Where to download cache for Android games. Where to install game cache on Android? Preparation and installation

In this instruction we will tell you how to install games with cache on your Android device!

What is cache

The cache is all additional game files with a large volume, these include: videos, location textures, music files, images, character dialogues and much more. Modern games on Android can take up to 2GB of device memory, so that’s why the developers came up with the idea of ​​“placing” additional files in the cache.
If you download games from Google Play, then you will not notice any difference during installation between a regular game and an application that takes up about 1 GB (only in time). In this case, all the necessary files are unpacked independently and placed in the required folders. But what about games that are downloaded from our website, where you need to download both an apk and an archive with a cache?! Today we will look at several fairly simple methods in which we will tell you how to unpack the cache and install a game with a cache on Android.

Method one: using your phone and an installed file manager

Method two: using a computer to which the device is connected via a USB cable

For clarity, we attach a video that shows and explains how very easy it is to install the game on Android with a cache.

Perhaps, few people now remember the time when mobile phones could hardly reproduce polyphonic MIDI melodies, and their displays could boast only 65 thousand color gradations. Modern smartphones are, in fact, portable microcomputers with a powerful central processor, internal RAM cells, etc. It is not surprising that owners of such systems often have a desire to play real computer games. And one of the difficulties that you have to face is how to unpack the cache.

Features of applications on Android

Nowadays, no one will be surprised by the impressive volumes of computer game distributions, but in the world of programs for smartphones, several tens of megabytes are considered the norm. Or even less than that. In fact, this is only partly true. A user, for example, downloading a 5 MB game may not suspect that after launching it, the main application data is downloaded in the background. This set of files is essentially a game. It is called "cache". Although, theoretically, APK files of several gigabytes are possible, and there may be problems installing them. For purposes and greater convenience, the entire mentioned set can be pre-downloaded from any other source and transferred to your gadget. The main thing in this case is to understand how to unpack the cache on Android, or, in other words, how to install the application correctly.

Preparation

You need to select a cache specifically for your gadget. What is important here is the type of video accelerator (Mali, PowerVR, Adreno), the amount of available memory, the processor and, above all, the screen resolution. Most often, the cache is offered for download in the form of one archive file, which is more rational than many small ones. Thus, the first thing you need to pay attention to is how to unpack the cache located in the archive. The most popular formats are zip and rar. Initially, it is recommended to download the archive to a personal computer, unpack it there, and then transfer it to the gadget. To work with archived data, you must install WinZip and/or WinRAR. As an example, let's look at how to unpack the cache on a computer. First of all, you need to launch WinRAR; then use the analogue of the standard explorer to select the downloaded archive; point to the “Extract” icon in the program header and confirm the proposed path. It's that simple. All that remains is to transfer the unpacked files to the memory card of your mobile device, using either a regular USB cable from the “charging” device.

The right way

One of the questions that arises and requires clarification is how to unpack the cache on Android via a computer. Indeed, it is not enough to simply rewrite the unpacked data to an arbitrary location on the SD drive. It all depends on the game developer. So, in most cases, you need to transfer the cache along the path: Android/Data/(name of the game program) or, what is most common, to Android/obb/(name). All this, as a rule, is indicated on the pages of the resource from where the cache is downloaded.

Some devices can use internal storage capacity. Note that there are many ways to transfer data from SD0 (built-in memory card) to SD1 (external). In particular, Obb-on-SD, FolderMount, and a drive replacement script cope with this. However, most owners of mid-priced mobile gadgets will not encounter such problems.

Basic method

Let's look at how to unpack the cache for a game on Android using the solutions provided by the developers. First of all, you need to download the APK file of the desired gaming application to your gadget from the Google store or third-party resources. Install it and run it. After this, the user will be informed that the program will download the data it needs from the Internet. Sometimes a confirmation dialog box appears. This method is one of the most convenient, since the characteristics of the gadget are automatically determined and the current cache is downloaded. The only thing worth paying attention to is the fact that download volumes of hundreds of megabytes require high-speed Wi-Fi, not 3G and, which is very slow, outdated GPRS.

If the game directory is not exactly known

We mentioned earlier that files should be placed in a specific folder. However, how to properly unpack a cache if its name is not known exactly? In this case, you can do the following:

1. Install the game client (the same APK file).
2. Launch it and interrupt the cache download after a few seconds.
3. The program itself will create a folder with the desired name in Android/data or obb. All that remains is to carefully look through the directories to determine where to place the cache files.

Perhaps this is one of the most accurate methods. Of course, you will have to “sacrifice” several megabytes of traffic needed for the first files.

How to unpack the cache for a game from Gameloft

This game application developer is known to many. At least for Asphalt 8. One of the alternative ways to unpack the cache on Android, in the case of a game from Gameloft, is done like this:

1. Download the APK installation file to your smartphone (tablet). Refrain from installation for now.
2. Download the GLZip (executable) application and run it.
3. In the window you need to select the “View Links in APK” command and specify the game file. The result will be the output of links for downloading and unpacking a particular cache, depending on the hardware configuration of the gadget.
4. Select the one you need (very easy). The common video accelerator Mali is designated here as ETC, Adreno as ATC, PVRT, as you might guess from the abbreviation, PowerVR and, finally, DXT is needed for gadgets with Tegra.
5. After downloading the selected cache, it must be extracted from the archive. The Unpack team will help solve this problem. Unpacking is carried out in the same directory where the packed file is located. Note that all data will be placed in the Sdfiles folder.
6. At the last stage, this directory is renamed to the desired name (discussed earlier) and transferred to Gameloft/Games.

The advantage of this solution is the guarantee of the absence of viruses in the cache, which is explained by the fact that the data is downloaded from the official GameLoft servers. In addition, the download speed in this case is quite decent. Sometimes game connoisseurs ask the question “How to unpack the cache?”, although, as it may seem, everything is quite simple. The fact is that Rar and Zip archivers do not work with jar files, which sometimes contain data for applications. GLZip does this job very well.

Summing up

As you can see, there is nothing complicated about how to unpack the cache. The process is no more difficult than replacing files in a regular computer game. Let us recall the algorithm: downloading and installing an APK file - selecting the required set in the provided archives - unpacking it and placing it in the required directory. That's all, actually.

Installing gaming applications on devices with the Android operating system is not difficult - go to the Play Market, find the game you want, click on the install button and wait for the installation to complete. If you need to install a clearly “pirated” toy (read: hacked) with powerful graphics, then the installation process will be different. How to install a game with a cache on Android and what is a cache?

What is cache

All Android applications are supplied as files with the *.apk extension. There are no exceptions to this rule, so you shouldn’t look for applications in other formats - you won’t find them. Installing a program from the Play Market involves downloading and then installing an APK file. Once the installation is complete, you can start launching the application.

The same applies to games for Android - these are standard APK files downloaded from the Play Market or obtained from other sources. The simplest gaming applications are packaged into a single file and posted on various resources. The graphics here are most often two-dimensional, so the volume of installation files is small.

But when we want to run an application with 3D graphics, we may encounter a large amount of it - in some cases it reaches several hundred megabytes. In order to optimize the installation process of gaming applications, developers release small launch APK files and caches that are downloaded by the main application. What does this give?

• Reducing the load on the Play Market;
• Easier and faster application updates;
• Quick introduction of changes to games (this is a plus for developers).

The cache most often contains additional graphics for the game - these are objects, people, cars, routes, maps, buildings, landscape elements of the game world, and much more. Thus, large gaming applications with cool graphics consist of two parts - APK files and cache. First we download and install the APK file, launch the application and wait for the cache to download– after that everything is ready for the full launch of the game. If the developer releases an update, it will only affect the APK or a small part of the cache, which will save user traffic.

How to install games with cache on Android and why is it even needed? If we install games from the Play Market, then we don’t need to worry about anything - after launch, the game will download what it needs on its own. Need to install a pirated, hacked or upgraded toy? Then you need to download the APK file from a third-party source and drain the cache from there. After that, unpack the cache and upload it to the desired folder.

Pirated games do not load cache from official servers or cannot start with the official cache. Therefore, fans of hacked toys install third-party APKs, and then download archives with caches and install them on the system.

How to install games on Android with cache

Now we will look at the practical part of installing games with cache, since we have already dealt with the theory. Let's assume that we have already found a suitable game and want to install it on a smartphone or tablet. At the first stage, you need to download two files:

• The APK file is the launch file for the game application;
• A cache file is an archive with files necessary to run the game.

In order to install the APK file of the gaming application, you need to go to “Settings - Security” and check the box next to “Unknown sources”. By doing so, we allow the installation of third-party APK files (this is how pirated and modified games are distributed).

At the next stage, we download the cache file, which we will need to upload to the memory of the smartphone or tablet. Cache size can vary widely. For example, for some toys with sophisticated graphics, its volume is up to 1 GB. Once all the files are ready, we begin the installation. First, launch the installation of the APK file and wait for the procedure to complete.

• Download the cache directly to your Android device via Wi-Fi or mobile Internet;
• We fill the cache using a data cable;
• We copy the cache from the memory card installed in the device.

How to install cache for a game on Android? The most important thing here is to copy the cache to the correct folder. You can find out its name from the instructions for the downloaded application. If there are no instructions, try looking for a suitable folder in the system partition, focusing on the name of the developer in the folder name. Once the copying is complete, you can start launching the gaming application.

What happens if the cache is copied to a clearly inappropriate folder? The game simply won't start because its launch file won't be able to find the cache files. All you have to do is find the correct destination folder and write the files necessary for the game into it.

Emerging problems and their solutions

We already know where to install the game cache on Android - in the folder of the corresponding application. But what if for some reason this folder does not exist? This problem can be solved in the following way - launch the game, allow it to download the cache from the Internet. After half a minute, we interrupt the download, go into the file system and see whether the desired folder appears or not. That is, some games create folders for the cache only when downloading it - feel free to upload the previously downloaded cache here and try to launch the game.

Another problem may be the fact that some games store cache in folders that are not visible to regular users. This is done to protect against the distribution of pirated copies of games. To solve this problem, you need to obtain root rights using the instructions from our website. After this, you will be able to find the desired folder and upload the game cache to it.

When navigating the file system with root rights, be careful and do not accidentally delete any files and folders - this can lead to the loss of functionality of the Android operating system.

Most games for Android, if they are not simple arcade games, “weigh” more than 100 MB, so when they are downloaded, a cache file is also included. What is cache and how to install it? Our universal instructions will tell you how to install games with a cache on Android, and it will also tell you how to do this operation in situations where the cache is not in the folder, or when you downloaded the file on your computer.

The cache for applications and games on Android is a special file with resources, which was created so that when updating, users do not need to download the entire volume of the game again - only the executable files in the APK.

To manually install the cache on an Android device, you need to perform simple steps. To do this, you need a file manager with a built-in archiver that works with ZIP files. We recommend using the popular one.

Instructions for installing the cache:

Note: The cache for games from some developers needs to be placed in non-standard folders, for example:

• Games from Gameloft - sdcard/gameloft/games/[cache folder]. The game downloaded from Google Play will be located in a different path - sdcard/Android/data/[cache folder].
• Games from Electronic Arts (EA) - sdcard/Android/data/[cache folder].
• Games from Glu - sdcard/glu/[cache folder].

How to install a cache if it is not in an archive or in a folder

Often the cache is downloaded not in packed form, but simply as an OBB file. In this case, the installation becomes slightly more complicated:

How to install cache from computer

All these steps to install the cache can be performed directly from your computer if you connect your device in external storage mode. Simply unpack the archive with the cache and transfer the folder with the OBB file to the familiar /Android/obb directory on the microSD card or in the internal memory.

For more information about installing a cache on Android, see our video instructions:

Many users know what a cache is for games for devices based on the Android operating system. For those who are not in the know, let us remind you that this is, one might say, an archive that contains game levels, its textures, various videos and other files. In other words, this is the data without which the game will not launch.

As a rule, when downloading a large game from the Google Play Market, only the installation file is downloaded, which is necessary to initially launch the application. As soon as the application is launched, in order to launch the game later, you need to download the cache - the system downloads it automatically using Wi-Fi or mobile Internet. It looks something like this:

This only applies to cases where the user downloads the game from an online store. If the game is downloaded from a third-party resource, then the application itself may consist of two files: an APK file (the application itself) and an archive with a cache. We talked about it in detail, so we won’t repeat it. The main question among users is the question of installing the cache, since it must be installed strictly in a specific directory for the game to start. If you move the cache to another location, the game will not launch or will launch, but may produce “artifacts”.

As for the directory for the cache, you can find information about it directly on the site from which you downloaded the cache itself. For example, the information might look like this:

Then transfer the unzipped cache folder to the desired directory.

Please note that some developers' games will have their own cache path, for example:

• Games from Gameloft: sdcard/gameloft/games/Game name

• Games from Electronic Arts (EA): sdcard/Android/data/Game name

• Games from Glu: sdcard/glu/Game name

• Games from most other developers: sdcard/Android/data/Game Name, sdcard/Android/obb/Game Name or sdcard/Game Name