Emulation What are the emulation capability of a DSi? (2024)

[darkworldq8]

Hi,

I am wondering what are the emulation capabilities of a DSi? I have tried a few systems that were included in the Twilight Menu, but I haven't tried them enough and did not try adding other emulators or messing with the settings. I believe that SNES isn't great from my test. GBA seems to be great thanks to GBARunner2. I am planning on using the DSi to play and explore DS and retro handhelds for the most part, such as GB, GBC, GBA, GG, and maybe try NeoGeo Pocket and Atari Lynx.

I have picked up a few Nintendo handhelds in 2023 and 2022. I did get a few DS systems, and I want to turn one of the DSis into a retro handheld emulation device. I haven't had a DSi in the past, but got interested thanks to installing a CFW, playing games straight from an SD card, and since they were cheap (around $30 for a Japanese DSi).

 

[ber71]

Have a look at
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Emulators_on_DS
and
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/List_of_DS_homebrew_emulators

 

[darkworldq8]

Have a look at
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Emulators_on_DS
and
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/List_of_DS_homebrew_emulators

Thank you for the response. The links are helpful, but this isn't what I was looking for since I have a DSi.

I am assuming that the DSi has better performance, and I am assuming that the DSi should emulate better than a regular DS. I wanted the feedback of those who tested certain systems and can tell me how good or how bad certain emulators are on the DSi. For example, I don't want to invest in an emulator if that system can't be emulated well enough.

 

[Flame]

To be fair. TWiLight Menu++ has all what you needed to be included. Maybe with GBARunner3 around the corner, that's about it. In 2024, they are better options out there for emulation.

The DSi scene has come a long way in that of what it was from 10 years ago. The DSi is still great for gaming, tho.

 

[darkworldq8]

To be fair. TWiLight Menu++ has all what you needed to be included. Maybe with GBARunner3 around the corner, that's about it. In 2024, they are better options out there for emulation.

The DSi scene has come a long way in that of what it was from 10 years ago. The DSi is still great for gaming, tho.

TWiLight Menu++ is great. After setting it up, it does work great and is easy to use for someone who isn't used to the DSi. I did consider getting a cheap retro emulation handheld for specific systems, but I think running them on a DSi is cooler to me for some strange reason.

I haven't tried a lot of systems, and I don't think I have tried anything other than DS games for more than 5 minutes. I tried NeoGeo Pocket, but that had some borders and I didn't know how to remove them.

I probably need to invest a bit of time testing the emulators out on the DSi and derive my own conclusion, but that will probably take some hours of my time.

I don't think there is an Atari Lynx or Tiger Gamecom emulators, but I have a feeling that I am not missing much.

 

[Ryccardo]

I am assuming that the DSi should emulate better than a regular DS.

Not intrinsecally - sure it has double the clock and quadruple the RAM (so it can still be beaten on both fronts by a DS/Lite with the right accessories! ), but someone needs to sit down and do the work to use them

And while since 2015/17/18 (depending on soldering skills and preinstalled software) any non-chosen person had the ability to run "real" DSi homebrew, on absolute scale the amount of original DSi homebrew is worse than 3DS (still appalling compared to DS/PSP/Wii) while by percentage it's better but not by much

As I've said other times... what killed homebrew is the cell phone that utterly failed to kill console gaming, you know, that $120 (or quite less when used) thing you can install apks made by anyone (and replacement operating systems) on - and still has more battery life than any Nintendo console after the DS Lite

 

[darkworldq8]

Not intrinsecally - sure it has double the clock and quadruple the RAM (so it can still be beaten on both fronts by a DS/Lite with the right accessories! ), but someone needs to sit down and do the work to use them

As I've said other times... what killed homebrew is the cell phone that utterly failed to kill console gaming, you know, that $120 (or quite less when used) thing you can install apks made by anyone (and replacement operating systems) on - and still has more battery life than any Nintendo console after the DS Lite

I was fearing that this would be the case. It is a letdown to me that no one, but it is totally understandable. A smartphone from 2010 or so probably can run emulators better than a DSi, and that is something that most people owned at that time.

I plan on running some tests for the more interesting systems to me. Like running 5 different types of games for a few systems and probably determine my own very limited conclusion. If I do that, I will probably post it on this website.

 

[ber71]

Thank you for the response. The links are helpful, but this isn't what I was looking for since I have a DSi.

I am assuming that the DSi has better performance, and I am assuming that the DSi should emulate better than a regular DS. I wanted the feedback of those who tested certain systems and can tell me how good or how bad certain emulators are on the DSi. For example, I don't want to invest in an emulator if that system can't be emulated well enough.

You're mostly right, but look, a few of these emulators make great use of dsi power when available, for example wavemotion's emulators. Others are dsi specific, like scummvm.

 

[darkworldq8]

You're mostly right, but look, a few of these emulators make great use of dsi power when available, for example wavemotion's emulators. Others are dsi specific, like scummvm.

Thank you for the response.

 

[Ryccardo]

I just remembered that the first DSi enhanced emulator accessible to the masses is in fact a commercial one - Sonic Classics Collection, which despite still being inaccurate (it's a single-purpose special version of JenesisDS after all) does have a noticeable performance improvement in DSi mode

 

[darkworldq8]

After testing at least 3 games per system (depending on the system), I came to the following conclusion:

• Older handhelds run good enough for most games depending on the emulator and the game, including GG, NeoGeo Pocket Color (NGP), GB, GBC, and GBA.
• Some GBA games have sound issues. The 2 3D GBA games that I tested either runs slow or doesn't boot. I ran them on GBARunner2.
• SNES and Genesis aren't great. Some run ok with graphical and with frameskip and speedhacks. Some run extremely slow.
• GB/GBC and GBA runs the best from the ones that I have tested. I did test both GB and GBC games using GameYob

I don't know if the emulators are running in DSi mode or if there is a way to do that. This is by no means a definite fact about each system. Even though the emulation is limited, but thanks to the hard work of the people behind those emulators for making this possible.

I was planning on emulating only GG, GB/GBC, and NGP on my DSi since the screen size is small and those systems were designed for small screens. If later on I don't get satisfied from emulating those systems on my DSi, then I might use my PSP or get a modern retro handheld such as a Retroid Pocket 2s or something similar.

Post automatically merged: Apr 15, 2024

What a bummer, the DSi crashes when I run certain GB/GBC ROMs, and sometimes crashes when I quit the emulator. I will probably just use the DSi for DS games and get something like RG35XX H for older retro handhelds.

 

[jul16ares]

Psp is my best go to emulate 8/16 systems !
But heh! Nice try !
I just got Dsi xl cheap and it's a great machine, but like ninten DO, it's all about games and power come in second place if not third, if not....
Battery life is mind blowing in comparison with psp though.
And if scummvm is working well with the pointing device, I just get enough.
Bought a DS lite as well for gba cartridge but resolution and ratio seems to be not really my likings.
Nevermind I bought DS's to play ds games, no others systems can emulate, even the mighty WiiU

 

[Nikokaro]

Surprisingly no one mentioned the emulation of old FPS for MS-DOS, some of which have been optimized in recent years to exploit the capabilities of the DSi: cquake (for Quake and various user packs), DS Doom (for the 4 classic Doom titles and various vanilla Megawads), DualHexen (Hexen plus its expansions), cheretic (Heretic plus its custom episodes), JfDuke3d (DN3D plus its user episodes), DScent (Descent and user levels, but this last one only in ds mode), N64 Doom ( complete with cheat menu but without save function) Wolfenstein 3D. Regarding consoles, NeoDS and JEnesisDS are still excellent emulators, but I think they only work on flashcarts. Nobody mentioned NesDS which was optimized by a user last year with the addition of graphics options and support for practically all nes mappers.

 

[CrashMidnick]

Emulators that run very well :

- Amstrad CPC 6128 : AmEDS / CrocoDS
- Atari 2600 : StellaDS
- Atari5200 : Atari5200
- Atari7800 : A7800DS
- Atari XE/800 : A8DS
- ADAM/MSX1/SG-1000/SG-3000/Sord M5/Spectravideo/Casio PV-2000/Hanimex Pencil II/atung Einstein/Memotech MTX/Creativision : ColecoDS
- Colecovision : ColecoDS / S8DS
- DOS : DSx86
- SCUMMVM : SCUMMVM
- Tanndy Color : Dragon 64
- Gameboy : Gameyob
- Intellivision : NINTV-DS
- MAME : some individual ports (1942/1943/Bombjack...) / DSPack / MarcaDS
- MSX1/2 : msxDS
- Master System : S8DS
- Megadrive : JEnesis DS (not full screen), compatibility is great taking into account the NDS capabilities
- NeoGeo Pocket : NGPDS
- NeoGeo : NeoDS
- Nes : NesDS
- PCengine/CD : Nitrografx
- Supervision : WasabiDS
- TI99 : DS994a
- Wonderswan : Nitroswan
- ZX spectrum : ZXDS
- GBA : Gbarunner2/3, use the right settings to make most of the games to work.

If you buy a DSTWO :

- SNES : CATSFC (most regular games work with 1 framskip, Special chips and/or mode 7 are out). You can play 90% of the best games in good condition, not that bad
- GBA : TempGBA (1 frame skip but useful to play GBA games that do not work with GBA Runner)
- DOS : DS2x86 (way faster than DSx86)
- CPS1/2 : FBA-CPS (not full speed but very playable)

Some other emulators are good but are usefull for few games.

 

[esv_83]

Emulators that run very well :

- Amstrad CPC 6128 : AmEDS / CrocoDS
- Atari 2600 : StellaDS
- Atari5200 : Atari5200
- Atari7800 : A7800DS
- Atari XE/800 : A8DS
- ADAM/MSX1/SG-1000/SG-3000/Sord M5/Spectravideo/Casio PV-2000/Hanimex Pencil II/atung Einstein/Memotech MTX/Creativision : ColecoDS
- Colecovision : ColecoDS / S8DS
- DOS : DSx86
- SCUMMVM : SCUMMVM
- Tanndy Color : Dragon 64
- Gameboy : Gameyob
- Intellivision : NINTV-DS
- MAME : some individual ports (1942/1943/Bombjack...) / DSPack / MarcaDS
- MSX1/2 : msxDS
- Master System : S8DS
- Megadrive : JEnesis DS (not full screen), compatibility is great taking into account the NDS capabilities
- NeoGeo Pocket : NGPDS
- NeoGeo : NeoDS
- Nes : NesDS
- PCengine/CD : Nitrografx
- Supervision : WasabiDS
- TI99 : DS994a
- Wonderswan : Nitroswan
- ZX spectrum : ZXDS
- GBA : Gbarunner2/3, use the right settings to make most of the games to work.

If you buy a DSTWO :

- SNES : CATSFC (most regular games work with 1 framskip, Special chips and/or mode 7 are out). You can play 90% of the best games in good condition, not that bad
- GBA : TempGBA (1 frame skip but useful to play GBA games that do not work with GBA Runner)
- DOS : DS2x86 (way faster than DSx86)
- CPS1/2 : FBA-CPS (not full speed but very playable)

Some other emulators are good but are usefull for few games.

I wish wavemotion-dave or FuBBa could improve CrocoDS or AmEDS.

 

[CrashMidnick]

I wish wavemotion-dave or FuBBa could improve CrocoDS or AmEDS.

I asked @wavemotion 1 or 2 years ago but he prefers to spend time on emulating computers/consoles he owned in the past. That I can understand, I would do the same myself.