One of the best — and most stable — Nintendo Switch emulators is now officially on Android. The Yuzu Emulator, which lets you play Switch games on your Android device, is finally available on the Google Play Store.
Better yet, Yuzu is free to download on the Play Store, but you can support the developers by purchasing the early-access release for P280 or around $5 (if you live in the Philippines). The paid version of the app promises earlier access to in-development updates and prioritized support compared to the free one.
If you want to start playing Switch games on your Android device, though, there are a couple of things you should know. For starters, the developers suggest using a high-end smartphone powered by at least a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset coupled with 8GB of RAM.
SEE ALSO: How to switch eShop regions on your Nintendo Switch to get the lowest prices on games
Of course, newer and more powerful processors and more RAM (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom needs at least 12GB RAM to boot) are recommended, and you can achieve the best frame rates by using devices with an Adreno 700 series graphics chip inside. If you’re not familiar, that means Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 platforms and newer. However, there’s a better chance that a game will run without issues on a phone with Adreno 600 graphics using the Mesa Turnip drivers.
The app is still in its early days, so there’s no guarantee that your device will run the emulator at all, let alone Nintendo Switch games. But even with that in mind, getting games to boot on the emulator involves a lot of testing and tweaking different settings to find out which options work best for your unit and the game you’re trying to run.
You’ll need a phone with plenty of storage to spare, too, as some AAA games can eat up storage quickly. Finally, you need a prod.keys file from your Switch to play retail games as well as NSP files to load game backups on the Yuzu Emulator.
We’ve tried Yuzu on the ASUS ROG Phone 7 Ultimate, and though it managed to run Tears of the Kingdom at 30 fps, we’ve stumbled on a number of graphical and performance issues that kept us from playing the game past the tutorial section. Animal Crossing: New Horizons didn’t render properly since the ROG Phone 7 doesn’t support Turnip GPU drivers at the moment.
Performance data the developers of Yuzu have shared
The developers of Yuzu shared performance data using their own devices and backups, revealing that a number of Nintendo Switch games are playable out of the box, including Diablo III: Eternal Collection, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Hey, not too bad for a first release.
If you do manage to run Yuzu on your smartphone, let us know in the comments what you end up playing.
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