Nintendo DS emulators: Difference between revisions

:; melonDS-Android

:: An unofficial Android port of melonDS by rafaelvcaetano, this Nintendo DS/DSi emulator is available on the Google Play Store for free. As of Beta 1.8.0 on February 3, 2023, which is based on melonDS v0.9.5, this emulator includes a DSiWare Manager, which allows users to install and play DSiWare titles in the emulator after booting the DSi boot menu. DSiWare title data is importable/exportable since Beta 1.10.0 on March 10, 2025. DSi camera has been implemented since Beta 1.9.0 on November 2, 2023, as well as RetroAchievements support for Nintendo DS games (DSiWare games booted from the DSi boot menu are not supported). External screen support from [https://github.com/SapphireRhodonite/WatermelonDS SapphireRhodonite's fork] (melonDualDS, currently known as WatermelonDS) was implemented in melonDS-Android's v2.0.0 release on April 18, 2026, but SapphireRhodonite's fork is more optimized for dual/external screens. DSiWare titles can also be boot directly in the v2.0.0 update; DSiWare titles booted directly are detected by RetroAchievements.

::: A fork of melonDS-Android by SapphireRhodonite (assisted by melonDS-Android's developer rafaelvcaetano), WatermelonDS (formerly known as melonDualDS until update v0.7.0 on August 7, 2026) has support and optimization for external screens, allowing the player to use both Nintendo DS game screens on two screens for gaming handhelds and accessories such as AYN Thor, AYANEO Pocket DS, ONEXSUGAR Sugar-1, Retroid Dual Screen add-on, and more (though, lower-end devices like Anbernic RG DS may struggle), though single-screen devices are still supported. Also includes Vulkan support since the v0.7.0 beta, and a brand new user interface as of v0.7.0 release when melonDualDS was rebranded as WatermelonDS. v0.7.0 also has fixes and optimizations for RetroAchievements (including detection for games in <code>.7z</code> archives, Multiset support, and the ability to earn achievements offline in Casual mode; though the latter has been implemented in [https://github.com/misantronic/RAOfflineProxy RAOfflineProxy]), and an experimental Vulkan feature called FastPath, which improves performance at higher resolution scaling. Like melonDS-Android, this fork can also boot DSiWare games directly (and has RetroAchievements support), or be booted indirectly by installing them in the DSiWare Manager and booting the DSi boot menu.

; [[DeSmuME]]