On firmwares up to 4.1.0 you can use a warmboot exploit to boot payloads, but I personally find this to be a much bigger hassle than the RCM exploit which early Switches like yours are vulnerable to. For several reasons:
- It relies on the web browser applet in sysNAND. If you connect to the internet without using the special DNS (even just for a few seconds by accident), access to the web browser applet is blocked until you update the firmware, so you always have to take care when going online that you're using the special DNS servers.
- It requires an internet connection in order to boot payloads.
- It takes much longer to boot, and is many more steps, because you first have to boot into sysNAND, potentially set up a new wifi with the special DNS, go through the prompt that loads the web browser applet, select Caffeine, and then wait. Sometimes the exploit fails, and you need to reboot and try again.
RCM is super simple if you have a dongle and jig. I recommend the RCMloader One, and you can get them on AliExpress for around $13. The jig is included and slots into the dongle and the whole thing fits easily in any pouch so you always have it with you (just gotta remember to charge it, the battery lasts a long time but it will drain if you don't use it for a while)
It just takes a few seconds to do the process to boot into RCM and launch the payload compared to like a minute or more for the warmboot exploit.
In short, there's not much reason to stay on low firmware unless you really need to use the warmboot exploit because you can't get a dongle/jig for some reason.
When you are doing the CFW setup I suggest enabling Incognito. That can be done by copying the exosphere.ini file from atmosphere\config_templates to the SD card root editing blank_prodinfo_emummc=0 and changing the 0 to a 1.
This will make your Switch "anonymous" when connecting to wifi in emuNAND, you won't be able to use Nintendo services but you can go online in homebrew without getting banned, which is useful for installing nsps over wifi (something you'll probably be doing as it's far more convenient than having to power off to take the SD card out), installing/updating homebrew in the HB App Store, and more.
Like the information in the file says, this by itself is not 100% guaranteed to make it safe to use wifi in CFW. So I also suggest using 90DNS to block the Nintendo servers in emuNAND, for extra protection. But I have been using Incognito without 90DNS since I first hacked my Switch around 1.5-2 years ago, without getting banned.
And you can go online in OFW of course, that's perfectly safe as long as it's clean (never had any nsps installed on it, or any sort of modifications done, preferably never launched sysNAND CFW, it's not the end of teh world if you do by accident, but there is a chance sysmodules or patches you have enabled in Atmosphere can be detected)
You can use this guide, I don't know if it's the best one around right now, but it's pretty complete: https://nh-server.github.io/switch-guide/
It is however lacking sig patches, like most of the guides are, which you need for installing nsps (it's a legality thing)
You can find those here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/sigpatches-for-atmosphere-hekate-fss0-fusee-secondary-only.571543/
They do. He's saying that CFW bypasses the update requirement on cartridge games. I don't know if that's true, it certainly doesn't bypass the update requirement on installed games, that has to be done in the title manager when a nsp is installed, and is not done by the CFW automatically.
Either way, if you play your retail games in OFW (which I would suggest, for safe online use, and automatic game updates and all that), this doesn't matter.
Last edited by The Real Jdbye,
If the games have the firmware updates stored on the cartridge itself, why would they need Internet?
Similar threads
ve French Kisses 
