There are a lot of people who love to play Nintendo DS games, but not all of them know that their Android devices are able to play Nintendo DS titles.
It is possible thanks to numerous emulator applications.
A few Android apps can efficiently run ds roms on your smartphone, and one of them is called NDS4Droid.
It is a free and open-source DS emulator, which you can download on Google Play.
The NDS4Droid emulator includes such features as save states and OpenGL rendering, yet they are in their initial stages.
It is essential to mention that DS emulation is a bit slow even on high-end Android smartphones.
That is why we would not recommend you to play Nintendo DS games like Pokémon.
However, the positive news is that the emulator gets regularly updated in order to fix performance enhancement.
In the following guide, you will find out how to play Nintendo DS games using pre-installed nintendo ds emulator on your Android device.
As an example, we are going to use the NDS4Droid emulator.
Step 1:
You should start by launching the downloading process of the NDS4Droid emulator directly from Google Play.
Note that you do not have to pay to get the application on your Android device.
Already a lot of players have downloaded the app directly on their smartphones and never faced any kind of problems.
It is also possible to download the .apk file of this application to your desktop computer.
Make sure to use a trusted site, and after that, you can transfer it to your Android phone.
In order to transfer it, connect your device to your PC via the USB cable.
You have to navigate to “My Computer” and find the icon of the SD card. You must copy the .apk file from your computer’s desktop directly to the SD card.
You will need to use Andro Zip (a third-party application) or similar apps if you want to install the emulator on your Android smartphone.
Step 2:
At this stage, you need a BIOS file. At the moment, you are not able to get this bundled with the application.
Most advanced players and developers know perfectly about the legal hassles, which is involved with such kind of files.
This is the main reason why app developers do not want to include such files with their applications.
At the same time, you have to find BIOS files on the internet because, without them, it is simply impossible to play any Nintendo DS games on your emulator.
Step 3:
Once you have installed the BIOS file, you need a ROM file of the Nintendo game, which you want to emulate and play on your Android device. Make sure that the file has a “.nds” extension.
The emulator supports ROMswith “.nds” format. At the same time, the emulator can extract compressed archives, for example, “.rar” and “.7z” files.
Step 4:
Now, it is necessary to move your downloaded ROMs to a separate folder, which you have to create on the SD card.
It is possible to use the USB mass storage option of your Android phone in order to transfer game files.
We recommend you to name the newly created folder as “NDS Games.” It will make navigation much more accessible.
The next thing that you have to do is to open the emulator and navigate to the “NDS Games” folder, then try to find the desired ROMs, double-click on it, and enjoy playing the selected Nintendo DS game.
It is straightforward to control the main characters by using virtual buttons.
What Are The Top Emulators for Android Devices?
The NDS4Droid is not the only one emulator. You can find a lot of other apps that help you run Nintendo DS games on your Android device.
Here is the list of the top NDS emulators, which you can download on Google Play:
DSDroid
This app will help you make Nintendo DS games run faster, even on entry-level Android phones.
It is a full-fledged emulator with a good reputation. Use it if you want to run DS games like Pokémon.
The emulator is free and can run games in full-screen mode.
AndsEmu
Another excellent emulator for running your favorite DS games.
You will appreciate its simple settings, which include critical graphical settings like V-sync. All the games run very smooth with AndsEmu.
This emulator is the modification of the NDS4Droid with boosted performance.
DSoid
This app is paid. The DSoid emulator provides excellent performance.
The developer wants to add a microphone feature in the near future to enable you to play games using your voice commands.
Conclusion
We have mentioned the best emulators which are compatible with Android devices.
You can do your own research and find a lot of other apps to run your favorite Nintendo games.