- For software that emulates the 3DS, see Nintendo 3DS emulators.
Because of the homebrewing scene the 3DS has had, you can install a variety of emulators. Currently, the New 3DS is capable of running much faster than the older models, making it a much more ideal platform for emulation, but despite this there are still some emulators that have issues regardless. For more information on how to homebrew your 3DS, visit 3ds.hacks.guide.
Multi-Systems[edit]
There are official 3DS ports
Stable
Nightly
GitHub
BIOS : Download
Available cores
Cores
|
Game/System
|
Working?
|
Old 3ds
|
Notes
|
FinalBurn Alpha 2012
|
Arcade
|
✓
|
✗
|
- Uses FBA v0.2.97.30 ROM sets
- Main core (fbalpha2012_libretro) does not work, but platform-specific cores run at full speed
|
FinalBurn Neo NeoGeo
|
✓
|
✗
|
A few games are unable to be loaded due to memory constraints
|
FinalBurn Alpha CPS1
|
✓
|
✗
|
|
FinalBurn Alpha CPS2
|
✓
|
✗
|
|
FinalBurn Alpha CPS3
|
~
|
✗
|
most games are too slow to run even on New 3DS, though JoJo runs almost full speed
|
Gambatte
|
Game Boy / Color
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Gearboy
|
Game Boy / Color
|
?
|
✗
|
too slow in old3ds even for GB
|
TGB Dual
|
Game Boy / Color
|
✓
|
~
|
~60fps new3ds, unstable GBC framerate in old3ds
|
mGBA
|
GameBoy Advance
|
✓
|
✗
|
acceptable with Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, but some games are slow to use, even on New 3DS, at present
|
gpSP
|
✓
|
✗
|
~50-60 FPS with dynarec
|
Mednafen VB
|
Virtual Boy
|
~
|
✗
|
~25-30 FPS
|
Mednafen PCE fast
|
PCE / CD / SuperGrafx
|
✓
|
?
|
|
Mednafen NGP
|
NeoGeo Pocket / Color
|
✓
|
~
|
Old 3ds 20-30 FPS, Use Race! Instead
|
Mednafen WS
|
WonderSwan / Color
|
✓
|
?
|
|
FCEUmm
|
NES / FDS
|
✓
|
✗
|
Old 3ds 10-20 FPS
|
Nestopia
|
✓
|
✗
|
~55-60 FPS, use FCEUmm instead
|
QuickNES
|
✓
|
✗
|
|
NXEngine
|
Cave Story
|
✓
|
?
|
|
PCSX-ReARMed
|
PlayStation
|
✓
|
✗
|
~50-60 FPS at standard resolution
|
PicoDrive
|
MD / Gen / SMS / CD / 32X
|
✓
|
~
|
2D games run full speed, 3D games run about 30 FPS or less
|
Genesis Plus GX
|
MD / Gen / SMS / CD / 32X / SG-1000
|
✓
|
✓
|
Redbook audio hangs when suspending or pausing RetroArch
|
Snes9x 2002 (PocketSNES)
|
SNES
|
✓
|
✗
|
less compatible than CATSFC, but can actually run many special chip games at full speed
|
Snes9x 2005 (CATSFC)
|
✓
|
✗
|
~55-60 FPS on standard games, ~50 FPS on Super FX games
|
Snes9x 2005+ (CATSFC Plus)
|
✓
|
✗
|
Same as Snes9x 2005 but with better sound, at the cost of a few FPS, has more accurate audio, slower
|
Snes9x 2010 (Snes9x Next)
|
✓
|
✗
|
Most accurate but slowest SNES core (~40 FPS),too slow to use even on New 3DS at present
|
GW
|
Game & Watch
|
✓
|
?
|
~58fps
|
FUSE
|
ZX Spectrum
|
✓
|
?
|
~60fps
|
VecX
|
Vectrex
|
✓
|
?
|
~55fps
|
O2EM
|
Odyssey ²
|
✓
|
?
|
~60fps
|
Stella
|
Atari2600
|
✓
|
~
|
~60fps
|
Atari800
|
Atari5200
|
✓
|
~
|
~60fps
|
ProSystem
|
Atari7800
|
✓
|
~
|
~60fps
|
Handy
|
Atari Lynx
|
✓
|
✓
|
~60fps
|
FinalBurn Alpha CPS3
|
Arcade
|
~
|
✗
|
~35fps/~50fps
|
FinalBurn Neo NeoGeo
|
~
|
✗
|
~40fps/~50fps
|
4DO
|
3DO
|
✗
|
✗
|
~8fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)
|
Using current exploits, the New 3DS is capable of running most of these cores at or nearly at full speed on most games. The only cores the older 3DS can reliably run at full speed are 2048, Gambatte, QuickNES, NXEngine, and some older Sega games using PicoDrive.
Opposed to normal use of RetroArch, these are all self-contained emulators, albeit sharing the same automatic configuration.
Screenshot-taking is broken. Upon exiting RetroArch 3DS, press the Start button.
Unofficial 3DS builds
New3DS performance
Core
|
Game/System
|
Working?
|
Old 3ds
|
Notes
|
Virtual Jaguar
|
Atari Jaguar
|
✗
|
✗
|
~10fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)
|
Yabause
|
Sega Saturn
|
✗
|
✗
|
~5fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)
|
Ultimate 3DS emupack[edit]
Version
|
git
|
FLOSS
|
✓ Recommended
|
Supported Emulators
|
- Nintendo 64 : DaedalusX64 0.2
- SNES : Snes9X 1.30
- NES : VirtuaNES 1.02
- TurboGrafx/PC Engine : TemperPCE 1.02
- MasterSystem/MegaDrive/Sega CD/32x : PicoDrive 0.94
- CHIP-8 : CHIP-3DS
- Atari 2600 : z26 3DS
- GB/GBC : GameYob 1.0.8
- GBA : mGBA 0.8.4
|
Nintendo[edit]
SNES9x for 3DS
|
- Snes9x for 3DS - based on snes9x 1.43. Runs a good majority of games well, even on old 3DS/2DS's. It's recommended to use a New 3DS if you want to run games that uses the SuperFX or SA-1 chip properly
|
blargSNES
|
- blargSNES - It works well, but lacks compatibility for games that require enhancement chips (SA1, SuperFX, etc.)
|
Game Boy / Color[edit]
GameYob
|
- GameYob - forked from a popular emulator used on the DS. Emulates the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. The original DS version is actually more polished than the 3DS port, so some of the more hardware pushing games won't work as well as the DS port.
|
Game Boy Advance[edit]
GBARunner2
|
- GBARunner2 - a GBA hypervisor made for the DS(i), can only be ran through TWiLight Menu++ and is included by default with the program (see below). Compatiblity can be a hit-or-miss but isn't that bad.
|
Native firmware[edit]
The 3DS does include native firmware for a GBA mode which was mainly used to run ambassador releases instead of having to develop an emulator for them. Because it's technically running a "virtual" GBA, it can't provide features that are normally available on other emulators, such as savestates, screen filtering, or sleep mode, however it does have high compatibility with the exception of cartridges with special hardware, for example, WarioWare Twisted, which has a gyroscope built in. If you're using an old 3DS/2DS, this is the best option to play GBA games.
There are two ways to take advantage of this firmware:
NSUI
|
- New Super Ultimate Injector - There are other programs that can do injections, but this one is nice as it can do other Virtual Console injections and some forwarders for emulators. The only problem is each ROM must be injected and installed individually, including the save files, which makes the number of titles that can be installed restricted to the max the 3DS title limit (300 titles, not including pre-installed system titles).
|
Open agb firm
|
- open_agb_firm (Name not finalized) - A custom FIRM payload that takes advantage of the built-in GBA firmware, it's still in early development but has an alpha build available. The major advantages of oaf compared to VC injection is that it performs faster and there aren't any issues with the sound, it utilizes the native hardware (even with VC injection there are issues with the sound, ex.: "Fire Emblem"). It can load the ROM through the SD card instead of having to convert and install them, but needs to be launched on boot instead of being able to use the 3DS HOME Menu (there's ways to make a forwarder for in on the HOME menu, but requires additional setup to get it to work). One major issue is there's a chance that it may not detect the correct save format or will corrupt the existing save file so make sure to backup your saves beforehand (they are currently trying fix it by having a better database for save detection, if you're interested you can help).
- To install, simply put the .firm file in the
/luma/payloads/ folder, hold START and power on to load up the chainloader to launch it. There's no way of exiting out once the program starts, so you will need to turn it off and redo the step to load it if you wanted to change games.
|
Virtual Console Injection[edit]
Some have tried injecting alternate ROMs in the available Virtual Console releases (MD, GG, NES, GBA Ambassador, GBC, Japanese emulated SFC compilations) with varying degrees of success. The emulators used for Virtual Console are not as accurate as other emulators so compatibility isn't perfect (the only exception is GBA since it runs it natively, not emulation), Sega systems in particular have high compatibility however.
There's an easy tool that will convert and inject any supported ROM file as its associated VC application called New Super Ultimate Injector. It's an all in one tool and can even remotely install the injection provided your 3DS is connected to the same network. It's currently in beta, but it's still really useful.
Nintendo 64[edit]
DaedalusX64
|
- DaedalusX64 3DS - The Nintendo 64 has always been known to be a hard system to emulate, which is why many were skeptical about how feasible it would be to have an emulator for the system on the 3DS. While still in early development, it has shown a lot of improvements thanks to using a dynamic recompiler, with some games running at a playable state. Versions before v1.0 also supported using stereoscopic 3D (at the cost of slower performance), which isn't a feature a lot of emulators have.
|
Nintendo DS[edit]
TWiLight Menu++
|
- TWiLight Menu++ - Not technically an "emulator", rather it's a frontend for a separate program, nds-bootstrap, which allows for an NDS ROM to be loaded from an SD card. The program is originally designed for the DSi, however it's able to work on the 3DS by utilizing the virtual DSi (aka the TWL_FIRM or "DS Mode") that the 3DS has for backwards-compatibility. Compatibility isn't the same as using a flashcart, however it's still pretty high with only a few games having issues or triggering anti-piracy protections (newer versions now come with AP patches for most games and will patch them if needed at launch). It also comes pre-bundled with a variety of emulators used on the DS and a work-in-progress GBA hypervisor, GBARunner2, that works to some degree.
Includes a bunch of popular emulators, and can be found in
The list includes:
- A5200DS - (Atari 5200)
- A7800DS - (Atari 7800 ProSystem)
- A8DS - (Atari800XL/XEGS)
- AmEDS - (Amstrad CPC)
- ColecoDS - (ColecoVision)
- CrocoDC - (Amstrad CPC)
- GameYob - (GB/GBC)
- GBARunner2 - (GBA)
- jEnesisDS - (Sega Megadrive/Genesis)
- nesDS - (NES)
- NGPDS - (Neo Geo Pocket)
- Nintellivision - (Intellivision)
- NitroGrafx - (PC-Engine)
- NitroSwan - (WonderSwan)
- PicoDriveTWL - (Genesis/Megadrive)
- PokeMini - (Pokémon Mini)
- S8DS - (GG/MS/SG-1000)
- SNEmulDS - (SNES)
- StellaDS - (Atari 2600)
|
DeSmuME
|
- DeSmuME - an experimental port of DeSmuME that has since been abandoned, it wasn't very compatible.
|
Flashcart
|
- Flashcart - not an emulator, but a card you can buy that allows playing DS games from an SD card. Commonly referred to as an "R4", however that is just one brand name of many.
|
DSiWare[edit]
Because the firmware that the 3DS uses for backwards-compatibility is actually the same as the DSi, it's possible to inject DSiWare as an installable .cia
file.
GodMode9
|
- Since version 2.0.0 can install DSiWare in both
.nds and .cia formats, 3ds.hacks.guide has more information on how to update to the latest version if needed.
|
FBI
|
- Able to install
.cia files from the SD card.
|
TWiLight Menu++
|
- Since v20.0.0 (nds-bootstrap v0.39.0) DSiWare have been supported.
- DSiWare are run natively, however they're patched to run from and save to the SD card rather than internal NAND which works around the 40 title limit, but occasionally causes bugs resulting in slightly less than perfect compatibility currently.
- Has an in-game menu (accessible in DSiWare since v24.0.0) that allows for taking screenshots and viewing RAM.
|
DSiWare Conversion Script
|
- This script can be used to convert
.bin files from your DSi's SD card to .nds which can then be used to convert into .cia . These scripts will ONLY work for DSiWare, NOT NDS GAMES.
|
Virtual Boy[edit]
r3Ddragon
|
- r3Ddragon - It's kind of surprising that Nintendo never released a Virtual Console for the Virtual Boy on the 3DS, especially given how small the library of games were for the system and how both utilize 3D effects
and cause eyestrain. What makes this emulator stand out is the fact that it's able to display the graphics in 3D the way it was intended, something that is almost impossible to do on other platforms; unfortunately compatibility is still low and requires a New 3DS to run. Development has since opened.
|
Pokémon Mini[edit]
Game & Watch[edit]
This is an early core build. GW is already included in the latest retroarch builds, use it instead.
PlayStation[edit]
PCSX-ReARMed
|
- PCSX-ReARMed (RetroArch) - Thanks to the work of many developers, it is now possible to have full speed 60 FPS emulation for a majority of games and support for .CHD compression formats. Generally, 2D games will perform better than 3D, however you can get some better performance by tweaking the settings if necessary. The nightly builds have seen major improvements since the initial release and can even play some of the more demanding games at full speed (See here for some tips), so it's better to use that until the next stable release.
- NOTE: This emulator is mainly targeted for the New 3DS models, so don't expect the old 3DS models to run well, if at all.
|
Name
|
Version
|
MD/Gen
|
SMS/GG
|
32X
|
CD
|
Accuracy
|
FLOSS
|
Active
|
Citra
|
Recommended
|
PicoDrive for 3DS
|
git
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
Mid
|
✓
|
✗
|
✓ (New3DS)
|
✓
|
3DSSMS
|
0.3
|
✗
|
✓
|
✗
|
✗
|
Mid
|
✓
|
✗
|
✓
|
~
|
Atari inc.[edit]
Atari 2600[edit]
Atari 5200 / 800[edit]
Atari Lynx[edit]
PCE / CD / SuperGrafx[edit]
Vectrex[edit]
SNK Playmore[edit]
Neo Geo Pocket / Color[edit]
Microsoft[edit]
3DOS
|
- 3DOS - Based on 8086tiny. Can only emulate 8086 CPUs.
|
Macintosh and Mac II[edit]
Mini vMAC 3DS: emulates Macintosh Plus and other early variants, like 128K, 512K, 512Ke, SE, Classic, and SE FDHD. Includes experimental and very slow support for Macintosh II.
Sinclair[edit]
ZX Spectrum[edit]
Commodore[edit]
Commodore 64 / 128[edit]
Game engines[edit]
Lua Engine[edit]
Source ports[edit]
- ↑ Controls are unstable, causing the player to uncontrollably bank to the right after moving.
- ↑ Versions of Shadow Warrior supported for JFShadowWarrior include: Shadow Warrior Registered Version 1.2 (MS-DOS), Shadow Warrior Shareware Version (MS-DOS), Shadow Warrior Classic (GOG.com, Steam), and Shadow Warrior Classic Redux (GOG.com, Steam, Humble).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Five Nights at Freddy's 1 3DS -remastered- is an updated version of Five Nights at Freddy 1's 3DS by the same developer FreDev, also known as BumboDEV and BaseDEV. The developer also attempted Nintendo 3DS ports of Five Nights at Freddy's 2, 3, and 4 but development stopped after the developer lost the source code for Five Nights at Freddy's 2 and would have to reverse engineer it again.[1] Those ports were only in a state of demonstration and were not fully playable, having incomplete A.I., gameplay, and missing screens. Download links to the latest versions can be found on the old Discord server.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 There is also an official Nintendo 3DS remake called Cave Story 3D with 3D graphics and more gameplay features that may be more recommendable depending on the user's preference. Cave Story Engine 2, or CSE2 for short, is a source port of the classic Cave Story by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya. CSE2 came with a portable version and an enhanced version of the original freeware but in November 2020, the CSE2 source port has received a DMCA cease and desist notice from Nicalis, the current IP owner of Cave Story.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Audio for these games does not output in Citra, but other than that, it is playable.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Sega Forever classics version on Android or iOS can also be used.
- ↑ As of v1.0, the Sonic Mania 3DS port has long load times booting up the game and transitioning between screens but other than that, it's playable at a good frame rate on a New Nintendo 3DS. The audio is slightly delayed but not too bad. There are some frame drops during the giant ring special stages but it's arguably bearable.
- ↑ Old Nintendo 3DS is planned to be supported for Sonic Mania 3DS in a future update.
- ↑ New Nintendo 3DS/2DS is highly recommended to use any of the Super Mario 64 3DS ports (sm64ex-alo, sm64-minimap, etc.) and can use 800px but even then, using certain graphical settings such as No Drawing Distance when building a custom version can greatly reduce frame rate even on a New Nintendo 3DS/2DS. On older Nintendo 3DS/2DS models, use the 400px version.
- ↑ The Asian translations of Diablo on DevilutionX 3DS are not recommended on older Nintendo 3DS/2DS models as they can crash due to not having enough memory to hold all the symbols in memory.
- ↑ The RSC Preservation 3DS port of OpenRSC (a RuneScape Classic private server) has frame rate issues when Interlace Mode is off. Toggling Interlace Mode on by pressing SELECT restores the frame rate.
- ↑ While RE3 3DS is playable and only playable on New Nintendo 3DS/2DS, it will also suffer frame rate drops and graphical glitches but it is still playable depending on the user's frame tolerance.
SM64 3DS port
|
- SM64 3DS Port - Thanks to the decompilation project, you can now enjoy SM64 on the 3DS with *analog* support and native rendering (compared to the official DS port). Works pretty much at full speed on the New 3DS, the original model apparently has some slow downs but still playable. You can either build it yourself, or try finding pre-compiled build online (there are multiple versions, you can find some here but it's no longer up-to-date or a more up-to-date version with 3D support here).
|
Game Creation Systems (GCS)[edit]
Fantasy Computers[edit]
Wumiibo
|
- Wumiibo - Emulates Amiibo functionality on the 3DS without needing an NFC reader or using tags. You can even use your own Amiibo data, after it's been decrypted, or a generic AmiiboID which are freely available and explains how to get them on the project page.
|
CC800 Simulator[edit]
See Also[edit]