Switch Hax Weekly Issue 3

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Hello everyone and welcome to Switch Hax Weekly Issue 3! The name change was a suggestion to make the subject clearer, otherwise it might get confused as a blog for upcoming games. You can check out our previous issue here. Without further ado, in this issue we have:

• 6.0 finally available officially
• Hacbrewpack - legal NSP creation
• SX version 2.0
• Home menu themes
• Nintendo 64 emulation on Retroarch
• Homebrew Bounty 2018
  
• Homebrew roundup

If you're bad at reading, check out @nickmoses05's video version:

6.0 and Nintendo Online official release

6.0 finally released to the public this week, alongside Nintendo Online, the subscription service allowing online play and access to a small library of NES games. There were both good and bad surprises.

Digital game sharing
A nice surprise feature that wasn't marketed prior to 6.0's release. You can sign into your Nintendo Account on more than one console and play digital games owned by that account.

The console that you buy games on is designated as the "primary console" while all others are designated "non-primary". The non-primary console has to stay online while playing, as the console will check in every five minutes to make sure that the game is allowed to be played. If you lose connection, the game will pause until you reconnect. This could be a great way to try games out before buying - just ask to borrow a friend's account details who owns the game.

If you've tried this feature out already, please share your experience in this thread!

Still no on-console voice chat
Nintendo's voice chat app got four new games added to it alongside the original Splatoon 2, so it looks like the app is here to stay, rather than being a stop-gap measure. This leaves gamers scratching their heads, given that Nintendo's rivals Sony and Microsoft have had on-console voice chat for years.

Fortnite had on-console voice chat from a few days after release so the console is obviously capable of it. It was rather disappointing to not see it implemented into Nintendo first-party titles with this major firmware update.

Games that have support for voice chat through the mobile app:

• Splatoon 2
• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
  
• Mario Tennis
• ARMS
• NES collection

Updates requiring 6.0
In bad news for those that would like to remain on 5.1 for whatever reason, some game updates have been found to require 6.0, even if you install them offline. The games identified so far are:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
• ARMS
• Splatoon 2
• Mario Tennis Aces
• Mario & Rabbids Kingdom Battle
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2
• Monster Hunter Generations

Discussion thread is here. Thank you to @Reecey who looked into which games were affected.

RajNX finally gets support for 6.0

Legal homebrew NSPs now possible

A piece of software called HacBrewPack was recently developed by @The-4n (of 4NXCI fame), which can convert homebrew NROs into installable NSPs, complete with icons and startup animations.

It was possible to create NSPs before, using Nintendo's official SDK. Unfortunately, since this is copyrighted software such NSPs couldn't be distributed on GBAtemp. This meant few homebrew developers bothered creating NSPs for their work, since they'd have to host them elsewhere and hint at their location. But now, thanks to HacBrewPack, we will hopefully see a lot more homebrew NSPs distributed and we will be able to run homebrew right from our home menus, without having to go through the homebrew launcher.

Legal homebrew launcher NSP
Prior to releasing HacBrewPack, @The-4n released an installable homebrew launcher which was created using his tool. Understandably, people were a little paranoid at first, since they didn't know how it could possibly have been created. But that was cleared up pretty quickly.

SX OS 2.0 now available

SX OS 2.0 is here, and as hoped it brings some major new features, unlike the mere bug fixes in previous versions.

Should I update?
SX's implementation of EmuNAND is a bit iffy at the moment, but updating to 2.0 doesn't mean you have to use one. The other features are worth updating for - as long as your Switch isn't on 3.0.x, where you get a black screen on boot. Hopefully this issue is resolved soon with SX version 2.0.1 or 2.1. If you have 3.0.x and you want to use SX 2.0, it is recommended to update to 6.0 without fuse burning, using ChoiDuJour.

"EmuNAND" support
An emuNAND is traditionally a copy of the system's OS run from an SD card, with all the normal system calls being rerouted to it. This allows users to have their emuNAND updated in order to play the latest games, while keeping their sysNAND, the copy that remains on the NAND chip, unaffected. This way, if there is an exploit that needs a lower system version to run, you can still use it even after powering your system off and on again which would usually dump you out of CFW.

However, in SX's case, they have repartitioned the original system memory instead, citing that they believe using 32GB of the user's SD card would be wasteful. This isn't a very good reason, considering you can use most of that space to install games, plus installed games are a little smaller than their XCI format counterparts.

It has also been said that part of the Switch's telemetry is to report on the Switch's NAND size, meaning that using SX's implementation of emuNAND, which shrinks the NAND, could result in a higher ban risk. Considering that the main reason users were interested in emuNAND was ban risk reduction (i.e. updating one and playing online with bought games, while keeping the other offline and playing non-bought games on it), it seems a little pointless.

NAND backup, restoring, and GPT repair
These have been available using Hekate since it was available. Adding them to SX OS will make life a bit more convenient for SX users, as it means they don't need to switch between multiple different tools to get the job done.

Homebrew NSP compatibility
Now that legal homebrew NSPs are available, there will probably be a lot more of them - developers will probably start to release NSPs alongside NROs (homebrew launcher format). SX users wouldn't be very happy if they couldn't install homebrew NSPs, so this update comes right on time.

LayeredFS now working again
It got broken in an earlier update, but they have fixed it again. Atmosphere had this fixed about two weeks ago.

LayeredFS is used for game mods, and was used as an early way to load games you did not own as well as run DevMenu to install games.

Switch home menu themes

Developed by Team Qcean, you can now put themes on your Switch's home menu, like the 3DS before it. Unlike the 3DS though, there is no official theme support so this is the only way to date to tweak your home menu to your liking.

• Both single colours, colour gradients and images are supported
• Lock screen and Settings backgrounds can be changed as well
• Layout editing - move menu items around

See the original report here and the official discussion thread here.

Nintendo 64 emulator in pre-release

Glide64 is in pre-release, meaning it is available to test but there will be bugs expected, and no support is provided in its use.

• Donkey Kong 64 and Mario Kart 64 load but are laggy
• Super Mario 64 runs well but is a bit choppy in Bob-omb Battlefield
• Pokemon Stadium loading but not playable

It isn't likely to get a lot better until after the ARM64 dynarec and specific Glide64 bounties are collected.

Homebrew Bounty 2018

In incredibly exciting news, the homebrew bounty resurfaces in 2018!

Two previous bounties have been held, one ten years ago in 2008 (focussing on Nintendo DS homebrew) and one in 2011 (focussing on DS and DSi homebrew). Unfortunately, there was never a bounty for 3DS homebrew, but fortunately, the 3DS scene was pretty lively and didn't need such a boost to take off.

You can read the original thread for more details, but here is the bite-sized version:

• There will be four categories: computer-based tools, Switch-based utilities, emulators (both for and of the Switch), and games.
• Each category will run for a month, with voting and results shortly after
• Patron and staff votes will count for 50% each
• There is $8,000 US up for grabs, donated by sponsors and GBAtemp itself

Do you think you have what it takes to win? Get developing! But be sure not to publish your app until the appropriate time window for it to be a valid entry. Even if you don't think you can create a winning entry - enter anyway, in all the furore your app will be downloaded and tried out loads of times. When else will you get the chance to have your stuff used or played by so many people?

Homebrew roundup

Speaking of the bounty, hopefully that won't discourage people too much from publishing their stuff - this section might become quite sparse for the next couple of weeks. But without further ado, we present to you the nine newest homebrew:

melonDS by Hydr8gon: This is a port of the melonDS multiplatform emulator to Switch. It doesn't yet use OpenGL but when the original project gets a hardware renderer it will be added to this port.

QuakespasmNX by fgsfds: Will we have a Quake port in every edition of Switch Hax Weekly? It is sure looking that way! This is a port of a different project than the previous Quake ports.

MAMENX by MVG: This was released back in August but we unfortunately missed it in previous issues. It is based on the MAME emulator for Xbox360 released by the same author.

Descent 1 & 2 by aagellag: This was released a month ago on Reddit, but did not have a thread on GBAtemp until this week. It is a fork of DXX-Retro, which is a fork of DXX-Rebirth, which is a fork of the original engine source code created by Parallax Software Corporation.


Another hactool GUI by bodyXY: Performs the same functions as hactool but with a new GUI written in C#.


Web-based SX payload converter by Insane: An implementation of CTCaer's python script run remotely on a Java webapp. No need to download any scripts to your computer or navigate trying to install the right version of Python. Quite handy!

DDLC by LukeZGD: A port of the 3DS port of Doki Doki Literature Club!, a visual novel developed by Team Salvato.

Another World 2.0 by usineur0: Originally released back in May, it has just gotten an update.

Minesweeper by Cid2mizard: There are other Minesweeper games for the Switch but this one is unique in that it looks exactly like the old Windows version, bringing back those memories of frustration stronger than ever.

Ciao!

This wraps up Issue 3 of Switch Hax Weekly. Hope you have enjoyed it! As always, if anything needs correction or addition please don't hesitate to comment below or contact me directly (Quantumcat). Tips on new homebrew or other juicy stuff is also very welcome.