Modern emulation of Nintendo consoles has reached such heights and user-centricity that the company’s products can be played even on average PC builds without the need for sophisticated settings. Zelda TotK is no exception, and it’s really playable on PC, bypassing the hardware limitations of the outdated Nintendo Switch hardware.
In this guide, we will tell you personally tested and working methods for emulating The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom on PC.
How to play The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom on PC
Below will be considered all the steps for setting up emulators Yuzu and Ryujinx. We advise you to choose Yuzu: the average performance of all applications on it higher.
PC system requirements
To run Zelda TotK at 720p/1080p, from 30 FPS with small drawdowns in settlements and battles, i.e. to get even better quality of work than on the Nintendo Switch, you do not need to have the most powerful hardware.
Processor requirements:
Featured: Intel Core i5-10400 and above / AMD Ryzen 5 3600. Optimal performance and quality: Intel Core i9-13900K / AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
Video card requirements:
Recommended Models: from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 / AMD Radeon RX 6500 4GB. Optimum Performance: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 3060 12GB or higher / AMD Radeon RX 6700 10GB or higher.
RAM requirements:
Minimum: 8 Gb.
Recommended: from 16 Gb.
For stable operation in most locations, it is better to have recommended accessories or more.
Many mods for FPS optimization and graphics have been released for the game. Most of them will be needed only by owners of powerful PCs. The most important of them:
Mod at 30 FPS: in theory stabilizes FPS. Required for the game to work on Ryujinx. If the hardware configuration of the PC does not pull the load in settlements and battles, then this fix will not help. The Legend of Zelda on PC runs at 30 FPS without a mod, but not so stable.
Mod at 60 FPS: Increases the FPS of the game to 60 (default for Switch is 30). Works only on top PCs. If, after enabling the mod, Link and the entire environment slow down, then this is not a bug, and the PC simply does not pull the work to 60 FPS. Also, this mod speeds up cutscenes by 2 times, which requires a separate fix or slowing down the speed of the emulator (on Yuzu in “Emulation”, “Set up the current game”, “General”, “Speed percentage limit – 50%”).
In the list of modifications at the link you will find cheats, graphical improvements, mods for dynamic FPS and resolution in the 1st set.
Mods are compatible with both Ryujinx and Yuzu emulators.
How to set up the Ryujinx emulator
Download Ryujinx from the official website of the developers.
Unzip the archive to a folder on your computer. The absence of Cyrillic along the way is desirable. Open the emulator through the EXE file in the unpacked folder.
Install the keys so that the NSP files of the games will run at all. Download them here. Copy the keys to the AppData\Roaming\Ryujinx\System folder. The root directory can be opened from the emulator itself by selecting “File”, “Open Ryujinx Folder”.
The Ryujinx emulator requires firmware to work. Download firmware. Install it by opening the emulator, selecting “Tools”, “Install firmware”, “Install a firmware from XCI or ZIP”. In the explorer that opens, select the downloaded archive to install.
Make sure that the versions of the keys and firmware (firmware) identical.
Now show the emulator the folder with the Tears of the Kingdom NSP file:
Open “Options”, then “Settings” and “Add” to add a folder. Select the Zelda TotK folder in File Explorer.
Use the following basic graphics settings as shown in the screenshot. Be sure to choose Vulkan as your API. In the “Logging” tab, you can disable the saving of emulator operation logs if you do not plan to send them to the creators. Be sure to save the settings by clicking the “Apply” button. Game ok does not work without mods at 30/60 FPS. About their installation in the future.
Control settings are made along the path “Options”, “Settings”, “Input”. Ryujinx does not automatically assign analogs to the buttons of a connected gamepad. DualShock 4 and Xbox Controller emulator supports.
In any case, select as “Controller Type” Pro controller from Nintendo, and in the “Input Device” list, select the input device. Click LMB on the button icons, bind the desired controller / keyboard key by clicking on it. Save your changes by clicking “Apply” before exiting.
Add mods like this:
RMB on the game icon. Select “Open Atmosphere mods directory”. In an open directory, store folders with mods (not files, but folders).
Important: make sure that the mod version is equal to the game version, otherwise it will not work. The version update can be done as follows:
RMB on the game icon, “Manage file updates”. Click on the “Add” button and swipe to the patch. The version should be updated, which will be visible on the main page.
To start the game, double-click on the icon in the main menu. In the process, you can change the aspect ratio and switch between handheld and stationary console modes without impacting performance. It is also possible to turn off vertical sync (VSync), which will speed up the game, making it non-working. To exit to full screen, press “Options”, “Enter Full Screen”.
If Ryujinx is not updated automatically, then click “Help”, “Check for Updates”. Updates come out almost daily. In practice, rolling out a fresh version often solves bugs encountered by gamers. This is especially true for release projects.
How to run Zelda TotK on Yuzu
On the day of the release of Tears of the Kingdom, the creators of Yuzu rolled out an update that dramatically improves the quality of their emulators: up to + 87% performance on any hardware. Most users have the best performance on Yuzu.
First, download the installation file of the free version from the official website of the emulator.
Run the installer on your PC following the instructions. It is better to install in the default folder. The program supports the Russian language. A shortcut to the program will be added to the Windows Start menu.
Install keys on your emulator before launching any application. This is necessary for the games to run:
Download the latest version of the keys on a special site. Open the Yuzu emulator. Next, select “File”, “Open Yuzu Folder”. In the emulator directory, open the “Keys” folder. Copy the files prod.keys and title.keys from the archive with the keys to the “Keys” folder with file replacement.
Highlight the program folder with the game files:
Click “Add New Game Folder” (big plus) on Yuzu’s main screen. Choose the folder with The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom or the root folder where all Nintendo projects are stored. The program will run through the directory and icons will appear in the directory.
Alternatively launch the games manually via “File”, “Upload file”, then open the main NSP of the application.
Before starting the game, check Yuzu’s settings for Zelda TotK by opening “Emulation”, “Options”. Use the settings shown in the screenshots. Some general setup tips:
Set the CPU menu to “Auto”. Other settings work worse. In the “General” menu, enable “Multi-core CPU emulation”. In the “Graphics” menu, select “Vulkan” as the API. Switch to OpenGL only if games won’t launch/crash. Set advanced settings according to the screenshot. Save your changes before exiting.
Use your Nintendo, PS, Xbox controllers or keyboard to control. Select the Pro Controller in the control settings, which fits perfectly with the control scheme of any DualShock 4 or Xbox Controller. As a rule, the emulator will automatically configure the buttons on the DualShock 4 or other controllers to match the scheme of devices from Nintendo, but the buttons can also be configured manually. If you plan to play on the keyboard, you can reconfigure the keys yourself.
To add a mod to the game:
On the main page, right-click on the game icon, select “Open mods folder“. Copy the downloaded folder with the mod to the general folder of modifications for Zelda TotK. The version of the mod must be identical to the version of the game! Launch Legend of Zelda.
To update the game version:
Open File, Install NAND Files. Select a patch in the explorer and it will be installed.
By right-clicking on the icon with the game and selecting “Properties”, you can turn on / off the modifications and patches installed in the folder (does not work during emulation).
Double-click on the Zelda TotK icon to launch the app. In the game itself, you can change the following settings to your liking on the go:
GPU Performance: “Normal” or “High”. Doesn’t affect performance too much. Modes in “Docking Station” or “Portable”, emulating the operating modes of the Nintendo Switch. The second one will greatly reduce the quality of the graphics, but perhaps add a little FPS. Selecting a window adaptation filter: FSR works best, the sharpness of which can be changed in the graphics settings. Smoothing: whatever you like.
In the “View” tab, enable full screen mode for maximum immersion.
In Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, all the main bugs found by users on the release are almost completely fixed. If you still find an annoying bug or glitch, then it makes sense to wait for the automatic update of the emulator version. Updates are searched for by the program when it is turned on. They come out almost every day, and in just a couple of days, a catastrophic bug that prevented you from playing on an existing PC build can be fixed.
How to enable the Russian version
On the Yuzu emulator, to change the text language:
Go to “Emulation”, “Options”, “System”. Put in the column “Language” Russian. The “Region” option can be left untouched.
On Ryujinx to change text:
Open “Options”, “Settings”, “System”. Select Russian as “System Language”.
Change the voice language by going to the internal settings after launching Zelda TotK and selecting Russian. The project is fully translated and voiced into Russian.
Can Zelda Tears of the Kingdom be played through CEMU
CEMU is a Nintendo WiiU console emulator. It cannot run Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, as it was only released on the Nintendo Switch. But the CEMU emulator is the most productive solution for running the Zelda Breath of The Wild prequel: it was released on the WiiU console in 2017, and the quality of the WiiU game emulation is currently a cut above that for the Switch.
We hope this guide helped you understand the settings and run The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom on PC with a stable frame rate. Any question about emulating the game, leave in comments to Article.
