Switch: Zelda Tears of the Kingdom running in 8K and 60 FPS in emulators
Emulators Ryujinx and Yuzu have been running Nintendo’s latest flagship game at 60FPS and in 8K, according to some tests and video showcases. On top-of-the shelf gaming PC hardware, of course.
Emulation is where it’s at for high quality Switch gaming
Nintendo have released Zelda Tears of the Kingdom for the Switch a few weeks ago, and the game has been getting praises left, right and center. We’ve all seen the creative use people have been doing of the “crafting” mechanics of the game, from building mechwarriors to the weird Korok bullying trend. A handful of folks have noted that the Switch is really showing its age, and although TotK is very well optimized for the console, it of course “only” runs at 30 FPS. That shouldn’t be a problem for most people to really enjoy the game, but interestingly enough, emulation is where it’s at if you want great performance for Switch games.
Bot Yuzu and Ryujinx run Zelda Tears of the Kingdom flawlessly on most modern computers. Although both emulators have been careful not to mention any specific TotK optimizations in their April reports (here and here respectively), it is likely that some of their updates related to Breath of the Wild have also benefited Link’s new adventures. Now that the game has been out for a while, there seems to be less concerns about discussing its support in emulators, as shown in a recent Twitter post by Yuzu devs:
Hey! Listen! Wait, wrong game
📣 Attention All 📣
🔥 Tears of the Kingdom is playable in yuzu
🚀 Full speed on most hardware!
✨ Experience in 4K or higher!
🚫 No hacks needed!🎁 60fps, cheats, & more with mods
Experience the best way to play, today:https://t.co/cmwPNpop7G pic.twitter.com/SBmpsqE9ch
— yuzu (@yuzuemu) May 13, 2023
In particular, youtuber ChillyWillMD has shown Tears of the Kingdom running at 60FPS in 8K on a recent build of Yuzu:
Of course, to run games at such a high performance level, you’ll probably need a decent machine, and ChillyWillMD’s setup is a pretty high-end one: RTX 4080 with an I9 13900K, these two components alone are enough for you to buy close to 10 Nintendo Switch consoles….
But if you happen to have a good machine, Switch emulation is easy to achieve, and allows for those performance mods, and more.
meanwhile 4ifir on Mariko units allows to run TOTK in 60 fps, but wololo never mentions 4ifir, while it’s a game changing experience for any Switch, even Erista
It’s been shown that ram speed is THE bottleneck causing FPS drops in TotK. Taking ram beyond 1600Mhz on Erista can lead to crashes that some claim have corrupted their EmuNAND. You’re playing the lottery with 4ifir on Erista while risking save data.