Nintendo Switch V2 Modding
Amatista Sheeley
I don't think so. From what I've googled, you need a hacked Switch to begin with, then some third-party file system called "LayeredFS". I'm a thousand percent positive Big N hasn't given that their Seal of Approval. Which is a shame really. I could do with Flower GIrls SE and a nice female body on the go :smile:
Legal != Nintendo or bethesda approved
It is legal, owning a hacked switch is perfectly legal, as long as you don't use it to do illegal things like pirating games.
If you just use it for homebrew and modding it is perfectly legal, all being said, it being legal do not mean that nintendo is not going to ban you if Nintendo detects that your switch is hacked, science it is against Nintendo's TOS.
Legal? yes
You may get your switch banned from online? also yes.
As long as the mods do not have copyrighted material it should be legal, and the CFW that you use to load the mods is also free from copyrighted material if you use atmosphere, for a better point of view, hacking a switch is not very different from installing SKSE on pc, is software without copyrighted material done by reverse engineering to modify the intended behavior, so modding a hacked switch is not very different from a legality point of view than installing skse mods in a skyrim with skse installed on pc.
Nintendo has launched a new lawsuit targeting a Switch modding company after offering a no-charge exit to the defendant. At the same time, Nintendo has also filed another lawsuit against James Williams, whom it believes has been a driving force in the piracy of numerous Switch consoles.
Nintendo has long been on a crusade to eliminate any rights violations related to its products, whether they be ROM sites, game leaks before official releases, or emulator creators. Earlier this year, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Tropic Haze, the company responsible for creating Yuzu, a Switch emulator. The lawsuit favored Nintendo and settled that Yuzu creators should pay $2.4 million to the Japanese company, a relatively nominal sum to Nintendo but likely intended to send a message to future piracy attempts.
Still, not everyone was deterred by Nintendo's anti-piracy measures, as the company has now filed a lawsuit targeting a Switch modding company. According to TorrentFreak, Nintendo's first lawsuit is directed at Modded Hardware, specifically Ryan Daly, who runs the group. The document states that Nintendo had asked him to stop illegal activities, including selling MIG devices and modded Switch consoles.
Although Daly agreed to the order in March, he continued to sell the pirated device, leading to the lawsuit. According to the allegations, Nintendo claims that Modded Hardware sells various hardware that allows the Switch to run pirated copies of its games. It's unknown what Nintendo is demanding with this lawsuit, but in the past, Nintendo calculated how many times Tears of the Kingdom was pirated and the impact on sales to determine the cost.
But Nintendo didn't stop there. Besides the lawsuit against Ryan Daly, the company is also suing James Williams, an Arizona resident, who Nintendo alleges is the "operator, overseer, and driving force behind several Pirate Shops, through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games." Williams also acted as a moderator for the SwitchPirates group on Reddit, where he used the name Archbox and, according to Nintendo, assisted users with questions related to unlocking the Switch. Some homebrews found on the group involve running Android on the Nintendo Switch or updating games without going online.
Nintendo's anti-piracy initiatives have intensified recently, with many believing the company is preparing for the eventual launch of its next console. The company recently revealed plans to prevent Switch 2 scalping, which is another indicator that Nintendo's next console might be closer than gamers expect.
I don't recall Nintendo being so severe with piracy as it is being nowadays. And these lawsuits doesn't even make a sense, anything sells a lot on switch and preventing a dozen of people to mod their switchs will not increase sales in way that it will make the diference.
Talk of potential tech specs for 'Switch 2' has been floating about for so long by this point, it seems that the whole thing is going around in circles. Will Nintendo's follow-up be able to run 4K or won't it? It's something that we have heard time and time again, and now one modder has taken things into their own hands to make their current Switch hit these resolution dreams (thanks, WCCFTech).
The modder behind the YouTube account naga has been busy at work tweaking the specs of their Switch OLED, modding the console to swap out its standard RAM modules for two higher frequency 4GB modules, effectively doubling its power in the process
Many Switch games appear to be hard-capped to 4GB of RAM, rendering the mod ineffective, however, naga was able to get The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to make the most of the additions, pushing the game to run at 4K resolution thanks to a good amount of overclocking.
Of course, this isn't something that we will be trying ourselves (and we'd advise that you don't either, looking at the performance results) but it does beg an interesting question about whether Nintendo will actually pull through and achieve such technical wizardry for whatever console comes next. Rumours out of last year's GamesCom suggested that the follow-up was shown to developers behind closed doors at the event, with the demo reportedly running Breath of the Wild at 4K 60FPS.
Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.
I'm curious how they instructed the Switch to even output 4K video.
I'm aware that homebrew can be used to overclock the hardware's RAM timing, CPU frequency, GPU frequency, etc, but actually changing the video output beyond 1080p is interesting.
Whilst of course emulation has demonstrated Switch games can run better on more powerful hardware, what I truly want is that Switch 2 that can run that whole back-catalogue of Switch games with instant performance upgrades even without dedicated FPS / internal resolution unlock updates.
Tears of the Kingdom runs an internal resolution of 900p, but modding has demonstrated it can do higher (or lower) internal resolutions if you want.
No thanks, I'll take performance - doesn't even matter if it's 30fps instead of 60 for most games even though the latter is obviously even better as long as it's consistent (so the former is more realistic) - over higher resolutions any day.
That said, I'm expecting Switch 2 to output 1080p and potentially achieve 4k docked through other means, although again what I'd like to see the most myself is better performance first and foremost and hopefully also for Switch games if it has backward compatibility as it should.
4k handheld is most likely done with DLSS/RT AI performances. There's only so much a hand held GPU can do unDocked vs Docked mode specs. It's never going to be PS5 levels that impossible in held held and if so it would be cost prohibited that any general consumer couldn't even afford here. That's why Switch 2 with DLSS/RT is the feasible options to get 4k performances without putting it out of reach for the masses if they want a return for the Switch 2 tech.
@SuperBro64 I saw the video too, and I believe it to be misleading. He was playing the un-updated version of the game on yuzu with Linux running on his modded switch, while the native switch version he showed that ran like crap was updated to the latest version. I own Minecraft for switch, and it's practically unplayable after all the updates, so it's hardly a surprise.
An interesting experiment, but we all (should) know Nintendo is well aware of their hardware limitations and produce their first party games with performance in mind while using established techniques to make the graphics look "good enough".
Personally, I'm grateful for that. I come back to Nintendo consoles to play fun stylized games. If I wanted a cinematic experience I'd get a PS5 instead
There's some real pretty things in TotK, but also some pretty ugly ones. Now, a game that keeps me entertained for 350h+, cleary doesn't need 4k, or better graphics, it's a great game as it is. At least to me.
Thinking about it, isn't this just a generational thing? I started playing on an Amstrad computer, and graphics didn't mean anything back in the days. Now when you've never played anything else than PS4 or 5, I can imagine that anything else must look quite ugly to you. Too bad for you.
The dream for TOTK on Switch 2 is near-instant loading times. Imagine traveling about Hyrule, stumbling across a Shrine, activating the portal and walking right in, absolutely zero loading times between your character entering and exiting the Shrine.
@RupeeClock the Switch hardware is capable of 4K 30FPS, but Nintendo soft limited it to 1080P 60FPS. Overclocking can unleash full power, and from there you can probably patch the system to allow 4K resolution.
I had wondered if the current Switch could run games at 4K for a few months now, questioning if one could take a title that doesn't take much of anything to run [say, a Game Boy rom for example] and through clever programing make it run on a stock Switch in 4K. I mean, is there anything truly stopping the current Switch from running a non-demanding game in 4K through the use of the OLED dock?