Citra is a discontinued[5]free and open-sourceemulator of the handheld Nintendo 3DS for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. Citra's name is derived from CTR, which is the model name of the original 3DS.[1] Citra can run many homebrew games and commercial games.[6] As of August 2024, Citra has been forked in a GitHub repository by former Citra team member PabloMK7, and is currently continuing development.[7]
Citra was first made available in 2014. The core team behind it went on to develop Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu in 2018.[8] Support for Citra by the Yuzu team was dropped on March 5, 2024, following a $2.4 million settlement reached with Nintendo of America.[9]
Citra has been able to emulate audio since May 21, 2016,[13] and has had a JIT compiler since September 15, 2016.[14] In November 2017, Citra announced networking support for the emulator.[15] The networking support emulates the 3DS's local Wi-Fi, which originally made it possible to play over local networks. Additionally, Citra allows the networking to be compatible with other users anywhere.[1] In April 2020, the Citra Team announced compatibility with New Nintendo 3DS games and support for save states,[16][17][18] and in May 2020, they announced a version of Citra for Android.[19][20] The console's Home Menu was bootable from March 2023.[21] In September 2023, support for Vulkan was added as an experimental alternative to OpenGL.[22][23] In March 2024, Nintendo and Yuzu developer Tropic Haze LLC reached a settlement prompting Tropic Haze to shut down operations for Yuzu. Additionally, Tropic Haze agreed to surrender or cease working on any project that involved Nintendo's copyrighted properties, and as a result support for Citra was dropped by the developers.[24][25]