Is a good 3DS emulator for Switch possible?

[nobody123456789]

Citra runs some games well and others unplayably slowly. Is the Switch hardware not up to emulating the 3DS or does Citra need more time to be optimized?

 

[kidkat210]

If you really wanna play 3ds on switch, I suggest android with citra. It seem to perform better than the retroarch core. But this was also 2-3 years ago

 

[hippy dave]

There may be more optimisations and speed improvements to come, but I guess it's looking likely that not all games will ever run full speed.

 

[HaloBenish]

https://www.patreon.com/m4xwdev

This paid discord has citra core for retroarch horizon atmosphere

https://discord.gg/erNC4FB

 

[Draxzelex]

Citra runs some games well and others unplayably slowly. Is the Switch hardware not up to emulating the 3DS or does Citra need more time to be optimized?

A lot of people don't realize that the Switch isn't meant for emulation. Its better for ports.

 

[deathblade200]

A lot of people don't realize that the Switch isn't meant for emulation. Its better for ports.

well now this just isn't true the real issue is people refuse to temper their expectations. like people want to emulate the last gen Nintendo handheld on the switch which is just asinine to expect actual playable performance. and before some idiot comes in going "3ds emulated DS and GBA" no it contained DS hardware which itself was also GBA hardware

 

[Pleng]

A lot of people don't realize that the Switch isn't meant for emulation. Its better for ports.

No mainstream console is "meant" for emulation, and I think pretty much everybody is aware of this fact.

 

[Draxzelex]

No mainstream console is "meant" for emulation, and I think pretty much everybody is aware of this fact.

If you mean current gen, you might be right but the last generation had the Wii U which not only emulated all of Nintendo's previous consoles near perfectly but a myriad of other retro consoles as well.

 

[Kirby567fan]

If you mean current gen, you might be right but the last generation had the Wii U which not only emulated all of Nintendo's previous consoles near perfectly but a myriad of other retro consoles as well.

The Wii U's CPU and GPU were specifically designed so that they include any features needed to play Wii and by extension GCN games, so no that wasnt emulation, its also one of the reasons why the console ended up expensive to make and underpowered compared to the competition.
As for all the other consoles that the Wii U emulated, the Switch is currently capable of running them or alternatives through homebrew or Ubuntu/Android, most of the time or probably always better than the Wii U did since the Switch has a better CPU.
About 3DS emulation on Switch, I think that doing an approach similar to what vita2hos is trying to do would be the best way as the 3DS's CPU features the ARMv6 Instruction Set which the Switch can run natively through its A57's Aarch32 mode.
For the GPU and OS functions, its possible to also do what vita2hos is striving to do by intercepting any function calls and instead calling the equivalent that the Switch has access to.
Ofc this is a very surface level thinking as the matter is probably much more complex, but I still believe good 3DS emulation can happen on Switch even tough the option I suggested isnt exactly emulation.