Difference between pages "Game Boy Advance emulators" and "Nintendo Switch emulators"

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[[File:Gameboy-glacier.jpg|thumb|The Gameboy Advance handheld console]]The '''[[gametech:Game Boy Advance|Game Boy Advance]]''' (often shortened to GBA) is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001.
+
{{Infobox console
 +
|title = Nintendo Switch
 +
|image = nintendo-switch.png
 +
|image2 = switchdocked.png
 +
|imagecaption = The Switch in its two forms, portable (above) and docked (below).
 +
|developer = [[:Nintendo]]
 +
|type = [[:Category:Hybrid consoles|Hybrid video game console]]
 +
|generation = [[:Category:Eighth-generation video game consoles|Eighth generation]]
 +
|release = 2017
 +
|predecessor = [[Wii U emulators|Wii U]]
 +
|emulated = {{✓}}
 +
}}
 +
 
 +
The '''[[wikipedia:Nintendo Switch|Nintendo Switch]]''' is an eighth-generation hybrid gaming console released by Nintendo on March 3, 2017 and retailed for {{Inflation|USD|299.99|2017}}. During its development, the Switch was known as the NX (short for NeXt or Nintendo "Cross") and was widely speculated up until its announcement. Aside from specialized components unique to the console, the hardware is more or less off-the-shelf, being built around a semi-custom variant of Nvidia's Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip which was also used on a number of [[Android emulators|Android devices]]. The Switch contains 4 ARM Cortex-A57 CPUs and 4 ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs running at 1.020 GHz with 4GB of RAM and a proprietary GPU codenamed GM20B.
 +
 
 +
While Nintendo intended to step up the security of the console, vulnerabilities were still found early on that allowed tons of system files to be dumped, including dumps of games in the form of romfs.istorage archives, an exefs folder, and license files. These game dumps eventually got shared online by scene groups except for their licenses but were missing important files to run and even if they had been completed, there were no custom homebrew apps let alone solutions to load unofficial game dumps for the system. A number of prominent hacking teams (starting with shuffle2 and fail0verflow in collaboration) all came across a new exploit independently of each other that allowed complete control over the system, later officially recognized by Nvidia as CVE-2018-6242.
 +
 
 +
A "debugging emulator" for the Nintendo Switch, CageTheUnicorn (now [https://github.com/reswitched/Mephisto Mephisto]), popped up not long after the first components were dumped. It was designed to emulate sysmodules with "no support for graphics, sound, input, or any kind of even remotely performant processing [...] by design". A couple of months later, members of both the [[Citra]] and [[Dolphin]] teams announced the release of [[yuzu|their own emulator written in c++]], which was capable of booting some homebrew applications; within a couple of weeks yet another emulator named [[Ryujinx]], written in c# by developer gdkchan, was released showing successful booting of commercial Switch games Puyo Puyo Tetris and Sonic Mania.
  
 
==Emulators==
 
==Emulators==
{| class="wikitable"
+
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|+PC
 
 
! scope="col"|Name
 
! scope="col"|Name
! scope="col"|Operating System(s)
+
! scope="col"|Platform(s)
 
! scope="col"|Latest Version
 
! scope="col"|Latest Version
! scope="col"|GB/GBC
+
! scope="col"|<abbr title="Free/Libre and Open-Source Software">FLOSS</abbr>
! scope="col"|GBA
+
! scope="col"|Active
! scope="col"|NDS
+
! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
! scope="col"|Game Link Support
 
! scope="col"|[[libretro|Libretro Core]]
 
! scope="col"|[[Recommended emulators|Recommended]]
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[Visual Boy Advance -M|Visual Boy Advance-M (VBA-M)]]
+
! colspan="6"|PC / x86
|style="text-align:center;"|Multi-platform
 
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://www.emucr.com/search/label/VisualBoyAdvance-M/ SVN]
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[mGBA]]
+
|[[yuzu]]
|style="text-align:center;"|Multi-platform
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux}}
|style="text-align:center;"|[https://endrift.com/mgba/downloads.html 0.2.0]
+
|[https://yuzu-emu.org/downloads/ Nightly]
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[higan]]
+
|[[Ryujinx]]
|style="text-align:center;"|Windows, OS X, Linux
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}}
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://byuu.org/higan/ 0.94]
+
|[https://ryujinx.org/#/Build Nightly]
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{✓}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|iDeaS
+
|NSEmu
|style="text-align:center;"|Windows, Linux
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows}}
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://ciacin.site90.com/ideas.php 1.0.4.0]
+
|[https://github.com/RKX1209/nsemu Git]
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[MESS]]
+
|Mephisto
|style="text-align:center;"|Multi-platform
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Linux|macOS}}
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://www.mamedev.org/release.html {{MAMEVer}}]
+
|[https://github.com/reswitched/Mephisto/releases v1.2.1], [https://github.com/reswitched/Mephisto Git]
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|?
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|Meteor
+
|CageTheUnicorn
|style="text-align:center;"|Linux
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD}}
|style="text-align:center;"|[https://github.com/blastrock/meteor 1.4]
+
|[https://github.com/reswitched/CageTheUnicorn Git]
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{✗}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|-
 
|style="text-align:center;"|[[No$GBA]]
 
|style="text-align:center;"|Windows, MS-DOS
 
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://problemkaputt.de/gba.htm 2.8]
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|}
 
 
 
{| class="wikitable"
 
|+Consoles
 
! scope="col"|Name
 
! scope="col"|Operating System(s)
 
! scope="col"|Latest Version
 
! scope="col"|GB/GBC
 
! scope="col"|GBA
 
! scope="col"|NDS
 
! scope="col"|Game Link Support
 
! scope="col"|[[libretro|Libretro Core]]
 
! scope="col"|[[Recommended emulators|Recommended]]
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|TempGBA4PSP
+
!colspan="10"|Mobile / ARM
|style="text-align:center;"|[[PlayStation Portable]]
 
|style="text-align:center;"|[http://www.mediafire.com/download/41ny5xrwxizalx4/TempGBA4PSP-26750221.zip 26750221]
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[Visual Boy Advance -M|Visual Boy Advance-M (VBA-M)]]
+
|[https://eggns.wordpress.com Egg NS]
|style="text-align:center;"|[[Wii]], [[Gamecube]]
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Android}}
|style="text-align:center;"|r1231
+
|[https://drive.google.com/u/0/uc?id=15jYpgxZZKcstAqxZYg5_znDiXS41Shep&export=download 1.0.6]
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{✗}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓ (as VBA-Next)
 
|style="text-align:center;"|✓
 
 
|-
 
|-
|style="text-align:center;"|[[gpSP]]
+
|[https://github.com/skyline-emu/skyline Skyline]
|style="text-align:center;"|[[PlayStation Portable]]
+
|align=left|{{Icon|Android}}
|style="text-align:center;"|0.9
+
|[https://github.com/skyline-emu/skyline/releases 0.3]
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
+
|{{}}
|style="text-align:center;"|✗
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
|style="text-align:center;"|
 
 
|}
 
|}
  
==Comparisons==
+
;[[yuzu]] <small class="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;">([https://yuzu-emu.org/game compatibility])</small>
* [[gpSP]] last official version was 0.9 by Exophase. There are, however, two superior forks: [http://dl.qj.net/psp/emulators/gpsp-mod-20090720.html gpSPmod] and [http://filetrip.net/psp-downloads/homebrew/download-gpsp-j-12-06-16-f29570.htmlgpSP-J gpSP-J]. gpSP-J has superior compatibility, while gpSPmod has more options for customization (full screen, cheats, etc). Both are superior to Kai.
+
:An open-source emulator made by many of [[Citra]]'s developers. As it is a hard fork of Citra it shares many of its traits, namely cross-platform support and the use of OpenGL (though unlike Citra it also supports Vulkan). Many 2D games now render graphics properly and at good speeds; many 3D games are playable. This emulator currently offers early access builds to $5/month [[Emulators on Patreon|Patreon]] subscribers which allows them to utilize new features prior to their eventual release on the mainline build. One of yuzu's notable features is its disk-based shader cache for OpenGL, negating the need to compile shaders on the fly on every boot. uses leaked sdks
* [[Visual Boy Advance -M|Visual Boy Advance-M (VBA-M)]] is a fork of VBA with additional improvements. RetroArch's VBA-Next is based off an older revision of VBA-M with added speedhacks and tweaks, making it a bit less accurate in some respects, though it fixes a few games such as Advance Wars 2.
 
* [[higan]]'s GBA core is cycle-accurate, but is otherwise very much a WIP and not as compatible as either version of VBA.
 
* [[mGBA]] is a GBA emulator that aims to be accurate while maintaining speed. It's actively developed and has features that VBA-M lacks such as Solar/Tilt Sensor.
 
 
 
==Emulation issues==
 
 
 
===Oversaturation===
 
[[File:1406913527173-1-.png|400px|thumb|right|Left showing the default game, and right showing [[VBA-M]] in "Gameboy Colors" mode]]
 
The original GBA screen was not backlit, which would render the screen rather dark. To compensate for this, games would be overly saturated. The bright overly saturated colors would appear rather normal on the GBA. In emulation however, this over saturation is not needed. Some games made after 2003 may look better with the backlit colors, however, as they were designed with the GBA SP in mind. For everything else, there are several ways to deal with this:
 
 
 
'''No$GBA'''
 
 
 
Under "Emulation Options", select "GBA Mode. There are four modes.
 
 
 
- GBA (no backlight) = strong desaturization
 
 
 
- GBA SP (backlight) = strong desaturization
 
 
 
- Nintendo DS in GBA mode = some desaturization
 
 
 
- VGA Mode (poppy bright): zero desaturization
 
 
 
'''VBA-M'''
 
 
 
- (VBA-M for Windows only) Under "Options->Gameboy" you will find the options:
 
 
 
- "Real Colors": no desaturization
 
 
 
- "Gameboy Colors": strong desaturization 
 
 
 
'''Shaders'''
 
 
 
[https://github.com/libretro/common-shaders/blob/master/cgp/gameboy-colors.cgp gameboy-colors.cgp]
 
 
 
A .cgp shader preset can be loaded in [[OpenEMU]] or [[RetroArch]] that is meant to (sort-of) replicate the "Gameboy Colors" option in VBA-M using the image-adjustment Cg shader. The settings are parameters that are stored in the cgp and can be adjusted at runtime. The relevant parameters set for this effect are:
 
 
 
Target Gamma = 2.4
 
 
 
Monitor Gamma = 2.16
 
 
 
Saturation = 0.5
 
 
 
Luminance = 0.9
 
 
 
The colors will not be exactly the same as what VBA-M produces (a bit brighter and no washed out blacks) but it will get you the desaturation effect. Can be adjusted to fit your tastes, and you can get the washed out blacks by increasing "Brightness Boost" and decreasing Luminance a bit.
 
 
 
More recently, a different [https://github.com/Monroe88/common-shaders/tree/color-lcd/handheld/color-lcd shader] using a lookup table was created to much more accurately simulate VBA and No$GBA's options.
 
 
 
===Save file issues===
 
There are a number of different save formats for GBA games. With raw save data, it's very hard to detect what save type it is just by looking at it. Visual Boy Advance tries to autodetect save type but often is incorrect and this causes issues. A fix to this issue is to use a file called "vba-over.ini" to tell VBA what each game's proper save type is, which eliminates most issues regarding save type. Current VBA-M versions come with vba-over.ini by default, but older versions of VBA like VBA 1.7.2 and VBALink did not.
 
 
 
The libretro versions of VBA, libretro-VBA-Next and libretro-VBA-M, come with vba-over.ini baked into the binary so it is able to load raw .sav files, but also changes the save file output to be a 136KB .srm file for every save type, with save type info contained within the file. This completely avoids any save type issues, but makes its save files incompatible with standalone VBA and most other emulators.
 
 
 
Libretro devs created a
 
[https://github.com/libretro/vbam-libretro/blob/master/src/libretro/gbaconv/gbaconv.c command line tool] to convert libretro-VBA .srm save files to raw .sav save data for other emulators. You can just drag and drop a .srm onto the executable and it will output raw .sav. The same can be done in reverse. A precompiled Windows 64-bit binary of this tool can be found
 
[https://www.mediafire.com/?6bg8ag0bjs1b7ng here].
 
 
 
==Connectivity==
 
===GBA Link Multiplayer (1~4GBA)===
 
* VBA-M: This doesn't work with old VBA versions.
 
 
 
Just disable "Pause when Inactive", configure all four Joypads each with their own button layout, enable "Link, Enable GBA Link". Now open VBA-M again as much times needed for each player, and have them each use their separate Joypad configuration. Each player will have a separate SRAM save file.
 
 
 
* VBA Link + e-Reader
 
A combined version of VBA Link and VBA e-Reader is useful if you want to use the Pokémon Battle-e Cards. Downloads and instructions reside [http://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?42433-RELEASE-VBA-LINK-E-READER here].
 
 
 
* No$GBA: This method also works with DS roms, and that's the actual way to see the incomplete non-functional local Wi-Fi DS multiplayer implementation. (todo)
 
 
 
===GameCube Connectivity===
 
The GBA unit can connect to a GameCube.
 
 
 
====Dolphin and VBA-M====
 
 
 
Game Boy connection support can be supported via joybus emulation. Such requires VBA-M (r947 or newer) and a dump of a GBA BIOS.
 
 
 
'''Connect 1~4 GBA Unit Without Game to GC Game'''
 
 
 
First Part!
 
* Open Dolphin and VBA-M. Make sure neither are blocked by your firmware.
 
* '''Dolphin:''' Start your game and play until you get to the in-game menu where you're asked to connect a GBA. Under the GC controller options (earlier "Config, Gamecube", now it's with the GC/Wii controller options). You have 4 GC controller ports: change how much you need to "GBA". Leave the game and its music running :)
 
* '''VBA-M:''' You'll need to uncheck "Options, Emulator, Pause When Inactive". Then, under "Options, Link, Joybus Options", Make sure to enable "Enable Joybus Connection" and set "IP/Hostname" to use default settings, that is (127.0.0.1) or (localhost) - without the brackets.
 
* THEN, Dolphin will freeze. You'll want to not have the system sound too high if you're using headphones.
 
 
 
Second Part!
 
* '''VBA-M''': Open the GBA BIOS in VBA-M as if it were a regular GBA ROM. There will be that splash screen but it will stutter a bit.
 
* Dolphin should recognize the Joybus Link by then and the GC game will detect that a GBA unit was connected.
 
* To connect other GBA units, open another VBA-M instance and repeat what you did with VBA-M.
 
 
 
Notable games that work:
 
* The Legend of Zelda Four Swords Adventures: Both two modes available for the US/PAL version work. The third Japan-only Navi Trackers mode works as well, but the game crashes after the naming screen due to a bug in the GC/GBA connectivity.
 
* Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
 
* Billy Hatcher: You can download games to your GBA. Amusingly, a RAM dump from VBA-M can be opened as a functional GBA ROM.
 
* Kururin Squash
 
* Sonic Adventure 2 (buggy)
 
 
 
Don't work:
 
* The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker: Tingle Trainer connection always fails, though some messages do display on VBA-M.
 
* Drill Land
 
* Any Pokémon game
 
* lots more
 
 
 
'''Connect GBA Game to GC Game'''
 
 
 
* '''VBA-M''': Under "Emulator, Bios Files" set the GBA BIOS file directory, and have the emulator use it. This will cause each regular GBA rom you load in VBA-M to show the BIOS splash screen then proceed to the game. It has higher compatibility too.
 
* You do the all the steps above in the '''first part''' of the previous section (connecting a GBA unit without Game to a GC game) until the line with Dolphin freezing when you enable Joylink in VBA-M.
 
 
 
Then:
 
* '''VBA-M''': Open the regular GBA ROM to be connected with the GC game in VBA-M as if it were a regular GBA ROM.
 
* There will be that splash screen, but if you do nothing the GBA game starts as usual and the connection doesn't actually happen. What you must do is to hold '''Select+Start''' while the BIOS is loading. This will cause the BIOS animation to stop and wait for connections, and the regular GBA ROM game won't boot immediately. If it goes as intended, VBA-M will stutter a bit and the connection will be initiated.
 
* Dolphin should recognize the Joybus Link by then and the GC game will detect that a GBA unit was connected.
 
* To connect other GBA units, open another VBA-M instance and repeat what you did with VBA-M.
 
 
 
Please note e-Reader functionality with GC games isn't emulated as of yet.
 
 
 
====Dolphin and other emulators====
 
Dolphin devs are working at rewriting the entire GBA connectivity code in a far better way from scratch with more accurate emulators. They did a video using the higan emulator. Nothing of the sort is published at the moment.
 
 
 
===GBA/DS Connectivity===
 
Inserting a GBA card in Slot-2 in a Nintendo DS unit (that's not a DSi) while a DS game is running could unlock various gameplay features in some DS games. DesMume can emulate this: while playing the DS ROM, go to "Config, Slot 2 (GBA Slot)" and select "GBA Cartridge". Now select the GBA ROM file, and make sure its sav file is in the same folder. You may need to reset the game sometimes to see the effect in-game.
 
 
 
===e-Reader===
 
A device that connects to the GBA, which can read content off e-Card paper stripes either as standalone content, or additional content to GBA games (or even GC ones). Also known as the GBA's DLC.
 
 
 
''Main Page: [[GBA e-Reader emulators]]''
 
 
 
==Special Hardware==
 
Most of these have not been emulated as of yet. There used to be patches that could be applied to GBA ROMs with a utility like LunarIPS (mostly from [http://bubbz.pocketheaven.com/?system=gba&section=patch No Frills]), but they're for the most part lost to time nowadays. Your best bet is to use Action Replay to emulate those.
 
 
 
===Solar Sensor===
 
====Emulation====
 
This feature has been emulated in both mGBA and no$gba 2.6 onwards:
 
* mGBA: Under '''Emulation/Solar Sensor'''. You can fine tune brightness levels as you wish, either increasing or decreasing it by in-game increments, or setting it at either maximum levels.
 
* no$GBA: Under '''Options/Emulation Setup''', you can find the Solar Sensor Level option. You are given the choice between only three brightness levels though: Darkness, 100 Watts, and Bright Sunlight.
 
====ROM Patches====
 
Fixes applied directly to the ROM by various scene release groups to make it compatible with any emulator/flashcard, making the in-game brightness level controllable with L+Left/Right. It's argued this makes for a better experience actually, but sadly not all releases are covered.
 
* '''Boktai 1:''' [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1567 JP], [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1145 US], <s>EU</s>.
 
* '''Boktai 2:''' [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1567 JP], <s>US</s>, [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1992 EU].
 
* '''Boktai 3:''' [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=2048 JP Fix].
 
* Combinations of Boktai 4 JP with earlier solar sensors to get solar sensor bonuses aren't emulated yet in any DS emulator.
 
  
===Motion Control===
+
;[[Ryujinx]] <small class="plainlinks" style="font-weight:normal;">([https://github.com/Ryujinx/Ryujinx-Games-List/issues compatibility])</small>
VBA-M has an option for Motion controls "Input, Set, Motion". It currently works with all versions of the GBC title Yoshi Tilt'n Tumble, which also was a special cartridge with a motion sensor built-in to control movement in-game. But VBA-M does not support motion controls for GBA games yet.
+
:An open-source emulator that's programmed in C#. Most 2D games are now booting and running at comfortable speeds and many 3D games are playable. It also supports resolution upscaling to 4K and beyond; custom upscaling/downscaling ratios are supported. Ryujinx now has a disk-based shader cache. Unlike yuzu, Ryujinx does not offer packaged early access builds; however work-in-progress features can still be tested by using Appveyor builds or building locally from unmerged pull requests. Separately, Ryujinx has released a closed source LDN-enabled preview build supporting local wireless multiplayer across the internet, as well as LAN mode compatibility on local networks with Switch consoles on supported games.
====Emulation====
 
* VBA '''doesn't''' emulate this feature, and its "Motion Control" option (with keys mapped to each tilt direction) covers the GBC title Kirby Tilt'n Tumble.
 
* mGBA supposedly includes this feature but key remapping for tilt sensors is not present in the latest builds.
 
====ROM Patches====
 
Fixes applied directly to the ROM (with the LunarIPS utility, or at runtime using mGBA or VBA-M and naming them the same as the ROM in the same directory) by various scene release groups to make it compatible with any emulator/flashcard. D-Pad controls substituting motion controls don't work as well here as they tilt it "too much" at times to be very playable.
 
* Yoshi Topsy Turvy/Universal Gravitation: [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1799 JP], [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1947 EU], [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=2001 US]
 
* Warioware Twisted! (Patch: [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1682 JP], [http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1979 US])
 
  
===Rumble Feature===
+
;Skyline
There are various rumble features found in GBA/GBC cards:
+
:An open-source [[Compatibility layers|compatibility layer]] for ARMv8 [[Android]] devices. For the sake of convenience, the team bills the app as an emulator, but it functionally works like [[Wine]], running almost all of the original code on bare metal except for what interfaces with the rest of the system. At the moment Skyline does not have any graphical output, but some games do boot with audio only.
* '''GBC Rumble:''' GBC games which came on special cartridges with additional hardware for the rumble feature. It was actually used by dozens of releases, and some games like Tarzan 2 GBC were programmed to have rumble support but shipped on regular cartridges. Emulated by VBA-M GX (Wii-only), which also cover the dummied-out rumble games. Not emulated anywhere else.
 
* '''GBA Gyro Rumble:''' WarioWare Twisted was shipped on a cart with rumble support. It would rumble when you tilt to one "extreme". Emulated by VBA-M GX (Wii-only, functional), mGBA has this feature but it's not enabled in current builds.
 
* '''GBA Variable Rumble:''' Drill Dozer has rumble support, with variable force and speed depending on the rock type you drill through ingame. Partially emulated by VBA-M GX (Wii-only, functional), mGBA has this feature but it's not enabled in current builds.
 
* '''Game Boy Player Rumble:''' Many regular GBA games, shipped on regular cartridges, enable rumble during gameplay when played on GB Player hardware (which is essentially GBA hardware). These include Super Mario Advance 4, Summon Night Hajimari no Ishi, Mario & Luigi 1, Shikakui Atama wo Marukusuru Advance (both releases), Pokémon Pinball, as well as Drill Dozer which disables its original cartridge rumble scheme and enables this one instead. None of the emulators support this, though it's being under development for the mGBA emulator.
 
  
===Figurine Readers===
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;Egg NS
* '''Figurine Add-on:''' Legendz: Isle Of Trials, Legendz: Sign Of Necromu, Plaston Gate ([http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=1020 Fix]), Plaston Gate DX ([http://www.advanscene.com/html/Releases/dbreleases.php?id=2006 Fix]). The add-on is essentially Skylanders before it became popular.
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:Claimed the first spot in getting games running on Android. 81 titles are purported to work, and the rest are either not working or assumed to fail. There is significant controversy surrounding this emulator for the following reasons: the current version lacks any onscreen buttons and instead requires users to purchase a specific controller; it expects to run on a high-end device within the ballpark of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855/855+/865/865+; it was discovered to have violated GPLv2 licensing requirements by using code from yuzu in a disallowed manner. Made by the Chinese illegal market.
  
===Other Add-ons===
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==See also==
Not emulated yet:
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* [[Emulators on Switch]]
  
* Battle Chip Gate (and variations): compatible with Japanese versions of Megaman Zero 3, Megaman Battle Network 4, 4.5, 5 and 6.
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==References==
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<references />
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{{Nintendo}}
  
 
[[Category:Consoles]]
 
[[Category:Consoles]]
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[[Category:Handheld consoles]]
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[[Category:Home consoles]]
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[[Category:Hybrid consoles]]
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[[Category:Eighth-generation video game consoles]]
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[[Category:Nintendo consoles]]
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[[Category:Nintendo Switch emulators|*]]

Revision as of 15:02, 21 July 2021

Nintendo Switch
Nintendo-switch.png
Switchdocked.png
The Switch in its two forms, portable (above) and docked (below).
Developer Nintendo
Type Hybrid video game console
Generation Eighth generation
Release date 2017
Predecessor Wii U
Emulated

The Nintendo Switch is an eighth-generation hybrid gaming console released by Nintendo on March 3, 2017 and retailed for $299.99. During its development, the Switch was known as the NX (short for NeXt or Nintendo "Cross") and was widely speculated up until its announcement. Aside from specialized components unique to the console, the hardware is more or less off-the-shelf, being built around a semi-custom variant of Nvidia's Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip which was also used on a number of Android devices. The Switch contains 4 ARM Cortex-A57 CPUs and 4 ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs running at 1.020 GHz with 4GB of RAM and a proprietary GPU codenamed GM20B.

While Nintendo intended to step up the security of the console, vulnerabilities were still found early on that allowed tons of system files to be dumped, including dumps of games in the form of romfs.istorage archives, an exefs folder, and license files. These game dumps eventually got shared online by scene groups except for their licenses but were missing important files to run and even if they had been completed, there were no custom homebrew apps let alone solutions to load unofficial game dumps for the system. A number of prominent hacking teams (starting with shuffle2 and fail0verflow in collaboration) all came across a new exploit independently of each other that allowed complete control over the system, later officially recognized by Nvidia as CVE-2018-6242.

A "debugging emulator" for the Nintendo Switch, CageTheUnicorn (now Mephisto), popped up not long after the first components were dumped. It was designed to emulate sysmodules with "no support for graphics, sound, input, or any kind of even remotely performant processing [...] by design". A couple of months later, members of both the Citra and Dolphin teams announced the release of their own emulator written in c++, which was capable of booting some homebrew applications; within a couple of weeks yet another emulator named Ryujinx, written in c# by developer gdkchan, was released showing successful booting of commercial Switch games Puyo Puyo Tetris and Sonic Mania.

Emulators

Name Platform(s) Latest Version FLOSS Active Recommended
PC / x86
yuzu Windows Linux Nightly
Ryujinx Windows Linux macOS Nightly
NSEmu Windows Git
Mephisto Linux macOS v1.2.1, Git
CageTheUnicorn Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD Git
Mobile / ARM
Egg NS Android 1.0.6
Skyline Android 0.3
yuzu (compatibility)
An open-source emulator made by many of Citra's developers. As it is a hard fork of Citra it shares many of its traits, namely cross-platform support and the use of OpenGL (though unlike Citra it also supports Vulkan). Many 2D games now render graphics properly and at good speeds; many 3D games are playable. This emulator currently offers early access builds to $5/month Patreon subscribers which allows them to utilize new features prior to their eventual release on the mainline build. One of yuzu's notable features is its disk-based shader cache for OpenGL, negating the need to compile shaders on the fly on every boot. uses leaked sdks
Ryujinx (compatibility)
An open-source emulator that's programmed in C#. Most 2D games are now booting and running at comfortable speeds and many 3D games are playable. It also supports resolution upscaling to 4K and beyond; custom upscaling/downscaling ratios are supported. Ryujinx now has a disk-based shader cache. Unlike yuzu, Ryujinx does not offer packaged early access builds; however work-in-progress features can still be tested by using Appveyor builds or building locally from unmerged pull requests. Separately, Ryujinx has released a closed source LDN-enabled preview build supporting local wireless multiplayer across the internet, as well as LAN mode compatibility on local networks with Switch consoles on supported games.
Skyline
An open-source compatibility layer for ARMv8 Android devices. For the sake of convenience, the team bills the app as an emulator, but it functionally works like Wine, running almost all of the original code on bare metal except for what interfaces with the rest of the system. At the moment Skyline does not have any graphical output, but some games do boot with audio only.
Egg NS
Claimed the first spot in getting games running on Android. 81 titles are purported to work, and the rest are either not working or assumed to fail. There is significant controversy surrounding this emulator for the following reasons: the current version lacks any onscreen buttons and instead requires users to purchase a specific controller; it expects to run on a high-end device within the ballpark of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855/855+/865/865+; it was discovered to have violated GPLv2 licensing requirements by using code from yuzu in a disallowed manner. Made by the Chinese illegal market.

See also

References