If you're into Nintendo Switch emulation on the Steam Deck (don't tell Nintendo), this one is for you.
Ryujinx LDN 2.5 has dropped, and you can download the latest build from Patreon. According to the developers, it comes with:
Includes a Vulkan graphics backend which improves performance and compatibility drastically on AMD and Intel graphics cards running on Windows, plus all GPU vendors will enjoy drastically reduced shader compilation stuttering!
It also comes with a long list of enhancements for various games, ported over from the main Ryujinx build. Some examples:
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe v2.1.0 is now compatible with local wireless
- Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is now compatible with local wireless
- Pokémon Legends: Arceus is now compatible with local wireless
- Pokémon saves will no longer corrupt on Linux
- Splatoon 2 v5.5.0 now runs on Linux
The LDN builds are separate from the main builds available through the official website and are Ryujinx's way to enable Local Wireless Play. From their announcement post, back when they announced LDN (abbreviated for clarity):
Local Wireless has been a staple of handheld game consoles since the DS first introduced it. All this really does is link nearby players together in the same wireless network - this is a regular IP network that you can use all your favourite transport protocols over. If a game has an online mode, it is very easy to port their netcode to work over a Local Wireless network instead.
This way, we gain support for "online" multiplayer in many of the games with online modes, while avoiding any unwanted attention we might garner by re-implementing details of a live, paid service. History has proven this to be a potential legal liability, though it will obviously become more tempting when the console reaches End-of-Life, where we might want to preserve some of the online features that would otherwise be lost forever, whenever that time comes.
Ryujinx is one of two emulators for the Nintendo Switch, the other being Yuzu. Both are developed in tandem by two different teams. Depending on what game you want to emulate, the best option is to try both and see which gives you a better experience.
And if you wonder: LDN is a Nintendo term, and no one in the community quite knows what it means. The current theory is that it stands for "Local Direct Network".
