Hacking Android OS on Switch Ultimate Discussion Thread

Technicmaster0

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2011
Messages
4,404
Trophies
2
Website
www.flashkarten.tk
XP
3,478
Country
Gambia, The
Detachable controllers are not a gimmick, and make it easy for the system to go from handheld to tabletop/TV. Can't play on a TV or a tabletop with other people with a 3ds/vita, and you have to carry around a controller for a phone. Along with that most phones are lacking in the gpu department which is why the switch can play games that most modern phones couldn't handle. Homebrew devs don't benefit from console sales, so your multiplayer point makes no sense. Multiple emulators already support multiplayer as well, so no real reason it couldn't work on switch.
And unless you buy a phone with usb c, most recent phones can't output to hdmi, and pushing to TV with wireless streaming introduces lag that makes gaming impossible. So my dock point is also valid seemshow you cant play 3ds on TV easily either.
Most homebrew games are single player anyways and it's no reason to buy a 300$ system just to write stuff for it. You have a better selection of controllers for android and one single joy con is not very comfortable.
You still have a wider audience if you write stuff for android and community feedback/ confirmation by the community is important for most homebrew devs. And why should one write free stuff for a console if you can sell stuff on android and make money from it. In addition to that there are many more libraries (which make developing easier), more support, better ways of debugging etc.
The only difference is that the switch comes in a bundle with a HDMI adapter while smartphones don't. But both are equal when it comes to HDMI output.

Come back when your phone can play BoTW
I don't have a smartphone so I obviously don't count :D

You need to go out and make friends.
I think that I have enough friends :P But normally I don't play videogames with my rl friends.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
Detachable controllers are not a gimmick, and make it easy for the system to go from handheld to tabletop/TV. Can't play on a TV or a tabletop with other people with a 3ds/vita, and you have to carry around a controller for a phone. Along with that most phones are lacking in the gpu department which is why the switch can play games that most modern phones couldn't handle. Homebrew devs don't benefit from console sales, so your multiplayer point makes no sense. Multiple emulators already support multiplayer as well, so no real reason it couldn't work on switch.
And unless you buy a phone with usb c, most recent phones can't output to hdmi, and pushing to TV with wireless streaming introduces lag that makes gaming impossible. So my dock point is also valid seemshow you cant play 3ds on TV easily either.

I have had multiple controllers for my consoles for years. Great stuff. If I might be expected to bring a dock with me I can bring a couple of controllers as well if gaming is my thing, or maybe use some at the destination.

Amusingly you might be able to make that argument for the wii -- its remote could be an uncomfortable conventional controller and a sub par light gun. That represents something of some note. Not a lot came of it, amusingly I probably saw more fun stuff done with the kinect in the end, but the potential was there and visible (or visible with a camera that could pick up IR).

I played plenty of multiplayer games going as far back as my GBA and could probably do. Such things tended to be turn based or simplistic input based (a recall a minigame on the first warioware that wanted people to stand either side of the DS for instance) but that does not mean an awful lot from where I sit, or at least if we do have to go there then why not dismiss it because I can't do a RTS with fog of war (which if I had done the 3d right I might have been able to do on the 3ds come to think of it -- same idea as those multi channel TVs or satnavs that display something else for the passenger).

Plenty of devices come with the option to plug in HDMI cables as well. Sucks that some recent ones are not capable of things (I guess, I can't verify either way right now) and lag is annoying for some game types but hardly all of them. Not to mention low latency LAN level streaming is demonstrably doable in a whole load of devices so that may well be a software limitation, or possibly feature if the delay is used to do something useful, rather than a hardware one.

I said it all a few pages back how I don't see the switch as anything like what the GBA and DS represented for their day -- we have endless more programmable devices of similar or greater power, certainly enough power to be useful. TVs support all sorts of common inputs these days (I recall 15 or so years ago going out of my way to get a laptop with svideo out, still have my box to convert VGA to TV signals that I had used in the years before as well). Such things were what gave us the GBA, DS, Wii, xbox and PSP scenes, when those were taken away by phones/tablets and said TVs gaining nice inputs and resolutions we saw the successors to those various consoles.

I want people making cool software because they can, however I am not particularly seeing the incentive for the switch. I agree entirely that android is not the best way to achieve the theoretical potential, however practically speaking it is probably going to be the main thing to do it.

Come back when your phone can play BoTW
?


I know what was meant though.
Nintendo shined up some ageing android hardware (architecture wise the switch is somewhat old news) that I dare say a lot of devices will struggle to match at very present. Give it a tiny bit of time and yeah...
Same thing was seen with the 3ds to an extent, though perhaps not as great a one as.
 

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
I have had multiple controllers for my consoles for years. Great stuff. If I might be expected to bring a dock with me I can bring a couple of controllers as well if gaming is my thing, or maybe use some at the destination.

Amusingly you might be able to make that argument for the wii -- its remote could be an uncomfortable conventional controller and a sub par light gun. That represents something of some note. Not a lot came of it, amusingly I probably saw more fun stuff done with the kinect in the end, but the potential was there and visible (or visible with a camera that could pick up IR).

I played plenty of multiplayer games going as far back as my GBA and could probably do. Such things tended to be turn based or simplistic input based (a recall a minigame on the first warioware that wanted people to stand either side of the DS for instance) but that does not mean an awful lot from where I sit, or at least if we do have to go there then why not dismiss it because I can't do a RTS with fog of war (which if I had done the 3d right I might have been able to do on the 3ds come to think of it -- same idea as those multi channel TVs or satnavs that display something else for the passenger).

Plenty of devices come with the option to plug in HDMI cables as well. Sucks that some recent ones are not capable of things (I guess, I can't verify either way right now) and lag is annoying for some game types but hardly all of them. Not to mention low latency LAN level streaming is demonstrably doable in a whole load of devices so that may well be a software limitation, or possibly feature if the delay is used to do something useful, rather than a hardware one.

I said it all a few pages back how I don't see the switch as anything like what the GBA and DS represented for their day -- we have endless more programmable devices of similar or greater power, certainly enough power to be useful. TVs support all sorts of common inputs these days (I recall 15 or so years ago going out of my way to get a laptop with svideo out, still have my box to convert VGA to TV signals that I had used in the years before as well). Such things were what gave us the GBA, DS, Wii, xbox and PSP scenes, when those were taken away by phones/tablets and said TVs gaining nice inputs and resolutions we saw the successors to those various consoles.

I want people making cool software because they can, however I am not particularly seeing the incentive for the switch. I agree entirely that android is not the best way to achieve the theoretical potential, however practically speaking it is probably going to be the main thing to do it.


?


I know what was meant though.
Nintendo shined up some ageing android hardware (architecture wise the switch is somewhat old news) that I dare say a lot of devices will struggle to match at very present. Give it a tiny bit of time and yeah...
Same thing was seen with the 3ds to an extent, though perhaps not as great a one as.


Don't need to bring the dock. You can get a dongle that fits in my switch case. You can also grab a power adapter that fits in a switch case. So no that point is again not very valid. And if you honestly think phones are as powerful as the switch you are very incorrect. For cpu power only you would be right, but the nvidia chip has a much more powerful gpu which allows it to NATIVELY play games that phones can not.
Also your linked video is NOT paying botw on the phone, it is streaming botw on cemu FROM A PC, which yet again doesn't really back your point and isn't really valid.
And same architecture as phone is also a pretty mute point. Architecture means nothing. 3ds is also arm, but is obviously not as powerful as switch. The switch has a gpu that other mobile devices simply can't match. Other phones outperform in cpu, but switch is superior for graphic capabilities, meaning it can run games that phones could not handle.
As for phones with hdmi, most older models supported mhl (hdmi through the micro USB port) but in recent phones they ditched it in favor of wireless video streaming. Pretty much only USB c phones at this point support hdmi out, but only with a separately purchased dongle.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
If I am already bringing wires then why not a couple of controllers?

Is the GPU in such things a) that useful and b) unlikely to be matched by anything in the reasonably near term?
 

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
If I am already bringing wires then why not a couple of controllers?

Is the GPU in such things a) that useful and b) unlikely to be matched by anything in the reasonably near term?
1) yes a better gpu can run certain console emulation better, and even makes some consoles possible to emulate that wouldnt have been possible without a better gpu. So yes it does nature a difference
2) in the near future, the size of a phone is not large enough to passively cool a gpu. Most currently have problems keeping their cpu temps in check when running mobile games. So no phones won't match that kind of power anytime soon due to current thermal dynamic limitations with phones.

Also if I am bringing my switch, I already have a carry case which can easily hold a dongle, a power adapter and two extra joycon. If you only want emulators then sure a phone is fine. But when I have my switch I have everything I need for a four player tabletop/TV game. Can't fit four standard controllers in the same size, can't play the switch games on a phone.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
Hopefully we can break out of the 16 bit and older is cool, PS1 maybe, everything else from then tech demo at best and beyond that "ahahahahaha" rut, which the PSP comfortably handled. At this point I am at "believe it when I see it" though, and can't see the clearest path to it.

I am behind on my tablet tech so it looks like I will have to catch up. That said if it is slightly juiced 2014 vintage hardware and the current rate of silicon die/feature shrinkage I can see things nipping at its heels before long.

If it is a form factor that works for you then great. Wider appeal I am struggling to see and "switch games" is not a terribly appealing notion from where I sit either.
 

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
Hopefully we can break out of the 16 bit and older is cool, PS1 maybe, everything else from then tech demo at best and beyond that "ahahahahaha" rut, which the PSP comfortably handled. At this point I am at "believe it when I see it" though, and can't see the clearest path to it.

I am behind on my tablet tech so it looks like I will have to catch up. That said if it is slightly juiced 2014 vintage hardware and the current rate of silicon die/feature shrinkage I can see things nipping at its heels before long.

If it is a form factor that works for you then great. Wider appeal I am struggling to see and "switch games" is not a terribly appealing notion from where I sit either.

Well let me know when your phone is playing a competent version of something like payday 2 or Doom (the modern one), which I'm doing right now on my switch. It won't be happening in the near future.
Also 2014 is not vintage. That would be like calling PS4 "vintage"
You seem to ignore my posts and have stopped actually trying to debate my points, and have started making new points whenever I tell you why your previous points are wrong.
At this point you only have opinion or your very optimistic assumptions of what future tech will be. Both of which aren't valid points to debate with.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
I would hold I was responding to the points made. You said about emulation, I assessed the state of emulation (which has been fairly stagnant for a while now, especially in the handheld arena) and it mostly seems CPU bound (though I suppose I did not say that specifically). Said CPU also seems to be the way that the next "generation" of consoles gets unlocked on all the other devices*, GPU then coming in for later ones still which I am not entirely convinced the rest of the system (nor the GPU per se) is entirely cut out for. I am not yet convinced anything I have said in this latest go around was wrong (nor any of the previous entries in this thread), at best we have somewhat different use cases, predictions for the future and levels of optimism. For the former it seems the switch may well do well for you, in which case I hope it works for you and someone gets something of true merit out of the switch, where I am not seeing a great leap. My basis comes from looking at the history of console modification and reasons given for things within it.

*nor have I seen anything to say the switch has made GPGPU more than a technical curiosity for most purposes, much less for emulation.

Equally Moore's law still seems to just about be holding so 2014 is now multiple iterations of that behind, and yes I would call the PS4 (as in baseline PS4, not sure what the PS4K counts as but as it is a iteration rather than something generating exclusives the yeah) vintage hardware relative to currently available tech, though in the case of my earlier post vintage does not mean old and is instead a synonym for era. I don't know that the console paradigm as it has traditionally gone** will continue much longer as it has but we are already well onto the "the stuff is behind the curve" point.

**compare the resulting outputs and types of dev (or relative budget they have to play with) doing it on PC since directX became the main focus with the consoles of the equivalent timeframe and the trajectory of tech and out will be broadly similar for each generation.

At the same time progress on phones and tablets does not seem to be as fast as it once was (I see plenty of people doing phones more than 2 years old where 5 years ago that might have been unthinkable) so it might come to pass that the switch does not get outgunned that soon. What I would find amusing though is if a phone company sees the "success" of the switch and says "oh yeah?".
 

guily6669

GbaTemp is my Drug
Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2013
Messages
2,291
Trophies
1
Age
34
Location
Doomed Island
XP
2,050
Country
United States
Well it doesn't even matter how much android devices performance have for now...

I bought Nvidia Shield tablet and barely played games in it. I'm still to find a android game that I would be interested in finishing...

I sure have a good amount of games installed but never finished a single game and most I just leave installed and barely play them...

Specially because Nvidia shield doesn't have its own built in controllers and most android games are either old games that I finished years ago like GTA III and others of its kind...

And I have tried a huge amount of games and the one I played most was Xcom, but I don't open it for months. I even bought borderlands 4 my Nvidia shield and played like 4 hours max. Borderlands II was a good PC\home console game, but not a good portable game, and I really hate to bring my PS4 controller to a bar with the Nvidia shield tablet to play it...


Samsung galaxy S8 and S9 sure can have around the same or better performance than Switch with way better power efficiency, but I guess it will take years to see Wolfenstein II in it or the Zelda BOTW natively on android or latest Doom or really any good latest triple A game from PC or consoles like the Switch can...

Portable consoles will probably have way better games than any android device because it's a gaming only exclusive device with way more money invested into actual gaming.


See Nvidia empire selling hardware 4 decades, they tried bringing proper gaming to android and even them failed since they only bring a dozen games and then nothing more comes out...

Nvidia Shield tablet 4 example is dead 4 years, no more exclusive games appear instead Nvidia wants is everyone to buy their cloud gaming service and not actually giving ppl a gaming device with games to be played... At the begining they always seem to be doing something awesome, but after 6 or a few more good games come out Nvidia just stop bringing you new games and you are left with the rest crap unfinished android games...

Ps: if more companies were bringing games to android like Nvidia, then maybe android could have way better games at the moment, but since it's only Nvidia bringing like a dozen new triple A known games to Nvidia exclusive android devices each time a new tetra gets released, it doesn't really make much of a difference...
 
Last edited by guily6669,

Pickle_Rick

I'm a pickle Morty!
Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Messages
694
Trophies
0
Age
27
Location
Garage
XP
1,469
Country
United States
I just don't understand this obsession with putting android on the switch. There is no point imo. Everyone already has a smart phone that will run most things, and anything else (like Dolphin) would likely run much better with a proper switch homebrew port.
Android running with actual official drivers or random half finished homebrew libraries. Hmmmmmmmm. I can't imagine why. Not to mention that android already has a well optimized port of dolphin (as well as many other emulators).
 

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
Android running with actual official drivers or random half finished homebrew libraries. Hmmmmmmmm. I can't imagine why. Not to mention that android already has a well optimized port of dolphin (as well as many other emulators).

You wont have official drivers for everything on the switch though.
I'm not saying android is a bad idea, but if you properly port an emulator as switch homebrew it will be better optimized for that specific hardware rather than android emulators which are made to more generically programmed for most Android phones.
 

Pickle_Rick

I'm a pickle Morty!
Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Messages
694
Trophies
0
Age
27
Location
Garage
XP
1,469
Country
United States
You wont have official drivers for everything on the switch though.
I'm not saying android is a bad idea, but if you properly port an emulator as switch homebrew it will be better optimized for that specific hardware rather than android emulators which are made to more generically programmed for most Android phones.
F0F already has everything working on Linux. It wouldn't take much effort to configure them to work on android (for audio, touch, wifi, etc). (And there's already an android gpu driver.)

Not to mention it's less effort to port Android than it is to port an optimized and hw accelerated version of every emulator to the Switch's OS.
 
Last edited by Pickle_Rick,

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
F0F already has everything working on Linux. It wouldn't take much effort to configure them to work on android (for audio, touch, wifi, etc). (And there's already an android gpu driver.)

Not to mention it's less effort to port Android than it is to port an optimized and hw accelerated version of every emulator to the Switch's OS.
I never made an argument saying it would be easier/harder. You are ignoring my actual main point that emulators would run better if they got full proper homebrew ports rather than using a generic android emulator.
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
I never made an argument saying it would be easier/harder. You are ignoring my actual main point that emulators would run better if they got full proper homebrew ports rather than using a generic android emulator.
Has anybody said otherwise to that yet?

Will top tier devs going all http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html and writing fully optimised emulators like we saw for the GBA and DS make for some amazing results? Sure.
Will simple android ports result in emulators that play all the games just fine, have a few nice features (savestates, filters, rewind, cheats...) all built in from day 0? Also yes as it is visible right now on far lesser hardware.
Is said android port likely to peg the CPU, overheat the thing and drain the battery silly fast? Probably not. I have no doubt it will be somewhat less efficient than said top tier devs doing all they do (at least until they decide https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011...-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/ is the way) but the results will likely still be within what most call reasonable lifetime compared to standard operations of the switch.

Will said top tier devs come back to the switch and do all that they do? Seeing the end of the DS scene and what happened on the 3ds... again probably not. It would be nice but realistically it is not going to happen. At the same time Android is unlikely to stand in their way, and if it did then chances are it would have been dropped fairly early on. I would go a bit further as well and maybe pluck some more obscure systems out that people have already worked up on android and that would be unlikely to happen at all on the switch under "standard" homebrew scene setups.

All this on top of a mountain of other software that android would bring. Some of which may even help the odd cases for my emulator -- oh Mr Switch homebrew dev would you mind adding a file sharing protocol so I can swap my saves easily/automatically between my PCs? No as you are optimising the audio core, oh well. Vs "oh look it already has SMB baked in (and a billion other protocols are easy grabbing), and I can set something to either push it to a share on my server or have said server pull directly when it sees a difference".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pickle_Rick

Pickle_Rick

I'm a pickle Morty!
Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Messages
694
Trophies
0
Age
27
Location
Garage
XP
1,469
Country
United States
I never made an argument saying it would be easier/harder. You are ignoring my actual main point that emulators would run better if they got full proper homebrew ports rather than using a generic android emulator.
I mean that's extremely debatable. You'd have to build the port around unfinished homebrew libraries (sound, video, input). Libraries that are built by reverse engineering the hardware and software. (With proprietary APIs too. Fun!) It would be a lot of work for little to no reward. You know retroarch on 3DS still uses software rendering right?

On the other hand, you could port Android. Which already has working drivers for every piece of hardware. A well performing GPU driver from nvidia with opengl and vulkan. You'd just need to configure it and compile.

You have to weigh how much effort would be required to what the reward would be.
 
Last edited by Pickle_Rick,

TheCyberQuake

Certified Geek
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2014
Messages
5,012
Trophies
1
Age
28
Location
Las Vegas, Nevada
XP
4,407
Country
United States
I mean that's extremely debatable. You'd have to build the port around unfinished homebrew libraries (sound, video, input). Libraries that are built by reverse engineering the hardware and software. (With proprietary APIs too. Fun!) It would be a lot of work for little to no reward. You know retroarch on 3DS still uses software rendering right?

On the other hand, you could port Android. Which already has working drivers for every piece of hardware. A well performing GPU driver from nvidia with opengl and vulkan. You'd just need to configure it and compile.

You have to weigh how much effort would be required to what the reward would be.
Again android doesn't "have drivers for every device". Each device that runs Android has drivers made by the hardware manufacturer. For switch it would require custom drivers for full android compatibility. I'm pretty sure I already told you that
You need drivers for every piece of hardware, not just the cpu/gpu

Ie custom driver for proper joycon support, for full usb c support, etc. Some things may have drivers, but I guarantee not everything in the switch has a driver already made, because it wasn't designed to run android
 
Last edited by TheCyberQuake,
  • Like
Reactions: Deleted User

Radius4

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2015
Messages
493
Trophies
0
Age
41
XP
1,302
Country
Ecuador
Actually I think this one particular device may have no problem running android.
It would be pointless though, it's an inferior OS to linux and to the switch's own.

Running switch os in the shield ATV, NOW THAT's AN INTERESTING IDEA. Higher clock, more storage, better termals. It may be even more complicated then what's proposed here though.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    He said he had 3 different doctors apt this week, so he prob there. Something about gerbal extraction, I don't know.
    +1
  • ZeroT21 @ ZeroT21:
    bored, guess i'll spread more democracy
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    @K3Nv2 one more time you say such bs to @BakerMan and I'll smack you across the whole planet
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Make sure you smack my booty daddy
    +1
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    telling him that my partner is luke...does he look like someone with such big ne
    eds?
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    do you really think I could stand living with someone like luke?
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    I suppose luke has "special needs" but he's not my partner, did you just say that to piss me off again?
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    besides I had bigger worries today
  • LeoTCK @ LeoTCK:
    but what do you know about that, you won't believe me anyways
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    @BigOnYa can answer that
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    BigOnYa already left the chat
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Biginya
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Auto correct got me, I'm on my tablet, i need to turn that shit off
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    With other tabs open you perv
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I'm actually in my shed, bout to cut 2-3 acres of grass, my back yard.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I use to have a guy for that thanks richard
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I use my tablet to stream to a bluetooth speaker when in shed. iHeartRadio, FlyNation
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    While the victims are being buried
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Grave shovel
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Nuh those goto the edge of the property (maybe just on the other side of)
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    On the neighbors side
    +1
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Yup, by the weird smelly green bushy looking plants.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    Water park was quite fun
    Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty: Water park was quite fun