nxdumptool/README.md

nxdumptool

Nintendo Switch Dump Tool

Official Discord server: https://discord.gg/SCbbcQx

This branch is used for the development of the ongoing nxdumptool rewrite. Code is highly experimental and lacks a proper UI at this time, but it has been thoroughly tested and should be safe to use. Proof-of-concept (PoC) builds are provided to test different aspects of the codebase.

If a nxdumptool build from the releases page isn't working for whatever you're trying to do (e.g. RomFS dumping), odds are it will work with a PoC build from this particular branch. The old branch will not receive any further updates.

A GitHub workflow is used to automatically build each new commit -- feel free to check it out. Furthermore, the assets from the rewrite-prerelease tag are automatically updated by this workflow, so you can always find the latest NRO binary there.

This readme will be updated whenever the rewrite branch is ready for a proper release.

Currently planned changes for this branch include:

• USB ABI (dump data directly to a PC). ✅
• USB Mass Storage device support (FAT, NTFS, EXT) via libusbhsfs. ✅
• NX Card Image (XCI) gamecard dumps, with optional KeyArea prepending and certificate removal. ✅
• Gamecard header dumps. ✅
• Gamecard certificate dumps. ✅
• Plaintext gamecard CardInfo area dumps. ✅
• Gamecard InitialData area dumps. ✅
• Gamecard CardIdSet dumps. ✅
• Gamecard Hash FS partition dumps (in both extracted and raw image forms). ✅
• Lotus ASIC firmware (LAFW) blob dumping from RAM. ✅
• Properly detect if an inserted gamecard requires a LAFW update. ✅
• Nintendo Submission Package (NSP) dumps for both digital and gamecard-based titles.
• Individual Ticket dumps from digital titles, with support for temporary/volatile tickets with AES-128-CTR crypto data kept in RAM.
• Individual Nintendo Content Archive (NCA) dumps from a specific title. ✅
• Individual NCA filesystem section (Partition FS / ExeFS, RomFS, Patch RomFS) dumps from a specific NCA belonging to a specific title, in both extracted and raw image forms. ✅
• Better support for NCA BucketTree storages (Indirect, AesCtrEx, Sparse, Compressed), as well as better handling of multi-layered reads in combination with game updates. ✅
• System title support (e.g. dump qlaunch, shared fonts and much, much more at runtime). ✅
• Better memory handling while dealing with compressed NRO binaries. ✅
• Event-driven background threads to manage gamecard insertions/ejections, gamecard application metadata parsing (e.g. the game would be properly identified even if its gamecard has never been used on your console), USB ABI sessions and USB Mass Storage devices. ✅
• Improved support for multigame gamecards and titles with more than one Program NCA (e.g. SM3DAS). ✅
• Control.nacp patching while dumping NSPs (lets you patch screenshot, video, user account and HDCP restrictions). ✅
• Partition FS / Hash FS / RomFS browser using custom devoptab wrappers. ✅
• Full system update dumps with checksum and signature verification. ✅
• Batch NSP dumps. ❌
• FsFileSystem + FatFs based eMMC browser using a custom devoptab wrapper (allows copying files protected by the FS sysmodule at runtime). ❌
• New UI using a customized borealis fork. ⚠️

Legend:

• ✅ - Implemented
• ⚠️ - Partially implemented
• ❌ - Not implemented