Lakka Switch, L4T edition
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I am proud to finally release the L4T version of Lakka Switch!
New kernel, new logo, new drivers, audio... everything is fresh and clean.

Did I mention Rayman 3 was full speed on Dolphin? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

General system updates

• New Linux kernel and underlying operating system, based on Linux4Tegra and Jetson Nano drivers
  • mainline kernel has been deprecated
  • system features should now be on par with the L4T Ubuntu distribution, except for dock support
  • Bluetooth was lost in the battle and needs some rest to come back stronger
• aarch64 is now the default and mainly supported architecture
  • arm has been deprecated since L4T doesn't support it
• New logo made with the help of jaames and the R:S community

New features and improvements

• Audio now works through the internal speakers and headphones
• The new GPU driver supports both Vulkan and OpenGL
• RAM is now locked at full speed (1600Mhz), was 800MHz before
• The system is now way more stable and should boot for everyone with a decent SD card (no more black screen of death)
• RetroArch has been updated to add menu widgets (fancy onscreen notifications)
• Overclock profiles have been updated :
  • Renamed all profiles
  • Added more overclock profiles
  • Added underclock profiles

New cores

• mupen64plus-next (N64 emulator)
  • The core is full speed, even on aarch64 thanks to the new dynarec
  • Includes the updated version of the GlideN renderer
• picodrive (various Sega consoles)
  • The core replaces Genesis Plus GX (Game Gear support has been dropped)
• Beetle PSX HW (PSX emulator with OpenGL and Vulkan renderer)
  • The core performs worse than PCSX ReARMed for now, even with Vulkan
• reicast (Dreamcast emulator)
  • The core is full speed on all commercial games, no visual glitches
  • The OIT renderer works (better accuracy), speed is still good on 1x resolution
  • The core needs the Dreamcast BIOS files to be placed in /lakka/storage/system/DC
  • WinCE games are currently not supported - there is a WinCE version of the reicast core in the works but the aarch64 dynarec is too slow for the games to be playable (for now)
• Yaba Sanshiro (Saturn emulator)
  • The core is full speed on all commercial games
  • Yabause and Kronos were also added but both perform worse than Yaba Sanshiro
• theodore (Thomson MO/TO emulator)

Updated cores

• Dolphin : Vulkan support
  • With Vulkan, Dolphin runs decently - some games are playable, some are full speed... see for yourself, try it and experiment with different games and settings!
• PCSX ReARMed : Switch optimizations and CHD support
• PPSSPP : doesn't crash anymore when closing content

Removed cores

• mupen64plus
• parallel-n64
• Genesis Plus GX
• Ishiiruka
  • It might come back once the core is updated with the (beta) Vulkan renderer

Credits

• Kernel and drivers work: NVIDIA, switchroot team (especially ByLaws and langerhans)
• Lakka Switch work: natinusala and plaidman
• RetroArch, original Lakka distribution: libretro team
• mupen64plus-next: Gillou and m4xw
• PCSX ReARMed: Switch optimizations by m4xw, CHD support by aliaspider
• Dolphin core: aliaspider
• reicast core: flyinghead

Download link

The Lakka Switch website has been updated with the new version: https://lakka-switch.github.io/documentation/

Please note that you can't dual boot Ubuntu and Lakka Switch for now (it will always boot Ubuntu).

 

[bad361]

Any reason for PSP isos freezing console when closing content?

yeah, it's a known issue, don't close content right away, let it get at least into the menues ingame or as someone from the devs in discord said "let it load at least until some sound starts playing"

 

[cirojr82]

Wifi should work right out of the box, right.


I put my password but nothing happens.

 

[bad361]

Wifi should work right out of the box, right.


I put my password but nothing happens.

idk if that's a thing, but it doen't want to connect to my 5ghz network, but connects fine to 2.4 one

 

[Shaneus]

Nice, I was able to solve the issue with Genesis Plus GX, so that core should be available with the next release.

Brilliant, appreciate it!

I will look into it. Does it do anything G-P-GX doesn't?

Kind of yes, but not really. It's a "cycle-accurate" emulator akin to bsnes, but is capable of running on super low-spec hardware:

BlastEm is an open source, higly accurate emulator for the Genesis/Megadrive that runs on modest hardware. It is the first emulator to properly run Titan's impressive Overdrive 2 demo and it is the only other emulator besides Genesis Plus GX that can properly run the original Overdrive. It is the only emulator other than Exodus that passes Nemesis' VDP FIFO Testing ROM, can display "Direct Color DMA" demos and emulates CRAM contention (aka CRAM dots).

Despite this high accuracy, even the most demanding software runs at full speed on modest hardware like a 1.6GHz AMD E-350 laptop. In the future, I would like to port it to the ARM architecture and optimize it further to run on systems as modest as the original Raspberry Pi.

The site for it also says this:

There is experimental support for x86 Android devices like the Nexus Player, but due to the rough state of that port I am not providing pre-built binaries at this time. BlastEm depends on SDL2, GLEW and OpenGL.

I don't know if any of that means it can be ported or not, it just seems like relevant info.
https://www.retrodev.com/blastem/

 

[sirAnger]

I would like to port it to the ARM architecture

Sadly the switch is arm architecture. We need to wait for the author to port it.

 

[Spectrelepsy]

Does anyone know if cheats work with the Dolphin core? I've been trying but I can't seem to get them working.

 

[Shaneus]

Where's the best place to find info on different shaders and how much load they cause? Particularly CRT shaders and perhaps handheld/GB/GBA ones too. Not fussed about how accurate they are, as long as they're "good enough" and don't require excessive clocks on either CPU or GPU.

Sadly the switch is arm architecture. We need to wait for the author to port it.

No worries, thanks for checking it out anyway!

 

[Bryan1986]

Does anyone know if cheats work with the Dolphin core? I've been trying but I can't seem to get them working.

Have you been managing to get games running?

 

[Null-project]

Could someone change the lakka game log from "should be working for all models" to just most.

This has messed up my switch.
Messed up the sd card and now I cant boot into atmos properly or boot the switch normally.
I had a backup sd card but only boots when rcmloader is used.
Atmos hekate boots but does not boot album up.
Any idea whats its done?

Try hooking it up to the pc with a adapter to see if windows can do anything.

 

[EmulateLife]

Looks like they have a working supermodel core. Hopefully this will make it's way in with fixed naomi with the reicast core. Amazing work!

Are you saying there's a working Supermodel core in this or just one period? I don't see the core. I assume now you mean just that it works on PC.

 

[sj33]

Can’t see Supermodel running well on aarch64 without a dynarec.

 

[Nonjas]

Does anybody know how to create playlists? I used Retroarch Playlist Buddy on my PC for Retroarch and then I transfered the playlists to the sd card and it worked pretty well, as the "scan folder" in retroarch didn't detect all the games and with the arcade games it showed rom name, not game name.

However, with Lakka, when I use Playlist Buddy on my PC it creates the playlist but when I try to load the game it says "the file could not be loaded from the playlist". That issue is because it can't find the rom on the specified directory. I tell the program the route to the roms so that it can make the playlist: "/storage/roms". That is the route that appears on the playlists generated with the "scan folder" method. But it seems that playlists generated with Playlist Buddy do not work and it does not detect the games.

Any ideas? Do I have to write a different route? Is there any internal method to generate Playlists directly from Lakka's Retroarch that show game name and not rom name?

 

[MusicallyInspired]

I just edited the playlist files by hand in notepad++.

 

[nero99]

So pokemon Coliseum, wind waker, twilight princess, Simpsons hit and run, and the legend of zelda collection, and super Mario sunshine game cube games all run pretty decent on dolphin with a max oc on the CPU and GPU with vulkan and threaded video enabled. Still a little slow, but completely playable.

 

[Nonjas]

I just edited the playlist files by hand in notepad++.

Game per game?

 

[Deleted User]

Dolphin runs awesome without oC. Psx stutters.... Hmm.. What do i do wrong. I don't want to oc.. Why dolphin works great but PS1 don't. Strange..

 

[Kerbangman]

Could someone change the lakka game log from "should be working for all models" to just most.

Try hooking it up to the pc with a adapter to see if windows can do anything.

I had to take it apart firt as I could not start it up. Black screen.
Disconnecting the battery and got it to boot rcm.
But now Ive restored nand and it just isnt right.
Wont boot switch without going throuh rcm/atmos
atmos no album stuff

 

[ganons]

So pokemon Coliseum, wind waker, twilight princess, Simpsons hit and run, and the legend of zelda collection, and super Mario sunshine game cube games all run pretty decent on dolphin with a max oc on the CPU and GPU with vulkan and threaded video enabled. Still a little slow, but completely playable.

What about wii games like Smash Bros and Mario Galaxy?

 

[nacimem]

Mario galaxy work but is slow at start of game

 

[jacopastorius]

is there a "reboot to bootloader" function in this lakka version?
If not, do i have to turn off and then reboot to rcm and launch a payload?