Switch The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom Yuzu Emulation Guide (2K/4K+60FPS Update)

If you haven't used Yuzu emulator before, please read Switch Emulation With Yuzu first.

Update firmware

You MUST have firmware version 16.0.1 or newer to run TOTK. Note: prod.keys is related to firmware's major version. For example, prod.keys for 15.x firmware won't work on 16.x firmware. If you don't know how to install firmware, read Switch Emulation With Yuzu.

Fix the loading issue

Yuzu can load BOTW smoothly without any tweeks. However, TOTK stuck at the loading screen.

The solution is to download and install this mod: TOTKYuzuFix.zip. If you don't know how to install MOD, read Switch Emulation With Yuzu.

Then you should be able to load and play the game. I have an AMD RX6700 GPU, and it gives me stable 30 fps.

Fix graphic glitches (cloud pixels)

The first time you jump from the sky island and dive into the open world, you will see the weird cloud which looks like some QR code… The reason is that Yuzu hasn't compiled and loaded Vulkan shaders properly.

Here are two solutions:

  1. Save the game and restart. Everything should look fine.
  2. Download and install pre-compiled Vulkan shaders from the internet.

You may also see some frame drops when exploring new areas. This is also because of Vulkan shader compiling. As you play more, the game will become smoother.

Install native 2K/4K+60FPS MODs

TOTK's graphics is even more blurry than BOTW. Limited by low power of Switch, TOTK internally render to 560p~680p resolution and up-scale to 720p/1080p with FSR. So it looks worse than native 720p/1080p games. If you use Yuzu emulator's 2x resolution, the game was up-scaled twice to 2K/4K, which looks as bad as its original resolution.

However, with 2K/4K+60FPS MODs, we can make the game runs in native 2K/4K, and 40~60FPS. This is a huge boost of experience! Checkout the difference below:

Download MODs:

If you don't know how to install MOD, read Switch Emulation With Yuzu.

After MODs installed, configure the game in Yuzu (context menu -> properties). Make sure to set the following settings:

  • Add-ons tab
    • Check all installed MOD.
  • System
    • Check Unsafe extended memory layout (8GB DRAM), then we can use 8GB RAM, to render more details.
  • Graphics
    • Resolution set to 1X, we use native 4K, not fake 4K through FSR.
    • Anti-Aliasing Method set to None, to improve performance. (Optional)

Save and restart the game. You will run TOTK in 2K/4K+60FPS. If your GPU is not powerful enough, you might get only 40~50FPS. But that is still much better than the original 30FPS experience!

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