Atmosphere CFW updated to 1.5.4, adds support for loading mods for Tears of the Kingdom

dashjkfas.png

SciresM has just released a new version of Atmosphere, bringing the project to version 1.5.4. Currently, it's in pre-release, which is standard for a new release, and will become a full release pending any initial bug reports. The main change that this new update offers is that it adds an experimental feature that lets users load layeredfs and romfs mods for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and also for Fire Emblem: Engage.

Experimental new functionality was implemented to prevent crashing when building romfs for certain games with obscene file counts.
  • This includes both Fire Emblem: Engage (~190000 files), and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (~300000) files.
  • The solution involved adding functionality to ams.mitm/pm to dynamically steal memory from the application (and system) pool as needed when the games have romfs mods.
    • No memory is taken, and there is no cost to this functionality when playing without mods (or with overrides disabled).
  • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is currently the absolute worst case game, requiring ~48 MB of memory to build a romfs image to play with mods.
    • Right now, the memory is sourced as follows: 32 MB (base ams.mitm heap), 10 MB (stolen from application pool), 8 MB (dynamically stolen from system pool).
    • This is 50 MB, which allows a little overhead in the worst case (prevents crashing due to exhausting the heap for other allocations in ams.mitm).
    • Zelda is remarkably sensitive to memory being stolen from the application pool, tolerating no more than 16 MB on 1.0.0 and 12 MB on 1.1.0. I have chosen to steal 10 MB, to be safe, for now.
      • This may break on a future game update, but I will fix it if and when that happens. There is no perfect solution; the game simply requires too much memory to support mods flawlessly, and I am forced to compromise.

You can grab this update from the official Atmosphere GitHub page, linked below.

:arrow: Source
 

Blakejansen

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2021
Messages
612
Trophies
0
Age
40
XP
1,502
Country
United States
Is there a homebrew application that updates Atmosphere without having to use a computer? Can't remember if AIO updates atmosphere.
 

CameronCataclysm

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 17, 2018
Messages
190
Trophies
0
Age
30
Location
North Carolina
XP
1,101
Country
United States
Is there a homebrew application that updates Atmosphere without having to use a computer? Can't remember if AIO updates atmosphere.
They do exist, however it is not recommended. From personal use, something always goes wrong down the line. Plenty of threads out there regarding these matters.
 

masagrator

The patches guy
Developer
Joined
Oct 14, 2018
Messages
6,280
Trophies
3
XP
12,049
Country
Poland
Atmosphere may get a "cease and desist" next, considering how protective Nintendo is about Zelda lately.
You should catch up with last years of Atmosphere development before stating such things. Atmosphere excludes Nintendo from standard license. Nintendo is fully aware of Atmosphere existence, implemented to HOS some solutions from Atmosphere-libs (they were then deleted from Atmosphere-libs). Atmosphere devs and contributors documented and sent many system flaws that were later patched by N.

You don't want to piss people that are so much deep into your operating system. One of them may hide some huge software exploit and will disclose it when time is right (preferably at EOL if Nintendo will be nice).

Nintendo is protective about EMULATING Zelda. DMCAing Atmosphere will do absolutely nothing to stop emulation scene.
The same thing was with Lockpick - DMCAing it did absolutely nothing to stop piracy on real hardware as extracted keys are not needed to install pirated content.
 
Last edited by masagrator,

linuxares

The inadequate, autocratic beast!
Global Moderator
Joined
Aug 5, 2007
Messages
13,325
Trophies
2
XP
18,188
Country
Sweden
You should catch up with last years of Atmosphere development before stating such things. Atmosphere excludes Nintendo from standard license. Nintendo is fully aware of Atmosphere existence, implemented to HOS some solutions from Atmosphere-libs (they were then deleted from Atmosphere-libs). Atmosphere devs and contributors documented and sent many system flaws that were later patched by N.

You don't want to piss people that are so much deep into your operating system. One of them may hide some huge software exploit and will disclose it when time is right.

Nintendo is protective about EMULATING Zelda. DMCAing Atmosphere will do absolutely nothing to stop emulation scene.
And the authenticity about the previous DMCA on Lockpick is still up in the air.
 

bobmcjr

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Messages
1,156
Trophies
1
XP
3,217
Country
United States
Seems like it's reaching a point where it would make more sense for Atmosphere to build and store a romfs as a file on the microSD when launching a game, and memory map that as needed?

I'm assuming there's some limitation or complexity that prevents this at this time.
 

masagrator

The patches guy
Developer
Joined
Oct 14, 2018
Messages
6,280
Trophies
3
XP
12,049
Country
Poland
Seems like it's reaching a point where it would make more sense for Atmosphere to build and store a romfs as a file on the microSD when launching a game, and memory map that as needed?
mmap is not supported by libnx. It could be since FW 3.0.0, but nobody wants to do it it seems.

https://github.com/switchbrew/libnx/issues/503

Can't say about performance issues with this solution.
 

bobmcjr

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2013
Messages
1,156
Trophies
1
XP
3,217
Country
United States
mmap is not supported by libnx. It could be since FW 3.0.0, but nobody wants to do it it seems.

https://github.com/switchbrew/libnx/issues/503

Can't say about performance issues with this solution.
Interesting. Rather big syscall to be missing out on for so long.

I feel like performance shouldn't be that awful? Given games are evidently natively read from "slow" cartridges and microSDs just fine?
 

fvig2001

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Messages
932
Trophies
1
XP
2,931
Country
Philippines
So this is not related to your issue, since this was an issue with Atmosphere, not game itself.
It is.

Experimental new functionality was implemented to prevent crashing when building romfs for certain games with obscene file counts. BG mods can have a shit ton of files when modded like crazy
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: I think Switch 2 will launch about Christmas this year lol