select RTS, and hit Controls Editor.

To edit a key, just tap it once and it will be highlighted. Then tap the gear in the upper centre of the screen. This will allow you to edit the key, like this.

On the depicted image you’ll find a highlighted right arrow key, change its “Binding” to “Keyboard” and “D” and repeat the same exercise for the remaining arrow keys, replacing them with a WASD layout. You can also freely reposition them, I kept them in their original position as I want as much screen real estate at my disposal as is humanly possible. Also, the icon thing is pretty much self-explanatory.

You can also add new keys by hitting the + in the upper centre.

An example of adding a left mouse button. Reposition it by means of drag and drop.

To save settings, simply swipe from the bottom up again and hit the back button.

Additionally, hit the back icon in the upper left corner after getting back. All settings should be saved now.

I can’t provide much insight into matters concerning mouse or keyboard support, as I’ve only been using touchscreen myself. While playing competitively on infantry is a hopeless endeavour, I’ve found flying helicopters and even standing a chance against seasoned players to be relatively manageable even if it’s a far cry from what I’d been able to accomplish on a PC with mouse and keyboard, especially in terms of movement, evasive or otherwise. But only after increasing the mouse sensitivity considerably.

Below my sensitivity settings. And I guess that covers the most important areas of setting up rudimentary controls. You should now be able to enjoy a game.

[Magic]

I tried Winlator on my phone a few months ago, just to test it. It was crashing alot for me and other problems so I unistalled lol. Its a Galaxy S23 so it’s probably same as your tablet.

Just by looking at how good my dauther is playing games on her tablet I think it’s possible after some training and getting use to. But think I will stick to my PC

@Trident

But some of us still wait a video from u how u play with us on a tablet

I’d like to see that too

[Phal]

I’ve also always been amazed by the youngsters’ ability to play and control full-fledged games that go beyond the usual fare of your bog standard casual games to pass the time, never would I have pictured to one day play a real game on a tablet myself. You know I literally just randomly decided to appeal my ban on the Hello server after having nostalgia wash over me lol. At first, I wanted to wait until spring time to play again because then I’d be sure to be able to get a new PC, but alas I figured if there was a way to emulate x86 Windows stuff my tablet may just be good enough to handle the game, and the rest you know.

By the way, I’ve only very rarely had Winlator crash on me, if anything the game itself is what would crash at times, but we all know it does that on Windows, too haha. Winlator has been receiving quite a few recent updates and it’s running pretty well for me.