Dekopon ports Azahar's 3DS emulation to Nintendo Switch homebrew scene

A new homebrew tool called Dekopon runs the Azahar 3DS emulator on Nintendo Switch hardware, with many games at full speed in its first release candidate.

AI-drafted from 1 source. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

A developer working under the name PalindromicBreadLoaf has released Dekopon, a port of the Azahar 3DS emulator that runs directly on Nintendo Switch. The first public build, version 3.0.0-RC1, is described in the GBAtemp thread as “(mostly) fullspeed”, meaning a good number of 3DS titles now run at their intended speed on Nintendo's own console rather than on a PC.

Emulating one console on another that is itself designed around a fixed, closed operating system is not a small undertaking, and running a 3DS emulator on the Switch's homebrew layer adds another layer of constraint on top of the usual translation of CPU instructions and graphics calls. According to the developer, performance is “very title dependent”, and while some games hit full speed even at the Switch's stock handheld clock speed, others need help. The advice given is to raise the Switch's CPU to what are called dev unit clocks, a higher clock profile normally reserved for development hardware, to cut down on shader compilation stutter and smooth out frame pacing.

Why the New3DS holds it back

The interesting technical detail is what Dekopon cannot yet do well: New3DS exclusive games. The original 3DS and its enhanced New3DS sibling both have four CPU cores, each running at 804MHz. Dekopon currently emulates all four of those cores on a single thread on the Switch, whose CPU runs at 2GHz. The developer works the sums out plainly on the thread: that is a 1.2GHz shortfall between what four 804MHz cores can do and what one 2GHz core can offer, and “architecture changes from 3DS to Switch cannot account for that much raw clock speed loss”. The fix, splitting emulation across multiple threads for New3DS titles, is acknowledged as possible but is described as “a ton of work for very very little gain”, so it has not been done.

What actually works, and how well

For everything else, results look promising on paper. The thread claims resolution scaling up to 4x at full speed when the Switch is docked or handheld while charging, with 3x suggested as the practical ceiling for undocked handheld play given the smaller battery budget. A compatibility chart is linked from the thread for players to check specific games, and the developer invites the community to submit their own findings so it can be kept up to date. Screen layout, a perennial issue for any 3DS emulator given the console's two physical displays, can be cycled with the right analogue stick, and pressing “+” brings up information about a loaded game, including updates and downloadable content.

What is still unclear

This is a release candidate, not a finished tool, and the developer is upfront that the included interface is basic, joking that “I can't make a good UI to save my life” and inviting someone else to build a better one. Beyond that, the practical experience for most games, how much of the “mostly full speed” claim holds up outside the small set of screenshots shared, and whether the New3DS threading gap gets closed later, are all things the community will need to test and report back on. Source code and downloads are linked from the original thread, alongside the compatibility spreadsheet the developer says will be updated as more results come in.

Sources

Image: GBAtemp.net - The Independent Video Game Community

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