Switch owners rejoice, Fusée Galée & Atmosphere will both be released during summer 2018 & BBB release the final master key

[Master Disaster]

Things are moving forward very quickly in the switch hacking scene right now....

 

A few weeks ago now the developer behind the Switches custom firmware called Atmosphere-NX announced he was targeting a summer 2018 release for all firmware versions.

 

 

Before this point ScriesM had been using his own entry point that was patched by Nintendo in firmware 5.0 but this was the first time we heard about him getting access to Fusée Galée.

 

Fusée Galée is a cold boot bootloader ROM exploit discovered by Kate Temkins that utilizes a coding error present in the bootloader of EVERY DEVICE IN EXISTENCE that uses a Tegra CPU. It basically takes control of the firmware during bootloader bypassing the security checks before they are ever ran.

 

As of now not much is known publicly about FG or how it works and we also had no idea when, or indeed if at all, it would be released. Well today Kate broke her silence by releasing an FG FAQ on her private website which confirms that she has submitted it to both Nvidia and Nintendo, she hasn't signed any form of NDA with them and she has given them a window to patch the issue before she releases which just happens to expire this coming summer.

 

Quote

Q: What's setting the timeline and release cadence for Fusée Gelée?

Fusée Gelée was responsibly disclosed to NVIDIA earlier, and forwarded to several vendors (including Nintendo) as a courtesy. When submitting the formal reports, I've dictated my own disclosure deadline at a point in the future that I think gives NVIDIA and vendors an adequate window to communicate with their downstream customers and to accomplish as much remediation as is possible for an unpatchable bootrom bug.

 

So what does all this actually mean you might be thinking? Well first of all it explains the rumours of new Switch hardware coming soon. It's more than likely Nintendo have patched to bootrom exploit and are releasing a new revision with the fix. It also means that anybody with Switch hardware in hands right now will be able to use Atmosphere regardless of firmware version, FG is a bootloader exploit and doesn't care about firmware at all.

 

In the FAQ Kate explains that FG can be implemented by software or hardware and there is a solderless hardware variant available

Quote

Q: Does that mean your modchip is 'solderless'-- that is, can it be used without tapping into lines not exposed on connectors?

Yes, there will be a solderless version; but also note that the Switch is great at bringing signals out to test points, so soldery versions are super easy. No tiny soldering required.

 

Q: Will a hardmod be required to use Fusée Gelée?

I do have a "hardmod"-assisted variant, where the hardmod is approximately equivalent to shorting a couple of pins with tweezers. No soldering or dangerousness required, and there's a very minor thing you can do (think the equivalent of snipping a pin) to make the assistance permanent.

 

There's also a neat twist on things that allows you to do the above with no permanent modifications to your Switch.

And I want to make this SUPER CLEAR, ScriesM has stated that he has no interest in enabling piracy with Atmosphere, he will not be patching security checks pertaining to playing pirated games. If people want that then they must fork Atmosphere and add it themselves and he won't accept piracy patches being upstreamed into his official release. This is not about Piracy, it's about homebrew. The Switch will make the best portable emulation machine on the market.

 

However in unrelated news, warez group BBB have today released the first Switch eShop title dump (in a brand new format), that news in itself is nothing major however they have also released the final Switch master key along with the dump which means it's now possible to decrypt every single game pak currently on sale.

Quote

This new file format, ripped from the Nintendo Switch eShop servers, is being called a Nintendo Submission Package (.nsp) file. There is currently no known way to run this file type, or any BBB release on a hacked Switch, available to the public.

In the above .nfo file, packaged with the ripped .nsp eShop game, BBB have also revealed the master_key_03 for the Switch (removed), allowing any currently released Switch file to be decrypted.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/atmosphere-to-be-estimated-released-in-summer-2018-for-all-firmwares.499907/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/fusee-gelee-faq-by-ktemkin.500613/

https://gbatemp.net/threads/first-switch-eshop-dump-released-by-bbb.500570/

 

So yeah, by Summer 2018 you will be able to run a custom firmware on your Switch using Fusée Galée. Exciting times are coming for Switch owners.

 

So just to add a little more info on Atmosphere, ScriesM has confirmed it will be an EmuNAND solution meaning the Switches NAND is copied onto an SD Card, is patched during boot and then the emulated NAND is booted instead of the real NAND. This is useful as it allows the original NAND to stay on an official firmware while the emulated one can be upgraded/downgraded/sidegraded as the user requires plus users can just boot to official firmware for online access mitigating the chance of a hardware ban. This also means that Atmosphere will REQUIRE a MINIMUM 64GB SD Card, 32GB will be used to copy the NAND leaving the remaining space free for homebrew.

[LHJKO]

Finally be able to play wii  sports on the switch 

[Master Disaster]

4 minutes ago, Tedny said:

Why you need hack console that have only 3 games? 

Handheld Emulation? The Switch will easily be able to emulate upto PSX with PS2 being theoretically possible (though no ARM PS2 emulator actually exists yet).

 

Linux.

 

Homebrew like a web browser, movie player, FTP access, etc.

 

Don't be so short sighted.

[LHJKO]

11 minutes ago, Tedny said:

Why you need hack console that have only 3 games? 

what do you mean 3 games have you seen the eshop there's actually a lot of pretty good games 

[Master Disaster]

Just now, Tedny said:

Aren't any ~3 year phone can do that fine too? 

Name me any phone that's running a Tegra X1.

 

Besides which that's not the point, I mean my PC can do 99% of what my phone can do and yet I still have a phone.

 

Millions of people have bought Switches and as you said, there's not many choices for original games on the system. Homebrew solves this issue.

 

If you're not interested then fine, don't bother with it but also don't try and tell everyone else it's pointless because you don't see the point. That's on you, not us.

[Dabombinable]

I wonder how well this exploit would help get Android 7.1.1 onto a Nexus 7 (2012). Asus didn't release any bootloader unlocking tools for it, and Android 5.1.1 is a bit slower than Android 7.1.1 on the Tegra 3 in my TF201 and TF700.

[Drak3]

3 hours ago, Vernw3 said:

what do you mean 3 games have you seen the eshop there's actually a lot of pretty good games 

Where are these pretty good games? Only one I've seen so far is Disgaea 5.

[Tribalinius]

5 hours ago, Tedny said:

Why you need hack console that have only 3 games? 

I'm up to 70 games-ish on my shelf at the moment, I'm not sure what you are talking about.

[Tribalinius]

12 hours ago, Tedny said:

I am about non-ported games 

There's at least 10 in front of me right now?

I don't get the flack Nintendo gets for "ports" when these games are released on multiple platforms anyway, just not at the same time. If you are talking specifically about Wii U ports, it's a sound economic and sale driving decision and they are gonna run out of material eventually anyway. People would have passed up Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors and Pokken Tournament because they did not want to buy a Wii U and I understand them for not buying it.

If we take a look at Sony and Microsoft first year, there's not much to say about their 1st year either. It kinda looks like that:

PS4:

- Killzone: Shadow Fall
- Knack
- Infamous Second Son
- Last of Us Remastered (Port)
- Driveclub
- Little Big Planet 3 (technically past the 1y anniversary)

XB1:
 

- Dead Rising 3 (Launch)
- Forza Motorsport 5 (Launch)
- Ryse: Son of Rome (Launch)
- Kinect Sports Rivals
- Dance Central Spotlight
- Forza Horizon 2
- Project Spark (Does it really count?)
- Sunset Overdrive
- Halo: Master Chief Collection (Ports/Remake)

 

The rest are either timed exclusives or games launched on both PlayStation 4 / Xbox One. I'm not including eshop\psn stuff.
 

[{PK} HastyPixels]

Homebrew looks about the only way to run "classic" games that aren't a part of a collection or remaster, since Nintendo has no apparent intention to reboot its Virtual Console service. Arcade ports are cool and all... but I can't say I'm sold on them. I'm not exactly sad to see VC set aside, either, because what the Switch is doing is different than any other console right now. What other mass market platform can do that?

 

Hands down, Shield owners. It's excellent hardware, and arguably more capable than the Switch in terms of functionality, but Nintendo won this fight. At least, for now. They've opened up the playing field, and I expect any number of companies are preparing their replies.

 

What's the big deal about exclusives anyway? Don't answer that, I know already. Isn't the point that you can play what you want pretty much how you want? Frankly, that's just cool. The idea of Homebrew is compelling, and on a personal level I always find it interesting to see what's underneath the smooth shell of any system.

[Zodiark1593]

On 4/6/2018 at 2:15 AM, Master Disaster said:

Name me any phone that's running a Tegra X1.

 

Besides which that's not the point, I mean my PC can do 99% of what my phone can do and yet I still have a phone.

 

Millions of people have bought Switches and as you said, there's not many choices for original games on the system. Homebrew solves this issue.

 

If you're not interested then fine, don't bother with it but also don't try and tell everyone else it's pointless because you don't see the point. That's on you, not us.

What is it about the Tegra X1 that makes it special again? Flagship phones from several years ago outmatch the underclocked CPU (apparently ~1 GHz) by a fair margin (even if it's 4x Cortex A57), and edge out the underclocked GPU as well, nevermind anything recent. 

 

If the cpu can be brought back to it's original speed, this would make a strong competitor to the Shield TV for a tv emulation box, albeit, more expensive. With the exception of Switch exclusives, I'm unsure what the Switch can do specifically that couldn't already be donenon cheaper devices.

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 hour ago, Zodiark1593 said:

What is it about the Tegra X1 that makes it special again? Flagship phones from several years ago outmatch the underclocked CPU (apparently ~1 GHz) by a fair margin (even if it's 4x Cortex A57), and edge out the underclocked GPU as well, nevermind anything recent. 

 

If the cpu can be brought back to it's original speed, this would make a strong competitor to the Shield TV for a tv emulation box, albeit, more expensive. With the exception of Switch exclusives, I'm unsure what the Switch can do specifically that couldn't already be donenon cheaper devices.

sustained performance. No phone touches the allowable sustained power draw that the switch has. And the switch/shield tv gpu is much better for most games than the current flagships, let alone old ones.

 

The cpu is good enough, and again sustained performance is very good by comparison.

 

The switch is portable. that is 99% the reason to use it over the shield tv for emulation. honestly

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

sustained performance. No phone touches the allowable sustained power draw that the switch has. And the switch/shield tv gpu is much better for most games than the current flagships, let alone old ones.

 

The cpu is good enough, and again sustained performance is very good by comparison.

 

The switch is portable. that is 99% the reason to use it over the shield tv for emulation. honestly

Considering the Tegra X1, as used in the Switch, is still on a 20 nm process, and again, runs a mere 1 GHz, many devices today should have no problems outpacing it on a consistent basis, even while throttng.

 

Why is the gpu considered much better than today's flagships? While I still consider it good, I find it extremely hard to believe that the Tegra X1, even running at it's full 1 GHz speed, can outmatch current flagship GPUs such as in Apple's A11, or the Snapdragon 845. Keeping in mind that it is clocked substantially slower in the Switfroms well, so at least the SD835 and Apple A10 should handily outpace it.

 

Yes, the Switch is also portable, though given the relatively light demands of running emulation up through to the PSX/N64 days, a cheap tablet and bluetooth controller would be a plenty viable alternative here. Faster clocked Cortex A53s are plenty for this, though PSP emulation will prove to be a heavier load. Not sure 1 GHz Cortex A57s are going to be enough there either.

 

The only tablet I know of that can actually beat this thing on a perf/$ basis is that new $350 iPad, though you lose easy access to emulation. The value proposition would be far better if the Tegra X1 can be forced to run at full speed. If that turns out to be the case, I'll give you the value point.

 

If smartphones and tablets weren't already a thing, I'd have been ecstatic. If one owns a Switch already, now you have a fairly capable retro gaming tablet as well. If one already has a tablet, or some other fairly capable devices, I see little reason to pick up a Switch just based upon it being hacked and open. It's one of Nintendo's nicer pieces of hardware, sure, and it's plenty fast for most things, but I don't feel that it is a particularly standout device aside from running Switch games.

 

Edit: please note that I am in no way belittling, or disagreeing with the efforts made to hack the Switch. My comments are directed toward the Switch hardware on it's own merits.

[Dabombinable]

31 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Considering the Tegra X1, as used in the Switch, is still on a 20 nm process, and again, runs a mere 1 GHz, many devices today should have no problems outpacing it on a consistent basis, even while throttng.

 

Why is the gpu considered much better than today's flagships? While I still consider it good, I find it extremely hard to believe that the Tegra X1, even running at it's full 1 GHz speed, can outmatch current flagship GPUs such as in Apple's A11, or the Snapdragon 845. Keeping in mind that it is clocked substantially slower in the Switfroms well, so at least the SD835 and Apple A10 should handily outpace it.

 

Yes, the Switch is also portable, though given the relatively light demands of running emulation up through to the PSX/N64 days, a cheap tablet and bluetooth controller would be a plenty viable alternative here. Faster clocked Cortex A53s are plenty for this, though PSP emulation will prove to be a heavier load. Not sure 1 GHz Cortex A57s are going to be enough there either.

 

The only tablet I know of that can actually beat this thing on a perf/$ basis is that new $350 iPad, though you lose easy access to emulation. The value proposition would be far better if the Tegra X1 can be forced to run at full speed. If that turns out to be the case, I'll give you the value point.

 

If smartphones and tablets weren't already a thing, I'd have been ecstatic. If one owns a Switch already, now you have a fairly capable retro gaming tablet as well. If one already has a tablet, or some other fairly capable devices, I see little reason to pick up a Switch just based upon it being hacked and open. It's one of Nintendo's nicer pieces of hardware, sure, and it's plenty fast for most things, but I don't feel that it is a particularly standout device aside from running Switch games.

 

Edit: please note that I am in no way belittling, or disagreeing with the efforts made to hack the Switch. My comments are directed toward the Switch hardware on it's own merits.

Looking at a non Gimped X1, the version on the switch would be still highly competitive, and it has the benefit of being able to use CUDA since the GPU is based on Maxwell.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9289/the-nvidia-shield-android-tv-review

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

10 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Considering the Tegra X1, as used in the Switch, is still on a 20 nm process, and again, runs a mere 1 GHz, many devices today should have no problems outpacing it on a consistent basis, even while throttng.

 

Why is the gpu considered much better than today's flagships? While I still consider it good, I find it extremely hard to believe that the Tegra X1, even running at it's full 1 GHz speed, can outmatch current flagship GPUs such as in Apple's A11, or the Snapdragon 845. Keeping in mind that it is clocked substantially slower in the Switfroms well, so at least the SD835 and Apple A10 should handily outpace it.

 

Yes, the Switch is also portable, though given the relatively light demands of running emulation up through to the PSX/N64 days, a cheap tablet and bluetooth controller would be a plenty viable alternative here. Faster clocked Cortex A53s are plenty for this, though PSP emulation will prove to be a heavier load. Not sure 1 GHz Cortex A57s are going to be enough there either.

 

The only tablet I know of that can actually beat this thing on a perf/$ basis is that new $350 iPad, though you lose easy access to emulation. The value proposition would be far better if the Tegra X1 can be forced to run at full speed. If that turns out to be the case, I'll give you the value point.

 

If smartphones and tablets weren't already a thing, I'd have been ecstatic. If one owns a Switch already, now you have a fairly capable retro gaming tablet as well. If one already has a tablet, or some other fairly capable devices, I see little reason to pick up a Switch just based upon it being hacked and open. It's one of Nintendo's nicer pieces of hardware, sure, and it's plenty fast for most things, but I don't feel that it is a particularly standout device aside from running Switch games.

 

Edit: please note that I am in no way belittling, or disagreeing with the efforts made to hack the Switch. My comments are directed toward the Switch hardware on it's own merits.

As mentioned above. CUDA and things like tesselation. And the x1 GPU is much wider than most mobile GPU cores. Literally the x1 GPU has the hallmarks of a modern desktop GPU,  while phones are only slowly starting now to add some of these features. Remember until very very recently almost all phone graphics were 2d pipelines, and they are still optimized heavily for the types of loads that generally mobile runs with (again simply because of power budget).

 

Like I cannot stress enough how much power budget degrades long term performance under 100% load like this. Even when reviewers look at like 10 cycles or whatever, that maybe takes them out to 5 minutes. Not 30, an hour.

 

Also nvidia has put a huge amount of relative effort in drivers for game engines as part of the shield TV, which is why dolphin works rather well on shield while being a disaster even on snap 820 devices.

 

Yeah you probably want to be able to upclock it if you can, but that also seems pretty reasonable.

[BuckGup]

On 4/6/2018 at 3:19 AM, Master Disaster said:

Handheld Emulation? The Switch will easily be able to emulate upto PSX with PS2 being theoretically possible (though no ARM PS2 emulator actually exists yet).

 

Linux.

 

Homebrew like a web browser, movie player, FTP access, etc.

 

Don't be so short sighted.

I would rather buy a raspberry pi for $30 and retro controller for $10 and do the same 

[Master Disaster]

17 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

I would rather buy a raspberry pi for $30 and retro controller for $10 and do the same 

Good luck taking your RPI on a bus with you. You do understand what the term handheld means, right?

 

And again, if you don't have a switch then cool, you don't care. Those of us that ALREADY own one are a different group however.

 

No one is telling anyone to buy anything, the clue is literally in the first 3 words of the thread title, "Switch OWNERS rejoice".

[Nowak]

On 4/6/2018 at 5:10 AM, Tedny said:

non port games 

 

On 4/6/2018 at 7:05 PM, Tedny said:

I am about non-ported games 

So then you musta hated the PS4 at first too, because during the PS4's first two years it got a ton of ports and remasters. How convenient that everyone forgot that key aspect of the PS4's early life so they can criticize the Switch for the same damn thing 

 

btw, how dare a video game console get video games, right?

[BuckGup]

20 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Good luck taking your RPI on a bus with you. You do understand what the term handheld means, right?

 

And again, if you don't have a switch then cool, you don't care. Those of us that ALREADY own one are a different group however.

 

No one is telling anyone to buy anything, the clue is literally in the first 3 words of the thread title, "Switch OWNERS rejoice".

Right from the stand point of already owning one it's really cool but it doesn't seem inviting enough to buy one for that reason

[Zodiark1593]

39 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Good luck taking your RPI on a bus with you. You do understand what the term handheld means, right?

 

And again, if you don't have a switch then cool, you don't care. Those of us that ALREADY own one are a different group however.

 

No one is telling anyone to buy anything, the clue is literally in the first 3 words of the thread title, "Switch OWNERS rejoice".

*imagines playing psx Digimon World on Switch* With the right CRT shaders, the lower resolution display might actually look pretty good for psx games.

 

I used my old PSP with custom firmware for quite some time for this, as at the time (before smartphones were ever a thing), it was the only way to play PSX games, in handheld form, on the go. I'll probably be giving it a new battery once I get an iPhone as well. I certainly understand that excitement of playing one's old favorites on the go, without worry of the game being damaged or lost.

 

 

1 hour ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

As mentioned above. CUDA and things like tesselation. And the x1 GPU is much wider than most mobile GPU cores. Literally the x1 GPU has the hallmarks of a modern desktop GPU,  while phones are only slowly starting now to add some of these features. Remember until very very recently almost all phone graphics were 2d pipelines, and they are still optimized heavily for the types of loads that generally mobile runs with (again simply because of power budget).

 

Like I cannot stress enough how much power budget degrades long term performance under 100% load like this. Even when reviewers look at like 10 cycles or whatever, that maybe takes them out to 5 minutes. Not 30, an hour.

 

Also nvidia has put a huge amount of relative effort in drivers for game engines as part of the shield TV, which is why dolphin works rather well on shield while being a disaster even on snap 820 devices.

 

Yeah you probably want to be able to upclock it if you can, but that also seems pretty reasonable.

Yes, I remember when phones were displaying almost exclusively 2d. Now the featureset is about on par with DX11. If anything, Nvidia was quite slow on the uptake as they refused to move to a unified shader architecture for years in Tegra, up until the K1. Qualcomm had OpenGL ES 3.0 in the wild when Tegra 4 became a thing, for example. Right now, the only differentiation between mobile and desktop GPUs is not in featureset, but performance.

 

I will concede Dolphin on the full speed Tegra X1 however. While it has improved greatly on Snapdragon platforms as well in recent updates, a Shield would be the way to go, as far as ARM devices go. Though tbh, I probably won't want to go any less than a high clocked Intel Core system for this (and PCSX2), but that's a different discussion, not to mention price bracket outside used.

 

I will also concede that, besides Apple, Nvidia is the only other mobile hardware player that actively aids developers. This is why, outside of emulation, I tend to recommend iPhones to those where gaming is a big priority.

[Eaglerino]

On 4/6/2018 at 2:12 AM, Tedny said:

Why you need hack console that have only 3 games? 

Zelda

Mario

Xenoblade

Mario Kart

Skyrim

Dark Souls

Outlast

Donkey Kong (coming)

Smash bros (coming)

loads of e-shop

 

"egghh but they're remasters" no one cares, I can play Dark Souls mobile now