ROM Hack RELEASE hacbuild - The XCI rebuilder

[Deleted member 191657]

An eShop only title as cartridge​

​

Today we introduce hacbuild, a tool capable of rebuilding XCI files from scratch!

early warning: This is still developer oriented for now, there is not much to see for end users (yet)

This tool makes it possible (or rather will make it in the future) to:

- Rebuild games with edited files (rom hacks, translations)
- Ultra trim XCI games by removing the update partition (but leaving one file) and by having a more optimized HFS0 builder (this is already possible)
- Load eShop titles as (virtual) cartridges!
- Load homebrew as (virtual) cartridges! (I guess it's viable?)

Unfortunately there are a few limitations:
- XCI Signature becomes invalid (this is a non-issue with SX OS since it bypasses it)
- NCAs can't be edited for now (since there is no way to bypass their RSA signature yet)
- eShop titles won't launch due to the fact that, until we can edit NCAs, they still look for a ticket (should work if you own the game tho)


You can find more info on the GitHub page

We do appreciate (and encourage) helping hands! Here's a list of things to do

 

[kozi]

thank you!! i'll test it right now

 

[Xyphoseos]

Remove the partition update

With a SX OS can I play Super Mario Odyssey in 3.0.0 ?

 

[ganons]

So would it be possible to replace the roms in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary? They use arcade roms so maybe swap with a better version I.e. street fighter zero 2 alpha

 

[Deleted member 191657]

Remove the partition update

With a SX OS can I play Super Mario Odyssey in 3.0.0 ?

That's a good question. You can try but I don't think it'll work.

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So would it be possible to replace the roms in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary? They use arcade roms so maybe swap with a better version I.e. street fighter zero 2 alpha

Not for now unfortunately. NCAs contain pretty much every resource of every game and we can't run edited ones (yet).

 

[Xyphoseos]

That's a good question. You can try but I don't think it'll work.

I don't buy it yet

 

[Deleted member 191657]

I don't buy it yet

Unfortunately I don't own a 3.0.0 Switch, otherwise I'd try

 

[McWhiters9511]

fantastic. cant wait to see this as a finished product

 

[KiiWii]

Brilliant thank you!

 

[steven89]

@LucaFraga i know this dev oriented but i do own a 3.0.0 switch to test such edits out i also have .xci's just no idea how to use this any directions i would gladly help

 

[Cubuss]

Molto Bene,

 

[Deleted member 191657]

@LucaFraga i know this dev oriented but i do own a 3.0.0 switch to test such edits out i also have .xci's just no idea how to use this any directions i would gladly help

I can't explain step by step, but here's a brief explaination:

- Extract the source xci using hactool
- Read the xci info to an ini file using hacbuild read xci xciname.xci
- Copy the generated ini inside a folder containing "secure", "normal" and "update" extracted from the source and rename it game_info.ini
- Do whatever modification you wish to do (for example delete all the update files but leave a non-empty file)
- Rebuild the xci with hacbuild xci_auto xci_folder out_xci.xci

 

[Creatable]

Say I wanted to load the homebrew app store from the home screen so I pack it as an XCI. How do I pack it as an xci from your tool, how do I customize the icon, and change the text is shows on the home screen?

 

[Deleted member 191657]

Say I wanted to load the homebrew app store from the home screen so I pack it as an XCI. How do I pack it as an xci from your tool, how do I customize the icon, and change the text is shows on the home screen?

Doing this requires a bit of knowledge of the NCA and XCI format.

For starters you'd need to edit the metadata NCA ( http://switchbrew.org/index.php?title=NCA for more info ) .
Having done that you'd have to pack your exeFS/romFS inside a NCA container

Having done that and that you can rebuild your XCI. Unfortunately we still can't forge/edit NCAs

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Also, for anyone willing to help I laid out some Issues that could prove very useful in this tool development: https://github.com/LucaFraga/hacbuild/issues

 

[thequickbrownfox]

LOAD ESHOP TITLES AS CARTRIDGES?
OH MY GOD!
I CAN DIE NOW!
SOMEONE START DUMPING ESHOP TITLES!

 

[GhostlyCrowd]

LOAD ESHOP TITLES AS CARTRIDGES?
OH MY GOD!
I CAN DIE NOW!
SOMEONE START DUMPING ESHOP TITLES!

Notice, it was stated they dont work yet.

 

[scionae]

So good! I hope we could rebuild ncas downloaded from CDN and repack them as xci easily! I look forward to that!

 

[Sp1tFire92]

Pokemon Lets Go Hack with increased difficulty incoming?

 

[ProNiteBite]

Quick question, how do you go about repacking exeFS/romFS to NCA?

Edit: Read a little closer and found out that it's not yet possible. Ignore me.

 

[Naked_Snake]

Can we rebuild Flog or DevMenu into an app with this