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Yuzu (emulator)

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This article is about the Nintendo Switch emulator. For other uses, see Yuzu (disambiguation).
Yuzu
Developer(s)Team Yuzu
Initial releaseJanuary 14, 2018; 6 years ago (2018-01-14)
Repositorygithub.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu
Written inC++
Operating systemWindows and Linux
LicenseGPL-3.0-or-later
Websiteyuzu-emu.org

Yuzu (sometimes stylized in lowercase) is a free and open-source emulator of the Nintendo Switch, developed in C++. Yuzu was announced to be in development on January 14, 2018,[1][2] 10 months after the release of the Nintendo Switch.[3]

The emulator is made by the developers of the Nintendo 3DS emulator Citra, with significant code shared between the projects. Originally, Yuzu only supported test programs and homebrew.

Features

Yuzu used a network service called Boxcat as a replacement for Nintendo's BCAT dynamic content network.[4] This feature was later removed due to being non-functional. The implementation will eventually be replaced with one that allows the use of local BCAT files dumped from a Nintendo Switch.[5]

Yuzu also offers a resolution rescaling feature that simulates docked, undocked and beyond-native resolutions. After initially adding support for beyond-native resolution, the feature was removed again due to stability issues and inconsistent behaviour on different GPU vendors shortly after.[6][7] Two years after the removal, the feature was finally readded under the codename "Project A.R.T".[8]

In December 2019, Yuzu added an experimental Vulkan renderer to its Early Access build and brought it over to its mainline builds.[9] On May 9, 2020, the development team announced an update that included experimental multi-core CPU emulation[10][11] codenamed Prometheus.

In November 2020, Yuzu's developers added online functionality to the emulator but removed it shortly thereafter.[12][13]

In June 2021, Fastmem support was added to early access builds of Yuzu.[14]

In July 2021, Yuzu concluded the "Project Hades", which aimed to rewrite the shader decompiler, bringing an improvement of the overall performance of the emulator.[15]

In a statement to PC Gamer, the developers of Yuzu said that they were interested in potential optimizations to the emulator for use on the Steam Deck.[16]

Reception

In October 2018, Kotaku published an article noting that Super Mario Odyssey was playable. The author of the article expressed concern with the ability of Yuzu to emulate games that were available commercially at the time.[17]

PC Gamer noted that the emulator was able to run Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! shortly after the games' release, albeit with audio issues.[18]

In October 2019, Gizmodo published an article noting that Yuzu was able to emulate some games at a frame rate roughly on par with the actual console hardware.[19]

Since 2021, various outlets have reported that Yuzu can run on the Steam Deck, enabling play of Nintendo Switch games on the system.[20][21][22][23][24]

Following the publication of a story by Kotaku on October 9, 2021, which covered the ability of both Yuzu and Ryujinx (another Switch emulator) to play Metroid Dread,[25] Nintendo contacted the site's editorial team requesting a revision of the article, which was seen as encouraging piracy of the title. Kotaku responded by updating the article to remove language that was interpreted as such, and apologized to readers for the error. However, in an editorial addendum, they maintained that they believed emulation to be an important part of video game preservation efforts and that their coverage of the emulators did not equate to an encouragement to pirate the game.[26]

After the publicization of Yuzu's ability to run on the Steam Deck, several YouTube videos providing guidance on how to do so were taken down. Though it was not known who had issued the takedowns, outlets reporting on the news believed that it was Nintendo, given their past history of issuing DMCA takedown notices against unofficial content creators.[27][28]

On August 24, 2022, Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH announced that they had developed "Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection", a new digital rights management solution for Nintendo Switch titles which aims to allow developers to block play via emulators such as Yuzu.[29][30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Lilly, Paul (January 15, 2018). "Nintendo Switch 'Yuzu' Emulator Announced By Citra 3DS Developers". HotHardware. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  2. ^ Reisinger, Don (January 16, 2018). "Nintendo Won't Be Happy About This Switch Emulator". Tom's Guide. Archived from the original on July 4, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  3. ^ Horti, Samuel (2018-01-14). "Switch emulator announced, made by team behind Citra 3DS emulator". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 2018-01-14. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  4. ^ "Boxcat". yuzu emulator team. Archived from the original on October 15, 2019. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  5. ^ "Remove Boxcat BCAT backend by Morph1984 · Pull Request #7102 · yuzu-emu/yuzu". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  6. ^ "Resolution Rescaler · yuzu". yuzu. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  7. ^ "Implement Native Resolution Rescaling by FernandoS27 · Pull Request #2860 · yuzu-emu/yuzu". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  8. ^ "Project A.R.T. Advanced Rendering Techniques by FernandoS27 · Pull Request #7219 · yuzu-emu/yuzu". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  9. ^ CaptV0rt3x (December 3, 2019). "New Feature Release - Vulkan". yuzu emulator team. Archived from the original on December 3, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ "New Feature Release - Prometheus · yuzu". yuzu. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  11. ^ Palumbo, Alessio (9 May 2020). "Yuzu, the Nintendo Switch Emulator, Can Now Take Advantage of Multicore CPUs". Wccftech. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  12. ^ Lilly, Paul (November 4, 2020). "Popular Yuzu Nintendo Switch Emulator Adds Online Support, Quickly Backtracks". HotHardware. Archived from the original on November 4, 2020. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  13. ^ Plunkett, Luke (November 3, 2020). "Nintendo Switch Emulator Adds Online Support, Quickly Regrets It". Kotaku. Archived from the original on November 5, 2020. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  14. ^ "Fastmem Support". Retrieved June 13, 2021.
  15. ^ "New Feature Release - Shader Decompiler Rewrite · yuzu". yuzu. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
  16. ^ Fenlon, Wes (2021-07-26). "Emulator developers see tons of potential in the Steam Deck". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  17. ^ Plunkett, Luke (November 2, 2018). "Super Mario Odyssey is Already Playable in an Emulator". Kotaku. Archived from the original on July 14, 2019. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
  18. ^ Horti, Samuel (November 24, 2018). "Watch Pokémon: Let's Go running on PC thanks to Yuzu emulator". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 4, 2019. Retrieved July 4, 2019.
  19. ^ Liszewski, Andrew (October 4, 2019). "This Nintendo Switch Emulator for the PC Might Finally Be as Good as the Actual Console". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on November 20, 2019. Retrieved October 15, 2019.
  20. ^ Fenlon, Wes (2021-07-26). "Emulator developers see tons of potential in the Steam Deck". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  21. ^ Reynolds, Ollie (2022-07-25). "Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Has Leaked And Is Fully Playable On The Steam Deck". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  22. ^ James, Dave (2022-03-08). "Steam Deck vs Nintendo Switch". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  23. ^ Fenlon, Wes (2022-02-25). "The Steam Deck is already the emulation system of my dreams". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  24. ^ Coyle, Anne-Marie (2022-03-03). "Nintendo really doesn't want you to use Switch emulators on Steam Deck". gamesradar. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
  25. ^ Zweizen, Zack (2021-10-09). "Metroid Dread Is Already Running Great On Switch Emulators". Kotaku (via web.archive.org). Archived from the original on 9 October 2021. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  26. ^ Zwiezen, Zack (2021-10-09). "Metroid Dread Is Already Running On Switch Emulators". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 2022-08-29. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  27. ^ Ishraq, Subhan (2022-03-03). "Steam Deck Nintendo emulation videos are disappearing from YouTube". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  28. ^ Galekovic, Filip (2022-03-03). "Nintendo Blocking Videos Showing How to Emulate Games on Steam Deck". Game Rant. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  29. ^ ""Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection" Announced by Controversial Anti-Piracy Company". Comicbook.com. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  30. ^ Shepard, Kenneth (2022-08-25). "Denuvo Launching Switch Emulator Protection at Behest of Publishing Partners". Fanbyte. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
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