Picking Up Where Citra Left Off, A New 3DS Emulator Is Now Available To Download
Andy Walker / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The new Azahar emulator, which lets you run 3DS titles on Android, is now available to download.
- This is a release candidate for now but it could evolve into a stable version if no major issues are found.
- The emulator doesn’t run encrypted games, and you can’t use 3DS files by default.
The popular Citra 3DS emulator was shut down earlier this year amid a wider crackdown by Nintendo, but a new project called Azahar filled us with hope. Fortunately, this new emulator is now available to download.
The Azahar team posted a release candidate for the emulator on GitHub over the weekend. The developers said this wasn’t a stable release but could evolve into one if no major issues are discovered within the following seven days.
Azahar’s developers urged users to test the emulator to catch any issues before its promotion to a full release, asking users to report the issue via GitHub.
“If you are unwilling to tolerate potential minor issues, you may be better off waiting until a release candidate is promoted to a full release,” the developers cautioned. In other words, you shouldn’t expect a perfect release straight away. And you shouldn’t expect your potato phone to run many games at first (if ever).
What to know about this first release?
This emulator doesn’t allow for the launching of encrypted games and .3DS files by default. Instead, Azahar uses CCI files for games. However, the team says changing the extension of files from 3DS to CCI also works.
Nevertheless, this first release brings a few notable features and fixes. Easily the most noteworthy addition is the ability to disable “right eye rendering.” The Nintendo 3DS rendered games for both left and right eyes, which is handy for 3D-enabled titles but a waste of resources when playing 2D games. In fact, the developers claim a performance boost of up to 50% when only rendering for one eye.
In any event, this release is good news for 3DS emulation on Android. So we hope it continues to receive plenty of love from the developers and manages to avoid falling foul of Nintendo.
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