Nintendo DS homebrew guide

posted May 20th 2008 9:00pm by Juan Aguilar
filed under: ds hacks, gameboy hacks, nintendo hacks

Running homebrew applications on the Nintendo DS is easier than ever these days, but if you didn’t get into the scene on the ground floor, knowing where to start can appear much more daunting than it actually is. The great thing is: you don’t need to crack open your DS and void the warranty. There are numerous peripheral options that handle this easily with no hardware mods required. DS Fanboy has served up a useful guide to the most popular peripherals and homebrew software. They explain the pros and cons of each peripheral along with the installation and uses of a few popular homebrew apps.

Already well versed in the homebrew arts? Then try some hacks we’ve featured previously, like building a serial interface or installing DSLinux and loading it with with software like this on-screen qwerty keyboard.

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Comments [24]

tagged: dldi, ds, dshomebrew, homebrew, homebrewds, moonshell, nintendo, nintendods

Reader Comments

got anything for those gba sp people? preferably with a rtc

Posted at 10:01 pm on May 20th, 2008 by dmang

i love my DS home brew. the ds makes it relay easy to get into home brew.
for those of you who want to get into it i bought my card here

http://www.dealextreme.com/products.dx/category.604~page.8~r.83188615
i got the R4
~luke~

Posted at 10:07 pm on May 20th, 2008 by luke

This article seemed to skip the Datel Games ‘N Music, and a lot of people seem to like to talk smack about it. I have one, and haven’t had any real problems yet. It runs DSOrganize, DSLinux, and everything else I’ve thrown at it so far. There is the occasional hoop to jump through to boot something (rename the .nds to BootMe.nds), but that’s easy. Plus it was only 25 bucks at Best Buy.

Posted at 10:40 pm on May 20th, 2008 by Del

dmang:

The M3 Perfect Lite microSD (NOT the Pro version) is the only slot-2 device that I know of with a real-time clock. It is also quite expensive. It works for both the GBA and the NDS. If you are using it in a GBA, it, of course, cannot play NDS homebrew.

Since it is an older cart, it doesn’t support automatic DLDI patching like the newer NDS slot-1 cards support; you have to do it manually if the homebrew application requires patching.

Posted at 2:45 am on May 21st, 2008 by Nalin

I love my DS for homebrew. I now use my DS as an organiser, an e-book reader, mp3/ogg player, as an MPD (Music Player Daemon) remote.

Unfortunately, it seems some audio transistors burnt out, and the sound is now somewhat saturated, so I barely use the music functionality anymore… Next, the DS doesn’t support WPA2, which I switched back to recently (yeah yeah, I know it’s not foolproof, but it’s still a higher hurdle than WEP).

I’m tempted by the GP2X, but would rather wait for the upgraded/rival system (which I cannot remember at this moment)

Posted at 5:10 am on May 21st, 2008 by john

I have had a wondrous time with my CycloDS Evolution (slot 1 device). I recommend it over all the competition: http://www.cyclopsds.com/cgi-bin/cyclods/engine.pl?page=products-cyclodsevolution

It supports savestates, soft-reset, cheat codes (it even comes with more than you can shake a stick at), has integrated support for Moonshell and much more. I don’t know of any other offering on the market that really compares.

Posted at 8:18 am on May 21st, 2008 by oscinis

@1: IIRC, my Extreme Flash Advance (homepage at EFA.cc) has an RTC and never met a homebrew program it didn’t like. It’ll probably be a bit pricey to find nowadays, though — I don’t know if they’re still making them or not. If I had it to do over again, though, I would buy one that uses a flash card of some sort because the fixed-size storage runs out fast.

If I were looking to buy a portable for homebrew (e.g. I didn’t already own one) now, I’d look at a PSP first. The price of a DS + R4 is about the same as a PSP + Pandora’s Battery — more, if you can hack your PSP by borrowing one or buying it and reselling on Ebay — and the PSP is a much beefier machine. Granted, you’d lose the touch screen, so if that’s important to you, never mind, but I think the processor is clocked about 5x faster, plus the Official Firmware feature set is a lot more fleshed-out.

Posted at 8:39 am on May 21st, 2008 by James

Someone needs to call a spade a spade. These flash cards are primarily used to run pirated ROMs, not for homebrew titles. This is alluded to in the linked article, which makes remarks like, “well regarded by many for its high compatibility with commercial ROM…”

Posted at 11:59 am on May 21st, 2008 by james

i play a couple of nes roms on mine but mainly i use it for nitro tracker although once the korg app comes out i might forget about it. i have the M3 ds real. i really like the homebrew scene on the DS but it seems like nothings been made in a long while or devscene hasn’t updated.

Posted at 12:22 pm on May 21st, 2008 by paul

Can you post an article (or link) about how to get started with homebrew on the PSP?

Posted at 12:32 pm on May 21st, 2008 by sgt_easton

i’ve been really impressed, there’s some fantastic homebrew stuff for the ds. quake / quake II, tyrian, descent, warcraft tower defense… all the sort of stuff i would pay money for.

Posted at 5:28 pm on May 21st, 2008 by dc

What would be cool is if someone built a small but powerfull computer that could conect to the ds through slot1 for extra ram and cpu power. That way you could run more powerfull apps.

Posted at 1:43 pm on Jul 13th, 2008 by JC

To jc:

That is very much impossible. Primarily, Even if you physically manage to entwine a computer and A DS through The DS’s Slot one devise It would Do 0% good. A Processor Can not Piggyback Another Processor to give the weaker one more clocking power. Much less, the chip in a Ds Cart is just ROM. Nothing More.

On to the Memory. Nintendo has Enabled and expanded the Ds Slot Two device to Accept “DS Option Packs.” One of them being a Memory Expansion pack That Came Exclusively with the Official Nintendo Ds Browser.

-Josh.

Posted at 3:51 pm on Jul 21st, 2008 by Josh

I just got the M3DS Real last week! Ive had the MMD for a long time. The mmd is total crap in comparison. The M3 runs everything without any patching just copy and play! The only problem is having enough space to put all the great working programs and games for it! Everything on the mmd has to be patched or a workaround performed or files renamed or just plain doesnt work. I certainly wish I had never seen the mmd. Although I will keep it around so my friend and I can play a couple of the games that do work on it in multi. Other than that I wish I had never gotten it.

Posted at 5:56 am on Aug 4th, 2008 by HermieHamster

If anyone is interested in music made using the ds and the ipod touch, check out:

http://www.harshstar.com/dank

We are making songs using these devices but combining them with real instruments as well. This website has tons of free content, and definately worth visiting at least once.

Posted at 10:54 pm on Jan 9th, 2009 by Harshstar

hey where do you buy this stuff???

Posted at 4:40 pm on Jan 26th, 2009 by Raiga

@josh

Check out the DSerial series of Slot-1 cards. It is possible to connect external devices to the DSerial, such as another processor, but offloading any significant functions to an external microprocessor would likely be slow. Serial access to external memory might also be feasible, but it again would be slow.

Posted at 6:55 pm on Jan 30th, 2009 by Minousoft

For those of you attempting to “call a spade a spade”… I just wanted to let people know that I pretty much ONLY USE MY DS for homebrew.

I bought 5 games with it when I bought it. I don’ t play a single one anymore.

I downloaded a bunch of games to try out. All of them suck.

The games I play on my DS are all emulated (genesis, nintendo), homebrew, or ported homebrew games.

Frankly, 95% of the games on the DS and GBA suck, but the DS, having 2 screens and wifi, is a perfect platform for homebrew (mp3 players, mp3 streaming, vnc remote, web browser, linux, AIM and MSN clients, etc).

I pack it around with me around the house and if I think about needing to leave someone a message or if I want to see if someone is on AIM, crack it open and send away… maybe do a quick search in DSOrganize or hobro to see what movies are playing, etc… frees me from my computer chair a little more.

If you want to get it and pirate games, I’m sorry, but i have no pity for people who want to charge $30-40 for games like “Monopoly” which is actually bugged beyond playability, and “Konductra” and other games that I’ve played better flash games on newgrounds…

Posted at 11:37 am on Feb 21st, 2009 by JudgeX

the best site for anything psp homebrew is going to be http://www.pspiso.com the biggest problem is fitting all the games you like on your mem stick.

Posted at 6:58 am on Apr 15th, 2009 by Daniel

Got I love my Nintendo DSi, got it when it came out and haven’t regretted my purchase yet.

Posted at 6:28 am on Jun 23rd, 2009 by dinstapinsta

You guys rock! Best. Product. Ever! nintendo ds homebrew is the most valuable business resource we have EVER purchased.

Posted at 9:15 pm on Jul 26th, 2009 by R4 card

Alright, having read through everything on this site, i still do not understand what i would need to buy to “unlock” the capabilities of my dsi. I know about the r4 cards but i simply do not know which one to buy, i have looked at this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-pack-version-DS-2g/dp/B001SGOLQE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1248717502&sr=1-1

but i am simply not sure whether it is the right one, could anyone point me in the right direction, maybe post some links to what cards i should buy?

Posted at 11:05 am on Jul 27th, 2009 by Skt_Thomas

You can download Unlimited DS and DSi games and transfer them to play on any DS or DSi using:

http://www.squidoo.com/Download-DS-Games

Posted at 9:43 am on Aug 20th, 2009 by Download DS Games

I has a DS Lite with a TTDS card. Does anyone know if this card will support the Nintendo Brew channel like the R4? If so what site can I go to for a step by step.

Thanks

Posted at 9:20 am on Oct 29th, 2009 by Paul

Nintendo DS homebrew guide

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