A modder has hacked the Nintendo Switch to run Steam, and found some very interesting results testing some popular AAA games on the console.
While we won’t explain the details of how this modder did it, we’ll go through the broad strokes. Nintendo Switch hacking has been around for quite some time, allowing gamers to load up their own operating systems.
However, our modder took the trouble of loading up the desktop Linux OS Ubuntu, and then using several tools to run Steam, and Windows based games on the console.
Steam can be run natively on Linux, but for Windows games to run on the Switch, our modder had to use several modder tools. As far as we know, this is the first time any modder tried to do this to run Windows games on Switch.
The first tool he used is WiNE, a compatibility layer that allows Linux to work with the Windows API.
The second tool in his arsenal was Box64. Box 64 is a translation layer that works with CPU architectures instead of APIs. Box64 allows x64 applications to run on ARM.
Finally, DXVK is a translation layer for graphics APIs. It allows programming meant for DirectX to run on Vulkan.
These may all seem overly complicated details, but they serve to make the point that most gamers with modded consoles, even most hackers, don’t have the knowhow to do this.
Our modder demonstrated Steam running on their Nintendo Switch, but found that they would overtax the system if it had Steam running in the background while running high end video games. So, he also made arrangements to run the following Windows games without loading up Steam.
To sum, he tested Titanfall 2, Grand Theft Auto 5, Devil May Cry 5, and finally, God of War. All of these games can run on the Nintendo Switch, but there’s a catch.
All of these games also ran on poor framerates, so slow that they’re basically unplayable. Titanfall 2 was the closest to playable with its sub 20 FPS framerates, but you can also observe something else quite interesting in the video.
And that would be the fact that none of these games actually crashed. While the aging Tegra X2 CPU wasn’t quite up to the task of getting these games performing well, it could make them run.
And this is where we talk about the elephant in the room when it comes to this fun exercise. The thing is, we already know the Nintendo Switch can run games way above its weight class. It has very well ported versions of games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Doom: Eternal.
While most gamers associate the Nintendo name with older hardware, everything changed significantly when they partnered with Nvidia.
Nvidia has every incentive to give Nintendo better CPU/SOC technology than AMD did to power their current and future consoles. After all, they beat AMD to the punch on making a mobile CPU as powerful as a games console all the way back in 2014.
If Rockstar and Capcom were interested, they could definitely find a suitable porting studio good enough to bring their high end games to the Nintendo Switch, and make them perform well, if graphical compromises have to be made along the way.
In any case, all of this could be a hypothetical question anyway, with the possibility that Nintendo will announce their next console soon enough. In the meantime, you can marvel at how much can be squeezed out of the Nintendo’s Tegra processor in this modder video below.
