To check which Atmosphere version you're running, go to Settings > System. Under System Update, mine says the following:
Current System version: 18.0.0|AMS 17.0.0|E which means that I'm on firmware 18.0.0, Atmosphere 1.7.0 and on emuNAND CFW (if it says S, it's on sysNAND CFW).
As for the Tinfoil, if you have a forwarder, I believe that when you select it and press +, it should say the version (provided it behaves like a regular game, can't say for sure as I'm not using forwarders nor Tinfoil).
As for Hekate, I believe that you need to reboot to RCM and push the hekate_ctcaer_x.x.x.bin payload (x.x.x stands for the version, but if bootloader/update.bin is newer, that one will be launched instead).
Well, the only way to check that is to check your SD card's contents. You can either use Hekate's USB Tools, Atmosphere's USB Transfer (haze.nro) or simply by connecting your microSD card to the computer. if you're running hidden partition emuNAND, you might get a prompt saying that the drive needs to be formatted first in order to use it. DO NOT FORMAT the drive, skip/cancel it. That's your hidden partition emuANND (emulated sysNAND). The other drive that successfully connects will be where you homebrew apps are placed.
Since you're using Atmosphere, you'll probably need to update provided you haven't updated a thing in a year or so.
Since you're probably new to the Switch hacking scene, I'd suggest that you go through these two guides:
NH Switch guide and
Rentry.org Switch guide. Getting familiar with the terms used will make updating your Switch much easier task for you.
If you have a custom theme installed, make sure to uninstall it (via
NXThemesInstaller) before you proceed to update.
You can backup your saves with
JKSV and restore them after the update should you need it.
Whenever you're about to update your firmware and before you do so, make sure that both
Hekate and
Atmosphere support the latest firmware or the firmware you're currently updating to.If they do, check if the
sigpatches are updated to support the latest firmware and Atmosphere version. Sigpatches also work retroactively, meaning that if you're on a lower versions of firmware and Atmosphere, it should still work properly.
While sigpatches should be enough for game backups to work, you can install
sys-patch module as well. Optionally, you can install
Tesla +
nx-ovlloader as that will allow you to see whether sys-patch is working properly, after you press
L +
D-pad Down +
R (Stick) combo, select
sys-patch, followed by
Log. It should say
Patched (if it's green, it's good; if it's orange, it means that it's already patched with sigpatches). Having both sigpatches and sys-patch at the same time should cause no conflict at all.
Atmosphere 1.7.0 no longer supports ips kip patches (
check the release notes here) which are usually used for piracy reasons. Therefore you can:
1) Load Atmosphere's package3 via Hekate's FSS0 - You'll need to reboot to Hekate, go to Launch and select emuNAND CFW or sysNAND CFW (depending on which one you use). If you've downloaded the sigpatches from
here. your
bootloader/hekate_ipl.bin will already have everything you need to have configured.
2) Use sys-patch instead of sigpatches.
3) Use modified Atmosphere's
fusee.bin payload with ips kip patches support.
To install the games, I generally suggest using
DBI.
Here's a good video tutorial by sthetix.
If everything seems okay, update Hekate and Atmosphere first, followed by sigpatches.
Once you do that, update firmware via Daybreak as well. Daybreak comes bundled with Atmosphere. You can find firmware files on that certain site we aren't allowed to link to (that's what I usually do) or you can dump the latest firmware after you update your OFW. I personally like to keep my OFW firmware version the lowest possible just in case a future exploit is found and supports the firmware I have (unlikely to happen, but one can never know). Once you download the files, just extract them to the folder (e.g.
firmware
) on the root of your SD card, just to make it easier to be found once in Daybreak.
If you used either Haku33, TegraExplorer, EmmcHaccGen or ChoiDujour in the past, you might run into a
save issue after updating to 17.0.0 or newer. To fix it, make sure to boot at least once into sysNAND CFW with Atmosphere 1.6.1 or newer.
If you've ever used Incognito_RCM or similar in the past in order to blank your prodinfo, Atmosphere will crash as soon as your console connects to the Internet and tries to connect to the Nintendo servers due to your console not having valid prod keys.
You won't run into this issue if you are always in airplane mode or if you're using
DNS MITM. You can still blank your prodinfo via Exopshere, but it's unknown whether the prodinfo is cached elswhere before the blanking kicks in. Still, it doesn't hurt to have it enabled. There's also
this patch which fixes the prodinfo blanking issue.
If you plan on connecting your console to the Internet, DNS MITM at the very least must be set up prior to connecting to the Internet.
That's probably all you need to know as a beginner. Good luck figuring out the rest.