Best Nintendo Switch Emulators for PC

These days we have a few options for emulating the Nintendo Switch on PC. Nintendo Switch emulators have come a long way in the few years that they’ve existed. The first Switch emulator to boot up commercial Nintendo Switch games was back in 2018, just one year after the launch of the Switch. Since then, we’ve seen multiple Nintendo Switch emulator options appear and they’ve been improving everyday.

There’s nothing quite like playing games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on original hardware, but if you’re looking to play Switch games on your PC, you’ve come to the right article because we’re going to break down the best Nintendo Switch emulator available for Windows. We’ll also go into detail a bit more on compatible games.

Do keep in mind that for most if not all of the Switch emulator options in this article, you will need a hacked (CFW) Nintendo Switch to dump firmware, system keys, and Nintendo games. Dumping, in this context, means transferring files from your hacked Nintendo Switch to your PC using either a microSD card or a USB-C cable.

Why Use A Nintendo switch Emulator If I Already Own A Switch?

• Emulating Switch games on your PC allows you to play in 4K/higher resolutions
• You can use just about any bluetooth or USB controller you want on a PC
• Your FPS will be smoother and higher on your PC than the Switch
• Online play Nintendo switch games without needing a Nintendo Switch Online subscription
• Easily play homebrew games
• Modding Switch games is much easier on a PC
• No need for a capture card to record game footage
• Play older versions of games before patches
• In terms of game preservation, even when Nintendo decides to close the Nintendo Switch eShop someday in the future, you will still be able to play Nintendo Switch games on your PC

What Is The Best Nintendo Switch Emulator for PC?

1. Yuzu

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC available
• Official website
• Discord

Yuzu is a an experimental Nintendo Switch emulator with a user friendly interface that was debuted back in 2018. If you’re familiar with the popular 3DS emulator Citra, you might be surprised to find out that the team that created Citra is also the same team behind the Yuzu free emulator as well. That said, it’s pretty clear that the team knows what they’re doing and have solid experience in the field of emulation. Yuzu is a free open source emulator that is supported by the community on Patreon.

Not all popular games play the same on Yuzu and depending on the Nintendo Switch title you’re looking to play, you may experience some bugs. The developers are pretty actively updating Yuzu so as new games are released, the playability score increases as time goes on and updates are released. That being said, the official Yuzu site has a game compatibility list which includes most of the popular Switch games available and how playable they currently are.

The compatibility list has all games that have been tested and has them sorted by how well they work on the emulator. The games range from Perfect, Great, Okay, Bad, Intro/Menu, Won’t Boot, and Not Tested. The different categories are pretty self explanatory. There are currently 644 Switch games in the Perfect state, 813 in Great, 415 in Okay, 327 in Bad, 311 in Intro/Menu, 189 in Won’t Boot, and 22 in Not Tested.

Yuzu supports up to 4k resolution so if you have a high end device that’s capable, your Nintendo Switch games will look absolutely stunning – this is the power of high definition graphics!

The Yuzu team is quite active and post regular progress reports on their website of changes that they’ve released for the emulator. It’s great to see how active they have remained on the project and their level of dedication to continue to improve it.

2. Ryujinx Emulator

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC available
• Official website
• Discord

The Ryujinx Nintendo Switch emulator is a bit less popular than Yuzu, however it was actually the first Switch emulator to boot up and play a commercial game back in 2018. Since then, Yuzu has definitely overtaken Ryujinx in popularity, but it’s still an actively maintained project with a whole team of developers working on it.

Ryujinx also classifies itself as an open source experimental Nintendo switch emulator. The emulator was originally written from scratch by a single developer back in 2017 and now has multiple different contributors who work on it regularly.

Ryujinx also has a game compatibility list available for players to see a game’s status. It’s been tested on over 4,050 different Switch games and around 3,400 of those are currently considered playable.

The best settings you can get for Ryujinx depends on your setup, however if your device supports it, the default settings and Vulkan are optimal. By default, Ryujinx will be set to use the optimal settings, so if your computer can’t quite handle it, you may need to tone things down a bit. You can tinker with graphics settings (resolution, antialiasing, scaling filters, anisotropic filtering, etc) to try and get the best image possible.

You can use custom controllers with Ryujinx including a Gamecube controller if you have Delfinovin. You can also install mods and cheats for games quite easily. One cool thing to note about Ryujinx is that they’ve been developing a new user interface framework called Avalonia which will eventually replace the emulator’s current UI. You can install Avalonia and test it out by visiting the Github repository here.

Ryujinx also has the ability to create a Mii character and use Amiibo. Local and online multiplayer is also available with the LDN build. The online play essentially simulates two consoles being next to each other and playing locally except it’s over the internet! You can in theory play online with a friend who is on an actual physical Nintendo Switch console, but it’s a bit complicated.

3. Cemu 2.0

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows PC available
• Official website
• Discord

Cemu was originally a Wii U emulator created to emulate Wii U games, but these days can also emulate some Switch games as well at a decent performance. Most Switch games run at 60FPS on Cemu and there are some additional options available for mods, resolution, sharing, etc.

Cemu is currently being developed by one single lead developer. There was previously one other developer who was helping with the project, but they have single moved on to other projects. Cemu has been in development for over 8 years at the time of writing this.

Although most noteworthy Wii U titles have been ported to the Switch at this point, the Cemu emulator still gets nearly a quarter of a million installs per month. In a long post on Reddit, the original developer opened up about some struggles they felt with the project and that they would be releasing the Cemu emulator as open source. This now allows any developer to contribute to the project.

While technically not a Nintendo Switch emulator, Cemu does have a list of compatible games as well that you can check out here.

Conclusion

In our opinion, the best Nintendo Switch emulator as of right now is definitely Yuzu. Compared to the other emulators, it’s an open source emulator consistently being updated, has a strong backing from the gaming community, and is regularly being improved. It’s clearly the go to choice to emulate Nintendo Switch games.

If you’re a Mac user, be sure to also check out our guide on setting up the best Nintendo Switch emulator for Mac.