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Hacking Approx. How many games fit.

[WIP/Release] ds_mangaman - Turning the Nintendo DS into the Ultimate Vertical Book-Style Manga Reader!

Hwongfish · 2026-06-09T00:33:11+00:00

Hi everyone! I’ve always felt that the Nintendo DS is criminally underrated when it comes to being a dedicated manga-reader. Think about it: it has two screens built right into the form factor, one of them has a precise (not quite most of the time though) touchscreen, and when you rotate the console 90 degrees counter-clockwise, it perfectly mimics the ergonomics of holding a real physical tankobon (manga volume). When held vertically, the D-pad sits perfectly on the bottom, and the shoulder keys (L/R) are in the ideal position for switching chapters. Plus, the touchscreen can be used to magnify for reading the text or inspecting details. Such interactions are the ultimate form factors that modern smartphones just can't match. To prove this, I built ds_mangaman — an open-source, highly optimized homebrew manga viewer for the NDS/NDSL. Download and learn how to build in Github release: :teach::teach::teach: GitHub Repository: https://github.com/hwfish-error408/ds-mangaman :grog::grog::grog: Looking for Contributors! The compiler engine and core state machine are now fully functional and running smoothly on real hardware and emulators (like melonDS). However, I want to take this project further and could really use the community's help! I’m looking for developers, testers, and retro-enthusiasts to help with: A, Implementing a cleaner UI/Main Menu. B, Adding Bookmark support (saving states to SRAM/FAT .sav). C, Further optimizing the DMA memory copy speeds during page and chapter transitions. Feel free to download the source, check out the build pipeline, test it on your flashcarts, and open Issues or Pull Requests on the GitHub repo! Let's make the NDS the ultimate retro manga machine.

Thread starter Strag0
Start date Oct 7, 2006
Views 1,266
Replies 6

Strag0

Well-Known Member

Member

Level 3

Oct 7, 2006

I'm really thinking about buying a G6 Lite soon, but I'm curious how many DS and GBA games will fit on it.

I know it varies with game sizes, so I'm just looking for people who own one and can give me some sort of estimation on how many they have fit on there.

Thanks!

mthrnite

So it goes.

Former Staff

GBAtemp Patron

Level 13

Oct 7, 2006

13 DS
1 (big) GBA

and I'm all stuffed up.

YMMV

96hondaex

Well-Known Member

Member

Level 4

Oct 7, 2006

10 ds
8 gba

CatScam

ScamaRama!

Member

Level 3

Oct 7, 2006

For DS only, you can fit 63 of the small games or just 4 of the big games.

Stormingsoul

Well-Known Member

Newcomer

Level 1

Oct 7, 2006

Got like 12 to 14 on my g6 right now

kohkindachi

Well-Known Member

Member

Level 3

Oct 7, 2006

I have 8 DS games now and only half of the capacity is utilised

I believe if a game is 512Mbit(64MByte), you can only store a min. of 8 games.

ugly_rose

Well-Known Member

Member

Level 2

Oct 7, 2006

It's really hard to estimate. The pokémon roms can e.g. be trimmed from 1024 mbit to 469 mbit (which is lovely) so you can get a lot on there. Thanks to this I usually end up having a couple of roms I don't play on the flash cart.