All these news about Yuzu made me realized I never tried a switch emulator. For education purposes I am interested in guides with links to prod keys. Anyone have any links?

Thanks in advance!

  • current@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    download Ryujinx, get keys by downloading them from a site (like from prodkeys.net) and you should get files “prod.keys” and “title.keys”, place them in “./Ryujinx/system/”. then you can go on a site like www.nxbrew.com, download nsp or xci files of the game (and a potential updates and whatever dlc), and throw them in folders of your choice (i personally have a “roms” folder with all my game files for different consoles, including a “switch” folder, with folders called “games” and subfolders “updates”, “dlc”, “mods”, “cheats”).

    then, get on ryujinx, select the folder with your games as your game directory, and your games should be visible. you can right click on the game on the list and add updates or dlc, you can go to the mod directory ryujinx made for the game and add a bunch of folders with the mod data inside of it (for example, for ACNH i might have a folder called “360_camera” and inside of it will be a folder called “romfs”/“romFs” which will have a bunch of files/folders for the mod in it) and then select the mods to enable. for cheats you just need a folder named “cheats” in the mod directory and then you can put cheats for the game in plain text in the folder.

    you can also mess with the graphics settings, use an input device (probably an xbox/playstation/switch controller), change datetime (although i find it doesn’t allow you to make the date out of sync with your device’s date, so you may want to go to your computer settings and manually change it if you want to do that), etc.

    redditors even on piracy subs treat actually pirating things like it’s voldemort, so when i wanted to emulate switch games it was a pain in the ass for me to find out what i needed to do, i hope this helps you not run into those issues lol.

    • Ascyron@lemmy.one
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      9 months ago

      If one owned a real switch would that alter any of the steps? Like, I imagine whatever keys you need would be on it?

      For the record I know nothing and am just guesstimating based on 90’s PS1 emulation.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah, you can technically extract your own keys from your own Switch, and (at least with current laws and court precedents) that would be legal. But extracting the keys requires hacking your Switch, which either requires an early generation Switch (early Switch models have an unpatchable exploit that allows them to be hacked via the USB-C and MicroSD ports,) or installing a modchip in newer/current Switch models. And that’s probably more involved than you’d like to be.

        There’s also the whole issue with Lockpick (the homebrew utility used to actually extract the keys from a hacked Switch and dump them onto the MicroSD card,) being taken down by Nintendo months ago. So even if you tried to get the keys in a more legit way, you’d still need to visit some sketchy sites just to get the Lockpick homebrew. This is also how you could acquire the firmware files in a legit way. You can just extract the files directly from your Switch.

        But that’s a lot of extra effort (and a lot of potential for bricking your Switch when trying to install a modchip) when you can just download all the necessary files.

      • current@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        I’m pretty sure the only difference would be that people with a jailbroken switch can extract prod.keys from it. But afaik most of the tools people made to assist with that got obliterated so I don’t think it’s worth doing for most people.

  • adr1an@programming.dev
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    9 months ago

    Right now, yuzu emulator is being forked and taken over by multiple developers, re-releasing and promising to continue its development in spite of Nintendo lawyers. For example, nuzu. All this is to say that is not the best time for a newbie to jump in, unless they are willing to re-jump in whatever fork out there turns to have a good community of developers and resists Nintendo efforts to shut them off.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The Switch is a little more involved, simply because it requires firmware and encryption keys from a switch. Sort of like the BIOS files that PSX emulators need, these files tell the emulator how to actually decrypt the game. Because Switch games are encrypted, so they can’t be played without extracting keys that are stored on a real Switch. There’s also the issue of game updates, DLC installation, etc… So it’s not as simple as just “download the ROM” anymore.

      Sure, you’re 90% of the way there. But that’s not super helpful when everyone knows (and expects) that 90%. It’s the last 10% that trips up newcomers, and it’s what causes the most questions, (just like OP’s.)