Use The R4 DS Card To Play Your GBA Games on Your DSi and Nintendo 3DS

For those of you who are fans of the Gameboy Advance, you were no doubt rather upset when the DSI and the DSi XL came out, without the coveted slot 2 game card slot.  It was the Slot 2 that allowed you to play your GBA game cards on your Nintendo DS and DS lite - something that made the upgrade to the DS system even more attractive when it came out.  Unfortunately, the GBA slot was removed from both the DSi and DSi XL, and naturally it is nowhere to be found on the new 3DS console either.  You can however get them all back, thanks to our R4 DS Card and R4i 3DS cards.  And it is currently, and for the foreseeable future, the only way to get your GBA games back into your hands.

Why would you want to play GBA games on your 3DS anyway?  The quick and simple answer is because you expected to be able to do just that.  And let's face it, retro or not, there were many great games on the Gameboy Advance console.  Games we bought, collected, and wanted to keep so we could continue to play them.  Huge investments in GBA games were made by many of us here, we liked it so much.  And there are still a lot of great GBA games you can buy used / second hand, often for a fraction of what a new DS or 3DS game would cost, and still get some amazing game play out of them.  We've found the Contra games for as little as $4.00 and many other top rated classic for less than $8.00 each.  It's an excellent way to add games to your game library.

So just how do you play them on you DSi and Nintendo 3DS?  Read on to find out.

Many of the flash cards on the DS and the DSi could use a GBA emulator without any issues at all.  However, with the Nintendo 3DS, that has changed, in the sense that now there's just one card (for the time being anyway) that will allow you to play GBA games on the Nintendo 3DS.  That card is the SuperCard DSTwo.  It's one of the most advanced flash cards out there today.  It's able to play the GBA games because of the built in emulator, and that's made possible because the Supercard has its own processor as well, and as such does not rely on the DSi or 3DS processor, making emulator run very smoothly.

For those of you using an R4 DS Card, you will have to download the NoCash GBA emulator, which will work to enable your DSi and DSi XL for some really amazing retro Gameboy Advance gaming.  Once you've downloaded the emulator, all you'll need to do is take the nocashgba.nds file and copy it over to your micro sd card.  If you have a certain game in cartridge format, you can find the digital version of it online, and download and copy it over to the micro SD card as well.  I would suggest putting it into a folder called NES GAMES, just to keep this organized for yourself.

That is all there is to playing your old classic on the DSi and the 3DS systems.  Didn't I tell you it would be easy?  The GBA emulator is a freeware program, so you don't have to pay to play the games.  Donations are accepted, but not required by the author - nor is it suggested.  I did donate just because I love the fact that I can play these games on my DSI and 3DS.  But Whether you do or not, it's entirely up to you.

You won't have to worry about downloading any separate emulator at all.  While they are available for cards like the R4 DS Card and others, the Supercard DSTwo makes playing your retro GBA games as simple as can be, and it works right out of the box.