Ever wanted to play Nintendo 3DS games on your Android device? Well, the Citra development team has just made your dreams reality, with their brand new release of Citra Android. The hard work from many different developers, including ones who have previously worked on Dolphin and Yuzu, has culminated in a beta version of the official build of Citra that you can grab from the Google Play Store for free. Running Citra on your phone or tablet will require, at minimum, Android 8 Oreo and support for OpenGL ES 3.2. Having a snapdragon 835 chip is recommended in order to get the best performance possible, but isn't mandatory. The Android version of the emulator even has features such as microphone support, camera support for scanning QR codes, and was shown running Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, Mario Kart 7, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Fire Emblem: Fates, and more, in addition to certain Virtual Console titles.

What Works and What Doesn’t?
The app is still in beta. So, while we have tried to squash the bugs we’ve come across, you may still run into the occasional glitch. If you run into any major problems, please report them to us on our Discord server or forum and we will try to organise them.

The app requires a minimum of 64-bit Android 8 (Oreo), and OpenGL ES 3.2 support. These are relatively high requirements; however, they allow us to ensure that every device that can run Citra will have a reasonably good experience. As for hardware, we recommend a device with a Snapdragon 835 or better. Your experience may vary greatly depending on the quality of your device’s GPU drivers.

Pokémon on an older device

Pokémon on a newer device

Source
Google Play Store Download

 

[BaamAlex]

If you have a decrypted CIA, then yea. You just have to install it in the emulator. (File>Install CIA)

I don't have this option.

 

[Mama Looigi]

How do you do that on the android app? There is no file button like in the PC app.

I don't have this option.

You’ll have to just re-dump them on your 3DS in a different format. (.CCI preferably)

 

[YeezusWalks]

Time to turn my phone into a portable stove

 

[Carlanga]

Cant wait for iOS turn..oof

in iOS you can actually play dolphin though

 

[Mythical]

Yea it's called a 3ds with cfw welcome to 5 years ago

1) buzzkill
2) or any 3ds?

 

[Kunty]

Pokemon Y running at 30fps 2x resolution with slight drops every now and then on my Samsung Galaxy Tab S6.

 

[raxadian]

That’s why I watercool my Samsung j3. If I play in the winter, I can get 13fps on a gba game, without overclocking!

Isn't it cheaper to just get a GBA SP and a romloader thing?

 

[Zkajavier]

It works incredibly well on my Samsung S10e, I'm blown away

 

[Nudu]

omgg i didnt know that even .3dsx work

 

[thegameksk]

You’ll have to just re-dump them on your 3DS in a different format. (.CCI preferably)

What if we don't have a 3ds? Out of luck?

 

[Shadow#1]

What if we don't have a 3ds? Out of luck?

Buy one

 

[notimp]

The Great Ace Attorney (Dai Gyakuten Saiban) 1 and 2 (english fan translation) run on a Snapdragon 855 in fullspeed (occasional slight stutter), at 2x resolution.

Setting any of the Ace Attorney titles (the normal english ones, or the fan translated ones) to 2x resolution solves the graphical glitch issue on the main screen.

I got the fan translation titles to work, by also installing weihuoya's citra build ( https://github.com/weihuoya/citra/releases ), then installing the games as .cia files from there (will get installed into citras 'emulated sdcard' folder), then hitting 'refresh' on the games list, then playing both of the fan translated titles to the first 'textbox dialog screen', and saving the game there.

From then on - continuing in the official release build was possible.

(Reset all your settings (set them off and then on again) in the official build as well, it could be that settings are shared between both emulator versions, just to be safe. At first the FMVs would play at a crawl speed in the release version, but once I fiddled with settings a little (including the FMV hack in weihuoyas citra), and then reset the settings in the official build, all speed issues even during the FMVs were gone.)

The official release build is slightly faster than weihuoya's latest release.

Have fun.

DGS1:

DGS2:

 

[SexiestManAlive]

definitly gonna check this out on switchdroid lol

 

[notimp]

Just a quick follow up note. As this is the first time I ventured into 3DS emulation, today I took the opportunity and also looked at emulating those Ace Attorney titles on the PC version of Citra.

If you remove bilinear filtering, set screen resolution to 6x(the one with 1440 as the vertical resolution), and use the big image setting (see screenshots), the games look spectacular on 1080p or higher output resolution.

The screen resolution of 1440p is just high enough that the slightly smaller than full screen window doesnt show any obvious aliasing anymore.

Also, the chinese titles and fan translation are supreme(!) in terms of atmosphere (staging, music, humor, art assets..).

So if you can experience them in emulation on a PC currently - that might be preferable over you playing them on your android phone.

That said, with the latest official Citra Canary build, FMVs still only play at 60% speed, even on my Ryzen 7 3700X (with no CPU core maxed out) - so something isnt quite right here... Or not well optimized at this stage..

This isnt the ffmpeg bug again, that impacted PPSSPP, is it? ( https://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp/issues/11490 )

 

[spotanjo3]

I am going to test it on my Samsung S9 and on my android tv which we bought last year. I will see how well they are on the speeds. I will be back and report later. I am going out to have fun with my cousin and my friend for lunch today!

Wow.. I am surprised that Samsung S9 can run it very well. The speed FPS is: 60! Impressive. Full speed! For Super Mario 3D Land and The Legend of Zelda - A Link Between Worlds! A lag little bit sometimes but mostly playable great!

 

[megahog2012]

Hey how well can the Nvidia Shield run this?

 

[Shadow#1]

Hey how well can the Nvidia Shield run this?

Not at all

 

[spotanjo3]

Not at all

How do you know ? I dont have it but Samsung S9 runs those games very well. Full speed. Unless he is asking about 2017 which I dont know much but 2019 version should works very well.

 

[Shadow#1]

How do you know ? I dont have it but Samsung S9 runs those games very well. Full speed. Unless he is asking about 2017 which I dont know much but 2019 version should works very well.

If people just read

 

[Xabring]

Welp, time to look for my dumped 3DS games to test it out!
EDIT:

Ever wanted to melt your Android smartphone? Citra is already power hungry in a PC, I can't imagine what it would do to something with way less cooling.

You know what's the funny thing? My Smartphone is able to run the games faster than my laptop (And it even uses the gyroscope!. pretty rudimentary, but works!)

It didn't burst into flames, but it did suck the juice like crazy!