nds4ios is a port of the multi-platform Nintendo DS emulator, DeSmuME to iOS.
Currently, emulation is powered by a threaded ARM interpreter. As a result, emulation is rather slow on older devices, like the iPhone 4s and below.
nds4ios runs at nearly full speed on the iPhone 5 and above, and achieves full speed on devices using the A7-S5L8960X SoC (iPhone 5s, iPad Air, iPad mini Retina, and anything newer than these devices).
Due to the need to mmap the entire ROM into memory, older devices with only 256MB of RAM are not supported by nds4ios. These devices include the iPod touch 4, iPad 1, iPhone 3GS, and anything below those devices.
We all work hard to make software that users will enjoy and love. If you enjoy nds4ios, please consider making a donation to help us create and provide better things.
Do not redistribute nds4ios on other sites. We already provide official ways to download nds4ios below. THIS IS A FAIR WARNING.
If you're jailbroken, please follow the instructions here: http://nds4ios.angelxwind.net/i/?page/downloads#jailbroken
If you're NOT jailbroken, please follow the instructions here: http://nds4ios.angelxwind.net/i/?page/downloads#notjailbroken
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Open a Terminal instance and go to your working directory.
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Do
git clone https://github.com/raaxis/nds4ios.git
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then Navigate to the "nds4ios" folder in your working directory.
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Open "nds4ios.xcodeproj", connect your device, select it on Xcode and click the "Run" button (or Command + R). Don't build it for the iOS Simulator. IMPORTANT: Make sure you change your running scheme to Release first. Otherwise you will get errors on compile!
- Alternatively, run
xcodebuild -configuration Release
from Terminal and then copy the resulting *.app bundle to your /Applications directory on your device.
- Open Safari.
- Download a ROM image of a Nintendo DS game that you legally own the actual game cartridge for.
- Tap the "Open in..." button in the top left hand corner, and select nds4ios.
- nds4ios will automatically unzip the file, delete the readme, find the *.nds file, and refresh itself. Your ROM should show up in the list.
- Download one of the many web browsers available on the App Store with download managers built in, such as Dolphin Browser.
- Download a ROM image of a Nintendo DS game that you legally own the actual game cartridge for.
- From the app's list of downloaded files, tap on the downloaded file, and select nds4ios in the "Open in..." menu.
- nds4ios will automatically unzip the file, delete the readme, find the *.nds file, and refresh itself. Your ROM should show up in the list.
- Plug your device into your computer and launch iFunBox Classic.
- Go to [device name] -> iTunes File Sharing -> nds4ios
- Drag and drop *.nds ROM images of Nintendo DS games that you legally own the actual game cartridge for into iFunBox.
- Restart nds4ios to see the changes.
- Download a download manager tweak from Cydia like Safari Downloader+ or Chrome Downloader+.
- Download a ROM image of a Nintendo DS game that you legally own the actual game cartridge for.
- Using iFile or another filesystem explorer, move the downloaded .nds file to /User/Documents/. Alternatively, you can also tap on the downloaded file in the download manager's list of files, and select nds4ios in the "Open in..." menu.
- nds4ios will automatically unzip the file, delete the readme, find the *.nds file, and refresh itself. Your ROM should show up in the list.
- Install OpenSSH from Cydia if you plan to utilise SCP (SSH) to transfer ROMs.
- If you do not wish to utilise SCP, then download iFunBox Classic and install it on your computer.
- ROMs (*.nds) go in the directory: /User/Documents/
- Saves (in DeSmuME's *.dsv format) go in: /User/Documents/Battery/
When something in nds4ios isn't working correctly for you, please open a GitHub issue ticket here.
- iOS device
- iOS version
- Jailbreak status
- Download location
- Slow performance
- Crashing on older devices with 256MB of RAM (iPod touch 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, and anything released prior to those devices.)
- GNU Lightning JIT (Currently running into pointer corruption issues.)
- Paravirtualisation (far-off goal, only after GNU Lightning JIT works)
- OpenGL ES rendering
- Automatically fix permissions of crucial folders on the jailbroken distribution
- Ability to change the folder the ROM chooser reads from
- Minimise memory footprint (which will fix support for devices with low RAM)
- Add more localizations (currently have: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, German)
- Much more.
- DeSmuME
- Jeffrey Quesnelle (jeffq)
- rock88
- Karen Tsai (angelXwind)
- Brian Tung (inb4ohnoes)
- Jesús A. Álvarez (maczydeco)
- W.MS
- Riley Testut (rileytestut)
- David Chavez (dchavezlive)
- Michael Zhang (Malvix_)
- Angela Tsai (vanillastar67)
- winocm (winocm)
- Jesús Higueras (GranPC)
- Fabio Poloni (einfallstoll)
- iain-benson