NeXium vs Ryubing
NeXium
nexium-emu.org
Ryubing
ryujinx.appSide by side
| Figure | NeXium | Ryubing |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Nintendo Switch Emulators | 8.4 (#4) | 7.0 (#16) |
| Audio | Audio output and its renderer are in progress; the site says the complete Nintendo effect graph is still growing. | Audio output is supported, while microphone input is not supported. |
| Graphics | The Vulkan renderer supports depth, blending, culling, block-linear textures, BC and ASTC formats, and sRGB decoding. | The GPU emulator supports OpenGL 4.5 or later, Vulkan, and Metal through MoltenVK, with shader caching, resolution scaling, anti-aliasing, scaling filters, anisotropic filtering, and aspect-ratio adjustment. |
| License | NeXium is open source under the MIT license. | The software is licensed under the MIT license; the docs also identify third-party code under BSD and LGPLv3 licenses. |
| Product | NeXium is a modular Nintendo Switch emulator written in Rust with a Vulkan-backed GPU and two interchangeable AArch64 JIT backends. | Ryujinx is an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator written in C#; Ryubing describes this fork as a quality-of-life uplift for existing Ryujinx users. |
| Support | The project directs users to Discord for community support and testing, and says donations support development while builds and features stay free. | The multiplayer guide points users seeking players to dedicated LDN channels in the project's Discord server. |
Plans
In their own words
NeXium
NeXium is an in-development Nintendo Switch emulator for Windows, Linux, and Android. Written in Rust, it uses Vulkan graphics and lets users choose between Dynarmic and Rustarmic AArch64 JIT backends at runtime. It loads .nro homebrew with controller input, and can open decrypted .dxci and .dnsp containers; commercial-game play, saves, and service coverage vary by title. Its library scans NRO, DXCI, and DNSP entries and includes metadata, artwork, profiles, favorites, Quick Launch, and controller navigation. The renderer supports depth, blending, culling, block-linear textures, BC/ASTC formats, and sRGB decoding. NeXium translates guest shaders to SPIR-V and retains per-title and per-device caches, with asynchronous workers for prebuilding. The Android port boots, renders, and plays audio on a real device, with settings, ROM import, and a performance HUD. NeXium is free, open source, and MIT-licensed; builds and features are not paywalled. The project says it needs no proprietary Nintendo firmware, keys, or system files, and advises using only legally owned software.
Ryubing
Ryubing is an open-source Nintendo Switch emulator fork that aims to provide a quality-of-life uplift for existing Ryujinx users. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and is licensed under MIT. Stable builds are published about monthly; Canary builds follow each master-branch commit and are recommended only for experienced users. Graphics support includes OpenGL 4.5 or later, Vulkan, and Metal through MoltenVK, with options for resolution scaling, anti-aliasing, scaling filters, anisotropic filtering, shader caching, and aspect-ratio adjustment. Input options include keyboard, mouse, touch, Joy-Con, and nearly all controllers. Dual-Joy-Con motion controls require DS4Windows or BetterJoy. The GUI manages downloadable content and supports romfs, exefs, and runtime mods such as cheats. Audio output is supported, but microphone input is not. A translation cache for game functions is enabled by default to reduce game load times. Documentation recommends at least 8 GiB of RAM and warns that less may cause poor gameplay or unexpected crashes. The LDN guide describes local-wireless multiplayer over the internet between Ryubing users, plus a mode for connecting to a modded Switch on the same network. The original Ryujinx project was discontinued on October 1, 2024.