Mario Kart World Hits 60 FPS on PC as Switch 2 Emulation Takes a Big Step Forward

Nintendo Switch 2 emulation has reached an eye-catching early milestone: Mario Kart World is reportedly running at around 60 frames per second on certain gaming PCs. The result comes from Eglantine, an experimental emulator derived from existing Switch emulation projects. It is an impressive demonstration, but the headline frame rate tells only part of the story.

Eglantine builds on years of Switch emulator development

Eglantine describes itself as a free, open-source Switch 2 emulator based on Eden, Yuzu and Sudachi. Its developers list Windows, Linux and macOS builds, while stressing that the software remains highly experimental. A related effort, Eden-NX2, introduced components needed to handle the newer console, including support for six emulated CPU cores, additional graphics services and video decoding capabilities.

The recent momentum follows work published in late October. An experimental Eden build from developer Takoroka appeared on October 29, followed by further Eglantine development and a Mario Kart World-focused fork. This is not a case of a complete emulator suddenly appearing overnight: the projects build on existing code and substantial ongoing reverse-engineering work.

What the early Mario Kart World tests actually show

According to performance reports collected by VideoCardz, a user with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and GeForce RTX 5090 saw approximately 60 FPS, although shader stutters and visual errors remained. Another user with a Ryzen 5 5600G and RTX 5070 reported between 40 and 53 FPS during gameplay, with two-player performance falling to roughly 40–45 FPS.

Those figures are community reports rather than standardized benchmarks. They do not establish consistent frame rates across every track, resolution or graphics setting. Nor do they prove that the game can be played from start to finish without crashes. In particular, a high frame rate is less meaningful if parts of the scene render incorrectly or the game pauses while shaders compile.

Developers are already tackling stutter and VRAM usage

The Eglantine-MKW branch specifically targets Mario Kart World version 1.8.0. Its October 30 changes addressed shader compilation interruptions, memory handling and crashes. The work includes automatic BC3 texture recompression for GPUs with less than 12GB of video memory, along with fixes for a shader compilation memory leak and interrupted shader-cache writes.

The developer reported approximately 6.6GB of video memory usage while simulating an 8GB graphics card. That is a useful development datapoint, not a promise that any real-world 8GB GPU will deliver playable performance. Graphics architecture, driver support, CPU performance and emulator settings all matter.

Other Switch 2 games are much further behind

The compatibility picture becomes considerably less encouraging beyond Mario Kart World. Eglantine lists Splatoon Raiders as running with variable performance, but some users have encountered serious graphics issues. VideoCardz also describes a Donkey Kong Bananza test that stalled at a loading screen and early Pokémon Pokopia experiments that reached a language selection screen without establishing full playability.

These examples illustrate the difference between booting a game, rendering a menu and actually running gameplay reliably. Switch 2 emulation is still at a stage where progress may vary dramatically from one title or hardware configuration to another. An emulator that launches a few games is not yet a practical substitute for a console.

A promising breakthrough, not a finished PC port

For enthusiasts following emulation and game preservation, the pace of progress is fascinating. A flagship Switch 2 title appearing on a PC screen at something approaching its intended frame rate is an important technical step. It also raises obvious questions about future compatibility, graphics accuracy and how quickly the software can mature.

For now, however, Mario Kart World has not received an official PC release. These results concern community-built experimental emulation, not a native port or an endorsed Nintendo product. Anyone following the project should distinguish verified developer documentation from performance clips and unverified download claims.

The next meaningful milestone will be reproducible testing across a wider range of hardware, with correct graphics, reliable audio and sustained performance through complete races and longer sessions. Until then, the reported 60 FPS result is best understood as a glimpse of what may eventually become possible rather than proof that Switch 2 emulation is ready for everyday use.

Where to find it

• Eglantine project on GitHub