This is a list of my favorite emulators for the Nintendo DS. In order for these emulators to work on your DS Phat, DS Lite, or DSi, you need to have a flashcard (eg. Acekard 2i, Supercard DSTwo, R4).
If you already have one you can most likely do this. If not I highly recommend you buy one because these little flashcards are awesome and can do many things. They let you run many DS Homebrew applications, play movies and videos, listen to music, play DS ROMs, and much more.
Contents
Nintendo DS Emulators
Sega Genesis
- jEnesis DS is currently the best working genesis emulator for the DS. It has a very high rate of ROM compatibility and the sound is pretty good. The interface is pretty nice and easy to use.
Download: Link
Sega Master System and Gamegear
- DS Master Plus (NEO Compo Edition), made by AlekMaul is the nicest SMS and GG emulator out there for the DS. It supports Pro Action Replay codes, and the language can be changed to either English or French. ROM compatibility and sound are pretty good too.
Download: Link
- Apprentice Minus DS is another SMS and GG emulator. It also emulates genesis ROMs. The interface is a little hard to read but other than that, this emulator is alright.
Download: Link
SNES
- SNEmulDS is the best SNES emulator for DS, period. It is made by the same person (archeide) that made the first SNES emulator for the PC about 10 years ago and uses the SnezziDS CPU Core. It has almost perfect ROM compatibility and the sound works great. It also includes many features in the interface and the save state and save SRAM work flawlessly.
Official Site: SNEmul
Download: Link
Gameboy/Gameboy Color
- Lameboy is currently the only GB/GBC emulator for the DS. It has a pretty nice interface and all of the ROMs I have tested work. Also, it has customizable options that are useful.
Download: Link
NES
- NesDS is one of the few NES emulators for DS that I have tested and I have to say, it is the best too. It is almost 100% compatible with all NES ROMs. I have over 900 NES ROMs and I’ve yet to encounter a nonworking ROM.
Download: Link
Where to put the ROMs
After you’ve obtained a ROM, It is recommended that you make a folder called ROMs on the root of your microSD card and in that folder you make several other folders called whatever type of ROMs it contains. Example: SD:/ROMs/Genesis/ or SD:/ROMs/SNeS/ etc. That way your microSD card will be more organized and you will have an easier time finding ROM files with any emulator for DS.
Download my DS Emulator Pack
Click the link below to download the emulator .nds homebrew files mentioned in this guide. Place them on your flashcards microSD card where you would normally put your DS Homebrew.