Hacking Question Running NSP requiring lower firmware with a higher current firmware

[ofayto]

Hey everyone, a newbie here in the switch hacking scene.
I have setup my unpatched switch with the latest Atmosphere 0.19.1 (as of writing this question, 2021-04-29), hekate and with an emunand running 11.0.1 by following this guide: https://switch.homebrew.guide
11.0.1 Sigpatch has been applied by using Awoo installer too.
I have tried installing some NSPs and was glad some are working as expected.

Now unto the question:
1) I found out some NSPs, without updating with the latest firmware, will not run.
It will show a message saying Software could not be executed. Please return to Home menu and retry again, or somewhere along that line.
From this, is it safe to assume higher firmware does not necessarily mean we could run NSPs which require lower firmware? (non-backward compatible?)
Eg: NSPs such as Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu requires 8.1.0. Such basically, I will have to downgrade my emunand to 8.1.0, together with my sigpatch, in order to run NSPs like this case?

2) I have done some research and it some threads pointed to DevMenu. Is that something which is required for the above cases? Is everyone else using that tool to "bypass" such firmware checks?

3) I have read Tinfoil seems to have some sort of function which allows the bypassing of "soft" firmware check. As mentioned, I am using Hekate and it seems Tinfoil does not support it, so I am out of option on this/ I would prefer the analog way of transferring NSPs through USB using ns-usbloader. Is Tinfoil the only way to achieve what was mentioned for my first point?

Sorry for all the newbie questions, and thank you all, the community, for building such great forum to bring the common interests of minds together in place.

 

[OrGoN3]

Hey everyone, a newbie here in the switch hacking scene.
I have setup my unpatched switch with the latest Atmosphere 0.19.1 (as of writing this question, 2021-04-29), hekate and with an emunand running 11.0.1 by following this guide: https://switch.homebrew.guide
11.0.1 Sigpatch has been applied by using Awoo installer too.
I have tried installing some NSPs and was glad some are working as expected.

Now unto the question:
1) I found out some NSPs, without updating with the latest firmware, will not run.
It will show a message saying Software could not be executed. Please return to Home menu and retry again, or somewhere along that line.
From this, is it safe to assume higher firmware does not necessarily mean we could run NSPs which require lower firmware? (non-backward compatible?)
Eg: NSPs such as Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu requires 8.1.0. Such basically, I will have to downgrade my emunand to 8.1.0, together with my sigpatch, in order to run NSPs like this case?

2) I have done some research and it some threads pointed to DevMenu. Is that something which is required for the above cases? Is everyone else using that tool to "bypass" such firmware checks?

3) I have read Tinfoil seems to have some sort of function which allows the bypassing of "soft" firmware check. As mentioned, I am using Hekate and it seems Tinfoil does not support it, so I am out of option on this/ I would prefer the analog way of transferring NSPs through USB using ns-usbloader. Is Tinfoil the only way to achieve what was mentioned for my first point?

Sorry for all the newbie questions, and thank you all, the community, for building such great forum to bring the common interests of minds together in place.

You don't apply sigpatches by using Awoo installer. No idea what you meant there.

1. If an nsp requires a certain firmware version, it requires that firmware version or higher. So no, you'd never have to downgrade to play a game. You can use ignore soft check, but ultimately, if a game uses a feature in a newer firmware version, you'll have to be on that firmware, or higher, to play it.

2. Stop watching YouTube videos. They are outdated beyond time itself. There is no need for devmenu, and there hasn't been a use for it in a long time.

3. Tinfoil can do everything you want. I recommend using hekate to chainload fusee-primary, instead of using fss0. Then you grab the fusee patches from https://github.com/ITotalJustice/patches/releases/download/12.0.0-0.19.1/fusee.zip. then run hekate. It'll complain about kosmos/hekate. Just press whatever button it says to continue. It'll just delete your patches.ini file, which isn't used when chainloading fusee-primary.

 

[ofayto]

You don't apply sigpatches by using Awoo installer. No idea what you meant there.

1. If an nsp requires a certain firmware version, it requires that firmware version or higher. So no, you'd never have to downgrade to play a game. You can use ignore soft check, but ultimately, if a game uses a feature in a newer firmware version, you'll have to be on that firmware, or higher, to play it.

2. Stop watching YouTube videos. They are outdated beyond time itself. There is no need for devmenu, and there hasn't been a use for it in a long time.

3. Tinfoil can do everything you want. I recommend using hekate to chainload fusee-primary, instead of using fss0. Then you grab the fusee patches from https://github.com/ITotalJustice/patches/releases/download/12.0.0-0.19.1/fusee.zip. then run hekate. It'll complain about kosmos/hekate. Just press whatever button it says to continue. It'll just delete your patches.ini file, which isn't used when chainloading fusee-primary.

Thank you so much for the reply!!
I have no idea, but I managed to download sigpatch through Awoo, installed it, was prompted to reboot to reflect the changes, which I did, and that was how I installed the sigpatch...

As for (1), thank you so much for the explanation. Guess it was all my misunderstanding.

As for number (2), I actually did most of my researches through reddit and good ol gbatemp, such as https://gbatemp.net/threads/run-games-after-your-firmware-switch.538651/
But yes, you are right, those were outdated...thank you so much for pointing it out.

As for number (3), I tried with your method of chainloading fusee-primary, and some of those NSPs which were not working just now, started working. Thank you!!! Who would have thought chainloading fusee-primary is all the takes to tick...

Once again, thank you so much!!!

 

[urherenow]

tinfoil doesn't delete patches.ini if it thinks you also have sxos. Don't recall the workaround... maybe creating a blank boot.dat file or something silly like that.

Anyway, the issue sounds like your patches.ini wasn't up to date, so from the link above, you needed the hekate.zip, and you would have been sorted. There are several alternatives to tinfoil... although admittedly, that's the one I use, but I don't use fusee-primary, either.

 

[OrGoN3]

tinfoil doesn't delete patches.ini if it thinks you also have sxos. Don't recall the workaround... maybe creating a blank boot.dat file or something silly like that.

Anyway, the issue sounds like your patches.ini wasn't up to date, so from the link above, you needed the hekate.zip, and you would have been sorted. There are several alternatives to tinfoil... although admittedly, that's the one I use, but I don't use fusee-primary, either.

Tinfoil doesn't care about patches.ini if you have a valid SX OS license on your SD card. Using the newly found method of hacking SX OS, and thus your license.dat, will NOT trick Tinfoil into thinking it's a valid license.

OP updated sigpatches twice, and the second time was through Awoo, which were probably outdated.

Thank you so much for the reply!!
I have no idea, but I managed to download sigpatch through Awoo, installed it, was prompted to reboot to reflect the changes, which I did, and that was how I installed the sigpatch...

As for (1), thank you so much for the explanation. Guess it was all my misunderstanding.

As for number (2), I actually did most of my researches through reddit and good ol gbatemp, such as https://gbatemp.net/threads/run-games-after-your-firmware-switch.538651/
But yes, you are right, those were outdated...thank you so much for pointing it out.

As for number (3), I tried with your method of chainloading fusee-primary, and some of those NSPs which were not working just now, started working. Thank you!!! Who would have thought chainloading fusee-primary is all the takes to tick...

Once again, thank you so much!!!

So, Awoo, and forks of it, do have the option to download and "install" sigpatches for you. However, they were probably out of date.

If you want an Awoo-type installer, I recommend Tinwoo, https://github.com/mrdude2478/TinWoo/releases, or NSA Installer, formerly NSX Installer. https://github.com/Team-Neptune/NSAInstaller/releases. They have more options, such as NSX support.

(2) Ah. So not YouTube videos, but still outdated. You win this time, Batman!