The Nintendo Switch is the latest portable (and desktop) console released by Nintendo. This console saw the light of day in March 2017 and, to this day, it is one of the company’s most successful consoles. Due to a series of security breaches, the Nintendo console released the company’s best-kept secrets, which, in addition to prompting the creation of Custom Firmware , also opened the door for Switch emulators. And, in addition, with a very good performance despite being relatively recent projects.
Requirements to be able to emulate the Switch
Emulating a new generation console is not as simple as emulating, for example, a NES or a Play Station 1. For this, in addition to a good emulator, we will need to have a more or less powerful computer that is capable of emulating hardware and Console BIOS to be able to process the game at an acceptable FPS level.
To play more or less well it is recommended to have a 6th generation Intel Core i3 processor, or more modern (or its equivalent Ryzen 3 from AMD) along with 8 GB of RAM to be able to load the game without problems. In addition, it is also recommended to have an NVIDIA GTX 1060 graphics card, or a Radeon RX 470, in addition to 16 GB of RAM, for a better experience.
Of course, although we are going to run the games in digital format, it is necessary to have previously purchased the game in physical form to avoid incurring a pir-acy issue.
Yuzu, the most advanced Switch emulator
Yuzu is one of the first Switch emulators to see the light of day. This completely free and open source emulator comes from the creators of Citra, one of the most popular 3DS emulators. This emulator is written in C ++ and emulates the essential hardware components of the Nintendo Switch in order to function. This is one of the reasons why some games don’t work and the performance may leave a bit to be desired in certain titles.
We can check the compatibility list of this emulator at the following link . As we see, its developers have worked especially to optimize the emulator to play the most popular games. Breath of the Wild and Link’s Awakening, for example, are games that can be played acceptably with this emulator. The entire Pokemon series also offers a good performance, as well as Mario Maker 2 and Odyssey. Unfortunately, there are still many games that do not finish working properly.
We can download the latest build of this emulator completely free of charge from the following link . We can use this emulator without problems, and with the same compatibility, both in Windows and Linux. To be able to use this emulator we need, on the one hand, a dump of the console NAND (since this emulator will load the complete system of the Switch) and on the other the Keys. If we have a vulnerable Switch it will be easy to achieve this. However, if we do not have it, we will have to search the Internet well to find it.
Ryujinx, a simpler but functional alternative
Another similar project that seeks to bring the Switch to Windows 10 users is Ryujinx. This Nintendo Switch emulator is also completely free and open source, and it is written in C #. Its development is based on offering the best possible game performance, precise emulation and, in addition, being simple to use.
The compatibility list can be consulted at the following link . Compatibility with commercial games is much lower than what we can find in Yuzu. However, it is true that this emulator allows you to emulate homebrew in a much more precise way, in addition to operating games that its alternative does not emulate correctly, such as Animal Crossing New Horizons or Mario Kart.
We can download the latest build of this Nintendo Switch emulator from the following link . While Yuzu could be used on Windows and Linux, Ryujinx is also compiled for macOS.
This emulator is simpler since it only requires using the KEYS of an original console (they could be easily found on the Internet) and it does not require a complete dump of the NAND like Yuzu. Instead, this ease translates into a loss of functions and worse compatibility.
Cemu, the emulator of WiiU par excellence
Cemu is not exactly a Nintendo Switch emulator, but it is one of the best emulators of WiiU, its predecessor. However, since Nintendo published many games for Switch and WiiU, especially in the first months of the life of its new console (such as the Zelda BotW or Mario Kart 8), Cemu became one of the best alternatives to play to some Switch games (obviously published for WiiU) on the computer.
Although it can be complicated to configure, and consumes a large amount of resources, Cemu allows us to play practically any WiiU game on the computer with excellent performance. But, we repeat, it does not support exclusive Switch games, instead it allows you to emulate their versions ported to WiiU.
We can download Cemu from the following link .