Wondering how Ryujinx Switch emulator runs on iOS? Rather bad. Developer Zhuowei Zhang (whom we credit for a recent hack to change the iOS system font) installed the macOS build of the emulator on an iPhone 14 Pro. If he manages to launch a game, there’s still a lot to do before he can play Super Mario Odyssey in the comfort of his phone.
The iPhone 14 Pro can hardly emulate a Nintendo Switch.
It’s enough to run a 2D Unity game with some crashes.
The game is https://t.co/zuAIxcgR81, D3fau4’s port of https://t.co/zUKMtNNWjh.
The emulator is Ryujinx (https://t.co/qTdwPTpHvE) packaged to run on iOS.
The game starts at 00:47. pic.twitter.com/9WADxSV5St– Zhuowei Zhang (@zhuowei) January 2, 2023
In a post, the developer states that he coded a prototype launcher for Ryujinx that launches an unmodified build of version 11.0 of this emulator optimized for Apple Silicon chips. We can see that he manages to launch a port of Helltaker on Switch (a 2D game on Unity) which is obviously running with some crashes. If the developer states that he doesn’t expect the iPhone to be able to run big 3D games in the coming months, it should be able to launch simple titles.
Why does the iPhone 14 Pro grind like an aging Switch and its 2015 processor? Nintendo’s console only has 4GB of RAM compared to 6GB for the phone. However, the emulator needs 1.5GB more to run, not to mention that VRAM emulation and texture decompression are memory intensive. Virtual memory limitations and lack of some Metal/MoltenVK features on iOS are also the reasons for this poor performance.
If the beginnings are difficult, this project remains interesting: we will see the performance on an iPad M1 or M2. iOS already has many emulators of the likes of Dolphin (GameCube, Wii) or Delta (GBA, DS) accessible at the expense of some restrictive hacks. On Android there is the Switch Skyline emulator, of which a first alpha was released in 2019.