Lime3DS Emulator Full Setup for PC (2024 Update)

Lime3DS – Nintendo 3DS Emulator Full Setup for PC

What’s up, guys? A few days ago, I posted a setup guide for the 3DS emulator Lemonade, which is just a fork of the original 3DS emulator Citra. I have had a few people reach out to me in my messages and comments, saying they want a Lime 3DS setup guide next, which is also just a fork of Citra.

The setup will be completely the same for Lemonade and Lime 3DS; there’s no difference. To save me some time, I will show you where to download it and how to start it up, but I will not walk you through the setup process again because, as I said, it’s exactly the same as Lemonade.

Performance Comparison

Even though the setup process is the same, I will say I have been testing quite a few games with both emulators, and I will be honest: Lemonade runs games better than Lime 3DS. But that could all change in the future after multiple updates. Playing some games in Lemonade will run faster and have higher frame rates than in Lime 3DS. But if you only want to play Pokemon games, then honestly, either one of these emulators will be just fine. However, I’m sorry, I don’t show exclusive Nintendo games running on emulators, but I know you will have a slightly better experience with Lemonade.

Downloading and Setting Up Lime 3DS

Okay, let’s head on over to this GitHub page. The link to this page will be in the description below, and the latest version of Lime 3DS, as of the recording of this video, is 2107. Let’s scroll down, and under “Assets,” you will see your downloads. You have Android downloads, Linux downloads, Mac downloads, and Windows. Since I am on Windows, I will download this file right here.

Now, if you don’t have 7zip installed on your PC, I will leave a link to 7zip.org, and you can download this program. This is what we’re going to use to extract the file.

Here’s the downloaded Lime 3DS folder on my desktop. Now, let’s go ahead and extract this, assuming you already have 7zip installed. All you want to do is right-click on this file, go to “Show more options,” go up to “7zip,” and then we can do “Extract here.” This will create a new folder containing all of our extracted files. We no longer need the zip folder, so let’s right-click on that and delete it.

Now, let’s open this folder. You can look for this file inside this folder here.

Adding Games

First, you need to download the game’s ROM files. We have the full collection of Nintendo 3DS ROMs available here. You can download any game, for free and at maximum speed.

Now, let’s add our games to the emulator. Go ahead and click on this plus button, which says “Add new game directory.” Go ahead and locate wherever you have your 3DS ROMs. In my case, I have them on an external hard drive.

Once you have it selected, hit “Select folder,” and there we are; games have been uploaded to the emulator. Just to let you know, your game file must be a 3DS file type to be playable in Lime 3DS. To get this file type, use 7zip to extract the file.

Setting Up Lime 3DS (Same as Lemonade)

Now, at this point in the video, you will see my Lemonade setup, and remember, guys, everything you’re seeing me do in the Lemonade setup is the same for Lime 3DS.

Now, let’s go up to the top, click on “Emulation,” and go down to “Configure.” Look over to the left, and we’ll go down to “Graphics.” Starting off with the internal resolution, we can bump this all the way up to 10 times, but I will not take advantage of that because I don’t have a 4k monitor, so I’m going to do it six times at 1440p because my monitor is 1440p.

For the texture filter, I’m going to leave it on “None,” but you have some options you can play around with and see what you like. This will slightly change the textures and lines in your games.

Let’s come down here under “Layout” and select “Screen layout.” So, we can use a single screen, a large screen, side-by-side, separate windows, and a hybrid screen. Right now, I will leave it on default, but once we open a game, I will show you what each looks like.

Back up to the top, let’s go over to “Advanced.” For the graphics API, I will change this from “OpenGL” to “Vulkan.” I get much better performance with this emulator using Vulkan, but if you have an older CPU or GPU, you may want to try OpenGL because you may get better performance. And for the physical device, if your PC has an actual graphics card, then make sure your graphics card is checked. We’re going to leave everything else here in default settings.

Controls

Now, let’s go back over here to the left and click on “Controls.” The controller I will be using is a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. You can also use an Xbox Series Xbox One controller or PS5 controller.

There are two ways I can do this. I can come down here to “Auto map,” then I’m going to press “Okay,” I’m just going to press any random button on my Switch Pro Controller, and the entire controller will be mapped out just like that. Now, I am using a Switch Pro Controller because my X, Y, A, and B buttons will be in the same location as on a 3DS.

Now, say we did want to change some of the buttons around. All you would do is click on the button you want to change. So, let’s say we want to change the A button. We click right here, and we would press whatever button on our controller we want to become the A button. Now, you could do the same thing for your directional pad, your circle pad, and your C-stick. If you’re confused about the circle pad and the C-stick, well, the circle pad you will want to use as your left analog stick, and the C-stick you will want to use as your right analog stick.

If you want to save your controller layout, go up to “New” and go ahead and give this controller layout a name. I’m just going to call it “P1.”

If you want to see your hotkey layout, back up at the top next to “Input,” you will see “Hot Keys.” Now, you can browse through these options and change the key layout if you would like. For example, say we wanted to change the key for “Swap screens,” we would come down here, click on it, and you would press whatever key you want to be the new “Swap screen” key.

UI

Now, let’s go back up to the top, click on “General,” and go over here to “UI.” Right here, where it says “Theme,” we are on the light theme. You do not have to do this, but I prefer to change this to “Dark,” this will give me a black interface instead of a white one.

Now, let’s come down here to “Okay.” Now, please make sure you hit “Okay” so everything we just set up will save. If you exit out of your settings, nothing will save.

Okay, now I am guessing that the online multiplayer is not active on this emulator yet because if we look in the bottom right, it says “Not connected,” and if we click “Find a room,” there are none. Now, you can try to create your own room by coming up here to “Multiplayer” and “Create a room,” and you can go ahead and create a room and see if you can get a friend to find your room. But like I said, I think multiplayer is not active yet.

Playing Games

Now, let’s go ahead and load up a game, and I’ll do “Sonic Generations.”

You want to go to “View” and “Screen Layout to show you guys how to change your screen layout.” Right now, we are on “Default.” If we change this to “Single screen,” this will look like the following: Go back up to “View,” “Screen layout,” “Large screen,” “Hybrid screen,” “Side by side,” “Separate windows.” The one I prefer to use is “Large screen” because most of you will use this emulator to play Pokemon games. Your main screen will be the large screen, and the second one to the right will only be your command screen.

We return to “View,” “Full screen,” or hit the F11 key to go full screen.