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Switch Hax Weekly Issue 4
Welcome to Switch Hax Weekly Issue 4. There hasn't been a lot going on this week so this issue will be a short one. For more reading please see our last issue here.
This week we have:
- SD Files guide site
- New banning scare
- Play other Game Maker Studio games using Undertale
- Add new games to the NES app
- News from Qcean
- New homebrew roundup
@nickmoses05 made a video based on this issue, so if you don't like reading, check it out (the information starts at 98 seconds in):
SD Files guide site
A new guide has launched on the sdsetup.com website: https://guide.sdsetup.com. It will walk you through setting up your Switch for the first time, and is CFW-agnostic.
The main part of the site allows you to create a custom zip file with all the files you need for your SD card. You can choose your CFW, homebrew utilities, games and emulators, and PC tools. This way you get what you need without anything you don't, and don't have to visit multiple pages to get each of the tools you need.
New banning scare
Correction:
This morning, some developers from within the Switch Hacks Discord server contacted me about the incorrect information going around about CDNSP cert banning. It turns out that the Switch can generate an authentication token to send with server requests. Until now, the server hasn't asked for one. But now that it is asking for them, every cert that tries to connect and doesn't send one with its request will be banned immediately, including certs from 6.0 consoles. It seems as though nobody actually tried a cert from a 6.0 console to confirm before this misinformation started spreading.
This week, members of the Switch Hacking Discord server found that some new certs they tried were banned within seconds of accessing the CDN. This incorrectly led people to assume Nintendo had "implemented" dauth, meaning that they could tell whether the cert owned the game you were attempting to download, and banning certs that tried to download games they didn't own.
It turned out that the certs that were banned were from consoles that hadn't updated to the latest firmware (6.0.0) yet. This is surprising since the connections were made by PC, so Nintendo wasn't just checking the version of the device that was connecting. How Nintendo knows which certs come from updated consoles and which don't is still unknown.
This development is similar to the 11.8 update to the 3DS on the tenth of August - consoles on lower firmware could no longer download from CDN, due to an extra parameter (the game's titlekey) needing to be sent with each CDN request. However, in this case, a Switch making a CDN request on a lower firmware will be banned, instead of simply being refused the connection.
It turned out that the certs that were banned were from consoles that hadn't updated to the latest firmware (6.0.0) yet. This is surprising since the connections were made by PC, so Nintendo wasn't just checking the version of the device that was connecting. How Nintendo knows which certs come from updated consoles and which don't is still unknown.
This development is similar to the 11.8 update to the 3DS on the tenth of August - consoles on lower firmware could no longer download from CDN, due to an extra parameter (the game's titlekey) needing to be sent with each CDN request. However, in this case, a Switch making a CDN request on a lower firmware will be banned, instead of simply being refused the connection.
Play other Game Maker Studio games via Undertale
Discovered by Twitter user Chocolate2890, it is possible to use LayeredFS to swap the game file from Undertale installed on your Switch with other games made with Game Maker Studio.
Mario Flashback explains that this is possible because there are two ways a developer can test their Game Maker Studio game. The first, VM, stores all the game data in a single file to send to an interpreter, and allows the developer to test their game instantly. The other, YYC, compiles the whole game into an executable (with the source code no longer accessible) that can be launched directly. This isn't ideal for testing, since compilation takes a few minutes.
Undertale on the Switch uses VM mode which means that the entire game is in one file. This means we can swap the game file with another game made in Game Maker Studio that is being tested in VM mode.
You can read the initial report here, or the discussion thread here which lists the compatibility of different games. There is also a tutorial here.
NES Online app hacked to add more games
The NES Online app allows you to play a small library of NES games, as a feature included with current Nintendo Online subscriptions.
Twitter user Kapu looked into the app and found that it was a port of the NES Mini, meaning that it was quite easy to add extra games into, just like the mini console.
No tutorials have surfaced yet but user @nitr077 has made a tool to help with adding games.
Discussion thread here.
Team Qcean
Team Qcean's Discord server was nuked this morning by a bot. The admin responsible for allowing the bot in is unknown. The server is up and running again with plenty of themes re-added.
It has been discovered how to make themes that work in 6.0, but each theme produced will be created for a specific firmware version, so please check what you are downloading before you install it. An issue where random crashes on boot occurred has been fixed as well.
New homebrew roundup
DZ: Network NSP Installer & Titlekey Dumper by @blawar: This handy tool allows you to send NSP files over the network, using FTP, to your Switch where the app will install it. It is based on Tinfoil and has a lovely UI reminiscent of actual official Switch applications.
Doom 3 by @fgsfds: This guy is on fire with his ports - having a homebrew in this column every week since the beginning. Will he be able to keep it up? This is a port of dhewm3, which uses the original GPL-licensed source code from Doom 3. It has many improvements over the original game - bugfixes, widescreen support, EAX4.0 sound, and support for 64bit operating systems. The Switch port makes use of hardware rendering (OpenGL).
Bermuda Syndrome by @usineur0: Another port by @usineur0: will this be a porting contest to the death with @fgsfds?? This port is based on the work of Gregory Montoir, who reverse-engineered the game engine to provide source code for anyone wishing to port the game to other devices.
SysNetCheat GUI by @mleeneg: This is a GUI, written in C#, for SysNetCheat. SysNetCheat, originally created by @jakibaki, is an application allowing editing of in-game content over WiFi.
Sayonara!
This marks the end of this little Switch Hax Weekly, be sure to join us again next week! And as always, please don't hesitate to send in any rumours, news, homebrew updates, etc.
Last week's issue.
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