ruzu

This release candidate completes support for the cheat instructions implemented by Eden's DMNT engine and improves cheat-file parsing and process targeting.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes all improvements from rc1 through rc7.

What's new since rc7

• Extended cheat instructions: implemented register comparisons, register save/restore operations and masks, persistent static registers, process pause/resume, and debug logging, with all operand and addressing forms supported by Eden.
• Cheat execution: corrected nested if/else handling, loop decoding, arithmetic behavior, and handling of truncated or unknown instructions. Controller input is sampled once per execution so multiple button conditions see the same input state.
• Cheat files and process targeting: fixed parsing of names containing Unicode symbols or accents. Memory operations and pause/resume now target the process identified by the cheat metadata, with a cached non-owning process reference.
• Regression coverage: 24 cheat-engine tests pass, covering instruction execution, memory widths, pointer chains, branches, loops, register persistence, parsing, and process selection. All 96 tests selected by the memory test filter pass.
• Linux packaging: Debian package versions are now derived from the release tag.

Known limitations

All instructions supported by the compared Eden DMNT engine are implemented. This does not guarantee that every third-party cheat works: cheats must match the game's build ID and use valid addresses. The Wonder 99 Lives regression passes against synthetic memory; its effect during gameplay still needs confirmation. End-to-end compatibility with third-party injected CheatVM modules remains unverified.

The full core test suite still has existing failures and a scheduler-test hang. This release does not resolve every freeze, black-screen issue, or audio glitch. Multi-program game compatibility remains experimental, and the native Metal backend on macOS remains alpha.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP. Windows packages are available first; macOS and Linux download links will become available as their packages are uploaded.

For a regular Linux PC, use the generic Linux AppImage. The Steam Deck package targets Zen 2 and is not intended as a generic PC build.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator written in Rust, building on the work of the Yuzu and Eden projects. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release candidate fixes several cheat-engine decoding errors, adds missing process-memory service calls, and addresses an applet command that caused some game to abort.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes all improvements from rc1 through rc6.

What's new since rc6

• Cheat execution: corrected data widths, register selection, immediate values, and pointer-chain offsets. These errors could prevent loaded cheats from taking effect.
• Process-memory services: wired SetProcessMemoryPermission, MapProcessMemory, and UnmapProcessMemory into both ARM64 and ARM32 system-call dispatch. Aligned permission handling and validation order with Eden, with tests for writable aliases, unmapping, and error handling. This addresses missing calls needed by injected cheat modules; end-to-end compatibility with third-party CheatVM modules is not yet verified.
• Applet compatibility: added Eden's success response for ILibraryAppletAccessor command 90. Also implemented GetLibraryAppletInfo to return the child applet's identity and mode.
• Windows interface: fixed missing checkmark icons on the OK and Apply buttons in per-game configuration.

Known limitations

The cheat engine is not yet fully compatible with every instruction. The Wonder cheat regression passes against synthetic memory; confirmation of its effect during gameplay is still needed. Extended cheat instructions require further work.

Focused regression tests pass, but the full core test suite still has existing failures and a scheduler-test hang. This release does not resolve every freeze, black-screen issue, or audio glitch. Multi-program game compatibility remains experimental, and the native Metal backend on macOS remains alpha.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP. Windows packages are available first; macOS and Linux download links will become available as their packages are uploaded.

For a regular Linux PC, use the generic Linux AppImage. The Steam Deck package targets Zen 2 and is not intended as a generic PC build.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator written in Rust, building on the work of the Yuzu and Eden projects. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release candidate fixes an audio-update parsing error that could cause invalid mixer data and audio glitches.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes all improvements from rc1 through rc5.

What’s new since rc5

• Audio update parsing: the audio renderer now respects the splitter block size declared in the update header. Previously, it could read the following mixer block at the wrong offset, resulting in invalid mix counts or rejected audio updates.
• Input validation: added bounds checks for declared splitter blocks.
• Regression coverage: added synthetic tests covering splitter block boundaries, subsequent mixer updates, and header layout.

This correction addresses a likely cause of the audio errors reported in issue #21. Confirmation through extended gameplay is still needed.

Known limitations

Unsupported shader instructions may still cause missing graphics or prevent a scene from rendering. This release does not resolve every freeze, black-screen issue, or audio glitch.

Multi-program game compatibility remains experimental. The native Metal backend on macOS remains alpha.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP. Download links become available as the packages are uploaded.

For a regular Linux PC, use the generic Linux AppImage. The Steam Deck package targets Zen 2 and is not intended as a generic PC build.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator written in Rust, building on the work of the Yuzu and Eden projects. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

**This release candidate improves shader error handling, Windows build support, and diagnostics for freezes and black screens.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes the improvements from rc1 through rc4.

What’s new since rc4

• Shader stability: unsupported shader instructions now produce an error that the Vulkan pipeline compiler can handle, rather than terminating the GPU worker. This improves error recovery but does not add support for those instructions.
• Graphics compatibility: aligned constant-buffer and texture validation with Eden and corrected how constant-buffer values are recorded for shader caching.
• Windows memory handling: aligned unsupported memory-protection handling with Eden, avoiding an unconditional panic.
• Windows builds: improved detection of existing Visual Studio installations and installation of missing C++ tools. Runtime DLLs are now copied alongside the build binaries, and a vcpkg compatibility fix was added.
• Troubleshooting: added a PowerShell script to capture diagnostic memory dumps when Ruzu freezes or displays a black screen. It downloads and verifies Microsoft ProcDump automatically; no compiler or debugger installation is required. Dumps remain local and may contain sensitive data, so share them privately.

Known limitations

Unsupported shader instructions may still cause missing graphics or prevent a scene from rendering. This release does not resolve every freeze or black-screen issue.

Multi-program game compatibility remains experimental.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained. **

This release candidate adds support for multi-program titles such as game collections and fixes an ordering problem in kernel thread termination.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes the improvements from rc1, rc2 and rc3.

What’s new since rc3

• Game collections: titles that chain into a sub-program (ExecuteProgram) now work. Previously, picking a game from a collection’s menu left the screen frozen at 0 FPS. Ruzu now shuts the running program down and boots the requested program of the same file.
• Kernel: thread termination now signals completion and notifies waiting threads under the scheduler lock, after the terminating thread has left its core. This closes an ordering window between the two notifications.

Known limitations

Only the collection listed above was tested with the new sub-program launch path. Other multi-program titles may still expose missing behavior, and reports are welcome.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release candidate improves stability during CPU/GPU synchronization, reduces memory-copy and JIT overhead, and fixes texture corruption.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes the improvements from rc1 and rc2.

What’s new since rc2

• Stability: fixed a memory/GPU/scheduler deadlock investigated in issue #20. Guest-memory access no longer holds an exclusive memory lock while waiting for GPU work that needs kernel scheduling to complete.
• Memory-copy performance: copies between processes now use an explicit page table without allocating a temporary memory object or changing the table used by the CPU. Existing GPU caches and scratch buffers are reused.
• Shader error handling: unsupported or invalid translator operands now produce handled shader exceptions instead of terminating the GPU thread and leaving synchronization waits blocked. Affected draws may still be skipped; this does not add support for those operands.
• CPU/GPU sync: corrected tracking of images backed by non-contiguous memory to address texture corruption. Removed a whole-image download path that could overwrite reused guest memory, and restored GPU notifications for exclusive CPU writes.
• JIT performance: diagnostic environment settings are cached in release builds instead of being queried repeatedly while compiling CPU blocks, reducing compilation overhead. Actual improvements depend on the game and hardware.
• Testing and diagnostics: added regression coverage for shared memory access, process-specific page-table copies, and shader errors. Windows guest-thread diagnostics can now produce a shorter report without the full profiling history.

Known limitations

These changes address specific deadlocks and rendering problems, but do not establish that every game-specific freeze, black screen, or stutter is resolved. Further testing of Final Fantasy Resonance and other affected titles is welcome.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

Not sure which Mac you have? Open  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel. The native Metal backend remains alpha.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release candidate improves Windows performance, graphics compatibility, and interface behavior, and incorporates further compatibility and stability updates from Eden.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome. It includes the improvements from rc1, including native Wayland rendering, atomic compare-and-swap shader support, and firmware/key compatibility checks.

What’s new since rc1

• Windows performance: optimized memory-protection updates to search only the affected memory mappings instead of scanning from the beginning of the mapping table. In local Final Fantasy Resonance demo cinematic tests, average performance improved from approximately 16.5 to 29.9 FPS. These were not frame-identical benchmark windows; results depend on the game and hardware, and occasional long frames remain.
• Graphics compatibility: fixed inline indexed draws, addressing missing text in some game. Preserved interpolation arithmetic in depth-writing shaders to address striped or missing pixels observed in Final Fantasy Resonance.
• Vulkan stability: corrected query-report cleanup to prevent stale reports from writing into reused guest memory. Fixed resource-destruction ordering and a settings-lock interaction that could cause a deadlock.
• GPU command handling: improved handling of null buffer bindings and constant-buffer writes, avoiding several GPU-thread panics. Added regression coverage for command arguments split across submissions.
• Updates from Eden: incorporated further fixes across application and applet management, content handling, networking and SSL, controller handling, and graphics-buffer management.
• Windows window handling: fixed resizing after restoring a maximized window, without the earlier re-maximize/restore workaround.
• Interface: the software keyboard now follows the dark theme. Stop and exit confirmations initially focus Cancel to reduce accidental loss of unsaved progress.
• Testing and packaging: extended input recording and replay to Windows, including clean automated recording completion. Generic Linux AppImages now have a distinct name from Steam Deck packages.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

Not sure which Mac you have? Open  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel. The native Metal backend remains alpha.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release candidate adds native Wayland rendering on Linux, improves shader compatibility, and strengthens Windows memory handling and firmware validation.

This is a pre-release for testing before v0.1.1. Feedback and reproducible bug reports are welcome.

What’s new

• Linux — native Wayland: added Vulkan rendering through a GTK Wayland subsurface and shared EGL contexts for OpenGL, while preserving X11 support. Moving the rendering surface between windows during emulation is restricted on Wayland to avoid a reproduced compositor crash.
• Shader compatibility: implemented missing atomic compare-and-swap instruction, addressing the GPU-thread panic reported in issue #14. Support remains subject to graphics-backend and hardware capabilities.
• Windows memory handling: corrected recovery from reads of uncommitted sparse-vector pages, including fault-address validation and transitions from read-only to writable pages.
• Memory reclamation: ported Eden’s optimization to decommit fully zeroed sparse-vector pages while preserving partially cleared pages and neighboring data. Added regression tests for page reclamation, reuse, and Windows fault recovery. Performance gains in games have not yet been measured.
• Firmware and keys: added a compatibility check before emulation starts in both the graphical and command-line interfaces. When installed firmware cannot be decrypted with the available keys, Ruzu reports the problem before booting. This compatibility error is not shown merely because firmware or prod.keys is absent.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

Not sure which Mac you have? Open  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel. The native Metal backend remains alpha.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release improves Home Menu support, controller navigation under Gamescope, system-service compatibility, and macOS rendering.

What’s new

• Home Menu and applets: improved startup, launching installed applications, firmware-specific application information, and document loading. Fixed menu-focus issues. Home Menu compatibility remains experimental.
• Gamescope and controller navigation: added in-window menus and dropdowns to avoid clipped or hidden popups. Improved navigation throughout the interface, fixed SDL axis-direction handling, and prevented navigation from interfering with control configuration.
• Compatibility and stability: expanded system-service coverage with updates from Eden, corrected service-session ownership and cleanup, and fixed recursive locking during web-applet completion.
• Rendering (Vulkan): incorporated upstream display-composition updates. macOS Vulkan builds now use a pinned, Eden-compatible patched MoltenVK. The experimental Metal backend gains depth/stencil fixes, compiled shader-library reuse, and improved diagnostics.
• Rendering (Metal): The (not so) experimental Metal backend gains depth/stencil fixes, compiled shader-library reuse, and improved diagnostics.
• Packaging and testing: Steam Deck packages can now be built without executing Zen 2 binaries on the host; the resulting AppImage remains Zen 2-targeted. Extended input recording and replay for reproducible interface testing.

Downloads

On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

Not sure which Mac you have? Open  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel. The native Metal backend remains alpha.

To try a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release focuses on controller-friendly navigation, Linux and Steam Deck packaging, and improved system-service coverage.

What's new

• Controller navigation: navigate menus, buttons, the game library, and Ruzu’s file dialogs with a controller, including the startup prompt.
• System services: implemented missing application-management, filesystem, audio, and SSL commands to improve compatibility.
• Local wireless services: implemented missing LDN commands, network callbacks, and state-change notifications. Fixed scan locking so discovery can receive responses while waiting. Real multiplayer sessions still require validation.
• Linux AppImage: added ./build.sh appimage to build and package Ruzu.
• Steam Deck packaging: added a dedicated Docker-based build with Zen 2 optimization, bundled runtime libraries, and X11/XWayland forced like Eden’s AppImage. Desktop and Gaming mode compatibility still requires hardware validation.

Downloads

Pick the package matching your platform:

Not sure which Mac you have? Open Apple menu  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel.

The native Metal backend on macOS remains alpha.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release focuses on graphics data integrity and smoother game-library navigation.

What's new

• Graphics data integrity: fixed partial CPU writes overwriting neighboring GPU-generated data, addressing a potential cause of temporary character or geometry corruption. The correction applies to Vulkan, OpenGL, and the experimental Metal backend.
• Startup window: Ruzu now starts maximized, while preserving the previous normal window size for when you unmaximize it.
• Game-list navigation: the selected entry now stays visible when navigating with a keyboard or controller, with automatic scrolling in both directions.
• Initial selection: the first entry is selected when the game list is shown, making navigation available immediately.
• Package naming: packages now prefer the exact version tag attached to the current commit, including when building from a branch. Modified sources retain the -dirty suffix.

Downloads

Pick the package matching your platform:

Not sure which Mac you have? Open Apple menu  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel.

The native Metal backend on macOS remains alpha.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release improves the game library, Windows window handling, clock accuracy, and graphics compatibility, alongside further updates from Eden.

What's new

• Recent files: recently opened games are now remembered between sessions.
• Smoother game-list loading: directories remain hidden while scanning. Only the final filtered list is displayed, avoiding briefly showing empty system directories.
• Windows focus handling: adjusted the shutdown sequence to restore Ruzu’s main window after stopping a game, without intentionally taking focus back if you switched to another application.
• Clock accuracy: fixed guest-clock initialization and synchronization with the host clock, addressing incorrect in-game dates.
• Vulkan: added persistent caching for shared graphics pipelines and periodic saving of per-game pipeline caches.
• Graphics compatibility: improvements to multisampled images, depth/stencil conversions, sampler handling, and SGSR scaling.
• macOS (Metal) - alpha: added readback support for multisampled color images.
• Emulation: fixes to single-core CPU scheduling and system-service state management, plus expanded hardware Opus decoder capacity.
• Build support: fixed Windows compilation issues, added Debian packaging, and improved CachyOS support.

Downloads

Pick the package matching your platform:

Not sure which Mac you have? Open Apple menu  → About This Mac: “Chip: Apple M…” means Apple Silicon; “Processor: Intel…” means Intel.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release focuses on stability: input configuration, hangs when stopping or reconfiguring a game, and GPU error handling on macOS.

What's new

• Controls configuration: assigning a keyboard key or mouse button to a controller input now works. Previously the capture timed out without recording the binding.
• No more freeze in Configure Game / Controls after a game used amiibo (NFC): controller notifications are now delivered without holding the controller lock.
• Stopping a game now fully releases its system services. Previously some of them survived until the emulator was closed, which could freeze later configuration changes.
• Memory layout settings are now applied when the emulation starts.
• Vulkan: turbo mode stops cleanly when emulation ends.
• macOS (Metal): a GPU hang no longer leaves the emulator stuck. Ruzu reports the device loss in the log and exits, as it does with Vulkan.
• Fixes to the debugger and the random number generator, plus broader test coverage of CPU, video and applet settings.

Downloads

Pick the package matching your platform:

Not sure which Mac you have? Open ** menu → About This Mac**: "Chip: Apple M…" means Apple Silicon; "Processor: Intel…" means Intel.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release focuses on improving interface readability on Windows, especially on high-DPI displays.

What’s new

• Automatic text scaling: adjusts interface text to the Windows DPI setting for each window.
• Auto / Manual modes: use automatic sizing or choose your preferred text size. Switching to Manual starts with the value calculated by Auto.
• Improved readability: scaling applies to menus, dialogs, the game list, and the status bar.

Existing custom text-size settings are preserved. Mixed-DPI, multi-monitor behavior still needs broader testing—feedback is welcome!

Downloads

Download the package for your platform below. On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.

This release improves Windows UI behavior and fixes several issues.

What’s changed

• Fixed window resizing when opening menus while maximized.
• Fixed the status bar being hidden in maximized windows.
• Improved dark theme support, including the “Closing software” dialog.
• Fixed a time-service registration issue that could cause crashes.
• Many many fixes (rdynarmic, applets,...)

Downloads

Download the package for your platform below. On Windows, choose the installer or extract the standalone ZIP.

To try Ruzu with a free homebrew game, download freebrick.nro from the release assets and open it in Ruzu.

Ruzu is an experimental open-source Nintendo Switch emulator, created by porting Yuzu to Rust with the assistance of AI agents. Bugs, crashes, and performance issues are still expected.

This software should not be used to play games you have not legally obtained.