Emulators on Android

Nintendo 3DS

Developer	Nintendo
Type	Handheld game console
Generation	Eighth generation
Release date	2011
Discontinued	2020
Predecessor	Nintendo DS
Emulated	✓

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

RetroArch

There are preliminary 3DS ports

Stable

Nightly

GitHub

BIOS : Download

Available cores

Cores	Game/System	Working?	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/GameBoy Color	✓
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/PCECD/SuperGrafx	✓
Mednafen NGP	NeoGeo Pocket/Pocket Color	✓
Mednafen WS	WonderSwan/WonderSwan Color	✓
FCEUmm	NES/FDS	✓
Nestopia		✓	~55-60 FPS, use FCEUmm instead
QuickNES		✓
NXEngine	Cave Story	✓
PCSX-ReARMed	PlayStation 1	✓	~50-60 FPS at standard resolution
PicoDrive	MegaDrive/Genesis/MasterSystem/GameGear/CD/32X	✓	2D games run full speed, 3D games run about 30 FPS or less
Genesis Plus GX	MegaDrive/Genesis/MasterSystem/GameGear/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

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.

RetroArch (Unofficial)

Unofficial 3DS builds

New3DS performance

Core	Game/System	Working?	Notes
TGB Dual	GameBoy/GameBoy Color	✓	~60fps
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
Virtul Jaguar	Atari Jaguar	✗	~10fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)
Yabause	Sega Saturn	✗	~5fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)
4DO	3DO	✗	~8fps (Technically works but is unplayably slow)

Ultimate 3DS emupack

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

Linux OS

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Linux 3DS	Update	?	~	~

Nintendo

NES

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
VirtuaNES for 3DS	git	Mid	~	✓
3DNES	git	Mid	✗	~

SNES

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
SNES9x for 3DS	git	Mid	~	✓
blargSNES	1.3b	Mid	~	✓

SNES9x for 3DS
Snes9x for 3DS - 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.)

Nintendo 64

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
DaedalusX64 3DS	git	Mid	✓	~

DaedalusX64

DaedalusX64 - N64 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 its beta stage, it has shown a lot of improvements thanks to using a dynamic recompiler, with some games running at a playable state. It also supports using stereoscopic 3D (at the cost of slower performance), which isn't a feature a lot of emulators have.

Game Boy

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
GameYob	git	Mid	✗	~
Cinoop	git	Mid	✗	~

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.

Virtual Boy

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
r3Ddragon	git	Low	✓	~

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

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
PokeMini 3DS	git	Low	✗	~

Game Boy Advance

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. 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:

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
New Super Ultimate Injector (NSUI)	Beta 27	Mid	✓	✓
open_agb_firm	git	Mid	✓	✓
GBARunner2	git	Mid	✓	✓

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 this 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 and hold START 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.

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 it's still in active development with plans to include interesting features such as gyro control emulation and local wireless multiplayer in the future.

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
mGBA	git	Mid	✓	✓
CitrAGB (based on gpSP)	1.0	Low	✗	~

Nintendo DS

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
TWiLight Menu++	git	Mid	✓	✓
DeSmuME	git	Mid	✗	✗

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. Compatiblity List.

DeSmuME
DeSmuME - an experimental port of DeSmuME that has since been abandoned, it wasn't very compatible.

Nintendo DSiware

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. There's two ways to do this:

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
GodMode9	git	Mid	✓	✓
DSiWare Conversion Script	Script	Mid	✗	~

GodMode9
Version 1.8.0 and above has a script that can convert .nds to .cia, 3ds.hacks.guide has more information on how to update to the latest version if needed.

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.

TWiLight Menu++ has support for two DSiWare as of v15.1.1 with a special preview of nds-bootstrap, Pop Island and Pop Island: Paperfield. These can also run on the DS.

Sony

PlayStation

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
PCSX-ReARMed (RetroArch)	Nightly	Mid	✓	✓
CTRX	git	Low	✗	✗

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 so don't expect the o3DS to run well if at all.

SEGA

MegaDrive/Genesis/MasterSystem/32X/Sega CD

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
PicoDrive for 3DS	git	Mid	✗	✓

PicoDrive for 3DS

PicoDrive for 3DS - 32X and Sega CD are playable on the original 3DS, but works better on New 3DS. Sega CD requires BIOS in order to play, they must be named: "bios_CD_U.bin", "bios_CD_J.bin", and "bios_CD_E.bin" based on the respective regions. BIOS need to be in the /3ds/picodrive_3ds/bios folder. NOTE: PicoDrive does not support .gg file format. There is no stable Game Gear emulator currently available for the original 3DS either. (I know this because I looked through the past update logs and tested it out to make sure. After installing everything and testing the other emulators on RetroArch, I tested Game Gear games through it as well and while they did eventually run, it was often virtually unusable [black screening without any image and crashing]). To install and run your favorite Game Gear games on the original 3ds, utilize this .gg VC injector found here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-ultimate-gg-game-gear-vc-injector-for-3ds.437226/.

Atari inc.

Atari 2600

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Z26 3DS	2.0	Mid	✗	~

Atari 5200

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Atari800 3DS	0.3.4	Mid	✗	~

Atari Lynx

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Handy 3DS	1.1b	Mid	✗	~

NEC

PCE/PCECD/SuperGrafx

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
TemperPCE for 3DS	git	Mid	✗	✓

GCE

Vectrex

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Vex3DS (based on vecx)	0.4	Mid	✗	~

SNK

Neo Geo Pocket/Pocket Color

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
NeoPop-sdl 3DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Microsoft

DOS

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
3DOS	1.0	Mid	✗	~

• 3DOS - Based on 8086tiny. Can only emulate 8086 CPUs.

Apple

mac 2.x

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Mini vMac 3DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Sinclair

ZX Spectrum

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
3DS Spectrum	0.1	Mid	✗	~

Commodore

Commodore 64

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Bread Box	1/06/16	Mid	✗	~
VICE3DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Amiga

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
UAE3DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Other

Uzebox

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Cuzebox 3DS	git	Low	✗	~

Multi game engine

Name	Latest Version	Active	Recommended	Supported game(s)
OpenLara	git	✓	~	Tomb Raider 1-4

ScummVM

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
ScummVM 3DS	2.2.0	High	✓	✓

EasyRPG

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
EasyRPG 3DS	0.6.2.3	High	✓	✓

OpenBOR

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
OpenBOR 3DS	git	Mid	~	✓

Lua Engine

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
CtrµLua 3DS	git	Mid	✗	~
LÖVE Potion 3DS	git	Mid	✗	~
Lua Player Plus 3DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Game Creation Systems (GCS)

Name	Latest Version	Active	Recommended
DigitalMZX	git	✓	~

Others

Amiibo

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Wumiibo	git	Mid	✓	✓

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.

CHIP-8

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
Chip-3DS	1.0	Mid	✗	~
Chip8-2DS	git	Mid	✗	~

Super Mario 64

Name	Version	Accuracy	Active	Recommended
SM64 3DS	git	Mid	✓	✓

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).

Virtual Console Injection

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.

See also

• Nintendo 3DS emulators