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Nintendo Switch emulator yuzu gets a nice Steam Deck upgrade

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The team working on the Nintendo Switch emulator yuzu have released some Early Access upgrades, this time around for the Steam Deck. With their Early Access updates, these are available to people who support development on Patreon before rolling out to all users in their main public releases.

From the Early Access 3604 release notes via their Discord:

  • Tweaked garbage collector to be more aggressive in favour of steam deck.
  • Automatically detect system timezone.
  • Yuzu now automatically sets the system timezone based on the desktop operating system clock.
  • Limit device access memory for integrated devices to 4 GB.
  • Prevent vram usage from filling up in integrated devices like steam deck.

Great to see developers improve things on my favourite Linux-powered handheld.

Have you been doing much emulation on Steam Deck or desktop Linux? Let me know in the comments how you've found the experience to be. I don't do much at all myself.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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20 comments
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damarrin May 23, 2023
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I am sort of curious if I can get the new Zelda running well on the SD. I've been playing it these past few days and I was vividly reminded how uncomfortable the Switch is. It's fine with the controllers detached on the TV, but handheld... eugh.
Liam Dawe May 23, 2023
Quoting: damarrinI am sort of curious if I can get the new Zelda running well on the SD. I've been playing it these past few days and I was vividly reminded how uncomfortable the Switch is. It's fine with the controllers detached on the TV, but handheld... eugh.
Yeah that's my biggest problem with my Switch, how flat it is - absolutely terrible ergonomics. Gives me serious hand cramp if I try it. My Switch is an original model too, so I should technically have no problem using it for the needed bits in yuzu emulation if I wanted to. Which I will admit has been tempting me more recently.
Solarwing May 23, 2023
Hey!Don't you lead me into temptation! Because yes I can find it by myself!! But seriously speaking it's great to see this project maturing nicely. Keep it coming!
mrdeathjr May 23, 2023
In my recent test (gameplay videos are part of next bunch of update in some place end this month or first days of june)

According gpudatabase my uhd 630 (a little chip stay closer than gpu used in switch)

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/switch-gpu-16nm.c3754

393 gflops in FP32

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/uhd-graphics-630.c3107

386 gflops in FP32

However in emulation normally you need much more hardware than similar in pc

But in this mini test put a test between ryujinX (opengl-vulkan) vs yuzu (opengl-vulkan)

I have to dont test opengl because mangohud dont work with yuzu in opengl but works in ryujinx with opengl however in both cases performance is lower than vulkan

ryujinx vulkan





yuzu vulkan





and yuzu allows resolution less than native, very usefull for my uhd 630 without forget recording cost around 5 to 10fps





According my experience if you have a low gpu hardware case like my uhd 630, i recommend yuzu above ryujinx because have much better performance




Last edited by mrdeathjr on 23 May 2023 at 4:55 pm UTC
Marc Di Luzio May 23, 2023
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Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: damarrinI am sort of curious if I can get the new Zelda running well on the SD. I've been playing it these past few days and I was vividly reminded how uncomfortable the Switch is. It's fine with the controllers detached on the TV, but handheld... eugh.
Yeah that's my biggest problem with my Switch, how flat it is - absolutely terrible ergonomics. Gives me serious hand cramp if I try it. My Switch is an original model too, so I should technically have no problem using it for the needed bits in yuzu emulation if I wanted to. Which I will admit has been tempting me more recently.

I've been playing TOTK on my SD and am about 40 hours in. It's been a blast, especially without the hand pain I get from playing on switch. It's not a stable 30 by all means but it's absolutely playable and patches like these keep coming to get closer to that.

There's even a mod that changes all the button prompts to SD ones and one that sets the game to 16:10.
elmapul May 23, 2023
Nintendo will DMCA you due to the thumbnail of this news xD
damarrin May 23, 2023
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Quoting: Marc Di Luzio
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: damarrinI am sort of curious if I can get the new Zelda running well on the SD. I've been playing it these past few days and I was vividly reminded how uncomfortable the Switch is. It's fine with the controllers detached on the TV, but handheld... eugh.
Yeah that's my biggest problem with my Switch, how flat it is - absolutely terrible ergonomics. Gives me serious hand cramp if I try it. My Switch is an original model too, so I should technically have no problem using it for the needed bits in yuzu emulation if I wanted to. Which I will admit has been tempting me more recently.

I've been playing TOTK on my SD and am about 40 hours in. It's been a blast, especially without the hand pain I get from playing on switch. It's not a stable 30 by all means but it's absolutely playable and patches like these keep coming to get closer to that.

There's even a mod that changes all the button prompts to SD ones and one that sets the game to 16:10.

Aaargh! That's my weekend sorted, then. My Switch is a launch model as well, so I'll be able to keep as close to legal as is possible.


Last edited by damarrin on 23 May 2023 at 4:40 pm UTC
FireBurn May 23, 2023
I've been playing ToTK and I'm amazed at how much more beautiful it looks on my 6800M under Yuzu than natively on my switch, but I guess doubling the resolution has its merits

Can't wait for a Switch 2 or for Nintendo to finally make some money from platforms like Steam
shibuya May 23, 2023
ew-zu
Purple Library Guy May 23, 2023
Quoting: shibuyaew-zu
That seems kind of rude. You got something against the project?
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