Changes

;[[No$GBA]]:Focuses on speed, and has major compatibility issues and glitches as a result. But because it was originally a GBA emulator, the DS's 3D features are still very poorly handled. However, it might be an option for a very low end machine but don't expect a lot of games to run perfectly, or at all. A fan program, No$Zoomer, was released for version 2.6 which increases compatibility and options, as well as the titular zooming abilities. The biggest addition is noise cancellation which clears up static that No$GBA makes with its 3D rendering. No$Zoomer hasn't rebased yet but does add options for window resizing. There hasn't been any noticeable changes with regards to accuracy however. As of v2.8, No$GBA supports DSi games, and is currently the only emulator that does. Only use No$GBA in the cases of DSi games, debugging (if you've taken up romhacking for DS games), if you value speed above everything, or just as a last resort.

;[[melonDS]]:Probably the only emulator that's provided any signs of hope for competition in the PC space. StapleButter's goal is to make an emulator that's better optimized and includes features that others lack, either intentionally or not. While the developers of No$GBA had documented the Wi-Fi capabilities first, melonDS is the only emulator that's gotten as far as it has and it has been found to work reasonably well with a handful of games. It could surpass DeSmuME when it covers more features and supports more games, but it's unclear whether DSi games will be supported or not.

;iDeaS: An abandoned and experimental DS emulator that uses a plug-in system, it's very slow and buggy but has partially gotten some features working like the camera and slide accessories.

;[[ensata]]:Nintendo's official DS emulator that was leaked to the public. It's not very usable or compatible but it can run a few games.

===Other issues===

Certain games, such as American Girl titles (e.g. ''Julie Finds a Way'' and ''Kit Mystery Challenge'') suffer from severe flickering issues which keep those games from being playable on most emulators; so far [[DraStic]] is the only emulator able to run the two games properly, and while Desmume r5043 had an initial fix that worked around the flickering issues, it was removed in later revisions as it broke compatibility with Pokemon SoulSilver among others; this has since been patched on r5531 once the true nature of the [https://sourceforge.net/p/desmume/bugs/1134/ bug] was better understood.

{{Nintendo}}