# Hydra

Hydra is an experimental Nintendo Switch emulator for macOS.

## Status

The emulator is still in very early stages. A few games and homebrew apps work perfectly, but most will either crash or have issues that make them unplayable.

![Showcase](img/showcase.png)

Only the NRO, NCA and NX formats are supported. You can convert an NSP file to NCA with [this tool](https://github.com/SamoZ256/switch-extract-macos), and NSP to NX with [this tool](https://github.com/SamoZ256/herakles).

In order to run official games, you will need to download a set of patches to prevent crashes. You can get the patches together with a guide on how to install them [here](https://github.com/SamoZ256/hydra-patches).

## Usage

You can download the latest release from [here](https://github.com/SamoZ256/hydra/releases/latest).

### Dependencies

You can install Hydra dependencies with a package manager of your choice, like `brew`.

```sh
brew install cmake ninja sdl3 fmt
```

### Building

First, clone the repository and update submodules.

```sh
git clone https://github.com/SamoZ256/hydra.git
cd hydra
git submodule update --init --recursive
```

Now configure CMake and build with Ninja.

```sh
cmake . -B build -G Ninja -DMACOS_BUNDLE=ON
ninja -C build
```

You will find a macOS app at `build/bin/Hydra.app`. If you want to use the SwiftUI frontend instead of `SDL3`, you can use the `-DFRONTEND=SwiftUI` option.

### Configuring

You can find a config file at `~/Library/Application Support/Hydra/config.toml` after launching the emulator at least once.

#### Firmware

Some games require firmware files from a Nintendo Switch console to function properly. The firmware files need to be decrypted, which can be done with [this tool](https://github.com/SamoZ256/switch-extract-macos).

To use the firmware, set the `firmware_path` option in the config file to the path of the decrypted firmware files.

## Contributing

Pull requests are very welcome. Feel free to join the official [Discord server](https://discord.gg/FZ742SWv8f) for better communication.