What level of PC hardware would be required to emulate Switch 2 games?

The real question is, how long emulators will last before Nintendon'ts will shut them down? Cuz there won't be any issue for PCs to emulate outdated hardware.
 
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2060 super for smooth sailing, I'll be shocked if it needed anything more than that.

Source: Have emulated Switch on gtx1060 upscaled 1080p 30fps with minor dips.
 
Agent_4Seven said:
The real question is, how long emulators will last before Nintendon'ts will shut them down? Cuz there won't be any issue for PCs to emulate outdated hardware.
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Switch emulators are still getting updates. For each one of them closed there's a few new forks being made.
 
Its more the CPU than GPU for emulation. The Steam Deck will likely be 1 to 1 on the CPU side even if the GPU was capable. You could probably get away with Z1 Extreme but you will likely need a CPU equivalent to a high end Zen however.
 
Ritsumei2020 said:
RTX5090 I think

They are not too expensive either
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I would imagine a modern budget cpu like the Ryzen 9600x won't have a problem with switch 2 emulation when it is mature.

Emulation is very weighted towards CPU. Some games on Yuzu will even be playable on older intel integrated graphics and a gtx 1050 is basically enough for Switch emulation. So for Switch 2 I doubt you'll need anything more than an RTX 3060.
 
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Impossible to say with confidence as we can't know what challenges programmers face when trying to emulate the thing. You can't base our assumptions just off of the hardware specs of the device, there might be a lot of other shit going on behind the scenes that emulators need to take care of.
 
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The first switch only got emulated that fast because it got jailbroken basically on release due to some hardware flaw in the first release models (?) atleast that's what i read, so switch 2 emulation could be half a decade away for all we know.
 
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I don't think there's any definitive info about the Switch's hardware and software combo publicly available (yet), but if turns out to be just a "Switch with more powerful hardware", emulation may be simple to the point that just updating the existing emulators in few minor ways MAY be enough.

Where this leaves the minimum requirements is all to see.
In a best case scenario, chances are that for a lot of desktop PCs you'd be barely able to tell the difference. "Switch with far better performances" after all is exactly what was already achieved with the previous emulators on PC:

On the other hand for systems with very limited hardware like the Steamdeck this may push things out of their comfort zone.
If rumors are to believe the Switch2 is supposed to be at least on par with it if not slightly superior... And 1:1 hardware rarely translates well in emulation.
 
depends just as much on the emulator as on what`s being emulated.
If we`re talking about a theoretical perfectly efficient emulator I´d expect normal midrange hardware being enough for everything including massively upscaling and overclocking. We´re talking about anemic mobile hardware after all.

I´m itching to see if Nintendo has continued being utterly useless when it comes to system security.
 
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There will be so many nintendo account checks on games almost nothing will be emulated. Is my prediction. I think Mario Kart World is the model for most games from nintendo this gen.
 
TintoConCasera said:
Switch emulators are still getting updates. For each one of them closed there's a few new forks being made.
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Something tells me that with such insane af prices (dude, WTF?!) they'll go after emulation like we never seen before and they'll think of a reason. I hope I'm wrong.
 
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U can extrapolate from what first switch needed to emulate, ofc we dont wanna 720p or 1080p/30fps emulation, we want 4k60fps stable, and for that u gonna need beefy mashine, both cpu and gpu wise.

And here whats needed for zelda to look pristine in 4k60 5800x and 3060ti u can see usage % too so u know mashine is actually sweating a bit, at times, to hold that 4k60 stable:


Now we can extrapole power switch 1 which is not even 500gflops vs switch2 thats 3,1tflops on much newer archi, and there u go, much stronger pc is needed as bare minimum for actual proper emulation, which means current bis mashines will probably be able to do it, but just barely.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce-rtx-3060-ti.c3681 thats where rtx 3060ti lands vs current bis gpu's btw.
 
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TintoConCasera said:
Switch emulators are still getting updates. For each one of them closed there's a few new forks being made.
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Yeah, without the original developers. None of the million forks matter since we lost the OGs - bunnei, gdkchan, etc.
There won't be a Switch 2 emulator for years to come.
 
Lorianus said:
The first switch only got emulated that fast because it got jailbroken basically on release due to some hardware flaw in the first release models (?) atleast that's what i read, so switch 2 emulation could be half a decade away for all we know.
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yeah... the more pertinent question is how quickly can the S2 be jailbroken. If it takes 4+ years, then probably the average hardware of the time will be enough to emulate it, but if it's straight away, we'd probably need something like a 5080 or 5090.

I have a feeling that vastly more resources were spent in hardening the security this time around which contributed to extended release schedule. Billions upon billions were lost from the early jailbreak last time.
 
People are running BOTW/TOTK at 4K or 8K @ 60fps already and Switch 2 is only running that at 1440p @ 60fps.
So theoretically not much is needed.

EDIT: 8K is Wii U emulation. sorry. I have seen 4K 60fps on BOTW Switch though.
 
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IMO, take the hardware on PC side that takes to run say BOTW or TotK at 4K/60 and increase that by roughly 50% to 100% to account for emulator overhead.

So modern 7000 series 8 core AMD or Intel equivalent desktop CPU and 3070+ GPU? This is for 4K/60 fps type performance.

Of course the elephant in the room is how quickly will the Switch 2 hardware be jailbroken so folks can understand it and how hard will Nintendo will go after emulation authors.
 
I honestly think it won't take long to get the switch 2 emulated, I think that's why Nintendo is going after emulation so hard to put the fear in people so they don't do it. I think if anything it will be kept quiet if there is. But the incentive is there to do it with the pricing. If Nintendo really wanted to stop emulation they could just release the games on pc but we all know they won't do that. But to answer your question I think you would probably be able to get away with a 1080 ti for some games for switch 2.

Also if there is one I think you will be able to tap into dlss capabilities if you have an nvidia card.
 
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Nobody knows because the answer depends mostly on how efficient the emulator will be.
If it will be as efficient as possible then Deck should fare fine with Sw2 games as Deck's APU is in fact more performant.
 
dgrdsv said:
Nobody knows because the answer depends mostly on how efficient the emulator will be.
If it will be as efficient as possible then Deck should fare fine with Sw2 games as Deck's APU is in fact more performant.
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That's good to know. Thanks.
 
Well... people overlook one very important detail. To load backups you need to decrypt the games and that can only be possible if the console is hacked. Switch 1 has an unpatchable hardware exploit that has allowed to get the keys of all firmwares, it's very unlikely that something like that will happen on Switch 2 in a short time.
 
alphachino said:
yeah... the more pertinent question is how quickly can the S2 be jailbroken.
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Lorianus said:
The first switch only got emulated that fast because it got jailbroken basically on release
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StereoVsn said:
Of course the elephant in the room is how quickly will the Switch 2 hardware be jailbroken so folks can understand it
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Huh?

Since when does any console need to be "jailbroken" in order to be emulated?

I think you are confused.
 
alphachino said:
How exactly do you rip the games without jailbreaking? With the Xbox one, no emulator or attempts were made until very recently when a jailbreak was leaked.
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Ripping the games and making an emulator are two completely different things.

One can decide to emulate a system to run homebrew or just for fun/research/programming challenge.

There are no XBOX one emulators atm, there are translation layers that allow you to play some games. Emulators are more than that.

Also, making a new emulator takes time, by the time you reach a somewhat working state, there will probably be a way to test those games already. So if you want to make an emulator it doesn't make sense to wait for the games to get ripped or the console to be jailbroken.
 
nkarafo said:
Ripping the games and making an emulator are two completely different things.

One can decide to emulate a system to run homebrew or just for fun/research/programming challenge.

There are no XBOX one emulators atm, there are translation layers that allow you to play some games. Emulators are more than that.

Also, making a new emulator takes time, by the time you reach a somewhat working state, there will probably be a way to test those games already. So if you want to make an emulator it doesn't make sense to wait for the games to get ripped or the console to be jailbroken.
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I didn't say there was an emulator for the Xbox one. The main reason there isn't one is because wine translation makes more sense for for the Xbox one. If translation wasn't feasible, then an emulator would be the next best option. Either way, they needed a jailbreak to break the encryption of the games themselves. Everything else is moot.
 
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