Yuzu is a free, open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, designed to allow users to run Nintendo switch games on a desktop. If you ever wanted to play a Nintendo switch game on a PC – now you can! The Yuzu switch emulator was developed in 2018 and written in C ++. There is a very particular story regarding Yuzu’s origin. One of the lead developers that brought Citra to life (Citra, by the way, is a Nintendo 3DS Emulator), decided to start a new project. The lead developer (known as bunnei) decided to develop a similar emulator, except this one would be designed to allow users to play Nintendo Switch games, instead.
Yuzu also can be considered as a fork of Citra, with very similar user interfaces. While there are potential legal concerns about using this kind of an emulator to play official Nintendo switch games, you can still download and use this emulator all the same! Without further ado, let’s dig in and see how the Yuzu emulator works and how easy it is to set it up on your PC today! Our website is not managed by the official developer. The content on this website should only be used for your general information and use and not by way of specific instruction or advice.
Software Name | Yuzu |
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Software Size | 84.4 MB (Windows Version) |
Developer | https:/yuzu-emu.org/ |
Requirement | Windows 7 or Later |
Download Link | https://yuzu.onl/ |
System Requirements Needed To Run The Yuzu Emulator
Before we can install the Yuzu emulator, it would be good to be aware of the system requirements. Keep in mind that the emulator is very experimental. While it has been designed with portability in mind, the system requirements are somewhat demanding. Let’s take a look at the things we will need to make sure the emulator will run smoothly:
Yuzu is supported on Windows and Linux, with stable builds released for each. Do keep in mind that, for Windows users, the emulator will be compatible with Windows 7, 8 and 10 (64-bit version). You are going to need at least 8 GB of RAM memory. An Intel Core i5 3470 processor with 3.2 GHz, or AMD equivalent. In terms of graphics, you will need at least the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 789 / Radeon R9 290. Those would need to have at least 3 or more GB of VRAM. When it comes to storage, you will need at least 21 GB of free space, to install the Yuzu emulator. As you can see, the specs are pretty demanding, so make sure to check those out and make sure you are running adequate equipment before proceeding.
Downloading Your Copy Of the Yuzu Emulator
Downloading the Yuzu emulator portable is pretty easy and straightforward. You can do this from the emulator’s main website. You are recommended to download the installer from there, because this is where you will see the most recent version available. If you decide to support the developers on Patreon, you will be able to download upcoming early access versions, which often contain new exciting features for you to play around with. The installer in itself is only 6 MB large, so it shouldn’t take you too long to work through that. There is a nifty little feature which allows the website to detect which operating system you’re running. Based on that, it will serve you up with the latest version to grab. If you don’t want the latest version, you can simply click on the ‘Manual Download’ button and choose one of the main line builds, or an earlier version from the archive. Once you complete the yuzu emulator download, it’s time to go through with the installation.
You can download the latest version of Yuzu here. Make sure that you download the correct version for your operating system. (You will also need to download and install the latest version of Microsoft Visual C++ in order to use yuzu. Please follow this link to access the download.)
Installing the Yuzu Emulator On Your PC
If you were to search, say, YouTube, to find a full guide helping you set up your copy of Yuzu emulator, you would find that a lot of the videos were actually taken off by Nintendo, on Copyright grounds. You’ll find that this is a recurring theme, as Nintendo wasn’t exactly pleased with the emulator’s development. Still, the emulator’s installation is pretty simple as long as you follow the installer. The complicated part comes after the installation. There is actually a very detailed guide on Yuzu’s website, so you are definitely supposed to go and check it out here. There’s a helpful video and text instructions to include absolutely all of the information you are going to need. While it was originally able to run only test programs or homebrew games, but as of December 2019 it was reported to run a handful of commercially available games. Keep in mind that these games run with a wild frame rate, so don’t expect the games to run perfectly through the emulator. It may take some time before the gameplay is actually decent and comparable to your experience with the Nintendo switch.
Using The Yuzu Emulator To Play Your First Nintendo Switch Game
Now, due to copyright issues, technically you would be required to already own a Nintendo Switch and your own copies of games, in order to emulate them on a PC. Whether or not this defeats the purpose of emulating something you already have is very debatable. If you have your own switch in your own Nintendo switch games, you can dump them into yuzu and play them from the emulator. If you happen to own a license for games, as long as it’s legal in your jurisdiction, you can also get your hands on the game’s image files. These are compressed image files, usually in the .xci or .nsp format, which could save you a lot of time when transferring to Yuzu. Once you have imported all of your games, you can launch the emulator. Click on the file menu, select ‘Load File’ and load the Switch game image you previously imported. The game will launch and you’re free to start playing. If you like to map out your control is differently, you can select the emulation option and configure your own controls according to your personal taste.
You’re going to find that Yuzu really struggles to emulate. You can try and offset this by enabling the Asynchronous GPU setting in your Graphics settings. That’s about the best you can do to try and get your game running more smoothly, but even then you can expect to see that your game won’t be able to maintain 30 FPS consistently. New shaders are constantly loaded as you play, which is going to cause a lot of hiccups and stutters. Overall, you’re going to experience a lot of frame rate drops throughout your play through and the image could get slightly blurry at times. While it’s not exactly the way you’d like to play these games, you still can.
Final Words
With that in mind, is Yuzu worth it right now? Well, yes and no. If you are running an extremely powerful set-up with an insanely overclocked processor – go for it! But, if you barely exceed the system requirements, you’re probably better off sitting back and waiting for a year of cumulative updates to roll on by before giving it a shot. The fact that Yuzu was able to even get to emulating eight-gen games within two years of development is commendable. It has the potential to become very powerful, given enough time, but it’s simply too early to be considered fully functional at the time.
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