Switch OC Suite

Overclocking suite for Nintendo Switch™ Horizon OS (HOS) running on Atmosphere CFW.

This project will not be actively maintained or regularly updated along with Atmosphere CFW.

DISCLAIMER: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

• Overclocking in general (often combined with overvolting and overheating) will degrade internal components - SoC, VRM(Voltage Regulator Module), Battery, etc. - faster than you and the manufacturer have expected.

• Higher RAM clocks without proper timings could be UNSTABLE and cause graphical glitches / instabilities / filesystem corruption. Always make backup before usage.

• Why no CPU/GPU OC for Erista?

  • Tegra X1 on Erista is on TSMC 20nm HPM node, consumes much more power (~2x) and generates much more heat, compared to Tegra X1+ on Mariko (TSMC 16nm FinFET).

    • Erista Switch uses lower speedo (=== lower quality === higher voltage required) SoC from NVIDIA. You will NOT get comparable performance to NVIDIA Shield TV no matter what.
    • Snapdragon 810 (4 x A57 @ 2.0GHz + 4 x A53) also uses 20nm HPM, see how it plagued Android phones in 2014.

  • The board power supply is quite limited, even if you've done cooling mod.

    • You could spot battery draining at higher clocks under stress test, even with official 39W PD charger.
    • CPU / GPU performance at max clocks will be worse if power supply is not enough.

  • CPU OC (up to ~ 2.1 GHz, depending on your CPU bin) is available mainly for emulation, but it does NOT work out of the box.

Features

• DRAM Overclock

  • Most games are bottlenecked by RAM bandwidth

  • Safe:

    • Mariko: 1996.8 MHz has been tested stable for all (Samsung / Micron / Hynix), with built-in timing auto-adjustment.
    • Erista: 1862.4 MHz.

  • Unsafe: higher than 1996.8 MHz or overvolting

    • Timing:

      • Timing parameters could be auto-adjusted (default) or overwritten with user-provided mtc table.
      • Customization: No GUI tool, requires rebuilding.

    • DRAM bus overvolting (Erista Only).

      • Mariko: use this to set DRAM bus voltage.

• System Settings (Optional)

• TinyMemBenchNX: DRAM throughput and latency test based on tinymembench

• MemTesterNX: A userspace utility for testing DRAM faults and stability based on memtester

  • Now with multi-thread support and "stress DRAM" option, it should be able to test DRAM stability with adjusted timings.

Mariko Only

• CPU/GPU Overclock

  • Safe: CPU/GPU @ 1785/921 MHz (HOS maximum)

    • It has been proved safe without charger (not reaching battery power draw threshold)

  • Unsafe: CPU/GPU @ 2397/1305 MHz

    • Without chargers, CPU/GPU would be capped @ 1963/921 MHz or -/460 MHz (Emulator mode).

    • Without official chargers, GPU would be capped @ 1267 MHz.

    • Why NOT RECOMMENDED?

      • See Current Flow in sys-clk-OC overlay Miscellaneous (on battery) or measure power draw from charger yourself.
      • Currently, there are no protective measures from heavy power draw.

    • CPU: 2397 MHz @ 1220 mV (overvolting from 1120 mV)

      • NVIDIA Official Maximum: 1963.5 MHz
      • Maximum performance depends on CPU speedo.
        • You'd get somewhere between 2360 to 2390 MHz performance for real.
      • This is where floating point performance maxed out.
      • ≥ 2193 MHz will ENABLE OVERVOLTING.

    • GPU: 1305 MHz (no overvolting, less than official threshold 1050 mV)

      • NVIDIA Official Maximum: 1267.2 MHz
      • Tested with deko3d compute shaders converted from Maxwell SASS assembly. Single-precision floating point (FP32 FFMA) performance maxes out at 1305 MHz.

• Modded sys-clk and ReverseNX(-RT)

  • Permanent global clock override

    • Expected usage: set maximum DRAM clocks for all games and profiles.

  • Miscellaneous

    • Auto CPU Boost: For faster game loading

      • Enable CPU Boost (1785 MHz, could be configured higher) when CPU Core#3 (System Core) is stressed, especially when the game is loading assets from eMMC/SD card (I/O ops).
      • Auto-Boost will be enabled only when charger is connected.

    • Sync ReverseNX Mode: No need to change clocks manually after toggling modes in ReverseNX

    • View charger & battery info, toggle charging/fast-charging(2A) in overlay

      • Extend battery life expectancy by maintaining battery charge at 40% - 60% and disabling fast charging if possible.
      • Known issue: Fast charging toggle will be reset in-game.

Installation

1. Download latest release.

2. Mariko Only: Copy all files in SdOut to the root of SD card.

• Erista: Use official sys-clk instead. Only loader.kip and some benchmark homebrew are available.

3. Grab x.x.x_loader.kip for your Atmosphere version, rename it to loader.kip and place it in /atmosphere/kips/.

4. Customization

   Defaults	Mariko	Erista
   CPU OC	2397 MHz Max	Disabled
   CPU Boost	1785 MHz	N/A
   CPU Volt	1220 mV Max	Disabled
   GPU OC	1305 MHz Max	N/A
   RAM OC	1996 MHz Max	1862 MHz Max
   RAM Volt	N/A	Disabled
   RAM Timing	Auto-Adjusted	Disabled

• Loader configurator
  • Grab ldr_config.py and modify values in cust_conf dict.
  • python ldr_config.py loader.kip -s will save your configuration in-place.

5. Hekate-ipl bootloader

   • Rename the kip to loader.kip and add kip1=atmosphere/kips/loader.kip in bootloader/hekate_ipl.ini
   • Erista: Minerva module conflicts with HOS DRAM training. Recompile with frequency changed is recommeded, although you could simply remove bootloader/sys/libsys_minerva.bso.

   Atmosphere Fusee bootloader:

   • Fusee will load any kips in /atmosphere/kips/ automatically.

Patching sysmodules manually

This method is only served as reference.

Patched sysmodules would be persistent until pcv or ptm was updated in new HOS (usually in x.0.0).

Tools:

• Lockpick_RCM
• TegraExplorer
• hactool
• nx2elf
• elf2nso from switch-tools
• hacpack

1. Dump prod.keys with Lockpick_RCM
2. Dump HOS firmware with TegraExplorer
3. Configure and run test.sh in /Source/Atmosphere/stratosphere/loader/source/oc/ to generate patched pcv & ptm
4. Replace nca in SYSTEM:/Contents/registered/ with TegraExplorer
5. ValidateAcidSignature() should be stubbed to allow unsigned sysmodules to load (a.k.a. loader_patch)

Build

Loader KIP

Grab necessary patches from the repo, then compile sys-clk, ReverseNX-RT and Atmosphere loader with devkitpro.

If you are to install nro forwarders, remove R_TRY(ValidateAcidSignature(std::addressof(g_original_meta_cache.meta))); in Atmosphere/stratosphere/loader/source/ldr_meta.cpp to make them work again.

Uncompress the kip to make it work with config editor: hactool -t kip1 Atmosphere/stratosphere/loader/loader.kip --uncompress=Atmosphere/stratosphere/loader/loader.kip

Acknowledgement

• CTCaer for Hekate-ipl bootloader, RE and hardware research
• devkitPro for All-In-One homebrew toolchains
• masagrator for ReverseNX-RT and info on BatteryChargeInfoFields in psm module
• Nvidia for Tegra X1 Technical Reference Manual
• RetroNX team for sys-clk
• SciresM and Reswitched Team for the state-of-the-art Atmosphere CFW of Switch
• Switchbrew wiki for Switch in-depth info
• ZatchyCatGames for RE and original OC loader patches for Atmosphere