Yuzu Switch PC Emulator Greatly Improves Performance in Many High-Profile Games

The original Nintendo Switch PC emulator, Yuzu, received a handful of updates this week that greatly increased its performance and visual accuracy in several high-profile games.

As shared on the Yuzu Discord channel, Early Access version 3524 revamped the emulator’s buffer cache so that many Switch games that previously had to be set to High GPU accuracy to look proper can now work with Normal GPU accuracy. Some of the listed fixes include particle and tree flickering in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, particles and character lighting in Pokémon Sword and Shield, models and particle rendering in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, particle effects in Pokémon Legends Arceus, smoke and particles in Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, lighting and shadows in Luigi’s Mansion 3, lighting in Diablo II Resurrected, particles and lighting in Kirby and The Forgotten Land, red lights on Xenoblade Chronicles 2 machines, and other miscellaneous visual elements in Fire Emblem Warriors, Monster Hunter Rise, Atelier Ryza, NieR: Automata: End of Yorha Edition, and Bayonetta 3.

Yesterday, the industrious Yuzu development team released Early Access version 3527, which reduced RDTC overhead by 50% and improved performance in CPU bottlenecked games by up to 5%, and most importantly, optimized Normal GPU accuracy performance for up to 50% better frame rate in games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Xenoblade Chronicles games, Kirby the Forgotten Land, Super Mario Odyssey and more.

Not happy with just doing that, they released yet another Early Access update, bringing the version of Yuzu to 3531. According to the changelog, game performance has been further improved across the board. The extent of the improvement depends on the hardware used to run the emulator, with weaker PCs likely to experience greater improvements.

You can check out some examples of the latest Yuzu build running The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Bayonetta 3, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in the YouTube videos embedded below.

The improvements made to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are particularly encouraging considering the imminent release of its much-anticipated sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, due for release on May 12th. While Nintendo did not confirm it yet, it is likely to be running on the same engine. If that’s the case, chances are Tears of the Kingdom will be playable at or near day one on PC Switch emulators like Yuzu or Ryjinx. Of course, we’ll keep you apprised as soon as there are any such confirmations.