Homebrew Question Is emu on switch really worth having a dedicated hacked switch for?

[enderer]

"dedicated?" no.
but emu on switch is so good, that i do recommend a hackable one.
lakka was recently updated and is pretty much all you need as far as emulation.
it runs off the sd card, so no risk of telemetry or CDN ban.
i also can't recommend highly enough to also have ubuntu (if only for video player with bluetooth audio) and android (mostly for netflix, but i personally also play wild rift, tft and mtg arena)

 

[Chillimonster]

Switch retroarch is superb for the older systems up to PS1 and some N64, which suits me fine.

Yeah its a pain to set up and get your head round, but once done it works superbly, with overlays, shaders, scanlines etc.

 

[DaniPoo]

I think it's great as a dedicated emulation station. Easy to carry around or enjoy on the TV.
You could use a laptop instead. But it doesn't have the same portability and user experience.
It's just not the same to navigate a desktop OS.

Of cource the downside is that the Switch is less powerful so you will be limited to quite retro systems to emulate.
(At least at full speed)

You won't be able to run PS2, PS3, Gamecube, Wii or Wii U, Unless you run Linux or Android. But then only some of these systems will work and performance may not be very good.

But if you have the money and care about the ease of use and portability then it's really not a bad choice.

 

[playstays_shun]

Switch retroarch is superb for the older systems up to PS1 and some N64, which suits me fine.

Yeah its a pain to set up and get your head round, but once done it works superbly, with overlays, shaders, scanlines etc.View attachment 270511

awesomenjoycons ! Did ya buy those somewhere or mod yourself ?

 

[Chillimonster]

Modded them myself :-)

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

Retroarch is nice as an all in one solution, but for some consoles like the nds there are better performing standalone homebrew emulators for the switch.
You can also use the modded switch to stream gameplay to your pc, if you want to record more then 30 second or for twitch/discord streaming, and increase the clocks to increase the fps or resolution in some games.
There are some nice hombrew ports for the switch too, like half life 1 (xash3d), GTA 3 and vice city, OpenTTD, openrct2 and more, that can be fun.
Important for most homebrew applications is that you start the homebrew launcher in application mode by holding R when staring any game or application (like youtube), otherwise there will be less resources (like memory and cpu power) available to the game.

I also use the android TV version for the switch to playback media from my local jellyfin server, and for youtube from time to time, thought the tv version of netflix is stricter in the libwidevine security level, so you need to either sideload the normal smartphone version or use kodi to play netflix with android tv on the switch.

If you don't use things like blanking, and never install any switch backups or homebrew to the home menu (.nsp or .xci) and don't use romhax or cheats online, its also fairily safe to use cfw online on the sysnand. This is what I do for years now.
Buts its really important then, that you don't mix the nands you go online with, don't use blanking on any nand you plan to go online with (can result in logs with a bad serial) or fuck with the logs in any other way, since these things are at least in theory detecteable by nintendo.

 

[playstays_shun]

I always like keeping an ear out to what things 'can do' but I think after putting in a preorder for OLED switch and weighing it into I may just consolidate my devices (sell my stock v1 and my v2 when I get oled) and go with that route I like simplicity and I wanna go online worry free. Then there’s that my v1 is super beat up and not sure how much life is left in it , even if I kept it
Around just as a backup to my lite. It’s seen better days. I prefer to look into stuff after it’s end of life too and further along

Im a sucker for oled screens... and dont want more than one of the 'big' switch laying around too much clutter. sorry to disappoint after asking lots of questions lol

feel free to keep the comments coming if you wish, meant for this to be more of an open ended discussion than anything

Interesting that the consensus is like a 50-50 split here

I guess what really boils down to is I dont like emu tinkering button re-mapping, not using original controllers, etc. etc. and I guess retroarch is still just retroarch even if In a different form factor. For me. I prefer just playing on my old physical systems and the nostalgia and accurate gaming and collecting and all of it the whole hobby. but again, I 'get it' for people who either dont have those systems or value portability above a lot.

vita modding solved a real problem with the system that was those proprietary cards, this just sounds mostly like 'it can be done' level coolness. but perhaps being judgy from the distance since I don’t actually know

thanks all for the info! I don’t think YouTube videos and comments was sufficient to make an informed opinion