Nintendo Switch Compilation / Development Guide (libnx)¶

Environment configuration¶

You need the homebrew Nintendo Switch SDK libnx and DevkitA64 toolchain installed. You can find instructions on how to install it on the switchbrew wiki.

Then, install all the required libraries:
- use the devkitpro MSYS2 terminal on Windows
- replace dkp-pacman by pacman on Linux and Mac OS

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dkp-pacman -Sy devkit-env devkitA64 libnx switch-tools switch-mesa switch-zlib switch-bzip2 switch-freetype switch-libpng

RetroArch Compilation¶

All commands must be issued in the devkitpro environment (MSYS2 on Windows).

Fetching RetroArch¶

Clone RetroArch's repository from GitHub

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git clone https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch.git retroarch
cd retroarch

For subsequent builds you only need to pull the changes from the repo

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cd retroarch
git pull

Fetching a core¶

Each NRO of RetroArch has one and only one core, and each core is a standalone homebrew by itself. That means that building multiple cores means building RetroArch multiple times, once for each core.

Clone the core you want to build from its git repository.

Then, build it:

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make platform=libnx

That will give you a file called <corename>_libretro_libnx.a, where <corename> is the name of the core you just built. Take it and copy it to the retroarch directory, and rename it to libretro_libnx.a.

Building RetroArch¶

Now that you have your core in the RetroArch directory, move here using cd and run this command:

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make -f Makefile.libnx

That will output retroarch_switch.nro: this is your home built copy of RetroArch!

You can then use nxlink to send the homebrew to your Switch over Wi-Fi.