CitraVR brings original Nintendo 3DS emulation to the Quest, coming soon from Air Link creator Amanda Watson.
Citra is an open source Nintendo 3DS emulator for Windows, which began development in 2013. Legal Issues of Dolphin Emulator on SteamWatson told UploadVR that the open beta of CitraVR will be released on SideQuest and GitHub next week.
Once sideloaded, CitraVR starts with a 2D panel in the main Quest interface for managing and selecting games, transitioning to the full app when you launch it.
The virtual top screen displays the game in 3D, much like the console itself.
Although you can already use Citra on PC VR, incl flow To Quest, CitraVR runs natively on Quest as an OpenXR application. While the default mapping of touch controllers “makes most games on the platform playable,” CitraVR also supports third-party wired USB controllers and wireless Bluetooth controllers for games that require more input.
“My initial goal when developing this port was not to bring 3DS game emulation to VR, but rather to be an educational resource for VR developers,” Watson says in a prepared statement, which he later called this a “statement for developers and players” about VR application development capabilities. Since it is General Public License (GPL) compliant, all source code will be publicly available, allowing other GPL-licensed projects to copy CitraVR's source code to add VR support.
Legally accessing 3DS games through Citra requires dumping your games through a file Hacked 3DSwhich will be detailed in more detail Frequently asked questions about Citra. Of course, many users will obtain ROMs for 3DS games online, just like the non-VR version and other console emulators, although CitraVR does not endorse this in any way.
It's also worth noting that despite the 3DS being backward compatible, Citra does not support original Nintendo DS games. Finally, Watson also tells UploadVR that performance depends on the game and recommends checking it Citra Community Guides Why it works best.
CitraVR arrives on January 20 for Meta Quest. For more information on how to sideload content, see our previous guide below:
How to upload content to Meta Quest using SideQuest
Here's our guide to uploading content to Oculus Quest, Meta Quest 2, and Quest Pro using SideQuest.
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