1 yr. ago • 90%

Would be great if the official dock could be used for the Switch! Any custom firmware?

I bought the official dock on sale. While I have other docks that kinda worked, the continued support with firmware updates and an extra excellent usb-c charger sealed the deal. 20pt off helped off course too! 😎

Now I’m dreaming of the day I can use this dock as my go to solution for traveling and even at home use. I have a multi story home, and lots lots of usb-c devices. This will be perfect!

Except.. I also like TOTK a lot. And I have a first gen switch, anyone know a hack to let the switch play nicely with this dock? Just screen hdmi and charging would be sufficient.

The charger works perfectly for the switch, the hdmi.. was a no go with the other docks. Still have to test with this new one but……. I fear it will not. :((

16 comments

The problem with the Switch is that it’s requirements for the dock are really strange, what makes it worse is that it’s in a hardware level, so the dock has to be specifically designed for it.

9
- Damnit. Ugh. :( I thought I read that somewhere.
  
  Man I love Nintendo, bought almost all consoles over the years but their strange overly protective platform guarding makes zero sense. Especially in 2023. It’s even worse than Apple imho.
  
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  And this is why I don't love Nintendo. They're are aggressively anti-consumer.
  
  As others have said you can emulate TOTK with motion controls on the steam deck, but it is a bit of setup to get it going and the performance isn't perfect. I'm still enjoying it though. (plus unlimited weapon durability and all the mods you could want)
  
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IIRC you can emulate TOTK on Steam Deck?

8
- Yeah I know, but I like the motion controls.
  
  And frankly the exclusives is the only thing I play on my Switch anymore. It’s just easier. Especially given I do not have much time anymore to tinker with things like when I was 20y ago. 😉
  
  But.. it is on my todo - someday - list for sure!
  
  2
  
  I don't know about Switch emulation, but the Steam Deck motion controls work well for other emulated games. I'm using it in Ultra Moon on Citra at the moment. You just need https://github.com/kmicki/SteamDeckGyroDSU (which emudeck can install for you). There is an odd bug where you need to turn on "Gyro Emulated Mouse" (or joystick) in the controls for the game and then turn it off again to make it work, but it's perfect after that.
  
  6
  
  For what it’s worth I’ve been playing through on the steam deck and enabling motion controls was as simple as adding a community layout that had it bound to the trigger and it’s been perfect
  
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  You can pair joycons to the steam deck with bluetooth and use motion controls
  
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- Is there a good guide out there for getting TOTK emulation set up on the Steam Deck?
  
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  No idea, don't you just download it and run it through an emulator? For emulation I recommend Emudeck.
  
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  Finally had some time to do this and it is somewhat "easy" .. but it depends. For me finding the TOTK rom was the hardest, only because I was to lazy to take it from my switch. I have bought a physical copy, it's the booting to the tools that is just nerve rekking for me.
  
  The Egg Ns Sim.... site is your friend BUT I did already have a fully working Emudeck install with my own Switch private keys and other things. I have a first gen one, but even so I had to 3d print a thing to short circuit some pins and patiently trying to get it into the special boot modus. I followed some guides on the net, don't remember exactly which one.. only that it was extremely frustrating getting the thing booting correctly. Thinking now I think it was the a guide in the docs of Yuzu I followed.
  
  In the end: it's worth it. TOTK runs very smooth for me, even if I want to keep it at 1.0.0 (easy dupe glitch!!) for now with only the 60fps static mod (search gbatemp.net 5.0 post). That said I'm back at the sky tutorial level. it has some issues with fused weapons but overall I get the feeling the game is faster and runs better on the deck. Especially the loading times.
  
  If only Nintendo came to reality and released ports for other machines. I actually would have bought it in a heartbeat. Even twice.
  
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USB-C docks not made specifically for the Switch seem to be hit and miss.

As an alternative, you can check out the Genki Covert Dock and Covert Dock Mini that work well with the Switch and the Deck and are really small, so great for traveling.
Unfortunately they're rated for 25W and 20W respectively, while the Deck usually requires 38W for full-speed charge, so it won't charge as well as the official Valve dock and it doesn't have power pass-through.

2
- Should have been clearer: traveling would be an added bonus. I don’t travel a lot. Although this might be a good solution: if their is a dock that is small for the switch that does work for al my other devices :)) but like you said the power delivery is often the issue then.
  
  I sometimes feel like sure with usb-c we have a single connector but it’s all more complicated than now even before we had usb. We had multiple connectors then but not “oh that cable/psu does have the good connector but not the watt or density for fast charging/data or whatever”
  
  That said: al the different micro usb connectors and usb3 connectors was a nightmare as wel. Af least that is solved now I guess.
  
  2
- Yeah, the supplied Deck charger is 45W
  
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