# Debloating Nox

Nox, despite being the most feature-filled Android emulator, has a lot of negativity surrounding it due to their antics when it comes to making income off of their program. It is known for running repeated advertisments in the background, calling home and passing along system information (outside of your Android instance) as well as a vast amount of potentially sensitive data in an encrypted payload back to their multitude of servers. With the following preventitive measures, we can stop a majority of this happening as well as greatly improve the overall performance.


1. [Download and Install](https://www.bignox.com/en/download/fullPackage) a fresh copy of Nox. The latest version is fine (for now). If you already have it installed, that is fine too. No need to reinstall.

2. Enable Root Mode on Nox by clicking the gear icon and then checking the `Root Startup` box.

3. Install a new Launcher from the Play Store. ANYTHING but Nox's default. I suggest [Nova Launcher](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher&hl=en_US).

4. Once your launcher of choice is installed, click the Home icon and choose Nova Launcher and to Always Use This Launcher.

5. Go to your App Drawer and open File Manager and navigate to `system` -> `app`. In this folder, find `Launcher_X.X.X_*.apk` and `com.facebook.lite.apk` – delete them. If it says they are not found after tapping delete, just tap delete again.

6. Close Nox and navigate to `C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc` and right click the `hosts` file and open it in Notepad (Run as Administrator if needed) or a plain text editor of your choice (e.g. [Notepad++](https://notepad-plus-plus.org/), [VS Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/), etc.) – once open, append the following list to the bottom of the file:

```json
127.0.0.1 api.bignox.com
127.0.0.1 tracking.trnox.com
127.0.0.1 bi.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 launcher.us.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 pubstatus.sinaapp.com
127.0.0.1 noxagile.duapp.com
127.0.0.1 common.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 pasta.esfile.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 api.mobula.sdk.duapps.com
127.0.0.1 hmma.baidu.com
127.0.0.1 nrc.tapas.net
127.0.0.1 au.umeng.com
127.0.0.1 www.yeshen.com
127.0.0.1 www.yeshen.com.w.kunlungr.com
127.0.0.1 hm.e.shifen.com
127.0.0.1 tdcv3.talkingdata.net
127.0.0.1 alog.umeng.com
127.0.0.1 sdk.open.inc2.igexin.com
127.0.0.1 androiden.duapp.com
```

Once appended, save and close Notepad.

7. Navigate to `C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Nox` and open `Conf.ini` in the same editor used for `hosts` above. Once open, change the following options to the values defined below:

```ini
pop_ads_refresh_time=9223372036854775807
service_qq=0
service_qq_link=<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"#\" style=\"display: none;\"></a>
collect_behavior_enable=false
collect_behavior_interveral=9223372036854775807
root=false
```

Afterwards, save and close the file. Right Click it, go to Properties, and check `Read Only` so Nox will not revert these changes.

Once this is all done, you are free to re-open Nox and continue playing as usual.

# Optimization

Ragnarok Mobile as well as a select few of other games have an in-game 2K resolution mode achievable by the iPad Pro and high-end 4K Android tablets. It can be enabled while using Nox by setting a proper resolution and DPI.

If you have already performed the steps above, you will need close Nox and temporarily uncheck `Read Only` on your `conf.ini`. Afterwards, open Nox and click the Cog on the top right and go to Advanced settings.

**Performance Settings**  
These are computer-specific, so go to Start Menu -> Right Click My PC -> Properties and see how many cores your CPU has and how much memory you have.

**Cores**  
Same amount as your processor has (e.g. i7-8700k has `6`)

**Memory**  
If your system has `16GB` or more of memory, `8096MB` is more than sufficient.  
If your system has `8GB` of memory, `4096MB` is sufficient.  
If your system has `4GB` or less of memory, I'm sorry– but you shouldn't attempt 2K.  

**Startup settings**  
Width: `2560`  
Height: `1440`  
DPI: `320`  

**Miscellaneous**  
Graphics rendering mode: `Speed (DirectX)`  
Frame settings: `60`  
Mouse acceleration: `Checked (Turn off mouse acceleration in Windows)`