OMSI for MOBILE is here: How to install openOMSI on Android!

openOMSI is now officially being built for Android as well. The mobile version runs on ARM64 devices running Android 8.0 or later and preferably requires a graphics unit with Vulkan 1.1 support. If Vulkan is unavailable, openOMSI alternatively tries to use OpenGL ES 3. The app itself is surprisingly small: The current Android APK is only in the low double-digit megabyte range. The actual storage requirement only arises afterward – through OMSI itself.

The decisive point is this: openOMSI contains no original OMSI 2 content. No map, no bus, no splines and no objects. For the Android version to start at all, it requires an original OMSI 2 installation with the regular base content such as Grundorf, Berlin-Spandau and the standard buses. That is precisely why it is currently not enough to simply put any one bus and one map on the phone and hope that everything works.

The official Android guide therefore actually calls for copying the entire OMSI 2 folder from the PC to the Android device. This refers to the folder containing, among other things, Omsi.exe, maps and Vehicles . openOMSI then searches for it, for example, in the folder openOMSI, in the Downloads directory or directly in internal storage. Alternatively, the storage location can be selected in the launcher itself.

And this is exactly where OMSI for mobile becomes a little less romantic.

Anyone who has been playing with the same OMSI installation for years should not simply copy their entire personal OMSI folder blindly. With additional maps, payware add-ons, community buses, repaints, sounds and object packages, such an installation can quickly become enormous. On a smartphone with 128 or 256 GB of storage, OMSI can therefore very quickly occupy an uncomfortably large portion of the available space.

It is therefore more sensible to use a clean, preferably lean OMSI 2 base installation as a starting point. It should contain the necessary original content, but not necessarily every map and bus accumulated over the past ten years. Additional mods can then be added selectively. openOMSI has its own mod section for this purpose, through which folders or ZIP files can be installed. This means the entire personal mod collection does not automatically have to be transferred to the phone.

However, it is important to note that anyone who starts deleting files indiscriminately from the base folder can quickly run into missing dependencies. OMSI maps often rely on objects, splines, vehicles and other content that is not obviously associated with them at first glance. For the first test, it is therefore better to use a clean, complete base installation plus a few carefully selected mods, rather than moving an old 50- or 100-GB installation completely onto the smartphone.

This is how the installation currently works

First, download the openOMSI Android APK. The app does not come from the Google Play Store, so Android must explicitly allow installation from this source. After starting, openOMSI also requests extensive access to the device's files. This is necessary because OMSI consists of a great many individual files and the engine must access this directory structure directly.

Download openOMSI for Android:

Releases · openOMSI-Project/openOMSI

OMSI 2 recreated from scratch in Rust, compatible with every map and mod (requires the original OMSI 2) - openOMSI-Project/openOMSI

github.com

You then copy your prepared OMSI 2 folder from the PC to the smartphone or tablet. USB is considerably better suited to this than some cloud upload, because even the base installation consists of a great many individual files. As soon as openOMSI has found the folder, the map, vehicle and service can be selected in the launcher.

Dedicated touch controls are already available. A virtual steering wheel is located on the left; alternatively, the smartphone can be controlled by tilting it. On the right are the accelerator and brake, along with buttons for the gearbox, doors, parking brake, indicators, lights and other vehicle functions. The cockpit itself also remains interactive: IBIS, the ticket machine, switches and rotary controls can be operated directly with a finger. Two fingers change the zoom, while swiping changes the viewing direction.

Anyone who is not fond of touch controls can connect a Bluetooth controller . This should be considerably more comfortable, especially on tablets, if you want to drive longer routes.

But does OMSI really run well on Android?

At present, expectations should still be lowered considerably here. openOMSI is still in an early stage of development. The Android version is real and playable, but it is not yet a finished commercial mobile port. New builds sometimes appear in very quick succession because bugs are continuously being fixed and features added.

The developers have now implemented more conservative graphics settings specifically for smartphones. On mobile graphics chips, for example, more demanding effects are reduced or disabled, smaller shadows are used and the internal render resolution is automatically lowered when performance is weak. In current builds, the image can, if necessary, be rendered significantly below the native screen resolution to keep the frame rate more stable.

This already makes it quite clear where the limits lie. A large OMSI map with extensive AI traffic, high-resolution textures and a complex scripted bus challenges even desktop PCs. A smartphone cannot automatically handle this load better simply because openOMSI uses a modern engine.

Caution is also advised regarding compatibility at present. The project's goal is to support existing OMSI content unchanged. In practice, however, errors continue to be reported. Textures may be missing or displayed incorrectly on individual buses, certain materials do not yet work correctly and some vehicles have functions that still cause problems. Missing models, incorrect textures or invisible collision surfaces have also already been reported on maps.

Mobile devices introduce additional potential problems. Users have already reported distorted displays or faulty layouts on certain smartphones. Other devices may become very slow or crash in more demanding scenes. That is precisely why openOMSI is now developing additional protective mechanisms for smartphones, such as reduced graphics details and an automatic switch to safer settings after a crash.

This does not mean that OMSI fundamentally does not work on Android. It really does work. At present, however, it should be regarded more as an experimental way to launch OMSI content on mobile devices than as a finished alternative to the PC version.

Smaller maps and simpler vehicles are likely to be considerably more suitable for a first test than a huge modern community map with several gigabytes of additional content. Anyone wanting to try openOMSI should therefore start small: Transfer the base installation, use a standard bus and first test Grundorf or another manageable map. If that runs stably, the installation can be expanded step by step.

Another practical point is storage space. The openOMSI app itself plays hardly any role here. What matters is the OMSI installation behind it. Anyone with a heavily modded PC version should definitely check how large the OMSI folder actually is before copying it. Especially on smartphones, this can quickly become the biggest drawback of the entire project.

Despite these limitations, the technical step is remarkable: OMSI content now genuinely runs natively on Android, including touch controls, bus scripts, maps and mod support. No one should expect, however, to simply copy their entire personal OMSI collection with hundreds of add-ons to the phone and have it immediately run there just like it does on a desktop.

Would you really use OMSI on a smartphone – and how large has your current OMSI installation actually become by now?