Are you looking for a good Nintendo 3DS emulator for PC? Then, you're in luck. We have investigated in depth, and we have found the best Nintendo 3DS emulator for PC: Citra.
Citra, the Nintendo 3DS emulator for PC and Mac
Citra is an emulator that is on another level. It is a great option to run Nintendo 3DS games on both Windows and Mac and do so with 100% functionality.
In addition, it allows you to scale the 3D graphics to achieve much higher resolutions than the original console, so you can play in a much more comfortable way and, with this, get better results than if you did it on the Nintendo console.
On the other hand, it should be noted that it is a completely Open Source project. That is, open source. Therefore, anyone interested can modify the code and help improve the emulator (something that should always be kept in mind).
When it appeared in 2015, this emulator did not even have a frontend, which means that to use it, you had to operate directly through command lines. This made its use very complicated. However, thanks to, precisely, being Open Source, this was quickly solved.
After two years, Citra allows you to run a huge number of titles from the Nintendo 3DS catalog and do so at 60fps, with resolutions of 400x200 of the original screen. Something spectacular that can only be achieved if you have a community dedicated to modifying and improving the emulator code.
It should be noted that the fact that The graphic quality of the emulator is so high that you can enjoy spectacular graphics, much better than on the original console (although, yes, for this to happen the textures and models must have been defined as standard with that degree of detail, which does not always happen).
For example, playing The Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds or Super Mario 3D Land in full screen on the Xbox 360 is a completely different experience to do it through the Nintendo 3DS itself. You should try it if you haven't already.
The two screens
Now, if there has been a problem historically for the emulators of the latest Nintendo consoles, it has been the issue of two screens. Citra allows you to solve this problem in several different ways, depending on the game you are playing.
For example, you can view both screens at the same time, as if it were a split screen. In this way, you get a effect quite similar to what you would get if you were playing on the Nintendo 3DS.
On the other hand, you also have the possibility of displaying both screens in one, and switching between both screens with a key. This system is not the most comfortable, but sometimes it is quite good.
In my opinion, the best option to fully enjoy the game is to use the full screen for the top screen, and leave what would be the bottom screen on a small lower box in a corner in case you need to use it.
To use the touch controls you only have to use the mouse on the screen, which, in some cases, makes the operation much simpler and more comfortable (although, in others, it complicates the operation a little, we are not going to cheat).
Technical aspects
The ROMs for the emulator must be decrypted. This means that it does not accept dumps directly from backups in 3DS or 3DZ formats. However, it is easy to find tools to solve this problem on the Internet.
As for the system requirements, you only need a 64-bit operating system (Windows 7 or higher, as you should already know) and a graphics card that supports OpenGL 3.3 or higher.
As we have already pointed out, it works on all types of desktop computers, regardless of the operating system. You can use it on PCs with Windows, Linux, and Mac.. It won't give you any problems.
The weight of the emulator is around 11 MB, and it is completely portable, so you will not have to carry out boring installations.
As you can see, Citra is the best Nintendo 3DS emulator for PC with difference. If you want to play the best 3DS games on your computer, you won't have any problems with this emulator.
Inveterate technophile. I write about technology, science, productivity and general culture.
