Play Windows PC games on your Nintendo Switch.
_{Previously called Wine-NX.}

Autorun is a homebrew app that runs Windows games and programs on the Switch. It brings Wine - the layer that lets Windows software run outside Windows - to the Switch's own operating system, and translates PC code for the Switch's ARM processor. You bring the games: copy your own PC copies to the SD card and start them from Autorun's library.

• 32-bit and 64-bit games. FEX translates both x86 and x64 code; Box64 is there as a second translator for 32-bit programs.
• The Switch's GPU. OpenGL and Vulkan come from Mesa 26 (mesa-switch), and Direct3D 8 to 11 run through DXVK, Direct3D 12 through VKD3D-Proton.
• Frame generation with LSFG-VK, for Vulkan games, with your own copy of Lossless Scaling.
• The Windows DLLs games need are downloaded and kept up to date by the app.
• USB drives show up in games as drives D: to H:.
• A launcher with artwork, per-game settings, controls and HOME menu shortcuts for games.

Autorun is experimental. Some games run well, many start and then stop on something that isn't done yet. Every run writes a log that says where. A game compatibility list is coming.

• A Nintendo Switch with custom firmware (Atmosphère) that can run homebrew.
• A microSD card with room for Autorun, its Windows DLLs (about 200 MB to download) and your games.
• Your games, as installed PC folders.

1. Download the latest autorun-NNN.zip from Releases.

2. Unzip it to the root of your SD card. Everything goes into switch/wine.

3. Start Autorun from the Homebrew Menu. Quick setup runs the first time:

   • puts Autorun on the HOME menu, so games get the console's full memory;
   • downloads the Windows DLLs from autorun-horizon-dlls;
   • installs the boot changes some games need: a Mesosphere build that lets a game run at low memory addresses, with the stock loader or Horizon-OC's for overclocking.

   Settings -> System -> Quick setup runs it again.

Without a network, download that repository (Code, Download ZIP) and unzip its switch folder to the root of the SD card too.

Settings -> System -> Check for update installs a newer release; your games, settings and artwork stay. Settings -> System -> Windows DLLs downloads only the DLLs that changed, and Verify files checks the card's copies.

1. Copy the game's folder into switch/wine/drive_c on the SD card (that folder is the game's C: drive), or onto a USB drive.
2. In Autorun, press + -> Add game and choose the game's .exe.
3. Press A to play.

Adding a game gives it DXVK, which draws Direct3D through the Switch's Vulkan driver. To keep new games on Wine's own Direct3D, turn off Settings -> Give a new game DXVK.

Before the first program on a card, Autorun sets up the Windows components a PC's Windows installation would have registered, such as DirectShow and the MP3 decoder that game movies and music play through. It runs by itself, once.

The touchscreen works everywhere too.

A game's options (Y):

• mark it as a favorite or hide it, change its title, give it command-line arguments, and download its artwork;
• make a HOME menu shortcut that starts it directly;
• pick how its graphics are drawn (Wine's Direct3D or DXVK), how a picture smaller than the screen is enlarged (FSR 1.0, or whole-pixel steps for pixel art), and Frame Generation;
• pick the CPU translator (FEX or Box64), and give it its own controls.

Settings (−): show hidden games, the controls every game uses by default, a SteamGridDB API key for artwork, returning to Autorun when a game ends, updates, the Windows DLLs, and the credits.

LSFG-VK doubles the frame rate of Vulkan games (DXVK and VKD3D-Proton count) by drawing a frame between each two the game draws. It needs Lossless Scaling's Lossless.dll, which Autorun does not include: copy it from your own installation to switch/wine/lsfg/Lossless.dll, then turn on LSFG-VK (2x) in the game's Frame Generation options.

Out of the box the controller works as a mouse and keyboard:

Every button can be changed: Settings -> Game defaults -> Controls for all games, or a game's options (Y) -> Controls for that game alone. Each stick, the d-pad and the touchscreen can move the mouse or send the arrow keys or W A S D. Games with controller support see an Xbox 360 controller, through XInput or DirectInput.

Hold + and − together for a second to close a game.

Minus + right stick click opens the on-screen keyboard over the game (it also opens by itself when a text field is selected; Settings -> On-screen keyboard turns that off). It types like a real keyboard, one key at a time:

While it is open, the game gets no controller input.

Every run leaves its logs in switch/wine/logs on the SD card:

• autorun_runtime.log - the last run, whatever it was.
• NAME.log - the last run of that game, kept per game. A run with verbose traces or the profiler on gets its own file, such as NAME_verbose.log, so it doesn't replace the plain one.
• stdout.txt, stderr.txt and stdin.txt - the program's standard output, error and input.

When reporting a problem in Issues, include the game's log and say what you saw. Verbose traces in the game's options gives more detail, at some speed cost.

• Speed: demanding 3D games are limited by translating the game's code on the fly, more than by the graphics chip.
• Memory: games share the Switch's 4 GB with the system; big games can run out.
• One game at a time, one controller.
• A game may need Windows files the card doesn't have yet; the log names them.

sh build.sh

builds Autorun in the switch-dev Docker image and writes the SD card archive to horizon-wine/build-autorun/autorun-NNN.zip. It needs Docker, git, Python 3 and, on a Mac, Homebrew's bison. sh build.sh --help lists the options. How Autorun works, its tests and its file layout are in documentation/technical.md.

Autorun is built from these projects; each keeps its own copyright and license.

The full list, with authors and the projects used as reference, is in documentation/technical.md.