Hacking Do you think that hackers will ever take full control of the switch?

[Dax_Fame]

Every time you change source code, or use a different compiler, then fast the software runs will change. It can go faster, it can go slower. Usually it goes slower.

So it's the performance of Horizon OS? And essentially than cannot be improved? Or rather, how the code of Retroarch "communicates" with the drivers in that environment??

These are the questions that have been cropping up in my head recently about everything and I suddenly have a desire to learn programming just to gain an understanding for these things...

I haven't had an itch to understand something like this in like 15 years! I want to be able to look at source code and sort of understand what it does.

 

[smf]

So it's the performance of Horizon OS? And essentially than cannot be improved? Or rather, how the code of Retroarch "communicates" with the drivers in that environment??

It could be anything, it may or may not be possible to improve it. It might require unique solutions to improve performance for horizon.

 

[TheCyberQuake]

If it did lock it down there would be but are there any things that get locked down in this boot process that we don't have access to? As far as I am aware every piece of hardware can be spoken to at full speed and capability and code run at the highest privilege levels if so desired.

Just wanted to point out that yes, this does make a major difference. Just look at 3DS. A9LH was later in the boot process, and thus some things like boot9 and boot11 were locked out by the time a9lh kicked in, making it so you couldn't dump them from a9lh. But with b9s, You can very easily dump those. Earlier in the boot process does in fact give you access to more things than something later in the boot process, meaning anything that loads earlier is inherently a better exploit as it gives you access to more things.

Also, dang I wish I could be as optimistic as some of the people here. Is it possible we see something in the future? Yes. But "100%" is grossly overestimating it. It's sad that people were so spoiled by the wii, wii u and 3ds and have no clue what it's like having something that's actually fairly secured. Would it be nice to get something, definitely. But don't get your hopes up because with how secure the switch is, you may not be seeing anything for the revisions or 9.x+ for a very long time, and quite possibly never.

 

[FAST6191]

Just wanted to point out that yes, this does make a major difference. Just look at 3DS. A9LH was later in the boot process, and thus some things like boot9 and boot11 were locked out by the time a9lh kicked in, making it so you couldn't dump them from a9lh. But with b9s, You can very easily dump those. Earlier in the boot process does in fact give you access to more things than something later in the boot process, meaning anything that loads earlier is inherently a better exploit as it gives you access to more things.

Also, dang I wish I could be as optimistic as some of the people here. Is it possible we see something in the future? Yes. But "100%" is grossly overestimating it. It's sad that people were so spoiled by the wii, wii u and 3ds and have no clue what it's like having something that's actually fairly secured. Would it be nice to get something, definitely. But don't get your hopes up because with how secure the switch is, you may not be seeing anything for the revisions or 9.x+ for a very long time, and quite possibly never.

That seems pedantic at best.

If I look at the PS3 otherOS and see a nerfed 3d API and down a SPU that is not full control.
If I look at the DSi and see just DS mode (no boosted CPU, extra wifi, cameras, screen res...) then that is not full control.
If I look at the 360 DVD mods (or sky3ds, or early wii mod chips) and see I can only run essentially 1:1 commercial games, no homebrew, no mods, no DLC/download games without additional hacks (which may or may not have existed at the time) then that is not full control.

If I look at the Switch I see no functional equivalent to that. We have every bit of hardware that is going to run either in a commercial game or firmware if that is a higher privilege level. Being able to dump an early stage boot is nice to have but if all it really does is cede control to a firmware then eh really, even more so if there was a mod out there which dumped those earlier stages .