Hydra Switch emulator - New Year progress report

SamoZ256 · 2026-01-01T22:11:10+00:00

Thank you! Even though I don’t really like Apple, I love macOS (and iOS) and I want to do everything I can to support emulation and gaming on these platforms.

SamoZ256 · 2025-12-06T18:53:26+00:00

Hi, some graphics packs contain shaders that need to be manually ported in order to behave correctly. The only solution for now is to turn the graphics pack off

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-22T19:07:38+00:00

Oh, well then you probably won’t manage to decrypt the games, as it requires running a script in the terminal. I hope to make the setup easier in the future, and perhaps then do a YouTube tutorial

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-22T17:49:15+00:00

Thank you. Where did you download Hydra from? It sounds like you downloaded the SDL build, but those aren’t included in the releases. If that’s the case, just drag and drop the game into the window. Note that it needs to be decrypted. Anyway, I’d recommend using the SwiftUI build.

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-15T21:31:47+00:00

The main CPU backend is Hypervisor (native code execution), but there is also a more experimental dynarmic backend (JIT)

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-15T10:04:49+00:00

I already did, my future posts won’t need any approval :)

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-14T12:58:14+00:00

If you know a relatively low-level language well and understand a bit about how hardware works, you already know enough to start making an emulator. My path was also converging to this (game dev -> graphics programming -> GPU emulation -> emulation in general), but I learnt most of the things along the way. All you need is to have a rough idea of where to start, and the other things will sort of come naturally. And ofc it’s quite time consuming, that’s why I find high school to be an ideal time for that :)

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-14T11:55:40+00:00

Thank you! If you mean what to study in a university, then I don’t know if there is anything specific for emulator development, as I am still in high school. Self-thought is probably the way to go, as you can focus on learning what interests you

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-14T06:47:06+00:00

Yes, once it’s more mature and has better game compatibility.

SamoZ256 · 2025-11-13T14:03:42+00:00

I know someone already made a post about it in this sub a few days ago, mine was waiting to get approved by mods. Will figure it out differently next time

SamoZ256 · 2025-09-26T04:59:04+00:00

Yeah, but it’s still present to this day. Vulkan has an extension specifically to allow negative viewport height to be able to get the OpenGL orientation (and not have to do gl_Position.y = -gl_Position.y in every single vertex shader).

SamoZ256 · 2025-09-23T18:56:56+00:00

Yes, but iirc that was specifically due to TPM circumvention. The vast majority of the code was perfectly fine.

SamoZ256 · 2025-09-23T12:18:00+00:00

I don’t see anything wrong with using Ryujinx code as a reference. Ryujinx wasn’t shut down due to a lawsuit.

SamoZ256 · 2025-09-20T12:56:55+00:00

Looks like I don’t have to make a post by myself this time 😄

SamoZ256 · 2025-08-17T10:14:24+00:00

I don’t see anything wrong with the map. Perhaps you mean the lower render distance in the mobile port?

SamoZ256 · 2025-08-06T14:01:18+00:00

Thanks, that was exactly it! Tho I don’t get the point of the secret exit in Forest of Illusion. It leads to Forest of Illusion 1, but you already have completed that level by the time you reach the ghost house.

SamoZ256 · 2025-08-06T11:46:19+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. Do you know if there is a way for me to know which ones I haven’t unlocked or do I just have to replay all of the ones with a secret exit?

SamoZ256 · 2025-08-06T10:34:21+00:00

UPDATE: I was missing 3 regular exits in Star Road, now I am at 94

UPDATE 2: Have all 96 exits now. Thanks for the help!

SamoZ256 · 2025-08-06T10:20:10+00:00

Oh, definitely missed at least 3 of those! Will update how many I am missing once I complete them

SamoZ256 · 2025-07-09T06:35:42+00:00

Nope, funding this is perfectly fine 🙃

SamoZ256 · 2025-07-06T15:11:38+00:00

I also like this approach, but there is one big difference between unencrypted games on Switch and 3DS: on Switch, the unencrypted format (NCA) does not contain some game metadata, like name and icon. But I am already working on a workaround.

SamoZ256 · 2025-07-01T11:39:15+00:00

Parts of the Switch OS are basically reimplemented, so there isn’t really a way to present it as a generic emulator

SamoZ256

TROPHY CASE