Hi everyone!

I've made a gamecard installer, which as the name suggets, installs your gamecards directly to your switch!

The app is quite simple, with only 3 options.

1. Install to the nand.
2. Install to the sd card.
3. Exit.

However I spent some time polishing the UI and added some cool features as well.

• Support for multi gamecards (gamecards with multiple games inside, press L / R to cycle through them).
• Full touchscreen support.
• Music support. Simply drop any .mp3's into the app folder /switch/gamecard_installer/ and the app will play these songs at random! (sub folders are supported).
• Displays gamecard info such as total size, key generation and app ID.
• Displays free nand / sd card memory. This is updated after installing a game.
• Cleans up all placeholders on startup. This means if you used an app that failed to install a game and it didn't delete the placeholder after, my app does it for you.
• Should anything go wrong, a error code for that specific error will be displayed. This will save time when reporting issues.

A guide for installing this app, as well as a guide on how to compile app can be found on my repo (linked below).

Link to the release: https://github.com/ITotalJustice/Gamecard-Installer-NX/releases
Link to the repo: https://github.com/ITotalJustice/Gamecard-Installer-NX
Link to screenshots from the app: https://github.com/ITotalJustice/Gamecard-Installer-NX/tree/master/images

v1.0.1:

• Fixed incorrectly returned the sys version number (fw 8.1.0 would be returned as 8.0.1).
• Fixed bug that would cause the installed game to sometimes still as a gamecard.
• Fixed bug that would make it so that it would sometimes not push the correct application record which caused game updates that was previously installed to say that it was not.

v1.0.0:

• Initial release.

 

[lordelan]

Very nice. Better than dumping + installing as it works on the fly.

I wonder whether this needs the keys as well as it's technically the same as installing XCIs which always reguires those keys.txt (or prod.keys) or am I wrong?

 

[TotalJustice]

Very nice. Better than dumping + installing as it works on the fly.

I wonder whether this needs the keys as well as it's technically the same as installing XCIs which always reguires those keys.txt (or prod.keys) or am I wrong?

Hi, no this doesn't require keys.

It derives the nca header key in the app. This is needed to decrypt the nca headers, change the distribution value to 0 (which allows gamecard nca to be installed) and thats it.

 

[KiiWii]

This is super handy, thank you.

 

[JonJaded]

This is perfect. Very good looking for an initial release.

 

[Clydefrosch]

You think it's feasible to also patch keygeneration requirements to the lowest on the fly too?

https://github.com/The-4n/reNXpack/

Cool tool in either case

 

[CompSciOrBust]

I saw you working on this in the AtlasNX dev chat and thought it looked cool. Great work!

 

[Reploid]

This app should be on eshop

 

[TotalJustice]

You think it's feasible to also patch keygeneration requirements to the lowest on the fly too?

https://github.com/The-4n/reNXpack/

Cool tool in either case

Yep it definitely can, it's what I have planned for the next release

 

[Quantumcat]

Fantastic, I've been hoping for an app like this for ages! Thanks TotalJustice!

 

[eyeliner]

Cool, so i can install my copy of Valiant Hearts and Child of Light from the cart directly?

C'mere you sexy human being!

 

[TotalJustice]

Cool, so i can install my copy of Valiant Hearts and Child of Light from the cart directly?

C'mere you sexy human being!

Yep! That was actually the exact game that was tested for multi gamecart support

 

[eyeliner]

Yep! That was actually the exact game that was tested for multi gamecart support

Those are great games, actually. Valiant hearts is possibly the best.
Child of Light killed it for me because of the combat.

 

[leon315]

Noice, time to visit AAL my friends and borrow their cards

 

[KiiWii]

Out of interest: how fast is it to dump a full 16gb cart, for example?

 

[AkiraKurusu]

I've heard that installing XCI files and the like (i.e. installing games without purchasing them from the eShop) has a higher chance of getting your account/console banned; does this trigger the same sensors?

 

[Reecey]

this is pretty cool app does it install the certificates a well? or just a conversion from gamecard to nsp?

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I've heard that installing XCI files and the like (i.e. installing games without purchasing them from the eShop) has a higher chance of getting your account/console banned; does this trigger the same sensors?

yeah don't do that, never install an xci to nsp conversion and go online, if you have an online enabled switch stick with xci you will be ok with that. I never convert xci to nsp on my online switch.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

yeah don't do that, never install an xci to nsp conversion and go online, if you have an online enabled switch stick with xci you will be ok with that. I never convert xci to nsp on my online switch.

Never have, which is why I don't know the difference between xci and nsp .
I've just heard of people getting banned for installing the wrong type of file using homebrew, so that's what sparked my question.

 

[TotalJustice]

Out of interest: how fast is it to dump a full 16gb cart, for example?

Nand installs are between 32 / 40 MiB/s, which is roughly 26 seconds per GiB, which is about 7 minutes for that 16gb.
Sd card installs vary, it depends on your sd card. I usually get between 24 / 30 MiB/s.
The read / write is threaded, so in theory it should max I/O writes.

Also just as a reminder, it might be a 16gb cart, but the actual size is often a lot smaller. The app will report the actual total size of the all ncas for that game.

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this is pretty cool app does it install the certificates a well? or just a conversion from gamecard to nsp?

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


yeah don't do that, never install an xci to nsp conversion and go online, if you have an online enabled switch stick with xci you will be ok with that. I never convert xci to nsp on my online switch.

It does not install the cert, just the nca's as they are (with the distribution type changed).

I've heard that installing XCI files and the like (i.e. installing games without purchasing them from the eShop) has a higher chance of getting your account/console banned; does this trigger the same sensors?

Sadly I'm not that knowledgeable in knowning what Nintendo will and won't ban for.

 

[lordelan]

Hi, no this doesn't require keys.

It derives the nca header key in the app. This is needed to decrypt the nca headers, change the distribution value to 0 (which allows gamecard nca to be installed) and thats it.

I see. Pretty nice then.

Or, if you prefer, you can copy the ‘gamecard_installer.nro’ to ‘/switch/’ and launch the app that way. The app will then create its own folder and move the .nro into that new folder.

Thank god finally someone thought about this.
I f*cking hate it when there are NROs in the switch folder without their own subfolder.
This should be implemented into every single homebrew or directly into libnx or Atmosphère, honestly!