Tutorial How to make 3DS Games with Unity

[MG4M3R]

Check the license you are actually using by Help > manage license > change license and use the 3ds key again. if it doesn't appear is due to that. It works just fine for 5.2.4, 5.6.5, 5.6.6 and 2017.2.5 for me.

That was the problem.

I used the Wii U version's serial number for both and it always worked, so I had forgotten that there was a separate one for the 3DS.

The one for the Wii U version no longer works for the 3DS version, but the one exclusive to the 3DS does work, thanks!

 

[CooingMaxito]

I'm glad you got it to work! I would actually be of little to no help as I am terribly awful at trying to help or explain anything at all, so it's awesome that you quickly fixed it lol

 

[CooingMaxito]

Just got of curiosity, has anyone been able to get Unity 3ds installing and running under Linux? I attempted this but had no success on the installation (apparently .NET is not supported, plus it just hangs on the last part of the installation)

I can't find anyone online talking about this, but it might also be because it's nonfunctional? Who knows really, I'm super curious about this though

 

[Manurocker95]

Just got of curiosity, has anyone been able to get Unity 3ds installing and running under Linux? I attempted this but had no success on the installation (apparently .NET is not supported, plus it just hangs on the last part of the installation)

I can't find anyone online talking about this, but it might also be because it's nonfunctional? Who knows really, I'm super curious about this though

Stable Unity Editor support for linux appeared recently so I guess it's non-functional on Unity 5 xD

 

[CooingMaxito]

Stable Unity Editor support for linux appeared recently so I guess it's non-functional on Unity 5 xD

Yeah I looked into it, looks like it won't be a real option. A shame really, could have been a cool way to use it lololol

 

[CooingMaxito]

Welp, here we are again lol
After countless hours of just mindless fooling around with Linux, I managed to run the Unity Editor on my Linux machine, and it's surprisingly functional. The only issue I've encountered so far is that after building your game and getting the .cci, the editor freezes and will need to be forcefully stopped, but other than that uh, I think this is actually viable lol

I am using Proton Experimental as of writing this message, I haven't fully gotten the Unity experience or dabbling about trying more features from the editor, but yeah! It does seem to work properly 99% of the time, very cool

Mission success

 

[kliko]

Hello, i tried making a game with UnityFor3DS but whenever building a game it says my license of ARM Compiler 5.04 has been expired so what do i do from here? i already tried re entering the license multiple times but it does not work thanks alot in advance!!

 

[Th3Travler]

on page 20 of this post MG4M3R had a similar problem.

Tutorial  Post in thread 'How to make 3DS Games with Unity'

May 19, 2025

Sounds like you need to enter the license key again, do you still have your key when you first activated Unity 3ds? If so, you should try to get the key prompt to pop up and re enter it

I re-entered it multiple times, both in Unity, in the Unity Hub, and on the Unity website.

It seems that Unity has dropped support for the 3DS, so the key now only authorizes use for the Wii U and no longer for both as it was before.

• MG4M3R

follow the posts from there to see if the same solution will work for you.

 

[Manurocker95]

Hello, i tried making a game with UnityFor3DS but whenever building a game it says my license of ARM Compiler 5.04 has been expired so what do i do from here? i already tried re entering the license multiple times but it does not work thanks alot in advance!!

The issue with the ARM Compiler is you need a modified license that "never expires". It's not about Unity but the ACC one that comes with the SDK.

 

[Manurocker95]

Btw, in case someone is wondering, you can use Cinemachine and Animation Rigging (for Inverse Kinematics). They take a lot of resources but you can achieve "modern" results with them.

 

[Manurocker95]

Okay, I simplied the UDS protocol manager and now I can manage real time inputs with a few frames of latency. The host is still who has the "big role" in the connection tho.

Did anyone get Photon Classic working?

 

[CooingMaxito]

Okay, I simplied the UDS protocol manager and now I can manage real time inputs with a few frames of latency. The host is still who has the "big role" in the connection tho.

View attachment 519207

Did anyone get Photon Classic working?

Haven't tried it, but I'm guessing it won't work all that well
I have heard that multiplayer by using networking doesn't work on 5.6 for 3ds, but instead 5.2 via PIA
I don't know how true this is but maybe you could try something with it?

Post automatically merged: Sep 7, 2025

Oh I also almost forgot about this
Along with the help of a friend of mine, we made a tool for Unity 3ds that can enable extended memory mode for both o3ds and n3ds
Hope this helps anyone that might need it

I may update it some day later to include some other features
https://github.com/xToxicLynx/CiaForgeX

 

[Manurocker95]

Haven't tried it, but I'm guessing it won't work all that well
I have heard that multiplayer by using networking doesn't work on 5.6 for 3ds, but instead 5.2 via PIA
I don't know how true this is but maybe you could try something with it?

Post automatically merged: Sep 7, 2025

Oh I also almost forgot about this
Along with the help of a friend of mine, we made a tool for Unity 3ds that can enable extended memory mode for both o3ds and n3ds
Hope this helps anyone that might need it

I may update it some day later to include some other features
https://github.com/xToxicLynx/CiaForgeX

There is one known game that uses Photon on 3DS and 5.6 is the latest version supported so it should work there with a specific combination of the plugin.

Regarding the extended memory, setting the memory above the “limit” in project settings enables aleeady the extended memory. E.g: 150Mb on new 3ds or 96MB on old.

 

[CooingMaxito]

There is one known game that uses Photon on 3DS and 5.6 is the latest version supported so it should work there with a specific combination of the plugin.

Regarding the extended memory, setting the memory above the “limit” in project settings enables aleeady the extended memory. E.g: 150Mb on new 3ds or 96MB on old.

Weird, the only way I've been able to access extended memory on o3ds and n3ds ws through rebuilding the CCI and modifying the rsf file

You can check what system mode your build is actually running on by using ctrtool
From my testing, system mode 96mb doesn't seem to even boot on o3ds

 

[Manurocker95]

Weird, the only way I've been able to access extended memory on o3ds and n3ds ws through rebuilding the CCI and modifying the rsf file

You can check what system mode your build is actually running on by using ctrtool
From my testing, system mode 96mb doesn't seem to even boot on o3ds

Just checking the generated XML file next to the CCI you can see if the extended memory is applied or not. For example, here is my Silksong for 3DS cia in XML + CTRTool (just for New N3DS). You can see the "ExtendedMode" set to true and in CTR, using 124MB + Enable L2 Cache (extended in N3DS). I think it should not matter, but I'm using 5.6.6f2 and not 5.6.5 or below.

Edit: Just noticed that any value above 124MB on N3DS and 64 on O3DS, the mem is clamped to 124MB/64MB (you cannot reach 178MB/80MB from Unity without modifying the RSF) and any value below is set to that up to a minimum. So that plugin seems nice to have the max ram available

Edit 2: Rebuilding the cia with 80MB of RAM for Old 3DS allowed me to allocate my core framework + dotween + Animation Rigging + Final IK + Text Mesh pro, that didn't work due to Mono heap being higher than the available space (you can test this creating 150-200 scripts. Even if they are not used in any scene, the game crashes by default), being able to load it on Citra without N3DS mode. Nice work there with the plug-and-play rsf modification proccess!

Edit 3: more complex projects still crash but it's an advance. Did you test to set 96MB?

 

[CooingMaxito]

Just checking the generated XML file next to the CCI you can see if the extended memory is applied or not. For example, here is my Silksong for 3DS cia in XML + CTRTool (just for New N3DS). You can see the "ExtendedMode" set to true and in CTR, using 124MB + Enable L2 Cache (extended in N3DS). I think it should not matter, but I'm using 5.6.6f2 and not 5.6.5 or below. View attachment 528165View attachment 528166

Edit: Just noticed that any value above 124MB on N3DS and 64 on O3DS, the mem is clamped to 124MB/64MB (you cannot reach 178MB/80MB from Unity without modifying the RSF) and any value below is set to that up to a minimum. So that plugin seems nice to have the max ram available

Edit 2: Rebuilding the cia with 80MB of RAM for Old 3DS allowed me to allocate my core framework + dotween + Animation Rigging + Final IK + Text Mesh pro, that didn't work due to Mono heap being higher than the available space (you can test this creating 150-200 scripts. Even if they are not used in any scene, the game crashes by default), being able to load it on Citra without N3DS mode. Nice work there with the plug-and-play rsf modification proccess!

View attachment 528177

Edit 3: more complex projects still crash but it's an advance. Did you test to set 96MB?

I'm glad the tool was helpful to you
It was a bit funky to figure out but it ended pretty good in my opinion

Regarding 96mb system mode, we've tried a lot of things but 96mb seems to always crash on o3ds no matter what, maybe that system mode was only reserved to be used for actual dev units? Not sure, but it doesn't seem like it's feasible to get it to work at the moment

 

[Manurocker95]

I'm glad the tool was helpful to you
It was a bit funky to figure out but it ended pretty good in my opinion

Regarding 96mb system mode, we've tried a lot of things but 96mb seems to always crash on o3ds no matter what, maybe that system mode was only reserved to be used for actual dev units? Not sure, but it doesn't seem like it's feasible to get it to work at the moment

One really weird thing is forcing to 178MB on N3DS makes Citra to crash. Deactivating this (which leaves 124Mb), makes it to work again. Seems like Unity doesn't properly match mem allocations with more than 124Mb. In addition, none of my projects seem to work with 80MB Dx

 

[CooingMaxito]

One really weird thing is forcing to 178MB on N3DS makes Citra to crash. Deactivating this (which leaves 124Mb), makes it to work again. Seems like Unity doesn't properly match mem allocations with more than 124Mb. In addition, none of my projects seem to work with 80MB Dx

View attachment 528191

Weird, from our testing pretty much all of n3ds system modes worked without any issues, including 178 (both on citra and hardware

Edit: Normally, if we experienced a crash on citra, the game never started and stayed on a black screen on 0 speed and nan frames. It's weird that yours crashed after the game already started

 

[Manurocker95]

Weird, from our testing pretty much all of n3ds system modes worked without any issues, including 178 (both on citra and hardware

Edit: Normally, if we experienced a crash on citra, the game never started and stayed on a black screen on 0 speed and nan frames. It's weird that yours crashed after the game already started

With crashing I mean the black screen with 0 speed and NAN frames, which usually ends in a console crash due to bad memory access or write.

On old3DS, 80MB and 72MB seem to crash after a few seconds in black screen (tested on a 2DS).

 

[signalyen]

hi guys, just wanted to know if UnityWebRequest or WWW are supported on the 3ds? also, for some reason all of my UI is black in the emulator