How To Play NES Games On Your Nintendo DSI and 3DS With An R4 3DS Card

I've written about playing NES games on your Nintendo 3DS before in brief.  And with a number of emails coming in from the readers, I thought I would take this opportunity to both announce a new update to the NES emulator for the Nintendo DSi and 3DS, as well as give a concrete step by step tutorial on how you can install NesDS on your R4 DS and R4 3DS Card.

For those of you that are not aware.  You can actually play NES games on your Nintendo DSi and your Nintendo 3DS system.  You don't load remakes from the virtual console or eshop, you actually use a piece of homebrew software called NesDS.  Nes DS is an emulator program, that will have your DSi or 3DS thinking that it is a Nintendo Entertainment system.  Now, you can't just download and use nesDS, you need something called a DS Flash card, or 3DS flash card.  These cards will let you run freeware and homebrew games and applications on your system, just as if they were actual cartridges.

You use micro SD Cards to store the files, and then the R4 will read that card once it is inserted into it.  Enabling you to load up any file that was created for the DS, DSi and 3DS.  Emulators and freeware games being chief amongst them.  NesDS is free, and if you have one of these cards, you can copy it over to the micro sd card, and then load it up just like a native game or app.

Just how to you run NesDS then?  Here are the steps.

1. You'll need the R4 DS Card or the R4 3DS Card.  They usually come with a micro SD Card already included.  You can however also use your own card if you don't want to purchase a combo package.

2. Download Nes DS.  Just do a search in google, for the latest 1.25a version, which was released just a month or so ago.  The first result in google is usually a good place to download it.

3. You'll need some game files.  You can usually find the games in rom format (make sure you own the original cartridge) but doing another search on google or yahoo for nes games or nes game roms.  Don't miss out on a slew of amazing freeware for the NES system either.

4. Once you have your nes DS and games ready to go, plug the micro SD Card adapter into any USB port on your computer. The micro sd card should already be inserted into the reader.  It will pop up as a removable drive.  Now find the location where you download the emulator and games, and copy of over the emulator to the micro sd, as well as the games.  You'll want the nesds.nds file to be on the root of your micro sd card (so not in any folders or directories) and you want to put games in a NES folder, just to keep them organized.

5. Once you have the games and emulator, you're ready to start playing. Take the micro sd card out of the usb reader, and insert it into your R4 DS or R4 3DS card.   And insert the card into your Nitendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS system, and turn on the power.

6. You'll be greeted by the main menu of the r4.  Here, you'll want to select GAME, and it will take you to a list of the games and apps you have copied over.  Just select the NES DS emulator, and load it.  Once it has been loaded, you'll see a list of the games (NES games) you have also copied to the card.

7. Now just select the game you want to play, and press the A button for it to load up.  In a few seconds, you'll be jamming to some nice 8-bit NES games.

That is all there is to it.  The newest version of NesDS was made especially for the R4 DS Card and R4 3DS card, and it is at version 1.25a  This version fixes some minor glitches in some games, as well as lets you select the screen you want to see your games on to play by letting you pick the top or bottom screen.  Enjoy some great retro gaming action.