Summary
- Nintendo Switch emulators allow gamers to play exclusive games at higher resolutions and frame rates than on a powerful PC, with support for mods.
- Yuzu and Ryujinx were top emulators but are no longer available owing to legal tussles with Nintendo.
- Many third-party forks have appeared to take their place, which means it’s still possible to emulate Switch games.
The Nintendo Switch is home to many amazing exclusive games, but people are always looking for ways to emulate these exclusives on other hardware, like their PCs. While Nintendo has been shutting down major emulators, a few still remain active.
Reasons to Use a Nintendo Switch Emulator
The Nintendo Switch is by far one of the best consoles ever made. Despite being relatively old compared to Sony and Microsoft’s current-generation offerings, it still competes in terms of popularity and sales. However, the Nintendo Switch is also reaching a point where it can’t keep up with modern consoles due to aging hardware.
Many games are limited to a resolution of 720p at 30 FPS, or worse. Fortunately, Nintendo Switch emulators exist and make it possible to run games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom in 4K at 60 FPS. However, you will need a powerful gaming PC to emulate these Nintendo Switch games, so make sure to look at the recommended PC specs given below to check if your computer can emulate Nintendo Switch games properly.
Emulators also allow you to download mods to completely change the way you play a game. These mods can be downloaded through third-party websites and may require some tinkering to set up properly.
We highly recommend using a proper controller when emulating Nintendo Switch games. This will get you as close to the native, intended experience as possible (and emulating analog sticks with a keyboard is mediocre at best and frustrating at worst).
The Current State of Nintendo Switch Emulators
In recent years, Nintendo has sued or threatened legal action against several Nintendo console emulators, with the most high-profile case involving Yuzu. While emulators are legal, Nintendo argued in its lawsuit against Tropic Haze LLC (the developers behind Yuzu) that the emulator facilitates large-scale piracy.
Ryujinx was also discontinued after reaching a private agreement with Nintendo. When other emulator developers saw what happened, they realized that they couldn’t afford a legal battle against Nintendo and willingly shut down their projects.
We used to recommend Yuzu and Ryujinx as the best option, but both official websites have now been shut down, and the emulators aren’t in development anymore. Third-party sites have cropped up in their absence, offering the latest version of each emulator for “preservation” purposes. Some claim to be “hard forks,” meaning they are modified versions created from the original code.
That said, here are a few notable third-party sites and forks that remain accessible as of this article’s publication.
Remember that emulators and the act of emulation itself isn’t illegal, but downloading games (also known as ROMs) to play on them is. ROMs are very much a legal gray area, though it is generally considered that making your own backups for personal use is permissible. Here’s what a lawyer has to say about the issue.
The Three Best Nintendo Switch Emulators for Windows
These are currently the best Nintendo Switch emulators that still exist.
Ryujinx Forks
The original Ryujinx was a free Nintendo Switch emulator that could run on Windows, Linux, and macOS. After the voluntary shutdown, several hard forks and third-party sites have popped up. Try the most popular hard fork or a modified version by GreemDev.
Ryujinx was written in C#, which helped the emulator attain better gaming performance and excellent support. Due to this, Ryujinx has a massive library of over 4,300 games, out of which 82% were playable.
Why the discrepancy? When it comes to emulation, there is a difference between the ability to load a game and the ability to play that game perfectly like the emulated hardware. “Playable” is a term used to refer to if the game is emulated well enough that you might forget you’re even using an emulator. Overall, if you want to run a Nintendo Switch game in 4K 60 FPS, Ryujinx is the best choice.
According to online benchmarks and our personal testing, the original Ryujinx emulator is only slightly behind Yuzu in just a few games. However, performance drops are negligible in most cases. It’s also quite easy to update as the application routinely checks and informs users about a new build. Unfortunately, Ryujinx’s graphical settings options are quite lacking compared to some other emulators.
2. Yuzu Forks
Download:
The Yuzu emulator was the first of its kind to properly emulate Nintendo Switch games on a Windows PC. It was an open-source emulator which was made by the developers of Citra, one of the best Nintendo 3DS emulators. The Yuzu emulator was quite stable and could even save different settings profiles for each game. Hard forks exist like Sudachi, Suyu, and Torzu to name a few.
Torzu requires manual building and isn’t even officially available on the clearnet, so it’s not suitable for everyone.
Despite its stability, the emulator cannot run as many games as the Ryujinx emulator. Since the Yuzu emulator was written in C++, it could work on different platforms as a high-performance application. However, it also limited the number of Switch games that can run without performance issues. Make sure to check Yuzu’s Game Compatibility List before downloading the emulator. Any game that is rated Perfect or Great will run on most PCs without any issues.
Since Yuzu’s takedown, numerous forks have appeared throughout 2024, but unfortunately, many were taken down as quickly as they appeared.
3. Cemu
Technically, Cemu is a Wii U and GameCube emulator, not a Nintendo Switch emulator. However, it can run games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Bayonetta 2, and more. The main issue here is that it can only run a few Switch games that were also available on the Wii U console.
Fortunately, the team behind the emulator has added a bunch of graphical enhancements throughout its life cycle. Due to this, the emulator can run some games at almost double the frame rate of Ryujinx- or Yuzu-based emulators.
Mods and graphic packs can also be added to any game directly from the Cemu library. The emulator is also quite lenient in terms of PC requirements. It only needs 4GB of RAM and can even run properly on older CPUs and GPUs. If you have an old gaming PC but want to play Breath of the Wild, Cemu is the best choice. The emulator also went open source in 2022 and started development for Linux and macOS support.
Recommended PC Specs for Nintendo Switch Emulators (Yuzu & Ryujinx)
Although the Switch isn’t that powerful of a console, emulators still require reasonably modern hardware to work correctly. A powerful PC will help load the game and run at or close to native speed..
We recommend using a PC that has at least a 6th generation Intel Core i3 processor or Ryzen 3 and a minimum of 8GB of RAM. Although 8GB of RAM is more than enough, we recommend 16GB of RAM or more for the best performance. In terms of graphics cards, you need an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU or an AMD Radeon RX 550.
Yuzu clearly stated the minimum PC requirements for running Nintendo Switch games properly:
CPU
- Minimum: Intel Core i5-4430 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200
- Recommended: Intel Core i5-11400 / AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- Optimal: Intel Core i9-13900K / AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU
Your PC should have a GPU that supports OpenGL 4.6 or Vulkan 1.1. According to Yuzu, Half-float support and VP9 decoding support are also recommended. Unless you have a modern Ryzen “G” CPU, we don’t suggest using a PC with integrated graphics due to low performance. Dedicated GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD will produce far better results in emulation.
- Minimum: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 4GB / AMD Radeon RX 550 4GB
- Recommended: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB / AMD Radeon RX 5500 8GB (with “Force maximum clocks” enabled) / Adreno
- Optimal: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB / AMD Radeon RX 6700 10GB (with “Force maximum clocks” enabled)
- Integrated Graphics (Minimum): Intel UHD Graphics 730 / AMD Radeon Vega 3
- Integrated Graphics (Recommended): Intel Iris Xe Graphics / AMD Radeon 680M / Qualcomm Adreno 740 / ARM Mali G720
RAM
If you are using an integrated graphics card, the memory requirement is much higher since the GPU uses system RAM as its video memory (VRAM).
- Minimum: 8GB
- Recommended: 16GB
- Optimal: 32GB
- Minimum with integrated graphics: 12GB
Despite the recent setbacks faced by Nintendo Switch emulators, the community remains resilient. With numerous forks of beloved Switch emulators still available, it’s unlikely that we’ll see the progress slow down anytime soon.
Still, with the ongoing pressure from Nintendo, it’s clear that Switch emulation will remain in constant flux.
