The Best NES Emulator for the Nintendo DS: nesDS
Adding some retro functionality to your Nintendo DS is always a good thing. This time we will be showing off NES emulation for all your favorite 8-bit Nintendo classics.
What Is The Best NES Emulator?
I was surprised to find that most of the emulation sites out there are pushing old NES emulators that are just slight modifications of their GBA counterparts. nesDS, on the other hand, customized the PocketNES code to take full advantage of the DS hardware and to improve performance and compatibility. It isn’t perfect, but I think you will find it quite suitable for most games.
Easy Installation
After some of my frustrating experiences getting some of my GP2X emulators to run, I was very happy with the simplicity of the nesDS installation. Assuming your homebrew cart doesn’t require patching, all you do is download the executable file and put it in a folder with some NES ROMs. (Actually, you don’t need folders, and your ROMs can be elsewhere, but folders usually help keep things organized)
For my CycloDS Evolution cartridge, I just copied over a folder (named “NES”) that had the executable and my ROMs on to MicroSD card, popped it in my DS Lite, and I was good to go. No configuration needed. (Configurations options are availible for tweaking, but I don’t bother)
If you need need installation assistance with older DS homebrew solutions, check out this wiki guide at PocketHeaven.
Video Tour of nesDS
To get a better feel for how nesDS handles, I’ve recorded a quick video that walks through some of the menus and shows a few popular games in action.
nesDS’s Best Features
- High compatibility
- Full speed for most games
- “Rewind” feature with R-trigger
- “Fast Mode” with L-trigger
- Save states
Complaints & Limitations
- Not a huge deal, but I can’t seem to navigate the menus with the D-pad and face buttons. It all seems to be touch-screen based. Since the menu options are small, you will need a stylus for best results.
- There is no DPCM sound (SMB3 drums, Kung Fu laughing, etc), unlike PocketNES.
- There is also no raw PCM sound (speech in Joshua, SCAT, Big Bird’s Hide and Speak), like PocketNES.
66 Comments:
I think you should start messing with the display tab on the menu some more. I use this emulator in my DS as well and the graphics tab can help out with the squashed Mario sprite.
I don’t remember the exact details right now, but putting the stylus on the screen and moving it left or right will adjust the vertical scaling of the game. Moving the stylus up and down, however, will shift the image up and down. This means that if the stylus is moved to the far left in order to have an unscaled image where the graphics match their original form, then the stylus needs to be moved up or down in order to get the action in the center since the entire unscaled image can’t fit on the screen.
I’ve managed to reach a happy medium pretty quickly where my Mega Man sprite isn’t too deformed and top and bottom of the game screen where nothing happens are outside of the visible area. Near-perfect emulation for all the games I play. Try it out sometime.
Does it remember the visual settings?
Does it have settings for individual games or for everything?
As far as I have found, I have set it once and it uses that setting for every game and keeps the same settings even after turning off the DS. I also use an R4 if that makes a difference.
First let me say how much I love your blog. I’ve been reading for awhile now but have never commented.
Anyway, I don’t have any clue about the different MicroSD cards. Can any card work with the DS? What’s the best to buy at the best price? I looked up that CycloDS Evolution cartridge and it’s something like 65 bucks with shipping. That seems a bit much, but what do I know.
Nice little review, but you left out one of my favorite features of this great emulator, which I just discovered for myself:
The shoulder buttons are fast-forward and more useful, REWIND functions! This is great — if you screw up, just hit the L button to rewind a few seconds to try again.
Pat, any MicroSD card will work on the CycloDS at least. Some older homebrew carts may not support the larger capacity MicroSDs.
$65 is higher than normal. I paid about $56 for mine at RealHotStuff. Good place. At that price, it isn’t for everyone, but it has a lot of good features and as worth it if you are a DS addict and want to expand it’s capabilities.
jindofox, thanks so much for that tip! That is a pretty cool feature!
The NES emulators for the GP2x are lacking, but most of the others are of high quality, IMHO
The SMB3 sprite is squished because the DS does not have the native resolution to display every pixel of the NES vertical resolution. It is not a limitation of the emulation, but a limitation of the DS. If you check out the author’s site, he explains the reason for scaling.
Cool — thanks for the heads-up
I just thought it was interesting that most everything else looked good. And Mario looked funny no matter where he was on the screen.
It’s cool, Just though I would point out that it was the DS and not the emulator. I would call it a testament to great programming that he was able to overcome the hardware limitations so well.
No doubt — thanks again
I’m gonna try to re-do my video to included the new things I’ve learned from the comments.
two things:
1. I love your site!
2. Which emulator do you recommend for snes roms?
I haven’t actually got around to trying an SNES one yet. I will do so soon and follow up with another post like this one.
Thanks!
i want that yellow nds!!!is that a pokemon/zelda limited edition??
nice review..thanks dude!!
That’s just a side effect of the lighting.
It’s actually standard white.
hi everyone, i wanted to know if anyone could tell me how to get this thing to work, i have the cyclods evolution i copy the file nesDS_src and my roms but the roms dont show up when i start up the program? not sure what i’m doing???
Thanks
Do you have the roms zipped? (what is the file extension?)
Also, do you have them in another folder?
BTW, for the best help, please post this question in the forum.
Thanks!
This emulator is perfect! Exactly what I was looking for, thanks for the post. This along with my PowerPak and I’ll have my NES library wherever I go…freakin’ sweet.
Sorta on/off topic, I’ve also been looking for a TurboGrafix-16 emulator that will run on the DS but haven’t found any. Anyone know of one?
To my knowledge, there isn’t a good TG16 emulator for the DS yet. Only the “big” platforms like the PC and XBox seem to have good ones right now. Maybe someday…
Hey I just discovered this site and I love it. I am trying to put the NES emulator on my DS. I the download file to my ds and downloaded the rom “Blades of Steel”. I can find it on my DS but it says it doesn’t recognize the file extention “.nes”. Any help would be appreciated. And also I appologize if this question is too stupid. Im new to emulators.
All of my games have an .nes extension on them…
do any other games play?
The PSP also has an awesome NES emulator (RIN). The games look awesome on the psp’s screen!
My ds sais’s the driver is missing! what is the driver?
im a real computer dummy but i do love the original nintendo and i love my ds and would love to combine the 2. i dont understand anything your other readers are saying and really need step by step help to get this working on my ds. will you help me? please please please im begging for your help
I guess I’m not sure what you issue is…
Do you have a homebrew cartridge for your DS?
If so, you just need to put the emulator file I linked to on the memory card and also some NES game ROMs.
So I tried nesDS on my Acekard 2, and it worked the first time with Zelda, but when I tried it with Super Mario Bros (you know that classic game) It started me in world 0 which is like a castle underwater and I don’t actually get to play the game. Now when I boot into nesDS it just locks up! soooo ummm….. yeah wtf man?!
ok i dont know were to get the roms can u help me
Can someone pls email me details on how and where i can run the nes ds emulator pls and where i can get the roms for it
I tried it on my R4 and the files will not appear. Is this compatible with R4?
I don’t have one, but I would this it would be…
Im trying to get the nesDS site but its gone now and i cant get your mirror to work. What can i do to get this for my ds?
thaks
The mirror still works for me….
Hey, if there is a chance to snesDS acted like nesDS?
When I use nesDS I browse the files in my microSD (using the R4 DS) and it would be nice if snesDS can also browse the files.
Racketboy can do it for us? please, please …
Not sure how I would do it…. Sounds like you need to talk to the developers
hehe, I thought that you have certain skills developers: P
I thought that, after collecting nesDS from your web page I can browse the files.
other nesDS so do not work, I mean to others you have to ‘put’ files ROM, as well as in snesDS. the exception is nesDS from you …
Oh wow — that’s kinda weird…
But no, all I did was take the copy I downloaded from the developers site and put it on my server just in case
this is by far the best NES emulator out there for the DS
thanks
The home page for nesDS looks like it’s down. Any idea if it has moved, or where to?
That’s odd — I guess he killed it?
Good thing I have it mirrored
Does the nesDS you have mirrored support DLDI?
not sure — how would I find out?
Thank you so much you have just made it official the Nds has taken over my life.
Help! Whenever I try to download the emulator on this site on my mac it downloads as a blank file. Anyone else having issues. What does it the download look like on your desktop?? Mine looks like a “new sheet” in word.
Chalo,
For some reason, on a mac this downloads as a text file. Just delete the .txt extension so that the file ends with .nds and you should be fine.
Overall this is a great emulator. The games tend to run at full speed with only the more “busy” games getting any real slow down.
However, it can be hard to certain games to run, as some games (such as SMBros.) will only run if it’s a specific dump of the game. Others will glitch or start you in the negative world.
Also a handful of games won’t work no matter what, namely Mother/Earthbound Zero, Ninja Gaiden 3, Adventures of Lolo 2, Double Dragon 2, and TMNT 2. Punch-Out is a garbled mess and basically unplayable. Also a few games like TMNT1 and SMBros 3 have minor graphics glitches on the main character’s sprites.
As a whole, the games work great. But it’s sad that these popular ones don’t.
Here is a compatibility list for NES DS. This should help some people figure out which games will work, and in the case of some of them figure out which dump of the game will work best.
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=81903
I seem to be having a problem running this through the acekard 2.1. The first time I loaded it up, it worked fine, like a dream. Then, from that point on, it freezes up at the starting screen, where you select the files. The buttons do nothing at all. I’ve tried redownloading this many times, to no avail. Am I doing something wrong??
At 1/19/2009 2:30 PM, Elwood said…
Overall this is a great emulator. The games tend to run at full speed with only the more “busy” games getting any real slow down.
However, it can be hard to certain games to run, as some games (such as SMBros.) will only run if it’s a specific dump of the game. Others will glitch or start you in the negative world.
Also a handful of games won’t work no matter what, namely Mother/Earthbound Zero, Ninja Gaiden 3, Adventures of Lolo 2, Double Dragon 2, and TMNT 2. Punch-Out is a garbled mess and basically unplayable. Also a few games like TMNT1 and SMBros 3 have minor graphics glitches on the main character’s sprites.
As a whole, the games work great. But it’s sad that these popular ones don’t.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Try downloading other copies of the games. I noticed that certain “rips” of the ROMs aren’t necessarily that good. Especially when you start looking at the modded and hacked ROMs. As for the other poster who asked where they can get ROMs, I use bitTorrent’s to get all of my ROMs. That includes my NES, SNES, Genesis, DS, and GBA. And recently I jailbroke my iPhone and have been downloading tons of .IPA’s (iPhone’s application and game extension). Apps that run anywhere from $0.99 to $75 in the iTunes store I’ve been getting for free. It’s freaking awesome. Oh and one other thing about the person who mentioned their R4 Card. Be wary about the R4 as the original manufacturer was sued by Nintendo and has ceased making the cards. There are still some R4 cards out there for sale that have been stocked in a warehouse. But about 85% of the R4’s out there are cloned and there’s a good possibility it will end up bricking your DS (just in case you don’t know “bricking” is a term used when your DS locks up and basically becomes useless, making it as useful as a brick). Personally I think the best card out there is the CycloDS. Sure it’s a little more expensive but it is worth it. And just be sure you are buying for a certified dealer. These cards are also being clones as is just about everyone out there. Sorry for the long post but I had alot to say. Any ?’s just post here, I’ll check back, or just email me. If that’s okay with the head man, Mr. Rackboy that is. Have a good day.
Corey
actually, EarthBound Zero does work. You just need a .sav file that has the names entered (the problem is with the naming screen). So once you get that, you should be fine. It’s a pain finding one, so you have to make one yourself with an emulator on the computer…
Bro this is the most easy thing to do I just got my ds lite today from a friend and is allready pimped with the large list of NES games TNX a LOT
To THE GREAT AUTHER:
I love your program,but there is a game runing uncorrectly,because the layer problem,maybe you can fix,think you.
http://download.92wy.com/info/19215.html
Hi racketboy!
I believe it’s very diffcult about done the best NES emulator for NDS. Thank you a lot!!
hey guys help me plz… when i start the nesDS.nds on my nintendo ds appears in the bottom screen some white letter but instantly the letters dissapears and both screens get black i waited a few secs and nothing happens
! what can i do? i use r4 deluxe… help me plz!!
I have a mac and every time I am trying to download the mirror version it sends me to a blank page.
Don J, just right click and ‘download item’.
Hey, guys, could you help me?
i’m tryin to make this thing work but i can’t.
i put on my dscard a folder named “nintendo” and inside, the “nes.nds” and all the roms(example: harvestmoon.smc). when i turn on the ds, i see the icon”nes.nds” but there is no rom!
please, help me!
ps: would be amazing if you answer me by email. lulu95@oi.com.br
thanks!
lulu
Hey thanks for this man… but i have a question. i have an r4 right. i downloaded the nds file but where do i save the roms? anywhere?
thx for keeping this mirrored, if it wasn’t available i would constantly be thinking there was something cool i was missing out on. also, i just bought an r4, didn’t brick me yet *crosses fingers* however, always be weary……
after puting this in my apps folder on my acekard2i it froze up right as i lunched it
I’m getting to black screens. Help?
Hi,
Please help, I have the nesDS.nds file on my edge card and also have mario bros3 working fine but when i put other .nes roms on there it doesnt work! what is going wrong?
I’m having a problem that alot of others are having with the acekard 2 the NESDS loads but once it takes me to the screen where all the roms are i cant do anything my DS just freezes. any helpful tips would be appreciated. thanks!
Is there a version that actually works more often than five percent of the time? I turn it on, I get to the nesDS menu, and it doesn’t respond. I have to power off and on again.
It’s worked before but tonight it just totally refuses to do anything. It’s certainly never taken more than 25 tries before (12 at the most.)
and now I see the last few comments (they go from oldest to newest)…
I also have an AceKard 2i. Guess it’s a problem specific to that.
has anyone heard of dealextreme.com???? $56 for a slot 1 card??? I got mine for 11 AFTER tax. it’s a DSTT card. u get the software off the dstt website for ds roms, and then you can add a snes emu or another emu, as long as the executable ends in .nds. the DS software also has a “GBA mode” for those using a NDS/NDSL.
OMG this is so awesome!
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