Nintendo Switch emulator for PC

yuzu emulator is a free and open-source Nintendo Switch emulator developed by the same people who made the popular Nintendo 3DS emulator, Citra. This emulation software for the Switch has been in development since the start of 2018. It was developed using the C++ programming language and uses a network service called Boxcat to serve as a replacement for Nintendo’s BCAT dynamic content network. It already has hundreds of game titles included in its continually growing compatibility list.

What is yuzu?

yuzu initially started as an experimental utility software for test programs and homebrew applications. As mentioned earlier, it was made by the same developers that made Citra, another popular game emulator for the Nintendo 3DS. It eventually became so much more and was developed even further to become a full-fledge emulator of the Nintendo Switch Lite. It has a feature called resolution scaling that simulates docked and handheld instances, just like the actual console.

The program’s claim to fame was the fact that it was able to run Super Mario Odyssey at the full 30fps, the same that the Switch was capable of in its handheld mode, without any bugs and stability issues. It later implemented the Vulkan API in its code, paired with multi-core CPU emulation, for even better graphics performance. In fact, this gives it plenty of headroom for higher resolutions and framerates in future updates.

There are still plenty of issues to be addressed and stability improvements to be made, though. Its buffer cache needs further optimization to achieve consistent 30fps across the board. There is also the matter of its decoder, which needs more work to improve textures, as well as colors. Controller support is still quite limited, too. Thankfully, the program is very much in active development, thus it’s only a matter of time before these things get ironed out.

A step closer towards Switch gaming on PCs

As it is right now, yuzu emulator is already an impressive emulation software of the Nintendo Switch. Its development cycles are quite fast, constantly squashing bugs and introducing performance improvements with each new update. If you’ve been dreaming of playing Switch games on your PC, this emulator is the closest thing to achieving that and has the potential of being the best of the bunch.