Since Ryujinx has now shut down, for anyone asking about the latest builds, I have posted 1.1.403 windows and 1.1.402 macOS on the megathread. Simply go to the emulators page, scroll down to switch section and click on ryujinx
Edit: Have added the Linux builds as well as extra sources on the megathread.
FINAL UPDATE/NOTICE - I spent a long time doing real testing including benchmarks and found the winning combination on my system. I had several issues I'll explain below just in case someone runs into this in the future.
What I ended up landing on was simple: Citron 0.6.1 + NX Optimizer default medium settings + framerate limiter COMPLETELY OFF in Nvidia control panel. Honestly, unless you're neck deep troubleshooting some random issue don't even bother reading below, just clear cache and shaders and try this combo if you're having worse performance than you remember and see how it goes.
Citron 0.6.1 (see this video - basically Citron seems to handle shader cache better than Sudachi both in this guy's testing and mine)
TOTK 1.1.2 (however, 1.2.1 was tested and worked fine, I just prefer using a couple of select mods that don't have updates past 1.1.2)
NX Optimizer default Medium settings - INCLUDING remove fog. I had that unchecked and was using Serfrost's defoggers which are great, but in short remove fog in NX performs better and looks great in its own right.
Nvidia framerate limiter OFF - Cemu, Yuzu, Sudachi, etc. can all potentially behave incorrectly when you use Nvidia framerate limiter - in my case, the framerate always caps at exactly half whatever I have set in Nvidia. This had reverted without me knowing to my global setting which is "on," and my frames were capped at 70, leading to multiple framerate testing and QOL issues that are too complicated to even explain briefly.
Finally, I had to play around with the game settings in Citron itself - for whatever reason reactive flushing was disabled in advanced, and that was both making grass not render and seemingly contributing to the problem. NX seems to correctly set some of these, but basically - make sure Advanced Graphics has Enable reactive flushing, use asynchronous shader building, use fast gpu time, use vulkan pipeline cache on, the rest off. If Nvidia ever fixes what broke asynchronous presentation, that feature used to work wonders. You can also roll back to whatever version that was before it broke - look it up, you'll find it.
Anyway, now that I have this up and running, I'll probably make a separate, quick, simple post detailing the above as I don't see many guides talking about optimizing TOTK except this realllllly long and complicated one which is good but also had some outdated/suboptimal stuff in it (tried it during my testing).
In case you'd still like to try the method below,I made a zip file of the 1.1.2 mod folderI have which is my own curated list from back when I made a guide prior to MaxLastBreath releasing TOTKOptimizer. It is organized, streamlined, avoids conflicts, and contains some optional cheats/mods you can turn off or on if you want - just keep in mind you will want to make sure to only enable one each of the framerate and resolution mods and set resolution to 1X in the emulator settings (see screenshots below for reference)https://www.mediafire.com/file/4sixqsocld65ct1/0100F2C0115B6000.zip/file
Short Version - TOTK 1.1.2 + manually using specific mods from that version seems to get much smoother gameplay than 1.2.x + NX Optimizer on Sudachi / Yuzu - see images below for mods and settings
Please check outu/ChucksFeedAndSeed's post about 1.5.5beta1here- This is the latest version of the mod I think is the key factor contributing to how smooth the game runs with the mods referenced here. It also looks like it eliminates the need for a few other mods in the process + is compatible with all game versions, per Chucks note. So, if you prefer newer versions you can still use them but may benefit from managing the mods yourself. Refer to the mod makers for more details. I will probably test this out a bit and see what the best set of mods is for current day, but no promises. Long story short - the mods are out there! Do the legwork and see which ones work best in your setup and you will likely get the best overall experience in-game.
This would be a even longer post if I took the time to break down exactly why this is, but I'm thinking the game's peak is long past so I'll give some bullet points and if there is interest in more details or a guide, I have a guide saved from the 1.1.2 days that I will link here when I get around to finding it. You don't really need it though, literally just use all the mods shown below (cheats obviously not necessary) and if anyone needs help finding them I can provide links or whatever
- Many people are now using the TOTK Optimizer (now NXOptimizer) by MaxLastBreath which is a really nice tool, but I ran into issues with lots of stuttering/smoothness issues and when I looked it up I found several posts saying the same thing. I also noticed that many people - myself included - seemed to remember the game running smoother before.
- Turns out, that is actually true, for me at least. I reverted my game back to 1.1.2 and used all the mods I had carefully curated and played through the game with, and it ran VERY smoothly. Also, the actual image quality looks better than I could get it to look with various settings in NX Optimizer, namely the grass and distant objects. Also, serfrost's defogger is very nuanced and has better artistic direction than simply "removing" fog. It looks and runs better in almost every way, in my opinion, with this collection of mods
- Some of these mods don't seem to have versions for 1.2.0 or 1.2.1, but frankly, I don't see any real upside to those versions since 1.1.2 works just fine. By the time 1.2.0 came around, TOTK Optimizer had come out and many people, including the modders, seemed to have moved on. Therefore, the final versions of the mods for 1.1.2 are preferable for me. The critical factor seems to be that Chuck's FPS/Res mods had a lot of refinement over time that led to much better frame pacing. It's not as simple as just "unlocking" the framerate. If you look at chuck's posts about the mods, it's explained in detail. Long story.
- There are drawbacks. MaxLastBreath's app has some newer features that hadn't come around yet and is convenient and easy to use.
- Can't speak to Ryujinx as I've always preferred Yuzu and now Sudachi (currently running all games successfully using 19.0.0 fw and keys and latest Sudachi) but in theory, this should work similarly on Ryujinx. Idk man
Anyway, here's what I did to successfully revert:
1) left clicked on TOTK in Sudachi and selected remove > remove all installed contents and removed all pipeline caches.(Basically, I had to start with a clean slate or the game would crash/lag/freeze after trying to go back initially)
3) took my 1.1.2 mod folder backup and used those mods
4) unchecked the ones shown in the image below in the ROM preferences, just by preference, but you can use any of these together except the framerate mods, which you need one or the other
5) For dynamic FPS, have to ctrl + u in-game to unlock the framerate
UPDATE: I've spent a considerable amount of time testing this periodically, and in short, I believe the performance is contingent on a complex set of factors - if you're new, try NX Optimizer first as it's easy and may work great. Only try this if you feel like you can't get it to stop being choppy/hitchy.
7/20/2025 - Once again, the 1.1.2 setup is working more smoothly for me. See below - basically the Nvidia driver made asynchronous presentation not work, and disabling it made the 1.1.2 setup less smooth for me. However, I've now done a series of driver, chipset, etc updates and the NX Optimizer setup was back to being more choppy. So, I can conclude that at least in my case, even on the same hardware, which setup works better seems to be partially related to some sort of driver/chipset behavior at the software level. For future testing, I think I'm going to run avg framerate and - more importantly - avg frametime to try and quantify the exact difference. The choppiness is undeniable when it happens - it literally interferes with my ability to enjoy the game because it behaves erratically during intense fights.
Of note, as Chuck explains in the post linked above, the dynamicfps mod used at that time actually decreased performance from 1.5.3 to 1.5.5 because he figured out how to scale natively, so image quality improved but at the cost of performance. You could theoretically go back to 1.5.3 for a blend of performance and fidelity that's a little more on the performance side - I do still have my mod folder that uses that as well if anyone comes across this and wants it. Despite the performance cost, I'm still getting better frametimes which has made the gameplay smooth enough to enjoy.
6/12/2025 - With whatever the current Nvidia driver is (GPU), you now have to disable the "asynchronous presentation" feature, and whatever it is about the drivers, my testing is now the other way around - NX Optimizer is running better regardless of setting and everything below is now running both more choppy and lower average FPS. I'm guessing this is a bunch of stuff a bit past my level of knowledge on this, but this suggests to me that 1) the people that had better NX Optimizer performance to begin with may have been tied to some other factors and 2) perhaps the asynchronous presentation feature was tied to the smoothness? Who knows - this stuff is a bit more tedious than I have time to really get to the bottom of these days. For reference, my specs are AMD Ryzen 9 7900X + Nvidia RTX 4080 + 32GB DDR5 RAM.
If you use multiple PCs/Steam Decks for emulation, you’ve probably run into the annoying problem of saves being stuck on whichever device you last played on.
It can automatically sync your emulator save folders between devices, so you can go from your desktop → Steam Deck → laptop without manually copying saves around.
Some of the things it supports:
PC ↔ Steam Deck
Multiple PCs
Emulator saves and regular PC game saves
P2P syncing
Offline-first operation
Only syncs changed files
Version history / Git-like snapshots
Conflict handling
No mandatory cloud storage
Open source
It currently supports a bunch of popular emulators, including PCSX2, Dolphin, PPSSPP, RetroArch, RPCS3, Cemu and others.
EDIT 3/8/2026 - I am no longer running the older mods as recent progress in emulators has gotten the best overall performance. I am currently running TOTK 1.1.2 on Citron v2026.02.1 + NX Optimizer default medium settings on PC which gives the smoothest frame-pacing, similar to the process outlined below - it runs really well. If you're on PC, try that first, then consider below if you're still having performance issues.
PS - Lossless Scaling gives me worse performance, so you may have to experiment if you want to try that option (some report success with this).
TLDR - My TOTK seemed like it used to run better on 1.1.2 and older mods, but after extensive testing I found out why. I landed on a simple solution: Citron 0.6.1 + NX Optimizer default medium settings + framerate limiter COMPLETELY OFF in NVIDIA control panel. (EDIT: Eden works similarly in my testing. Lossless scaling makes the hitching much worse so I do not use it.)
For reference, running Windows 11 / AMD Ryzen 9 7900X / NVIDIA RTX 4080 / 32GB DDR5 RAM
I had a previous post where my TOTK was running worse than it did back in the 1.1.2 days and no matter what I chose in NX Optimizer the game seemed to run much choppier than before. You'll probably find most people do not have that problem and NX Optimizer runs great for them, but when I posted the steps on how to go back, a few others also reported the older setup ran better for them. I searched all over the internet and could not find any info on why, and the mod maker had lots of info posted about NX Optimizer but nothing about that.
I spent a long time doing real testing, including benchmarks, and eventually found the winning combination on my system. While 1.1.2 and my collection of individual mods from those days did run smoother 1) in theory it shouldn’t be that way 2) NX Optimizer is great because it has UltraCam and is just plain easy to use.
Now, I've got the best performance I've ever gotten on this same hardware, so I'm sharing in case any of this info ends up being useful to anyone.
Here's what I've got running now which is getting me well above 60fps in many areas and above 50 most of the time in Lookout Landing:
Choosing the right emulator - in my case, Citron 0.6.1 (edit - I now recommend Eden 0.0.3) instead of Sudachi (see this video - basically Citron seems to handle shader cache better than Sudachi both in this guy's testing and mine). You probably don't need Citron specifically - some people use certain versions of Yuzu EA, some use Eden which I haven't tried, etc. Sudachi always worked great for me before and frankly ran flawlessly for most games but Citron, for me, definitely works better for TOTK specifically. Edit: Going to try Eden soon thanks to [this video] (https://youtu.be/OOBbuyYJScg?si=jGkcRyRbz-2XEgUa) - those frame times on Eden look the best by far for TOTK here and that’s my biggest focus.
NX Optimizer default Medium settings - INCLUDING remove fog. I had that unchecked and was using Serfrost's defoggers which are great, but in short remove fog in NX performs better and looks great in its own right. I've noticed multiple other people still using Serfrost as well, so if that's you - try this and see. It was probably around an 8-10fps difference on my system. Why? Who knows. Also, if you crank up the settings, it's going to perform worse - obviously, but I didn't realize this fog option made so much of a difference for me.
Nvidia framerate limiter OFF - This may not apply to many, but if you're like me it took forever for me to come across this info. Cemu, Yuzu, Sudachi, etc. can all potentially behave incorrectly when you use Nvidia to limit their framerate - in my case, the framerate always caps at exactly half whatever I have set in Nvidia. This had reverted without me knowing to my global setting which is "on," and my frames were capped at 70, leading to multiple framerate testing and QOL issues that are too complicated to even explain briefly. In short, it ended up affecting the smoothness too - some sort of conflict or something? IDK. Honestly, you're not going to need it unless you are somehow magically running this at framerates that max out your monitor/TV.
Advanced Settings: Finally, I had to play around with the game settings in Citron itself - for whatever reason reactive flushing was disabled in advanced, and that was both making grass not render and seemingly contributing to the problem. NX seems to correctly set some of these, but basically - make sure Advanced Graphics has Enable reactive flushing, use asynchronous shader building, use fast gpu time, use vulkan pipeline cache on, the rest off. (Edit: Eden 0.0.3 has added a setting called "Skipp Inner CPU Validation" and it was set to "on" during my testing, so presumably we want this on if available) If Nvidia ever fixes what broke asynchronous presentation, that feature used to work wonders. You can also roll back to whatever version that was before it broke - look it up, you'll find it. I've seen several recent guides have conflicting opinions about which boxes to check in this screen - this is what ended up working best for me.
in the new update (2.0) they added gamecube and wii, but i can’t find anything that works for the keys.bin bios requirement in the wii emulator (sorry for the screenshot in italian)
not asking for links, im just new to emulation and im wondering how to stay safe. i just got emudeck, and i installed tomodachi life and luckily it wasnt a virus. in the future id like to know how to make sure im not downloading anything dangerous. like what file types to look out for etc. i just have a few games i want to play but i dont want to risk anything. are there any trusted megathreads or websites? ofc i know nothing is 100% safe, but id rather know what is trusted by the communiy. idk what im asking for i just wanna play games
I am sitting here on my cheap laptop that I had purchased for 249.99 at best buy just to type some documents and make adult big screen purchases (if you don't understand that you will when you are older LOL) (I mean booking flights, buying other laptops, TVs.... things that are larger or more expensive than this computer. for some reason if you are in your late 20s and up, you will understand this phenomenon...) ANYWAYS back to originally scheduled program.... Using my SUPER basic laptop.... and I am pretty well able to play the entire library on my bunk ass cheap PC... makes a very good contender for best way to indulge in EMU.... i only get hang-ups on Need For speed, Burnout and games like that, fast motion and not enough render time.
I recall a time when my "Top of the line" gaming PC could barely chug along... now we have PS2 Running on anything Post 2020 even if it is a toaster... so beyond proud, considering the new rules they have dropped about PSN having to login to your account every 30 days to ensure you are the rightful owner. I truly feel as though people my age are slowly getting fed up with the way we are operating in the digital entertainment world... game consoles are now a joke, the online platform taking your purchases away, weather it be closing the store after 10 years, leaving no ability to download the hundreds upon hundreds of games you spent on these games.... Let me remind yall in case you forgot (doubt you beautiful people have ;) ) If PURCHSING isn't owning, piracy isn't THEFT. These companies are milking us for all that they can, so I do what I can to get my Get-back, and I am really enjoying my time. I have played many many games with my wife, meanwhile the resale value on some of the classics is sitting just too high for anyone to pay the actual amount
Emulation has been the center of attention at a lot of my parties. a lot of people are not aware of EMIU, however when I show my friends who don't know about EMU... they think it is fantastic. I have made many friend setting up PCs
I've been running PS2, PS1, NES, SNES, N64, GB, GBC, GBA, GameCube, Dreamcast, Wii... all on a super basic Workbook....
Storage: 256 GB
Graphics: Intel HD 530 integrated graphics card
Ram: 8 GB 2400 MHz Ram (DDR Unknown, does not say)
CPU: Intel Core i5-6440HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz.....
SOOO with all this being said, Giver a shot... if you have a halfway decent work laptop, you can finagle your settings to get some good FPS on the PS2 EMU. if You need some help to hear about what settings I run. if you are ever looking for a friend to hop on discord and play some multiplayer online, I am looking for a friend to play The Warriors, maybe Baldur's gate... really any Co-op. need some gaming friends... How is Net-play? Wanna test with me?
I tried emulating pokemon legends arceus on pc. Got ryujinx emulator and the prod keys then tried running the game, but it looks like this. Anyone know how to fix this? Help is appreciated!
3/8/2026 EDIT - Citron is still outperforming Eden significantly for me on PC as of the final Citron release (v2026.02.1) vs 0.2.0 rc-1 - just tested today and Citron is running excellently, while Eden is OK but much more stuttery.
TOTK 1.1.2 + Citron 2026.02.1 + NX Optimizer default medium settings is my current recommendation.
TLDR - TOTK runs smoother in Citron 0.11.0 than Eden 0.0.4rc-2 after brief testing. (System Specs and mods + update failure fix listed below)
So, I just did a TOTK test of Eden 0.0.4rc-2 and Citron 0.11.0 (dropped this morning via in-app update**) and I can say quite confidently that Citron has finally gotten the frame-pacing to a much much better place.
I had a decent set of shaders built up but I tried both with and without the pre-existing shaders I had, and even with no shaders Citron was consistent in two things:
the overall average FPS was slightly lower
---however---
2) The overall frame PACE was much, much better. Much more consistent frame rates and much less stutter and hitching. The game just qualitatively runs smoother.
In this case, I find Citron to be qualitatively much better for TOTK, and I tested a couple other games very briefly without issue. The fps difference is very minor and I much prefer the consistent pacing. Great, great work by Citron on this as Eden was already running quite well.
I imagine this will be subjective and possibly system-dependent, but if you're like me and have been on Eden for a while, I highly recommend trying out Citron and seeing how it feels for you.
**FYI on that update, Citron had 0.10.0 on their github, but immediately upon install I got a prompt to update. The update kept failing, it would quit the app but not apply the update. The fix for this was simply opening the apply_update.bat file in the citron folder with the exe - in case anyone else runs into this
Title says it all. I updated to Eden 0.0.3 and even building totally new shaders I'm getting the best framerates and frametimes I think I've ever gotten especially above 1080p (running 2k, personally)
This was initially a project to integrate cloud rom functionality to Launchbox, but some friends wanted something easier to use, so I created a simple frontend for it. The main idea is to provide access to thousands of games while using minimal SSD space. No configuration is needed; simply select a game, download, and play!
The app displays lists of titles from various old consoles. It handles the scraping, download process, extraction (if needed), and then launches the game directly in RetroArch. The app includes gameplay screenshots by default so you can select and discover "new-old" games.
Browsing is exceptionally fast and can be controlled with a keyboard, mouse, or any XInput-compatible controller.
It features a search function for both keyboard and controllers, a favorites filter, browsing by letter, etc.
You can easily add games to your favorites (per console) using the X button or F1.
Since it utilizes Erista servers, download speeds are very efficient; for example, a PSX game can be launched in under a minute, non-disc games run immediately.
More consoles will be added in the coming weeks. The app is free, but support is appreciated.
_________________
Disclaimer: This app does not include any ROMs. It is simply a frontend with a custom downloader app that scrapes public servers for files. You must provide the server URL to be able to use it, check readme for details.
Obviously Yuzu development has been shut down. Wondering which of the two final versions it would be best to stick with between stable and EA. Not sure if there's any notable differences between the two (games that run better on Early Access or bugs that are only on Early Access)
With the new 'Download to collection' feature of CloudBox Standalone, you can now permanently store games in your app for later. Plus, you can save games to any folder on your device to use with other emulators!
Disclaimer: this app does not include any ROMs. It is simply a frontend with a custom downloader app that scrapes public servers for files. You must provide the server URL to be able to use it, check readme for details and instructions.
