3DS Homebrew - Emulators Come Alive On Your Nintendo 3DS With The R4 3DS Card
Posted: Wednesday, April 13, 2011
by Mark Thompson
I have spent a good amount of time talking about homebrew games, and the amazing homebrew applications that are released absolutely free for everyone to download and play on their Nintendo DSi system. I've since updated my homebrew information to also include the newest hand held from Nintendo - The Nintendo 3DS system. Which now, thanks to the R4 3DS Card is also homebrew enabled. So while I could write again about any number of the freeware games and applications out there for the DSi and the Nintendo 3DS with the R4 DS card and other flash cards. I want to focus in on something different, and take a little trip back in time to the good old 8-bit gaming days. While there are great free games to download, new and modern, taking advantage of the latest coding techniques for the Nintendo DSi system, there is much more out there. Under that same homebrew umbrella that I keep writing about falls a whole different kind of homebrew app. Emulators.
In order for your Nintendo 3DS to think that it's an old Nintendo Entertainment system, you will need the R4 3DS card. This flash card will let you use micro SD cards in order to be able to load up all of the homebrew games and apps I often write about. You will also need the freeware NesDS emulator. NesDS needs to be put onto the micro SD Card, along with some of the games you want to play. Once that's done, you can load it up, and your Nintendo 3DS will "think" it's a Nintendo Entertainment system. You'll be able to load any of the games you have put on the r4 3ds card. Selecting the game with the B button will load up that game, and you'll be forgiven for forgetting that you're using a 3DS, instead of the NES itself.
NesDS enabled your 3DS to run all of the NES games - and i mean every single one ever released. They all run at full speed, with full sound support and of course, all of the controls are built right into your 3ds console. When I first loaded up the original Mario World on my 3DS, I couldn't believe how well it ran, and that I now had what amounted to a portable Nintendo Entertainment system in my hands. Now I know that emulators have been around on the PC for a long time. But quite often, as good as they are, you're either playing your games in a little window on your dekstop, or you're forced to turn the game into fullscreen mode, which means you end up with horrible, pixelated graphics that look far worse than the original game itself ever did. And this is why I like NesDS on my 3DS much more than say, nester on my PC. The resolution that the NES used, seems to be a perfect fit for the resolution and screen size on both the Nintendo DSI as well as the Nintendo 3DS console. And that alone my friends is what makes emulation on a hand held so much better than on desktop PC.
Okay, I know I touched on how to run or load game very briefly earlier in this article, but I want to give some detailed step by step instructions here. Starting with what you'll need in order to go retro on your new 3D console. I am of course going to assume that you already have either a Nintendo DS, DS Lite, DSi or the new Nintendo 3DS system. It's a must of course, as nesDS was made to work on these systems. You need only an R4 DS Card and a micro SD Card in order to be able to start playing these games.
Next, you'll want to get NesDS. A quick search in google for nesDS will take you right to the official homepage of this fantastic free emulator. You just have to download the file, which comes in ZIP format. Inside that ZIP archive is the NesDS.nds file. This is the file you are after. Once you have it downloaded, just uncompress the zip archive and copy the nesds.nds file over to your micro SD card. This takes care of the ability to play the games themselves.
Now you'll need to get your hands on some of the NES games as well. I can't go into many details about where and the how, but google is your friend. Just remember, in order to have a digital version of the game you want to play, you have to own the original game itself as well. So make sure you're playing games that are hiding in your closet along with your NES system itself. I suggest creating a folder on the micro SD card called GAMES, just to keep things simple and to ensure you can always find your NES games. Once you've put the games on your micro SD card, it's time to plug that micro sd into the R4 DS Card.
Now plug that R4 DS into the Nintendo DSi or 3DS system, and turn it on. You'll be presented with your menu where you'll want to select Game to load the NES DS emulator. All that's left to do now is pick the game you want to play - and you're all done.
If you have a Nintendo DS or DS lite, then you'll need the R4 DS Card. For you DSi owners out there, you'll need to have an R4i SDHC Card in order to run nesDS. And for the Nintendo 3DS, you'll have to get your hands on an R4 3DS Card. Easy enough. Most of them are under $25.00 to buy, and emulators and free homebrew games are more than worth the little expense. You will also need to have a micro SD card as well. I use a 4Gig micro SD card, some people like 8 Gigs of space or more. But the truth is, you can do all of this with a 2 Gig micro sd card. So whatever size card you have, just make sure it is a micro SD card. Often they come with the ds flash cards themselves.
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