The Yuzu emulator team is taking a look back at the new changes and improvements they've made since the start of the year in a new progress report. Already, the Nintendo Switch emulator has seen a number of changes throughout the first month of 2023, ranging from fixes for LDN, to input improvements. Headlined in the breakdown is a major reduction in stuttering, thanks to a new pipeline cache for the Vulkan API. The full list of changes, fixes, and technical details can be viewed in the progress report below.

During the time it took to merge last month’s Project Y.F.C. 1.5, several other GPU related changes had to be delayed. One change that slipped by, made by a new contributor, improved the Vulkan experience so dramatically, it almost feels like cheating… The change is simple: instead of relying on the GPU driver to store and validate the pipeline cache (a.k.a. the shaders), and having the usual suspects like the Windows AMD driver fail to store 95% of them because of some arbitrary low size limitation, Wollnashorn decided that doing it with the official Vulkan API is better.

By storing the entire pipeline cache in a custom file among yuzu’s folders, AMD GPUs running on Windows can now properly load large caches in mere seconds, as it should be. This has saved me literal hours of time while playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with an RX 6600, as the game has the lovely perk of many heavy shaders. Booting the game with 25000 shaders used to take close to 15 minutes, with the driver only providing the first 3000 shaders or so, and the rest always being recompiled. The process now takes mere seconds.

NVIDIA and Intel are faster at shader building than AMD
But this isn’t just another fix for AMD Windows users. While the objective was accomplished, the benefits didn’t stop there. As it turns out, locally stored files are much quicker to save compared to relying on the GPU driver. Possibly due to fewer checks being performed? All GPU vendors see reduced stuttering when facing new shaders!

The usual limitations apply: the cache still asks the driver for validation, so updating it to a newer or older version will require a recompilation, and since the cache is vendor-specific, you won’t get to keep the cache if you switch to a new GPU from another vendor. (And we’re glad there are more than two options now.)

While Wollnashorn intended this feature to be optional at first, we consider it fully stable, so it’s now enabled by default. Anyone interested in testing disabling it will find the new option in Emulation > Configure… > Graphics > Advanced > Use Vulkan pipeline cache.

Source

 

[DJPlace]

emulation does what shitty nintenDOH hardware don't!

sadly i agree with you there.

 

[Jayro]

The Wii U would have been a powerhouse if they had just made the gamepad slimmer with cameras and a longer range from the console. Also having ALL games support both tv-only or gamepad-only would have been fantastic.

 

[raxadian]

The PS2 was also an awful piece of hardware

The Dreamcast was actually better but couldn't play DVD movies or Playstation 1 games while the PS2 could.

The Switch however has not dropped in price ever, now has 70 dollar games and the controllers durability is laughable.

 

[Dimensional]

Yes

Just checked, no it doesn't. Full XCI includes the Key Area. This prepends an additional 4096 bytes of data to the XCI, with the first 512 bytes being the initial/key area, followed by 0-padding. Did you perhaps confused Yuzu with Ryujinx, which does support these dumps?

 

[krakenx]

Just checked, no it doesn't. Full XCI includes the Key Area. This prepends an additional 4096 bytes of data to the XCI, with the first 512 bytes being the initial/key area, followed by 0-padding. Did you perhaps confused Yuzu with Ryujinx, which does support these dumps?

For legal reasons, Yuzu doesn't include the keys required to play xci games, but you can use lockpick to grab them from your switch and install them. Once you do, you can play your xci rips.

 

[Dimensional]

For legal reasons, Yuzu doesn't include the keys required to play xci games, but you can use lockpick to grab them from your switch and install them. Once you do, you can play your xci rips.

XCI, yes. Again, not FullXCI. There is a difference between the two. Because of the additional 4096 bytes prepended to the an FullXCI, Yuzu isn't able to recognize the header and thinks the file is corrupt. You can find out about the difference by checking out No-Intro's wiki on the subject of Switch card dumping.

 

[Paolosworld]

Good piece of software, crappy team.

Why are they a crappy team?

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, I'm just uninformed

 

[dekuleon]

it gotta be ready for totk heheh

 

[Impossible_Igntiz]

this quickly became the "I hate Switch" thread, emulators seriously brings out the worst in people on the internet.

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2023

Hoping they'll sell their exclusives on PC is useless, it will never happen. Unless they go through another crisis like the GameCube and Wii U they won't be that desperate

Post automatically merged: Feb 12, 2023

Wait...what the fuck? 1080p in handheld mode? What were they thinking!?...I've just found out the same thing happened with Hyrule Warriors 1, the developers really were incompetent

I thought you guys like 1080p or higher resolution stuff in every single game, now it's a problem? make up ya'll minds lol

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2023

Hardware isn't everything. Having proper games is much more important than obsessing over numbers like resolution, budget or development times. The PS2 was also an awful piece of hardware which tended to break down just from looking at its direction when put next to the competition, and completely outdated when put next to PCs from 1998 with dual Voodoo 2's able to run Quake II at 1600x1200, and that didn't prevent it from having a shit ton of great games.

Exactly! people are fucking hypocrites

 

[yoyoyo69]

$150 difference for the high end models of the Switch and the Xbox/PlayStation things. $100 difference between the low end Switch and the low end Xbox, $200 below the low end PlayStation.

Thank you for verifying my post

 

[Bladexdsl]

Hardware isn't everything. Having proper games is much more important than obsessing over numbers like resolution, budget or development times. The PS2 was also an awful piece of hardware which tended to break down just from looking at its direction when put next to the competition, and completely outdated when put next to PCs from 1998 with dual Voodoo 2's able to run Quake II at 1600x1200, and that didn't prevent it from having a shit ton of great games.

um no hardware IS everything. these days if games can't run properly without fps issues and slowdowns than it's a failure what good are games if you can't even play them properly you don't have a clue!. if games can't even run correctly at 1080p 60fps than it fails which is what the switch is. this is where emulation comes in to fix the mess that nintendo created. also NO DRIFT in emulation!

 

[Cris1997XX]

this quickly became the "I hate Switch" thread, emulators seriously brings out the worst in people on the internet.

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2023

I thought you guys like 1080p or higher resolution stuff in every single game, now it's a problem? make up ya'll minds lol

Post automatically merged: Feb 13, 2023

Exactly! people are fucking hypocrites

Who even mentioned that? YOU should make up your mind, my man. Resolution isn't really that important as long as it doesn't reach frickin' 240p. But fullHD in handheld mode is useless, especially since the screen is barely 720p. All that wasted energy...

 

[trepp0]

Are you really there on every news related to Nintendo to display your hate of it? That is quite the dedication to do that on a Nintendo related website.

This site is not strictly nintendo related, i come here for emulation and PlayStation.

 

[gudenau]

Thank you for verifying my post

In the best case it's half the price, I'd definitely call that cheap.

 

[AlexMCS]

Hardware isn't everything. Having proper games is much more important than obsessing over numbers like resolution, budget or development times. The PS2 was also an awful piece of hardware which tended to break down just from looking at its direction when put next to the competition, and completely outdated when put next to PCs from 1998 with dual Voodoo 2's able to run Quake II at 1600x1200, and that didn't prevent it from having a shit ton of great games.

I know hardware isn't everything. IMHO, the PS2 is still the best console ever made so far, due to the games available there, but to say the NES is better... That's simply BS.

The PS2 being better, or even the SNES I could accept.

The NES does not have good games overall due to the extremely unforgiving difficulty of the titles back then.
It's like the games were made thinking of arcade/coin-op first, to make the player waste "coins" and be almost a speedrun master in order to finish.

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, you'd never pick NES over anything recent, specially the Switch, which seems to be the only current gen system with really good games, consistently (even if it's the worst hardware among them).

 

[Nincompoopdo]

Just make sure Yuzu can play Tears of the Kingdom on day 1 and I will cry tears of joy.

 

[yoyoyo69]

In the best case it's half the price, I'd definitely call that cheap.

Lol

I just scooped this turd from my toilet, I'm sure you'd be very keen to purchase it?

$100, that's ridiculously cheap, it's hundreds cheaper than a PS5 (your chosen metric)

 

[SuperDan]

Even tho i bought Metroid Prime remaster day one ! which is the best thing on Switch ATM sooo darn Good !
i tried emulating it yesterday works semi well on Ryujinx ..But Won't even load on Yuzu >?

 

[chrisrlink]

* X1 Mariko.
Sadly the X1 had been on the shelf for 2 years when the Switch launched, I'm honestly surprised they didn't go with the X2.

personally glad they didn't (unless the X2 suffers the same rcm vuln)

Post automatically merged: Feb 16, 2023

Difficult i fear as right now Metroid Prime remaster runs like crap

might they have implimented denuvo as announced in this title? on that note you better baby your v1 switches seems the steamdeck may not be a viable sub for the switch sooner than later

Post automatically merged: Feb 16, 2023

I know hardware isn't everything. IMHO, the PS2 is still the best console ever made so far, due to the games available there, but to say the NES is better... That's simply BS.

The PS2 being better, or even the SNES I could accept.

The NES does not have good games overall due to the extremely unforgiving difficulty of the titles back then.
It's like the games were made thinking of arcade/coin-op first, to make the player waste "coins" and be almost a speedrun master in order to finish.

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, you'd never pick NES over anything recent, specially the Switch, which seems to be the only current gen system with really good games, consistently (even if it's the worst hardware among them).

yeah ever played the water level of tmnt? thats just one level example of how difficult some nes games were

 

[hamohamo]

Switch's hardware wasn't shit in 2017, but it aged quickly and got outdated as soon as the Xbox Series S/X and PS5 came out

Considering vita games. A completely handheld device released in 2011 look as good and considering it's the same shield hardware from 2014, I'd say it was pretty outdated since release.