Orchid emulator for Switch 2

Orchid at a glance

Orchid emulator download: v0.9.2 files

Release v0.9.2 has 11 files. Sizes are in decimal megabytes and exact bytes from the GitHub Releases API. Each link goes straight to github.com/MythosOfs/Orchid/releases. The most downloaded file in this release is orchid-v0.9.2-windows-x86_64-pgo.zip.

Which file to pick

• Windows: extract the whole zip into its own folder and run orchid.exe (or eden-cli.exe from a terminal).
• Linux AppImage: chmod +x the file and run it. It bundles its libraries and needs glibc 2.39 or newer. The tar.gz uses your system Qt 6.
• macOS: move orchid.app to Applications. It is ad-hoc signed, not notarized, so macOS may ask for approval in Privacy & Security.
• PGO means profile-guided optimisation: the same program compiled with clang and the repository’s orchid.profdata, for the same CPUs.

Check the SHA-256 of your download

GitHub publishes a SHA-256 digest for every release file. These are the digests for v0.9.2. Compare them with certutil -hashfile <file> SHA256 (Windows), sha256sum <file> (Linux) or shasum -a 256 <file> (macOS).

What Orchid adds to Eglantine

The README lists these changes compared with the Eglantine code it started from:

• Mario Tennis Fever: the startup crash and the NVIDIA crash at match start are fixed, with per-game defaults (low GPU accuracy, balanced fences). Release 0.6.0 also fixed stray shading spots on AMD and NVIDIA and brought back the grass on grass courts.
• Shaders: many more Ampere (Switch 2 GPU) instructions are translated, mainly from the Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave work.
• System: Switch 2 built-in fonts are served from their own shared memory, and kernel thread start and finish races are fixed.
• Graphics: query reports are flushed before MME DMA reads, layered cross-format texture copies, separate surface and texture descriptor buffers, and geometry shaders and framebuffers kept within device limits.
• Fixes from other forks: after each release a fork-scan script lists what Eglantine and its forks fixed, and ported commits name their source and author.

AMD fixes and lighting fixes

Orchid’s performance figures were measured by hand on one PC: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, 32 GB RAM, CachyOS (Linux 7.x, Mesa RADV from git), 1x resolution. The release notes list these AMD-related fixes:

Outdoor lighting: release 0.7.3 is a lighting fix for the Ocarina of Time remake. Outdoor scenes are no longer washed out: Orchid scales the game’s exposure before its filmic curve and thins the outdoor fog. The notes call this a visual workaround while the root cause is still open. The same release fixed the sky’s ambient light in Kokiri Forest, so rocks and shadows no longer look yellow. These fixes were ported from zortos293/Eglantine.

Known gaps in the notes: Donkey Kong Bananza gameplay rendered black on RADV in the 0.6.x notes, and Kirby Air Riders lighting can still render incorrectly (0.7.4 and 0.7.5). On NVIDIA, the Mario Tennis Fever match-start crash is listed as fixed in the README.

Orchid game status

This is the README’s own table, measured in November 2026 on the RX 9070 XT PC above at 1x scaling. Other hardware will differ. The README’s target games are Mario Tennis Fever, both Hyrule Warriors games, Pokémon Pokopia, Star Fox, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Donkey Kong Bananza, Kirby Air Riders, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the Xenoblade Chronicles series and Orbitals. Being on that list does not mean a game is fully playable.

What is new in Orchid 0.9.2

Orchid 0.9.2 was published on November 9, 2026 as a regular release. Its title in the notes: “Xenoblade 2 boots, Xenoblade DE at 60 fps, Wonder flicker fix and NUP extraction”.

• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: boots past the startup abort (nn::fs 0x160A) by allocating a 128 GiB alias region required by the game’s address allocator, and fixes the 2x zoomed-in 3D scene in handheld mode.
• Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: runs at 60 fps in the opening instead of 30–38 fps; a per-game setting prevents the every-frame texture readback from stalling on the full GPU queue.
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: scenery no longer flickers dark blue; GPU timestamps now reflect submission time so the game stops alternating to its fallback lighting path every other frame.
• Unified Switch 2 Edition dump loader & NUP tools: extracted folders, NSP/XCI and NUP all serve sibling programs and add-ons consistently (dumps without program 0 get a stand-in; older NUPs must be repacked to include sibling programs). Right-clicking a game adds Extract NUP (eden-cli --extract-nup, verifying every file’s SHA-256) and Edit NUP Metadata in place.
• The Xenoblade series (1, 2, X, 3), Orbitals and the Kirby Switch 2 Edition no longer trigger the unsupported-game warning.

Known issues in 0.9.2 & open tracker reports: in Xenoblade Chronicles X, the intro video can freeze and character creation can hang on a black screen. Open community reports on Orchid’s tracker also track heavy Donkey Kong Bananza frame-rate drops (#115), Pokémon Pokopia black screen at startup (#113), corrupted saved Pokopia photos (#58), a black sky in Pokopia on Linux RADV (#78), and loading DLC in Super Mario Bros. Wonder (#118).

Earlier: Orchid 0.9.1 (November 8)

• Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition: classic Maxwell GOB textures, colours and fonts decoded properly; nested update and add-on folders detected in loose dumps.
• Switch 2 5.1 audio: six-channel system-mix audio (such as Orbitals) downmixes instead of staying silent.
• NUP add-ons & Vulkan sync: updates and DLC inside .nup show in the game list; guest CPU writes to GPU-written memory are no longer overwritten by older GPU downloads (fixing Yoshi black/white blocks); Linux AppImage uses the system Vulkan loader (MangoHud works).
• Mario Tennis Fever experimental FPS setting: opt-in per-game setting with game-speed readout (default 60 FPS leaves the game unpatched).

Earlier: Orchid 0.9.0 (November 6)

• Yoshi and the Mysterious Book works in tested gameplay: the horizontal stripes are fixed (Ampere IMAD.HI 64-bit addends), the first level renders and movement was tested. The notes say this is not a full-game check.
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder: render-target copies no longer overwrite each other, and the Switch 2 Edition can use more of the driver’s memory budget to reduce Overworld texture churn.
• Kirby and dynamic textures: computed texture handles, descriptor-array limits and shader-cache revisions corrected.

Ocarina of Time in Orchid (0.7.2 to 0.7.4)

Three releases on November 5, 2026 brought the Ocarina of Time remake from its intro into gameplay. The fixes were ported from zortos293/Eglantine and name their authors in the commits.

The exposure and fog change is a visual workaround; EDEN_NX2_OOT_VISUAL_WORKAROUND=0 turns it off. For a Windows build tuned only for this game, compare Fritchii, Frizti’s Lichii fork.

Orchid vs Lichii vs Eglantine

All three are GPL Switch 2 emulators from the same code family. Data from the GitHub API on November 10, 2026. More forks (Fritchii, PokeDinner, Selevet, SmileyTatsu) are compared in the Switch 2 emulator forks guide.

Which one fits your graphics card and game

• AMD Radeon on Linux (RADV), or you play Mario Tennis Fever, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment or Pokémon Pokopia: Orchid. Its reported results come from exactly that kind of setup, and the community guide riyadhHDA/wichforks (last verified November 7) lists Orchid as the starting point for AMD RDNA2 and newer cards.
• Ocarina of Time remake or Star Fox: Lichii. Build 116 calls the Ocarina of Time remake “very stable”, fixes Hyrule Field grass and adds optional DLSS, and says Mario Tennis Fever now runs fully at 60 fps. See the Lichii game status page.
• Mario Kart World or Splatoon Raiders: start with upstream Eglantine, whose README names those two games. Orchid reports Mario Kart World at 30–40 fps with asset glitches. See Lichii vs Eglantine; for Splatoon Raiders text box and texture fixes, see PokeDinner.
• NVIDIA GeForce: all three run on Vulkan. Orchid fixed the Mario Tennis Fever crash at match start on NVIDIA. For Lichii on RTX cards, see Lichii requirements.
• Intel graphics: Lichii build 95 fixed white leaves on Intel. Orchid’s notes do not report Intel results.
• Apple Silicon Mac: all three are experimental on macOS 15+. Lichii also ships a dmg.

Back up your saves before switching between them, and report bugs in the tracker of the project you actually used.

How to avoid fake Orchid downloads

• The project’s files are only on github.com/MythosOfs/Orchid/releases. A different owner name on GitHub is a different project.
• Every file name starts with orchid-v0.9.2- for this release, and its size and SHA-256 match the tables above.
• There is no Orchid APK, iOS app or single “setup.exe” installer.
• Any download that bundles games, keys, firmware or “all games included” did not come from the Orchid repository.

Recommended controllers for Lichii (SDL3 & gyro)

Lichii reads gamepads through SDL3 (including HID command 300 motion). Standard Xbox pads have no gyroscope, so games that use motion aiming or tilt steering (such as Mario Kart World or Ocarina of Time) need a DualSense or aSwitch-style pad, while TMR/Hall sticks prevent drift:

As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Full button profiles and Linux udev rules: controller setup guide.