Switch News: Firmware 10.0.3 released with changes so minor that Atmosphere is still compatible & m4xw currently porting Citra (3DS emulator) to the console!
Without a doubt, interest in the Switch from the hacking community is quite high and when a firmware update is out, many users tend to get scared as it may break their favourite CFW. However, this is not the case with the recently-released FW 10.0.3 and in this article, we’ll also be looking at m4xw’s efforts in porting Citra over to the console!
Firmware 10.0.3 released & Atmosphere 0.12.0 still compatible
Earlier today, Nintendo released Firmware 10.0.3 which is a little under a month since their latest bug-fix firmware released in late April. As hinted by its version number, this update is a minor update with Nintendo’s official changelog simply stating “General system stability improvements to enhance the user’s experience.” in regards to it.
However, a more in-depth analysis on the SwitchBrew website shows that the new firmware comes with a one minor change namely the addition of a new Certificate Authority for a CA certificate since it was going to expire in 4 days.
The SwitchBrew website also states that it fixes no security flaws from the previous version so if you’re on FW 10.0.2, updating probably won’t reduce your chances of hacking your non-fusee gelee vulnerable console through a software hack. Other than this, there’s also more good news with this new firmware update as SciresM confirmed that it is fully compatible with the current Atmosphere 0.12.0 meaning that no update will be issued to add compatibility. A Reddit user has also reported that SX OS 2.9.5 works on FW 10.0.3.
m4xw working on porting Citra to Horizon OS
Lately, the Nintendo 3DS has been in the limelight with the release of Citra for Android and it’s also been receiving more love from its homebrew community. Now, work is under way by scene veteran m4xw to provide the ability to emulate this 9 year old console on the Nintendo Switch which can be seen as its indirect successor.
This work was revealed yesterday after m4xw shared a string of tweets on Twitter demonstrating progress on porting Citra to Horizon OS which can be summed up as follows:
- In the first tweet, m4xw revealed that Citra was running natively on the Switch although the port was in a bit of a rough state as various bugs needed to be addressed
- The dynamic recompiler was also functional at this point which is an instrumental feature in getting playable performance on the Switch
- Issues relating to frame deviation were noticed but these were fixed in the next tweet
- In the second tweet, the 3DS port of Zelda Majora’s Mask was demonstrated running with excellent performance meaning that the frame deviation issues were fixed
- In the final tweet, m4xw reported that the OpenGL shader cache had been backported
Without a doubt, the progress done by m4xw is quite promising but no release date has been given but seeing m4xw’s rapid progress, a release may not to be too far off.
You may follow m4xw’s Twitter for the latest update regarding a Citra port for the Switch. m4xw may also be supported via Patreon.
Conclusion
Other than these releases, the Switch also received Ren’Py 1.7.1 which is an interpreter for Python-based visual novel games. ElevenMPV-A 3.0, which is an unofficial modified version of Joel16’s ElevenMPV, was also released which comes with better performance, the ability to access partitions like grw0/xmc0, an equaliser and various UI improvements.
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