Homebrew RetroArch Switch

[isoboy]

Which of all of the known working emulators actually run at full solid 60fps with no audio glitching?

 

[Loke]

The snes emulator i tried ran full speed with some small graphical glitches (looked like interlacing). Nothing big though.
The sound had no glitches as far as i noticed.

 

[Tomobobo]

It's frame tearing, its actually too many fps being pushed to the display that causes the issue.

 

[machinoman]

I'll try and edit this post.
Edit: Ok, I tried again and saved at the first and last slot again, now with the same specified to the roms folder. I did all the steps as you said and was NOT able to load the saves.
When i set the folder it said nothing in the folder was found, so no savegame. I quit trying as the rom would not load up anymore. I played till the save block, saved, restarted and after launching the game in retro arch it will give me an error. I tried for half an hour but got nothing but crashes and errors sadly.

there are a few points where it is prone to freeze, namely the opening of homebrew launcher, the opening of retroarch, and the opening of a game within retroarch. i've been pretty lucky lately, and have opened the last three games with no problem, but sometimes i have to restart a few times just to get started. its certainly not stable, but definitely usable imo now that there is a way to save.

i tested saving on chrono trigger. it works the same way, make sure to open the retroarch Quick Menu after saving. i've never played this game before and its rad i think i'll just keep leveling up killing these goblin things.

 

[Loke]

there are a few points where it is prone to freeze, namely the opening of homebrew launcher, the opening of retroarch, and the opening of a game within retroarch. i've been pretty lucky lately, and have opened the last three games with no problem, but sometimes i have to restart a few times just to get started. its certainly not stable, but definitely usable imo now that there is a way to save.

i tested saving on chrono trigger. it works the same way, make sure to open the retroarch Quick Menu after saving. i've never played this game before and its rad i think i'll just keep leveling up killing these goblin things.

Unfortunately I was unable to reach the checkpoint in Chrono Trigger because my switch crashed after playing most of the beginning.. If yours doesn't give any trouble, be sure to play it, it's an amazing game!
I rather not use the recent build as I've experienced some quite annoying errors which will ruin my game play. However I don't mind waiting since this project advances really fast.

 

[machinoman]

Unfortunately I was unable to reach the checkpoint in Chrono Trigger because my switch crashed after playing most of the beginning.. If yours doesn't give any trouble, be sure to play it, it's an amazing game!
I rather not use the recent build as I've experienced some quite annoying errors which will ruin my game play. However I don't mind waiting since this project advances really fast.

as soon as i made my last post my game started crashing occasionally during the game. i had to save and restart quite a few times just to make it "back to the future", so i am going to also wait for the next revision. it is coming along so quickly that i'm not too worried about it.

 

[leonmagnus99]

i got just one question, how do you guys even launch into HBL in the first place ?

i tried to boot into it for like over 10 times and no dice, i have the hbmenu nro in the root of my fat32 formatted mSD.
and a switch folder where i placed the vba nro.

anyways, i set up the dns for the wifi connection i use, i connect and it gives me the pegaswitch screen with install/run , i press A on install and i see the error code black screen with the code that is 'desired' then i press power button it just reboots the console and gives me a mii corruption message , i press A on that it sort of reboots the console again, i then go back into internet connect and to the install/run page, this time i press A on Run and then after abit nothing happens and i go back and try to press A on run again and i get a black screen error code (different code this time).

how do you guys boot into it ?
this is far more tricky than the 3ds methods..

 

[Loke]

It's a bit wonky to run the homebrew launcher, but most of the time when the codes are correct it does start up and work.
1. launch the connection test with the correct dns and press install
2. Code 2000-1337 is the error you need
3. Reboot the switch
4. A mii deletion message will pop up
5. Do another connection test and press run
6. a box will pop up saying it will exit.
7. Go to the home of the switch and press the album button.

When you reboot you need to run step 5-7 again, but sometimes I had to do all the steps again. It's not too tricky but more time consuming with the instability and steps to take.

 

[leonmagnus99]

When you reboot you need to run 5-7 again

5-7 times again..? again what exactly, press A on run..?
usually when i press run it does nothing at all and then i go back pressing B and i select run again and i get a black screen with some different error code and thats it.
i will try another hbl nro..

 

[notimp]

You should not need to hit install again, once it installed correctly - once (2000-1337). It just has a tendency to fail up to six times in a row - sometimes.

Could be my imagination, but I have "good luck" - with doing the following.

- Waiting for a short while to see if the switch auto connects to the Wifi Network after boot (it doesnt always #switchwifi )
- If it doesnt, go to settings, Internet - and do a network scan.
- Dont hit connect on your home network (adds additional delay later), but instead press the home button, once you see your home network online, or rescan, if you dont.
- Back on the home screen, use the + button (followed by down, right) on a switch game, update the game "trick", to establish a connection to the DNS (attention, if the DNS you entered isn't correct, this will download a new switch firmware - make sure that you saw the Launcher Install/Run page once before, before you use this "shortcut from the home screen"), hit run, close the dialogue box that tells you the browser will be closed (if it tells you to hit home and do it over, it was not successful at this point - in that case repeat just this step).
- You are now at a stage where the Switch will take a while to become responsive again (presumably the payload working) - just wait until the selection box on screen blinks again, then >
- Hit B twice until you are back on the home screen
- Wait a few seconds (2-3 )
- If possible, use your finger to launch Album (click on it twice with a short pause (1 second ) in between).

The last part is anecdotal (the part before is the fatest way to get you "on track" - if you connect at the settings/internet stage - it will add additional delay), but I swear I have a higher succession rate witch "touching" that thing, than navigating to it via the joystick or (not a) digi-pad. (For the steps before that I usually use joystick, or digipad.) If you are in docked mode, forget about that mambo-jumbo, and just navigate to Album and launch it by pressing A.

If it fails (gallery loads) repeat from step "hit + on a game". If it crashes, reboot and repeat all of it.

Again, it can take six tries in a row, but most of the times for me it now works after one or two.

edit: This is not me as a millennial describing how I feel about things (apart from - that it totally is.. ), this is me taking an educated guess, that the payload needs a certain "condition" of things being at a certain point in RAM - so timings, and little differences in execution may matter - sometimes. Again, using this method I went from "in 50% of the cases it takes 3 tries" to "in more than half of the cases it works the first time around". But then again, it can be a placebo - so the first part is constructed around minimizing unneeded time waiting for a second network scan, or the wifi to connect at all. The "touch the album icon" part is just more of a religious believe...

This procedure is what you do after every cold boot (power off, restart, or crash). If you just let your Switch go into standby, the Album = HBL modification will survive.

 

[leonmagnus99]

Again, it can take six tries in a row, but most of the times for me it now works after one or two.

thanks mate, i got it working finally!

my issue was i kept rebooting, the fix was to power off the console and then power it on again then select Run.

so first you need to install and get the correct code, then have it reboot after mii corruption data you must power it off completely and then turn it back on then select Run.

that did the trick for me, thank you for the long reply c:

 

[Loke]

5-7 times again..? again what exactly, press A on run..?
usually when i press run it does nothing at all and then i go back pressing B and i select run again and i get a black screen with some different error code and thats it.
i will try another hbl nro..

Oops, I edited, run step 5 to 7 again, the install usually stays. Just be sure the correct errors display. But yeah, it can take some tries before it finally works.
I don't need to reboot after the mii corruption message, but good to know it worked.

 

[leonmagnus99]

Oops, I edited, run step 5 to 7 again, the install usually stays. Just be sure the correct errors display. But yeah, it can take some tries before it finally works.
I don't need to reboot after the mii corruption message, but good to know it worked.

i got the hang of it, of how to launch HBL, but i am trying vba and it gives error after error with most 'roms' XD

edit: got boktai working now, its just nice to see these things on the switch, i wont be gaming until things become more stable though.
but to see it actually running is quite a feat.

many thanks to everyone putting effort into getting this to work.

 

[Loke]

Yeah it can be really tedious. Yesterday i tried some retroarch save testing but when i finally was able to run the rom, the rom itself crashed...
Even so, the progress amazes me.

 

[leonmagnus99]

Yeah it can be really tedious. Yesterday i tried some retroarch save testing but when i finally was able to run the rom, the rom itself crashed...
Even so, the progress amazes me.

yeah, i try it for fun only.
it will crash randomly, whilst in the game /whilst trying to launch any game etc.

it is basically unstable atm.
but i am sure it will get better eventually.

i wont be using it for the time being until it becomes stable enough!

 

[notimp]

The HBL entry point potentially wont get "more stable" - or I am sure the switchbrew team would have made it their first priority to get there, potentially prior to the first release. This makes me just a little bit miffed (but thats just normal.. ) that they celebrated the exploit as "the only thing you'll ever need for HB" at one point.

The answer hopefully lies in @SciresMs custom firmware project, which after it gets its hooks in, should be more stable in that regard (fingers crossed).

Emulators and HB (and libnx) on the other hand will get more stable, as time goes on.

But it is usable, ATM - read the posting above on how to potentially upping your success rate, and then just do it once maybe twice a day - use pFBA mostly - and you are set (for now.. ). I'm currently about 20-30 hours into a Genesis RPG on pFBA, so the Switch as a HB platform is reality.

 

[Loke]

For me the HBL instability isn't much of an issue, however the RA instability is. You may be able to run a game, but without a reliant saving feature and the risk of random crashes while playing, I noticed I get annoyed rather sooner than later because of it. The saving feature did come quickly though, so I don't expect I have to wait for a long time before stability progress is made.

 

[machinoman]

For me the HBL instability isn't much of an issue, however the RA instability is. You may be able to run a game, but without a reliant saving feature and the risk of random crashes while playing, I noticed I get annoyed rather sooner than later because of it. The saving feature did come quickly though, so I don't expect I have to wait for a long time before stability progress is made.

i think it has something to do with cache. has anyone had it freeze in game before the five minute point?

 

[Tomobobo]

The stability of @cpasjuste pFBA makes me think RetroArch still has some time before it's really useable. I feel like when I use a Retroarch .nro I'm not going to make it back to HBL, although once or twice I've had it be able to get back to the loader. But pFBA you can run for a long time and switch roms and save and load save states. It still breaks here and there but I feel like it's a combo of HBL and the homebrew software causing so many crashes.

At least the most recently linked GBA and SNES .nros will let you load new roms, but older builds: once you load a rom, that's it, you're gonna reboot before you play anything else. In my experience, after using a retroarch .nro, the HBL is tougher to get working. If ever pFBA crashes, I've seemingly made it back to HBL in one shot. Retroarch seems to mess up too much stuff and it always takes more than one try to get it working. You'll end up with the album working, or error out on "run" at least once or twice before getting back to HBL.

And I fell asleep before I got to "close content" on a gba title and when I powered the system back on from sleep there was an error to greet me, so I lost all progress. I hope we get auto sram sd writing soon.

It is kinda a pain in the ass right now, but it's kinda what we waited for staying on 3.0.0. It's interesting watching it grow and get better.

 

[untok]

Yep fba handles withouth error or freeze and old retroarch is little stable than save file ones. But progress is faster than 3ds times almost everyday its some new versions here and new hb games apps.