Azahar 2127.0 Release Candidate Lands: The 3DS Emulator’s Biggest Update Yet

The team behind Azahar, the free and open-source Nintendo 3DS emulator that carries on Citra’s legacy, has just put out the first release candidate for Azahar 2127.0. In the release notes the developers call it arguably the single largest update they have ever published, and after reading through the changelog we are not going to argue.

It is a release candidate rather than a final build, so this is the testing round. The team says the RC period should ideally last about seven days, and longer if anything major turns up, before it is promoted to a full release.

What’s new in Azahar 2127.0

The changelog is huge, so here are the bits that matter most if you play 3DS games on a handheld, a cab or a PC:

• Per-game settings on Android. Long-press a game in your list and you can now set it up on its own, just like on desktop. Handheld owners have wanted this for a long time.
• A faster interpreter for devices without JIT. A brand-new interpreter called FastInterp replaces the old one. The team says it brings full-speed emulation to modern iOS devices (through the libretro core), with iPhones as old as the XS running at over 200% speed.
• ROM Bundles. A new single-file format (.bcxi, .bcci and .bcia) that keeps a game, its updates and DLC together. You build bundles from your own installed content with a new Create ROM Bundle tool on desktop, and they also make updates and DLC easier to use in RetroArch.
• Lower latency. Several audio, frame and input latency sources have been trimmed, saving one or two frames in some cases. Audio time stretching is now off by default.
• Android speed boost. Azahar now hints to Android when the CPU is about to get busy, and the team saw a 15% performance gain on a Mali device.
• Custom GPU drivers on more phones and handhelds. The checks have been relaxed, so custom drivers are no longer limited to Adreno chips.
• Quality-of-life extras. A hold-to-turbo hotkey, a configurable battery level (the notification LED even blinks red when it is low), an experimental MSAA setting hidden in the config file, and a free camera option for people who like to explore.

Game fixes

There is plenty for specific games too. The death animation glitch in Shin Megami Tensei IV, where a black box appeared round defeated enemies on Vulkan, is finally fixed. New Super Mario Bros. 2 gets its missing echo effects back with HLE audio and no longer hits a fatal error when launched from the home menu. Texture problems in Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition are sorted, music no longer stutters in Shinobi 3D, and the Taiwanese version of Star Fox 64 3D now boots. Save states also work again with LLE modules switched on.

Two things to know before you update. The release clears your existing shader cache, so performance may dip for a while until it rebuilds as you play. And Azahar’s licence has moved from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+, which matters to forks and projects built on its code rather than to players.

Where to get it

Release candidate builds are on the Azahar releases page on GitHub, and the stable version lives on the official Azahar site. Azahar runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, and there are libretro cores for RetroArch. As always, it comes with no games: dump your own cartridges. The team asks testers to back up their Azahar user folder first and to report any new problems on GitHub.

Our take

Per-game settings on Android alone would have made this a good update. Add a faster interpreter, lower latency and a tidier way to keep updates and DLC with each game, and it is a big one for anyone running 3DS on an Android handheld or through RetroArch. If you are happy on the current stable build, wait for the final release in a week or so. If you like testing, back up and dive in. Picking a handheld to run it on? Our best retro handhelds guide is a good place to start.

Which 3DS game are you firing up first?