Device Simulator is a toolbar in Roblox Studio that previews how your experience looks and behaves on a device you don't have in front of you. It simulates a device's screen dimensions, pixel density, on-screen keyboard, and platform. The controls sit in a toolbar above the 3D viewport rather than in a separate panel, so you can reach them while you're playtesting.
Device Simulator is in beta, and its functionality might change. To enable it, open File and select Beta Features, then enable New Device Simulator and restart Studio.
Open Device Simulator
The toolbar appears above the 3D viewport whenever a place is open. It stays available in both edit and play modes, so you can change the simulated device in the middle of a playtest without stopping, switching, and restarting.
Simulate a device
The left side of the toolbar holds one button per device category, followed by a chip naming the active device.
| Category | What it simulates |
|---|---|
| Phone | Phones and tablets, including touch input and the on-screen keyboard. |
| Desktop | Desktop and laptop resolutions. |
| Console | Console output resolutions and gamepad-first input. |
| Headset | VR headsets. |
Clicking a category switches to that category's default device. A category is disabled when no device in it is available to simulate. Clicking the device chip opens the device menu, where devices are grouped to make the trade-off you're testing explicit:
- Phone: Flagship, Mid-range, and Entry level, so you can walk a layout down the performance ladder.
- Desktop, Console, and Headset: one group of built-in devices per category.
- Custom: devices you created yourself, in every category.
- Current device: no simulation. Your own monitor and input, listed under Desktop.
The last row of the menu, Manage devices, opens the Device Manager.
Device controls
The right side of the toolbar holds actions that apply to the simulated device. Which ones appear depends on what you're simulating.
| Control | Available for | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rotate | Phones and tablets | Rotates the simulated device to the next orientation. |
| Mock Android back button | Android devices | Sends a back button press. Enabled while the client view is active. |
| Touch controls | Phones and tablets | Lists the keyboard and mouse shortcuts that stand in for multi-touch gestures while playtesting. |
| Virtual controller | All devices | Toggles Controller Emulator, which emulates gamepads, VR controllers, and TV remotes. |
| Display scaling | While simulating a device | Chooses how the simulated screen is mapped onto your monitor. |
Simulate touch input
A mouse has one contact point, so gestures that need two are mapped onto modifier keys. Open Touch controls to see the shortcuts for your platform:
- Pinch + rotate: Alt + drag
- Two-finger pan: Alt + Shift + drag
Display scaling
A simulated 1080-pixel-tall phone screen and your 1080-pixel-tall monitor have the same pixel count but very different physical sizes, so a UI element that's comfortable on one can be unreadable on the other. The Display scaling menu chooses which of those properties the viewport preserves:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Physical size | Matches the simulated screen's real-world size, so on-screen elements are as large as they would be in a player's hand. |
| Actual resolution | Maps one simulated pixel to one of your monitor's pixels. |
| Fit to window | Scales the simulated screen to fill the available viewport. |
Physical size only holds if Studio knows how large your own monitor is, which it can't read directly. Two menu items supply that number:
- Auto-detect scaling matches the pixel density and scaling factor your operating system reports for your display. Turning it off falls back to your saved manual calibration. This item only appears in Physical size mode, because it has no effect in the other two.
- Calibrate physical scaling measures your display by hand. Drag the slider until the image on screen matches the width of a student ID or library card. Calibrating turns auto-detect off and switches to Physical size.
Both values persist across sessions, so calibrating once is enough.
Manage devices
Manage devices in the device menu opens the Device Manager, with one tab per category: Mobile, Desktop, Console, and Headset. It opens on the tab matching the device you're simulating.
Show and hide standard devices
The Standard list holds Roblox's built-in devices. Use Add devices to choose which of them appear in the toolbar's device menu, and hide the rest to keep the menu down to the devices you actually test against. Hiding a device doesn't delete it, so you can re-add it at any time. Custom devices always stay visible, as does the device you're currently simulating.
Create custom devices
Add a custom device to model hardware Roblox doesn't ship a profile for, or to isolate a single property, such as the same phone with half the memory. Duplicate copies a standard device as a starting point.
| Field | Description | Accepted values |
|---|---|---|
| Name | The name shown in the device menu. | Required, unique, 200 characters or fewer. |
| Platform | The platform the experience reports at runtime. | Platform of the simulated device. |
| Dimensions | Screen width and height in pixels. | Width 1 to 7680, height 1 to 4320. |
| Pixel density | Pixels per inch, which drives physical-size scaling. | 72 to 10,000. |
| Keyboard height | How much of the screen the on-screen keyboard covers, per orientation. | Portrait and landscape, 0 to 4320. |
Simulate controller input
Simulating a device tells you how your experience looks on that hardware. It doesn't put a matching controller in your hands. Controller Emulator pairs with Device Simulator to emulate the gamepads, VR controllers, handhelds, and TV remotes that hardware ships with, so you can test input without owning any of it. Selecting a console, headset, handheld, or Android TV device here switches Controller Emulator to that device's matching controller automatically.
Simulate network conditions
Simulating a device tells you how your experience looks on that hardware. It doesn't tell you how it feels on that hardware's connection. Network Simulator is in the same toolbar and shapes traffic during a playtest, so you can test against high latency, jitter, and packet loss without a second device or a throttled router.
Example workflows
- Check a layout across form factors. Click phone, then tablet, then console, and watch the viewport rescale to each. Safe area, overflow, and anchoring problems surface immediately.
- Test the bottom of the performance range. Simulate an Entry level phone rather than a Flagship, and confirm your UI still reads at that pixel density and your experience still fits in that memory budget.
- Validate touch UX. Simulate a touch device and use the touch shortcuts to confirm your inputs land where you expect.
- Check the on-screen keyboard. Simulate a phone, focus a text field, and confirm the keyboard doesn't cover the controls the player needs while typing.
- Verify physical sizing. Calibrate physical scaling once, then compare a phone against a tablet in Physical size mode to see whether your tap targets and text are large enough on the smaller screen.