Custom Citra for Bravely Offline

This is a custom build of Citra originally meant to be used with the Bravely Offline server/client program by osm70 as a drop-in replacement. It can also be used on its own like any normal version of Citra.

This is an experimental build that takes current Citra code and updates most of Citra's third-party dependencies to more modern versions. In that sense, this build is a little more bleeding edge than stock Citra. Think of it as less Canary, and more YOLO... 😉

There may be performance improvements with this version, but there may also be dragons. If you want to be safe, make sure to keep backups of your save games and save states, just in case.

The latest version can be found on the Releases page.

How to Install in Bravely Offline

1. First, back up all the .exe and .dll files in the Bravely Offline\DATA\Citra folder in case you want to return to the old version.

2. Download a version of Citra from the Releases page.

3. Extract the package.

4. Copy the contents to the Bravely Offline\DATA\Citra folder, confirming any files to be overwritten.

5. Launch the app.

How to Compile (GCC or CLANG)

There may be performance differences when compiling with either GCC or CLANG. Here's how to compile with both and you can choose which one performs better.

MinGW-w64 GCC Build with MSYS2

Prerequisites to install

• MSYS2

Make sure to follow the instructions and update to the latest version by running pacman -Syu as many times as needed.

Install Citra dependencies for MinGW-w64

• Open the "MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit" (mingw64.exe) shell
• Download and install all dependencies using: pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-{gcc,SDL2,qt6,cmake,ninja,spirv-tools} make git

Clone the Citra repository with git.

git clone https://github.com/rtiangha/bravely-offline-citra.git
cd bravely-offline-citra
git submodule update --init --recursive

Run the following commands to build Citra

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
ninja
ninja bundle
strip -s bundle/*.exe

When complete, all the binaries will be found in build/bundle.

Optimizing GCC Builds

If you intend to run Citra on the same computer that you're compiling this on, you may choose to run

cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-march=native -O2" -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS="-march=native -O2" ..

before running ninja instead, which may help you eke out a few more fps of performance. Just note that if you choose to compile the program in this way, it may not run on another computer with different specs.

Clang Build with MSYS2

Prerequisites to install

• MSYS2

Make sure to follow the instructions and update to the latest version by running pacman -Syu as many times as needed.

Install Citra dependencies

• Open the "MSYS2 Clang64" (clang64.exe) shell
• Download and install all dependencies using: pacman -S mingw-w64-clang-x86_64-{gcc,qt6,cmake} mingw-w64-x86_64-{ninja,spirv-tools} make git

Clone the Citra repository with git.

git clone https://github.com/rtiangha/bravely-offline-citra.git
cd bravely-offline-citra
git submodule update --init --recursive

Run the following commands to build Citra

mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
ninja
ninja bundle
strip -s bundle/*.exe

When complete, all the binaries will be found in build/bundle.

Optimizing Clang Builds

If you intend to run Citra on the same computer that you're compiling this on, you may choose to run

cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-march=native -O2" -DCMAKE_C_FLAGS="-march=native -O2" ..

before running ninja instead, which may help you eke out a few more fps of performance. Just note that if you choose to compile the program in this way, it may not run on another computer with different specs.

Installation in Bravely Offline

If the compilation is successful, the resulting Custom Citra for Bravely Offline .exe and .dll files will be found in the build/bin/Release folder. Copy these files to the Bravely Offline\DATA\Citra folder, but make sure to back up the original copies first in case you want to return to them later (or download Nightly r1800, the version originally bundled with Bravely Offline).

Troubleshooting

• Issue: Citra crashes as soon as I launch the game.

  • This sometimes happens when you switch between Citra versions. To fix it, navigate to the Bravely Offline\DATA\Citra\user\shaders\ folder, delete all of its contents, then restart the app.

• Issue: When launching Citra after compiling under msys2, an error appears about missing DLLs or symbols.

  • If you already have those DLL files in your Citra directory but Citra still thinks they're missing, then this error happens when you use mismatched DLL files (for example, the DLL files linked to citra.exe are newer or different than the ones you already have). You'll need to copy over the DLLs used in msys2 during compilation and overwrite the ones already in your Citra directory. Those DLLs can be found in either the msys2\<environment>\bin or msys2\<environment>\share\qt6\plugins directories, where <environment> is the shell you performed your compilation under (so clang64 for clang, or mingw64 for gcc).

• Issue: Game control buttons (ex. keyboard, gamepad, etc.) no longer work.

  • Navigate to Emulation -> Configure -> Controls and remap your buttons, even if they look correct at first glance. Button presses need to be registered again in order for things to work properly.

• Issue: I hate this new version of Citra. I want to go back to the old version!

  • To revert to using the original version of Citra that was bundled with Bravely Offline, copy over all of the .exe and .dll files from your backup into the Bravely Offline\DATA\Citra folder, or if you don't have a backup, download a copy of Nightly r1800 from the Releases page, making sure to overwrite the files that already exist. Then, relaunch the Bravely Offline.