Difference between revisions of "Nintendo 3DS emulators"

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Revision as of 04:02, 29 September 2015

The Nintendo 3DS handheld console

The Nintendo 3DS is the latest handheld console by Nintendo, released in 2011. The most notable feature of this console is the use of autostereoscopic (i.e. without glasses) 3D, which can be configured using a slider.

Emulators

Name Operating System(s) Latest Version Active Recommended
Citra Windows, Linux (nightly builds)
3dmoo Windows, Linux (nightly builds)
TronDS Windows, Linux 1.0.4 ?

Comparisons

  • Citra is an early in development open-source 3DS emulator made by experienced emulator developers. It is considered experimental, and it runs homebrew applications with a decent degree of compatibility. Though it can play many commercial games to some extent, the emulator has various graphical issues with most games, no sound, and slow speeds. Citra is being regularly worked on, and progress in it is faster than expected for most emulators. However, there's still no telling how long it will be before it is suitable for playing games to completion.
  • 3dmoo is another open-source 3DS emulator, made by experienced developers in the DS hacking scene. It was released shortly after Citra and received similar progress for a few months, but was eventually aborted by its authors after a while.
  • TronDS is a closed-source 3DS emulator, presumably made by the iDeaS author. Little is known about it other than that it can run simple homebrew. It cannot be used for playing games.

Emulation issues

The Nintendo 3DS currently has no emulators that play games with all features intact. This is mainly because for a long time the hardware was documented only sparingly, and homebrew code execution was hard to achieve. Nowadays, the hardware is better known and homebrew is being developed. Many games boot now, with a few even having no noticeable graphical issues. However, sound has not been implemented. This, along with other various issues, exist that make 3DS emulation not ready for prime time just yet.