Choose the right Mesa GPU driver for your Android hardware to get the best performance in Windows games and applications.
Winlator routes graphics through a layered stack: your Android GPU is exposed to Wine via a Mesa driver, which translates OpenGL or Vulkan calls from Windows applications into commands your hardware can execute.
Turnip is the open-source Vulkan driver for Qualcomm Adreno GPUs, developed as part of Mesa. It runs natively on the GPU, bypassing Android’s proprietary graphics stack entirely, and delivers the highest performance of the three options.Best for: Snapdragon devices (Adreno 6xx and later)
Turnip only works on Qualcomm Adreno GPUs. Attempting to use it on Mali, Immortalis, or other GPU families will cause the environment to fail to start.
Winlator automatically detects Adreno 6xx hardware using the GPUInformation.isAdreno6xx() method and defaults to Turnip for those devices. On unrecognised hardware, fall back to VirGL.Key characteristics:
Native Vulkan 1.3 support
Lowest driver overhead
Required for DXVK and VKD3D at full performance
Installable versions: turnip-24.1.0, turnip-25.0.0 (available via the in-app component manager)
Useful environment variables for Turnip:
Variable
Default
Effect
TU_DEBUG
noconform
Disables conformance tests, improves performance
MESA_VK_WSI_PRESENT_MODE
mailbox
Sets the Vulkan swap chain present mode
MESA_SHADER_CACHE_DISABLE
false
Enables the Mesa shader cache
MESA_SHADER_CACHE_MAX_SIZE
512MB
Maximum size of the shader disk cache
VirGL (Virtio GPU Renderer) is a virtual GPU driver. Wine renders into a virtual Virtio GPU, and the VirGLRendererComponent translates those commands into OpenGL calls on the host Android OpenGL ES context. It works with a broad range of GPU hardware because it only requires OpenGL ES 3.x support from the Android driver.Best for: Non-Adreno GPUs (Mali, Immortalis, PowerVR, etc.) or when Turnip is unavailableKey characteristics:
Works on any GPU with OpenGL ES 3.x support
Lower performance than Turnip due to the virtualisation overhead
Implemented via the native virglrenderer library (System.loadLibrary("virglrenderer"))
Communicates over a Unix socket managed by VirGLRendererComponent
Uses a shared EGL context between the renderer and the Wine guest
Useful environment variables for VirGL:
Variable
Default
Effect
MESA_SHADER_CACHE_DISABLE
false
Enables the Mesa shader cache
mesa_glthread
true
Offloads GL calls to a worker thread
Zink is a Mesa driver that implements OpenGL on top of Vulkan. It acts as a bridge: Wine makes OpenGL calls, Zink translates them to Vulkan, and the Vulkan calls are handled by the device’s Vulkan driver.Best for: Vulkan-capable non-Adreno GPUs where VirGL performance is insufficientKey characteristics:
Requires Vulkan support from the Android GPU driver
You can edit these in the container’s Environment variables field. Variables that do not apply to the selected driver are silently ignored by Mesa.
If a game was made before 2004, add MESA_EXTENSION_MAX_YEAR=2003 to the container’s environment variables. This prevents Mesa from advertising extensions that did not exist when the game was written, which can resolve compatibility issues with older OpenGL-based games.
Enable the Show FPS toggle in the container settings to display a real-time frames-per-second overlay while a Windows application is running. This uses the showFPS field on the container object.
Long-press the container on the main screen and select Edit.
2
Select the Graphics driver
Tap the Graphics driver field and choose Turnip, VirGL, or Zink.
3
Adjust environment variables
Review the Environment variables field. Remove driver-specific variables that no longer apply (for example, remove TU_DEBUG when switching away from Turnip).
4
Save and restart
Save the container and relaunch your application. Shader caches may need to be rebuilt, so expect slower first-launch performance after switching drivers.
