Hekate Switch

hekate
General
Author	CTCaer
Type	System Tools
Version	6.4.1_1.8.1
License	GPL-2.0
Last Updated	2025/11/17
Links
Download
Website
Source

Hekate is a powerful and user-friendly bootloader for the Nintendo Switch that allows users to customize and control their device's boot process.

One of the key benefits of Hekate is its graphical user interface (GUI), which makes it easy for even novice users to navigate and understand. The interface provides a variety of customization options, including the ability to change the device's boot logo and select the default boot configuration.

Another notable feature of Hekate is its support for emuMMC (Emulated NAND). It allows you to allocate a section of your SD card as internal storage (NAND) for your Switch while it's running custom firmware. This means you can keep your stock OS for online use in games you own; It also protects the system from potential bricks since all the software is run from the SD card and any modifications can be reversed or recovered from.

Features

• Fully Configurable and Graphical with Touchscreen and Joycon input support.
• Launcher Style, Background and Color Themes.
• HOS (Switch OS) Bootloader - For CFW Sys/Emu, OFW Sys and Stock Sys.
• Android & Linux Bootloader.
• Payload Launcher.
• eMMC/emuMMC Backup/Restore Tools.
• SD Card Partition Manager - Prepares and formats SD Card for any combo of HOS (Sys/emuMMC), Android and Linux.
• emuMMC Creation & Manager - Can also migrate and fix existing emuMMC.
• Switch Android & Linux flasher.
• USB Mass Storage (UMS) for SD/eMMC/emuMMC - Converts Switch into a SD Card Reader.
• USB Gamepad - Converts Switch with Joycon into a USB HID Gamepad.
• Hardware and Peripherals info (SoC, Fuses, RAM, Display, Touch, eMMC, SD, Battery, PSU, Charger).
• Many other tools like Archive Bit Fixer, Touch Calibration, SD/eMMC Benchmark, AutoRCM enabler and more.

Note: For maximum performance of UMS in Windows, you need to run nyx_usb_max_rate__run_only_once_per_windows_pc.reg, only once per PC you have. It only affects hekate's usb device. You can also view that file with text editor and see what it does. Linux/Mac OS users do not need that.

Installation

How to update:

• Drag n drop bootloader folder into sd card root and hit merge/replace.
• No need to delete that folder first, especially if you want your configs and payloads.
• You can choose to update your RCM injection device or PC with the new hekate_ctcaer_x.x.x.bin or not.
• In any case, bootloader/update.bin, will be checked and if newer it will get loaded.
• update.bin is hekate and it is already copied with the bootloader folder drag n drop update process.

Notice about Atmosphere 1.0.0 and up:

• The fss0=atmosphere/fusee-secondary.bin in hekate_ipl.ini must be changed to fss0=atmosphere/package3.
• And make sure that atmosphere/contents folder does not have old Atmosphere components.

Notice about resized emuMMC:

• Resized emuMMC does not have the slow bug anymore.
• You can create a new one or recreate it via Nyx and the issue will be gone.

User guide

Bootloader folders and files

Folder/File	Description
bootloader	Main folder.
|__ bootlogo.bmp	It is used if no logopath key is found. User provided. Can be skipped.
|__ hekate_ipl.ini	Main bootloader configuration and boot entries in Launch menu.
|__ nyx.ini	Nyx GUI configuration
|__ patches.ini	Add external patches. Can be skipped. A template can be found here
|__ update.bin	If newer, it is loaded at boot. Normally for modchips. Auto updated and created at first boot.
bootloader/ini/	For individual inis. More configs menu. Autoboot is supported.
bootloader/res/	Nyx user resources. Icons and more.
|__ background.bmp	Nyx - Custom background. User provided.
|__ icon_switch.bmp	Nyx - Default icon for CFWs.
|__ icon_payload.bmp	Nyx - Default icon for Payloads.
bootloader/sys/	hekate and Nyx system modules folder.
|__ emummc.kipm	emuMMC KIP1 module. !Important!
|__ libsys_lp0.bso	LP0 (sleep mode) module. Important!
|__ libsys_minerva.bso	Minerva Training Cell. Used for DRAM Frequency training. !Important!
|__ nyx.bin	Nyx - hekate's GUI. !Important!
|__ res.pak	Nyx resources package. !Important!
|__ thk.bin	Atmosphère Tsec Hovi Keygen. !Important!
bootloader/screenshots/	Folder where Nyx screenshots are saved
bootloader/payloads/	For the Payloads menu. All CFW bootloaders, tools, Linux payloads are supported. Autoboot only supported by including them into an ini.
bootloader/libtools/	Reserved

Compatibility

Supports booting all current CFWs, Android/Linux booting and payload tools. No more SD card removals.

Supports: Erista (T210) and Mariko (T210B01) units.

Latest HOS supported: 21.0.0.

Changelog

hekate v6.4.1 & Nyx v1.8.1

• hekate v6.4.1 hotfix changes
  • HOS 21.0.0 support
  • Fixed NOGC patches for HOS 21.0.0 (v6.4.1 hotfix)
  • TUI now has a Load Nyx option in case the SD card was inserted later or init temporarily failed.
  • HOS: Sanitized MC carveouts for very old versions
  • L4T: Fixed TSECB permissions for TSEC GSC
  • Various fixes and improvements
• emuMMC Changes
  • HOS 21.0.0 support
    • As always based on https://github.com/m4xw/emuMMC
• Nyx v1.8.1 changes
  • HOS 21.0.0 support
  • eMMC Partition Manager
    • A new functionality was added so users with bigger than 32/64GB eMMC can resize HOS USER partition to fit the new eMMC easily
    • As a side-effect, since that mirrors a SD partitioning, adding/flashing Linux and Android partitions is also supported.
    • All performance related tricks for SD are also applied here and to the HOS USER partition.
    • As always, resizing HOS USER partition re-formats it.
    • The functionality is hidden and can be accessed by holding Partition SD Card for 5 seconds.
  • Many fixes/improvements to Partition Manager
    • Partition manager's FAT fs creation was further improved to additionally optimize performance for FAT records access on new partitioning/formatting
    • A bug was fixed when partitioning SD Card with Android Dynamic scheme that would cause the emuMMC partition to be offset by -30MB in GPT table
      • Use Fix Hybrid MBR/GPT to apply the fix on existing setups
    • Fixed an issue on resized emuMMC where it would not allow HOS to create PrFILE2 SAFE record (can't be applied retroactively)
    • Fix Hybrid MBR / GPT functionality is now extended
      • Added removal of invalid/out-of-bounds and empty partitions from GPT
      • Added a fix for wrong emuMMC offset because of older bugged Android Dynamic scheme
    • An issue was fixed when creating 58GB FULL emuMMC on Switch OLED where it would be possible to overwrite the last 1MB of it (no need to retroactively fix)
    • An issue was fixed on resized emuMMC where it was invalidating backup GPT (no need to retroactively fix)
    • Raw based resized emuMMC in partition manager now allows up to 24GB (was 12GB)
    • FULL emuMMC sizes are not allowed in the partition manager anymore on upgraded and bigger eMMCs to avoid confusion with create emuMMC (it's not allowed there already).
  • Improved Package1/2 dumping
    • It can now dump and decrypt both main and safe (recovery) pkg firmware and also the relevant BCTs.
    • Additionally, the FS kip that supports both FAT32 and exFAT will now be renamed to FS_exfat.kip1, while the FAT32 only one will remain with FS.kip1
  • Automatic Daylight Saving Time support for clock was added.
    • Since timezones do not adjust clock on the same date/time, it's done on an averaged timely manner to avoid TZ clutter.
    • An issue was also fixed with calculating time/day/month.
    • The pop up to adjust time will show up again on first boot. Adjust it accordingly to fix the bug and to select auto dst.
  • Joycon as PC HID Gamepad improved
    • It now allows OS to control the report rate in order for OS driver to not cause a pipe fail or congestion (it also fixes OSes where it gets disconnected)
    • It's also possible for Host now to manually request input reports
  • SD Card Info now shows warning if vendor of SD is fake
  • All battery and power management ICs in Battery Info are now checked for communication errors and if the version matches.
    • In case one of them can't be reached an Error! message will show up.
  • Several UX issues were fixed on various backup/restore tools
    • Fixed verification % and bar if restored backup is smaller than partition
    • Bar is now orange for restoring when writing to eMMC/emuMMC.
    • Fixed bar color on restoring after verification
    • Allow verification to be skipped for all parts in partial mode (FAT32 or small card) automatically after the first skip
    • Corrected several warnings where it would refer to eMMC instead of emuMMC
  • HW Info will now say when SBK/DK is locked and can't be read, instead of showing FF.
  • SDMMC errors now update automatically after running SD benchmark to avoid reentering SD Card Info to check them
  • bpmpclock is now extended from 3 to 5 modes. 4 being the slowest boost and 5 being the stock clock.
  • Fixed not showing HOS version for 22 burnt fuses (v1.8.1 hotfix)
  • Various fixes and improvements
• BDK changes
  • DIRLIST: dirlist function was revamped and it now uses flags for options that also allow ASCII/Aa-Zz ordering selection.
  • INI: Restored ASCII ordering for ini_parse when reading .ini files
  • SMMU: Ability to disable smmu was added
  • USB: Removed unused endpoints from descriptors and adjusted driver to not expect them
  • USB: HID: Idle rate support was added for HID gadgets so badly coded OS drivers do not cause a pipe fail
  • USB: HID: Get report support was added in case host wants to pull a report manually
  • RAMDISK: Size was extended 1280 MB via reordering memory mapping
  • FatFS: mkfs was improved further in order to optimize filesystem performance even more
  • FatFS: PrFILE2: Fixed an issue on mkfs that would not allow PrFILE2 to create a SAFE record
  • RTC: Fixed an off-by-one calculation for Month that affects also day and time because of conversion calculations.
  • RTC: Added DST support
  • PMC: pmc_enable_partition was renamed to pmc_domain_pwrgate_set
  • FUSE: Added a fuse sense function
  • HWINIT: Fix RAM_SVOP_PDP set for good
  • HWINIT: Refactored T210 bootloader MBIST WAR
  • Tegra: Added BIT/BCT headers for T210 and T210B01
  • Minerva: Updated to v1.5
  • Various fixes and improvements

hekate v6.3.1 & Nyx v1.7.0

• HOS 20.1.0 support

hekate v6.3.0 & Nyx v1.7.0

• hekate v6.3.0 changes
  • HOS 20.0.0 support
  • Config: Added pkg3 key support that replaces fss0 with the same exact functionality
• fss0 will still work for compatibility reasons but it's now deprecated.
• At some point fss0 will become obsolete, so make sure you update your configs to use pkg3 instead.
• The templates were updated to use that.
  • Config: Added pkg3kip1skip key support. Only for advanced users, read README.
  • Config: atmosphere key is now renamed to kernelprocid to match what it does
• Only advanced users that do not use fss0/pkg3 are affected by this
  • Config: fss0experimental key was renamed to pkg3ex
  • Fixed parsing of system_settings.ini for usb3 enable. Thanks @new-waifu for reminding that.
  • Fixed an issue that could have caused black screen on stock booting in some rare cases (kernelldr related)
  • L4T: Updated SC7exit firmware to latest
  • L4T: Added sld_type key that allows you to disable seamless display
• Or use the deprecated coreboot method
  • Various fixes and improvements
• emuMMC Changes
  • HOS 20.0.0 support
    • As always based on https://github.com/m4xw/emuMMC
• Nyx v1.7.0 changes
  • HOS 20.0.0 support
  • SD/eMMC Benchmark now shows 95th and 5th percentile industry standard IOPS info. It also now uses in-spec A2 test sizes.
• Additionally, the window was made more compact so the info underneath it is still visible for sharing screenshots.
• It's preferable to compare between sd cards on the same updated benchmark, because of the changes.
• The 95% best accesses is generally your expected performance.
• The 5% worst accesses shows degraded nand parts or copies from SLC/MLC to TLC/QLC nands, big cache flushes, bad controller management, fw bugs, etc.
  • SD info now checks if card's A2 support is proper or not. White: full support, Yellow: needs quirks, Red: broken.
  • SD info will now immediately show SDMMC errors before calculating free space in FAT partition
  • Fixed an issue where emuMMC could fail to be found for backing up or restoring
  • Fixed an issue where emuMMC could fail to be backed up
  • RAM real capacity detection is now more robust
  • Made Nyx a bit more faster.
  • Fixed an issue where reserved Android partition size could be calculated wrong on the HOS leftover slider
  • Fixed an issue where a window could not be closed with B button on Joy-Con
  • Nyx reload will now check if nyx.bin still exists and not reload, so user can fix that with UMS again
  • Various fixes and improvements
• BDK changes
  • DIRLIST: It now uses alphabetical ordering instead of ASCII based
  • SDMMC: Do not allow out of bound accesses since they need a power cycle to clear the error
  • SDMMC: Add performance extension register parsing support
  • UITLS: qsort compare functions added for int, char and char case insensitive.
  • SE: Support 0 sized SHA256 hashing
  • SE and DISPLAY drivers do not use heap anymore
  • Various fixes and improvements

hekate v6.2.2 & Nyx v1.6.4

• hekate v6.2.2 changes
  • HOS 19.0.0 support
  • L4T: Update ARC to v6
• Added latency decoupling via ram_oc_opt.
  • Fixed an issue on Oled skus where they couldn't automatically reboot to OFW if stock failed.
• emuMMC Changes
  • HOS 19.0.0 support
• As always based on emuMMC Switch
• Nyx v1.6.4 changes
  • HOS 19.0.0 support
  • Easter Egg got updated to v2.5.3
• Reduced power draw even more while idle every frame.
  • Flash Android button will now have the version that was selected in partition scheme.
  • GPT partition in MBR summary is now purple in order to not be confused with Android partitions
  • Battery info can now show up to 6 PD profiles
• BDK changes
  • DIRLIST: BREAKING Dirlist was improved in speed and will now return a struct instead of a char array
  • JOYCON: Improved packet id handling to improve latency
  • UART: Fix fifo clear and do not force both tx and rx
  • IRQ: Do not re-enable irq if error handling it
  • BPMP: Added state set support (for improved power saving if needed)
  • TIMER: sleep functions now use RTC timers again

hekate v6.2.1 & Nyx v1.6.3

• hekate v6.2.1 changes:
  • L4T: Update ARC to v6.
  • Vast improvements to Signal Quality.
  • Performance and Bandwidth increased.
  • Some timings were slightly adjusted so ram_opt might need to be adjusted accordingly.
  • Fixed boot issues in HOS and L4T.
  • Added back forced charger enable in-case hekate boots in a state with it disabled.
• Nyx v1.6.3 changes:
  • Easter Egg got updated to v2.5.2.
  • Improved accuracy even more in specific cases.
  • Improved sd card mounting management (can decrease power used even more).
  • HW info was updated to give full info about SKU codenames and chip id in a more organized format.
  • Improved an error message in partition manager when user has corrupted bootloader folder or > 1GB.

hekate v6.1.1 & Nyx v1.6.1

• hekate v6.2.0 changes:
  • HOS 18.1.0 support.
  • hekate can now launch HOS by up to 50% faster on many usecases.
  • Only these usecases are affected. The rest are the same/similar.
  • Fixed an issue with blue screen - code 01 on T210 (Erista). Download updated v2.
  • Mitigated a weird issue on T210B01 (Mariko). Download updated v3.
  • Fixed an issue with L4T booting on T210 (Erista). Download updated v4.
  • Many improvements and fixes under the hood (check BDK changes)
• Nyx v1.6.2 changes:
  • Easter Egg got a massive update.
  • Added support for T210B01 and all SKUs.
  • Massive accuracy improvements (code and audio). All quirks are now supported.
  • Massive performance improvements. 1583% faster even at 4x scaling.
  • Because of that ram is set back to 204 MHz as it's not longer needed to be fast
  • Battery life can now reach up to 20 hours for T210B01 and 13 hours for T210 or Lite
  • Non-Color: Added palettes to choose for non-color.
  • Color: Added color filters.
  • Color: Added special color mode.
  • Added 3x scaling (does not support color filters like 2x and 4x).
  • Added rumble support.
  • Added brightness change support.
  • RTC clock config is now individualized and more proper.
  • Many many more improvements and fixes.
  • USB HID Gamepad was improved.
  • Now incomplete packets from the input driver will not be parsed.
  • Additionally, the driver will only send a new interrupt if an input change was detected and thus reduce cpu load on host side.
  • Touch fw id is now displayed the way HOS does.
  • Added OEM ID info for eMMC.
  • eMMC GPT partition table is now more compact and can show up to 20 partitions.
  • eMMC UMS for BOOT0/1 will now report > 4MB sizes if applicable
  • That does not change any functionality. Any software on PCs should still use 4MB flashable images though.
  • emuMMC BOOT0/1, as always, are forced to 4MB, no matter what.
  • Console window will now also report right stick values.

hekate v6.1.1 & Nyx v1.6.1

• hekate v6.1.1 changes:
  • HOS 18.0.0 support.
  • Failed Stock booting because of pkg1 issues will now reboot to OFW if conditions are met (T210B01 or no autorcm for T210).
  • Fixed an issue with clearing system counters.
  • L4T and ARC changes:
    • Advanced ram timings config (ram oc opt) is now finalized (check the helper site for the new %).
    • Fixed an issue with ram bank priorities (increases performance 1-5%, depends on usage range).
    • Adjusted scaling for SDMMC1 and DDR200.
    • T210: Frequencies passed changed from 204/408/666/800/1600/OC to 204/408/800/1333/1600/OC.
• emuMMC Changes:
  • HOS 18.0.0 support.
  • As always based on https://github.com/m4xw/emuMMC.
• Nyx v1.6.1 changes:
  • HOS 18.0.0 support.
  • Add 6.2" OEM display clone ID.
  • Add details to imu cal error (if eMMC/prodinfo is mangled).
• BDK Changes:
  • RTC: Added max77620_rtc_set_epoch_offset and max77620_rtc_get_time_adjusted for setting the time offset and getting an adjusted date/time.
  • CCPLEX: Added no reset vector locking and cluster powergating.
  • DISPLAY: Add 6.2" clone lcd panel.
  • SMMU: Refactor driver.
  • SMMU: 34-bit PAs support.
  • SMMU: 4MB region mapping support.
  • SMMU: Allow any ASID to be configured.
  • SMMU: Correct payload load OP, disable ccplex after setting smmu enable and remove redundant code from anywhere else.
  • HEAP: Added zalloc (like calloc but only takes a single size argument).

hekate v6.1.0 & Nyx v1.6.0

• hekate v6.1.0 changes:
  • Fixed an issue where emuMMC sector offset parsing was failing if SD card was bigger than 1TB.
  • L4T and ARC changes:
  • Allow boot partition to be exFAT.
  • This will need an update of the bootstack of various L4T releases. Mostly important for Lakka and for users that do not want to format.
  • Significant changes were done to Arachne for RAM OC to increase performance and stability.
  • Several timings were improved and corrected for both T210/LPDDR4 and T210B01/LPDDR4X.
  • Stability was improved for higher frequencies for T210/LPDDR4.
  • It also significantly affects high density ram modules like in 8GB configurations.
  • Additionally, they can be improved extra with the ram_oc_opt ac mode also..
  • Fixed an issue where sometimes timing reduction was not allowed on 1600 MHz.
  • A new ram_oc_opt= parameter was added to support advanced ram oc configuration for both T210 and T210B01..
  • Mostly for users with T210/LPDDR4 because of low frequencies and others that like to optimize (T210B01/LPDDR4X)..
  • Read more in wiki.
  • ram_oc_vdd2 max voltage limit was raised to 1237mV for T210. T210B01 remains at Jedec max of 1175mV.
  • Fixed an issue for DDR200 on T210 when RAM frequency was oc one.
• Nyx v1.6.0 changes:
  • Support was added for Android 13+ dynamic partition scheme and also raised system partition size to 3GB for legacy (Android 10-11).
  • Fixed an issue where emuMMC sector offset parsing was failing if SD card is bigger than 1TB.
  • Fixed an issue with some sd cards showing incomplete info (e.g. ADATA).
  • Improved fuses info (corrected major/minor and added parsed iddq info).
  • 3rd-gen RAM modules model name from Hynix and Micron are now shown properly.
  • Hw info will now show per chip ram info instead of single chip and 2 channels.
  • Joycon auto calibration on init was relaxed to fix an issue with drifting with HAL effect based joystick mods..
  • Additionally, that fix was also incorporated in the Switch to PC gamepad USB mode.
  • Added built-in 6axis calibration dumping for all the rest Switch SKUs and stick type for Lite for use in L4T.
  • Added info for sd card max supported bus speed and consolidate all UHS classes into one field.
  • Added info about some LCD panel clones and new official revisions.
  • Fan is now controlled in a finer way.
• BDK Changes:
  • DRAM: Hynix 3rd gen ram was renamed to the proper model name.
  • DRAM: Added extra info about Micron 3rd gen ram.
  • DRAM: Added per chip MRR info.
  • HWINIT: reordered sdmmc1 power disable.
  • INPUT: Samsung touch panel was renamed to just TSP. BH2109 is manufacture date.
  • SE: Added se_aes_cmac_128, se_aes_crypt_hash and se_aes_iv_updated_clear functions.
  • ACTMON: changed to average sampling.
  • MINERVA: Change pll input divider for 2200-2266 mhz and some other fixes.
  • UTILS: sprintf will now reject NULL terminated characters for %c.
  • UTILS: allow strtol to parse unsigned integers if base is 16 and number is positive.

Credits

hekate (c) 2018, naehrwert, st4rk.
hekate (c) 2018-2022, CTCaer.

Nyx GUI (c) 2019-2022, CTCaer.

Thanks to: derrek, nedwill, plutoo, shuffle2, smea, thexyz, yellows8.
Greetings to: fincs, hexkyz, SciresM, Shiny Quagsire, WinterMute.

Open source and free packages used:

• FatFs R0.13a, Copyright (c) 2017, ChaN.
• bcl-1.2.0, Copyright (c) 2003-2006, Marcus Geelnard.
• Atmosphère (Exosphere types/panic, prc id kernel patches), Copyright (c) 2018-2019, Atmosphère-NX.
• elfload, Copyright (c) 2014 Owen Shepherd, Copyright (c) 2018 M4xw.
• Littlev Graphics Library, Copyright (c) 2016 Gabor Kiss-Vamosi.

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External links

• GitHub - https://github.com/CTCaer/hekate
• GBAtemp - https://gbatemp.net/threads/hekate-6-0-0-and-nix-1-5-0-released.623498/