Porting Super Mario 64 To The Original Nintendo DS

February 20, 2026 by Maya Posch 8 Comments

Considering that the Nintendo DS already has its own remake of Super Mario 64, one might be tempted to think that porting the original Nintendo 64 version would be a snap. Why you’d want to do this is left as an exercise to the reader, but whether due to nostalgia or out of sheer spite, the question of how easy this would be remains. Correspondingly, [Tobi] figured that he’d give it a shake, with interesting results.

Of note is that someone else already ported SM64 to the DSi, which is a later version of the DS with more processing power, more RAM and other changes. The reason why the 16 MB of RAM of the DSi is required, is because it needs to load the entire game into RAM, rather than do on-demand reads from the cartridge. This is why the N64 made do with just 4 MB of RAM, which is as much RAM as the NDS has. Ergo it can be made to work.

The key here is NitroFS, which allows you to implement a similar kind of segmented loading as the N64 uses. Using this the [Hydr8gon] DSi port could be taken as the basis and crammed into NitroFS, enabling the game to mostly run smoothly on the original DS.

There are still some ongoing issues before the project will be released, mostly related to sound support and general stability. If you have a flash cartridge for the DS this means that soon you too should be able to play the original SM64 on real hardware as though it’s a quaint portable N64.

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Running An Entire PS1 Emulator In A DS Cartridge

July 4, 2025 by Ian Bos 8 Comments

Gaming on a Nintendo DS can bring back great memories of long car trips from the past. But looking back, we remember wishing to play more than the DS could ever hope to handle. [fami] looks into the SuperCard DSTWO in her recent video, a solution to our past sorrows.

Able to play anything from the very games designed for the DS to emulated PS1 games, the DSTWO is more than capable of surpassing the abilities of the DS itself. More impressively, all games are run directly from the cartridge itself rather than on the DS’s hardware. While this emulated console within a handheld is impressive, it is far from simple to get running.

The DSTWO runs with an Ingenic JZ4732 as the CPU, completely different from any native architecture of the DS. Pair this with the unhelpful SDK made for the cartridge, and the aging hardware is held together by the community development behind any improvements. This is aided by the CPU similarities of another widely modded game console, the Dingoo A320.

When not having a fit, and after going through hours of troubleshooting, you might find the DSTWO running a game of SimCity 2000 or even Spyro the Dragon inside a DS. Even with the difficulties of use, the fact that these games run at all is impressive. If you want to try the DSTWO emulation yourself, check out the forums.

This is far from the only example of extreme care going into emulation. Here at Hackaday, we have covered similarly impressive projects such as this completely DIY handheld made for any retro game emulation you throw at it.

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Screenshot of the YouTube channel videos list, showing a number of videos like the ones described in this article.

[DiyOtaku] Gives Old Devices A New Life

May 2, 2024 by Arya Voronova 5 Comments

Sometimes we get sent a tip that isn’t just a single article or video, but an entire blog or YouTube channel. Today’s channel, [Diy Otaku], is absolutely worth a watch if you want someone see giving a second life to legendary handheld devices, and our creator has been going at it for a while. A common theme in most of the videos so far – taking an old phone or a weathered gaming console, and improving upon them in a meaningful way, whether it’s lovingly restoring them, turning them into a gaming console for your off days, upgrading the battery, or repairing a common fault.

The hacks here are as detailed as they are respectful to the technology they work on. The recent video about putting a laptop touchpad into a game controller, for instance, has the creator caringly replace the controller’s epoxy blob heart with a Pro Micro while preserving the original board for all its graphite-covered pads. The touchpad is the same used in an earlier video to restore a GPD Micro PC with a broken touchpad, a device that you can see our hacker use in a later video running FreeCAD, helping them design a 18650 battery shell for a PSP about to receive a 6000 mAh battery upgrade.

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Cramming A DS Inside A Gameboy

November 16, 2021 by Matthew Carlson 4 Comments

Many holiday recipes and console hacks share a common theme: cramming a thing inside another thing. Whether it’s turducken or a Nintendo DS inside a Gameboy, the result is always unexpected. The chassis for this mod is a humble Gameboy color with a Gameboy SP screen tackled on the top to serve as the secondary display. Unfortunately, this mod lost touch screen functionality, limiting some of the games you can play.

[TheRetroFuture] received the custom handheld from [GameboyCustom], which was somewhat damaged in shipping. The original screw mounts had to be removed and the case glued back together to fit the DS motherboard. So for [TheRetroFuture] to get inside to start troubleshooting involved a razor blade and patience. Testing various points and swapping components got [TheRetroFuture] closer to the root problems. The fix ended up being a few wires that came loose during shipping. Finally, after reseating a display connection and some careful soldering, it booted and started playing games.

Overall, it’s pretty impressive to see Mario Kart DS running on both screens on the tiny handheld. But you might be asking, why? Why shove one handheld inside another handheld? Sometimes it’s to gain new functionality like this Raspberry Pi inside a PSP body. Sometimes, it’s just because we can. Video after the break.

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Game Boy Macro Build Retains DS Compatibility

June 14, 2021 by Tom Nardi 9 Comments

Building a so-called “Game Boy Macro” is a great way to salvage a Nintendo DS that has a broken hinge or top screen, as the system only needs the lower display to play Game Boy Advance games. Naturally, DS games that were designed to use both screens would no longer be playable. Or at least, that’s what we thought. But as [Facelesstech] shows, it’s actually possible to play DS games on a Game Boy Macro if you do a little extra soldering.

It turns out that there are two test points on the original DS motherboard where you can pick up the signal for the top and bottom screens respectively. With just three wires and a simple switch, you can select which signal gets fed into the bottom screen in real-time with no image degradation. Now, this won’t do you any good on games that make constant use of both the top and bottom DS displays, but for many titles, the bottom screen was used for little more than a map or inventory display that you only need to glance at occasionally.

Installed screen switch. Note USB-C upgrade module.

With the ability to switch between them at will, a large number of DS games are perfectly playable with just one screen. Interestingly, the touch panel still works the same regardless of which video feed is being pipped in; so if you memorize which areas need to be touched to perform different actions, you don’t even need to flip the images. In the video below, [Facelesstech] demonstrates the concept with New Super Mario Bros, which would otherwise be unplayable as the action usually is shown on the top screen.

This hack is only possible because the two displays on the DS are identical beyond the touch overlay, which as we learned during a previous deep-dive into the technology behind this revolutionary handheld, was a trick Nintendo used to squeeze as much performance as they could out of its relatively meager 3D hardware. Unfortunately, it seems like the modification is much harder to pull off on the DS Lite, so it wouldn’t be compatible with the slick Game & Watch styled Game Boy Macro we covered recently. Continue reading “Game Boy Macro Build Retains DS Compatibility” →

Unmasking The Identity Of An Unusual Nintendo DS

April 16, 2021 by Tom Nardi 9 Comments

The Nintendo DS family encompasses a dizzying array of portable game systems released over a span of 17 years. The original DS received several refreshes and special editions, and when the next generation 3DS came along, it spawned a whole new collection of spin-offs. But even among all those machines there’s a name that even Mario himself would never have heard of: the Nintendo DS ML.

In a recent video, [The Retro Future] says he discovered this oddball system selling for around $25 USD on Chinese shopping site Taobao and bought one so he could get a closer look at it. Externally the system looks quite a bit like the refreshed DS Lite, but it’s notably larger and the screens look quite dated. That was already a strong hint to its true identity, as was the placement of its various buttons and controls.

Note the conspicuous absence of Nintendo’s name.

But it wasn’t until [The Retro Future] cracked the system open that he could truly confirm what he had on his hands. This was an original Nintendo DS, potentially a new old stock unit that had never been distributed, which was transplanted into a custom enclosure designed to look like one of the later upgraded models. As for what this seller meant by calling this chimera the DS ML is anyone’s guess, though one of the commenters on the video thought “Maybe Legal” had a nice ring to it.

Now assuming these really are brand new systems that were simply installed in fresh cases, $25 is arguably a good deal. So long as you aren’t concerned with playing the latest titles, anyway. But at the same time its a reminder that you get what you pay for when dealing with shady overseas sellers. It’s just as likely, perhaps even more so, that these were used systems that got spruced up to make a quick buck.

Fake components are everywhere. In fact there’s an excellent chance most of the people reading this site have received some fake parts over the years, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. When there’s fly by night companies willing to refurbish a nearly 20 year old Nintendo handheld for $25, what are the chances that Bosch actually made that $2 temperature sensor you just ordered on eBay?

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A Look At How Nintendo Mastered Dual Screens

January 28, 2021 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

When it was first announced, many people were skeptical of the Nintendo DS. Rather than pushing raw power, the unique dual screen handheld was designed to explore new styles of play. Compared to the more traditional handhelds like the Game Boy Advance (GBA) or even Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP), the DS seemed like huge gamble for the Japanese gaming giant.

But it paid off. The Nintendo DS ended up being one of the most successful gaming platforms of all time, and as [Modern Vintage Gamer] explains in a recent video, at least part of that was due to its surprising graphical prowess. While it was technically inferior to the PSP in almost every way, Nintendo’s decades of experience in pushing the limits of 2D graphics allowed them to squeeze more out of the hardware than many would have thought possible.

On one level, the Nintendo DS could be seen as a upgraded GBA. Developers who were already used to the 2D capabilities of that system would feel right at home when they made the switch to the DS. As with previous 2D consoles, the DS had several screen modes complete with hardware-accelerated support for moving, scaling, rotating, and reflecting up to four background layers. This made it easy and computationally efficient to pull off pseudo-3D effects such as having multiple backdrop images scrolling by at different speeds to convey a sense of depth.

On top of its GBA-inherited tile and sprite 2D engine, the DS also featured a rudimentary GPU responsible for handling 3D geometry and rendering. Hardware accelerated 3D could only used on one screen at a time, which meant most games would keep the closeup view of the action on one display, and used the second panel to show 2D imagery such as an overhead map. But developers did have the option of flipping between the displays on each frame to render 3D on both panels at a reduced frame rate. The hardware can also handle shadows and included integrated support for cell shading, which was a particularly popular graphical effect at the time.

By combining the 2D and 3D hardware capabilities of the Nintendo DS onto a single screen, developers could produce complex graphical effects. [Modern Vintage Gamer] uses the example of New Super Mario Bros, which places a detailed 3D model of Mario over several layers of moving 2D bitmaps. Ultimately the 3D capabilities of the DS were hindered by the limited resolution of its 256 x 192 LCD panels; but considering most people were still using flip phones when the DS came out, it was impressive for the time.

Compared to the Game Boy Advance, or even the original “brick” Game Boy, it doesn’t seem like hackers have had much luck coming up with ways to exploiting the capabilities of the Nintendo DS. But perhaps with more detailed retrospectives like this, the community will be inspired to take another look at this unique entry in gaming history.

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