SwitchNOW

SwitchNOW is a native Nintendo Switch homebrew client for GeForce NOW. It is distributed as an .nro and combines a controller-first Borealis launcher with native WebRTC signaling, H.264 video, Opus audio and low-latency input delivery.

Important

SwitchNOW is an unofficial community project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA or Nintendo. A valid GeForce NOW account is required, and game availability, session duration and queues depend on the selected NVIDIA membership and region.

Main features

• Browse the GeForce NOW catalog and the games linked to the current account.
• Cover-art cache, incremental catalog paging, search, filters and sorting.
• Per-game store selection for titles available through multiple storefronts.
• Persistent multi-account sign-in, token refresh and optional encrypted local password storage for quick sign-in and automatic account recovery.
• Animated queue, setup and connection stages while a cloud rig is prepared.
• Free-tier advertisement playback with real media progress and official session continuation; no-ad launches retain the original fast path.
• Tegra X1 NVDEC hardware decoding with automatic software-decoder fallback.
• Bounded low-latency decode queues, damaged-frame suppression, RTCP recovery and keyframe resynchronization after packet loss.
• Synchronized Opus audio with configurable buffering and volume amplification.
• Xbox-compatible virtual gamepad, optional Switch-labelled face-button layout, touch-to-mouse input and an in-stream Nintendo keyboard.
• Adaptive stream-quality modes for motion resilience, clarity or untouched server output.
• Free-tier session warnings and automatic return to the game page after a session ends or the connection is lost.
• Opt-in flight-recorder diagnostics. Detailed logs and overlays are disabled by default during normal gameplay.
• Dedicated Neverness to Everness credential helper and guided in-game login.

Technical specification

Component	Implementation
Target platform	Nintendo Switch homebrew / Horizon OS
Package	Native .nro application
UI	Borealis, controller-first navigation, touch support
Signaling and media	Secure WebSocket signaling and WebRTC with ICE
Video codec	H.264
Video decoder	Tegra X1 NVDEC, software FFmpeg fallback, automatic safe mode
Stream presets	Safe: 720p30 at 8 Mbps; Balanced: 720p60 at 12 Mbps; Quality: 1080p60 at 20 Mbps
Custom bitrate steps	8, 12, 16, 20 or 25 Mbps
Quality modes	Adaptive, Clarity and Original
Audio	Opus, 30-100 ms configurable buffer, 8x-16x gain options
Input	Xbox-compatible gamepad reports, relative mouse and keyboard over the stream data channel
Interface languages	English, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Italian, French, Polish and Ukrainian
In-game languages	30 selectable locale profiles, sent when supported by the game
Local data	sdmc:/switch/SwitchNOW/

Video quality modes

• Adaptive is the recommended default. It balances minimum and initial bitrate, packet-loss resilience, light denoising and restrained sharpening.
• Clarity prioritizes a cleaner image and stronger detail recovery while retaining the same maximum bitrate selected in settings.
• Original disables the local image-enhancement pass and keeps the decoded server image as-is.

Auto selects NVDEC first and falls back to software decoding if hardware initialization fails or the previous hardware session did not shut down cleanly. The app avoids building an unlimited frame backlog: on congestion it drops stale work, requests a clean reference frame and resumes from the newest valid image.

Controls

Launcher

Input	Action
Left stick / D-pad	Move focus through buttons, settings and game tiles
A	Select or activate the focused item
B	Go back or close a dialog
L / R	Switch between Store, Library and Settings
Y	Open search in Store or Library
ZL / ZR / X	Context actions shown in the toolbar, such as filter, sort and load more

Vertical game-grid movement keeps the closest column instead of returning to the first tile in every row.

In-stream gamepad

Switch input	Xbox-compatible action sent to the game
A, B, X, Y	Xbox face buttons according to the selected layout
L / R	LB / RB
ZL / ZR	Full-value LT / RT
Left / right stick	Left / right analog stick
Stick clicks	L3 / R3
D-pad	Xbox D-pad
-	View / Select
Short + press	Menu / Start
Hold + for at least 500 ms	Nexus / Guide
ZL + ZR + -	Safely stop streaming and return to the game page

The default Xbox layout maps the physical Switch positions to Xbox labels: A -> B, B -> A, X -> Y, Y -> X. Select Switch in Settings > Controls to send matching letters instead.

Keyboard, touch and NTE helper

Input	Action
- + Y	Open the transparent in-stream keyboard
A	Select a key / confirm inside the keyboard
ZL	Send Esc to the remote game while the keyboard is open
+	Submit the entered text and close the keyboard
B	Close the keyboard without submitting
Touch	Reposition the remote cursor to the touched point and perform a left click
Touch drag	Hold the left mouse button and move the remote cursor
L + X in NTE	Start the configured Neverness to Everness auto-login sequence
B during NTE auto-login	Cancel the sequence

Game input is blocked while the keyboard or NTE login automation owns input, so typing cannot accidentally trigger gameplay actions.

Languages and settings

Select the launcher language in Settings > Interface > Language and press X to save. The in-game language is configured separately in Settings > Game. Supported games can also preserve graphics options changed inside a stream.

Existing installations are migrated automatically from sdmc:/switch/OpenNOWSwitch to sdmc:/switch/SwitchNOW on first launch.

Screenshots

Library

Game details

Session launch

Install

1. Copy SwitchNOW.nro and the icons to sdmc:/switch/SwitchNOW/.
2. Start Homebrew Menu in application mode by holding R while opening an installed game.
3. Launch SwitchNOW.

Application data, settings and optional debug logs are stored in sdmc:/switch/SwitchNOW/.

Build requirements

• Windows with MSYS2 at C:\msys64, or an equivalent Unix/MSYS2 shell.
• devkitPro with devkitA64, Switch portlibs and CMake/Ninja.
• The dependencies included in extern/.

Build from PowerShell:

.\build-switch.ps1

Output:

build/switch/SwitchNOW.nro

Create a conventional release archive:

.\scripts\package-release.ps1 -Version 1.1.7

Source layout

app/src/                 Application, GFN API and streaming implementation
resources/               Fonts, icons and RomFS resources
extern/                  Pinned third-party dependencies
tests/                   Host-side policy and parsing tests
scripts/                 Switch build and release packaging
CMakeLists.txt            Switch build definition
build-switch.ps1          Windows build entry point

Privacy

The repository contains no accounts, passwords, tokens, logs or device data. Saved credentials are created only at runtime on the user's SD card. Password storage is optional and uses the encrypted local credential vault.

Support SwitchNOW

SwitchNOW is free and open source. If you enjoy the project and would like to support its continued development, you can make an optional cryptocurrency contribution through NOWPayments.

Open the SwitchNOW contribution page

Contributions are entirely voluntary, are processed by the third-party NOWPayments service, and do not unlock features or create any obligation or warranty.

Projects and acknowledgements

SwitchNOW would not exist without the following open-source projects. Reference projects inspired the architecture and user experience; they are not copied into or linked directly with the SwitchNOW binary.

Architecture and UX references

• OpenNOW - GeForce NOW client, service flow and desktop UX reference.
• OpenNOW-Switch - earlier Nintendo Switch research and implementation reference.
• Moonlight-Switch - Switch-native streaming, controller, rendering and hardware-decoding reference.

Core build and runtime dependencies

• devkitPro, libnx and deko3d - Nintendo Switch toolchain, platform services and graphics API.
• Borealis - console-oriented UI, navigation and rendering framework.
• libpeer - embedded WebRTC, ICE, DTLS, SRTP and data-channel foundation.
• FFmpeg and Averne's NVTEGRA branch - H.264/Opus media processing and Tegra X1 hardware decoding support.
• curl - HTTPS and service requests.
• Jansson - JSON parsing and generation.
• zlib - compression support.

Bundled upstream components

The vendored Borealis and libpeer trees also contain components from GLFW, SDL, fmt, Tweeny, Yoga, NanoVG, tinyxml2, libromfs, switch-libpulsar, libsrtp, usrsctp, Mbed TLS, cJSON, FreeRTOS coreHTTP and FreeRTOS coreMQTT. Platform-specific and optional components are selected by the build configuration.

Each upstream project remains subject to its own license and copyright notices. This acknowledgement list does not replace the license files shipped with the source and dependency trees.