How Tos

How to play Nintendo DS games on iPhone and iPad with NDS4iOS (No jailbreak required)

2 screens are better than 1

How to play Nintendo DS games on iPhone and iPad with NDS4iOS (No jailbreak required)
|
iOS + DS

Hot on the heels of GBA4iOS, which let you play Game Boy Advance games on your iOS gizmo without needing to jailbreak it, comes NDS4iOS.

It's the exact same idea - and works using the same Apple loophole - but this lets you play Nintendo DS games on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Your mileage may vary with this one. Performance isn't as good as the GBA emulator, for obvious reasons. And 3D games will struggle compared to the ones still using 2D sprites. With the right game, though, it's worth a download.

Here's how to get it.

Note: Pocket Gamer does not condone the use of emulators to play games you don't legally own. It also holds no responsibility if you somehow manage to balls up your device in the process of following this guide.

Step 1

Go to this website and tap on 'Install nds4ios (Stable) via OTA'.

When you see the 'Open this page in App Store?' pop-up, press 'open'. After that, hit the 'Install' button.

Step 2

The app will try, and fail, to be installed. No worries - just press 'Done' and move on to the next step.

Step 3

Open the 'Settings' app, choose the 'General' page, and open 'Date & Time'. Uncheck 'Set Automatically' and then set the date to February 8th, 2014.

Step 4

Quit 'Settings' and tap on the greyed-out nds4ios icon. The app will now be installed properly.

Open the app once, and then go back to the date page in 'Settings'. Check 'Set Automatically' to change the date back to today.

Step 5

Open the app again.

There are three ways to get games into the emulator - whatever you choose, do remember that downloading ROMs is illegal and Pocket Gamer does not condone piracy. If you are able to, you should rip the files from your own DS games.

One option is to download games from a website in Safari. If you try to download a .zip or .nds file, you can tap 'Open in...' and choose 'Open in nds4ios'.

Another option is to use Dropbox. Go into the 'Settings' and check 'Enable Dropbox sync'. Enter your Dropbox login details and a new folder, called 'nds4ios', will be created on your account. Drop ROMs into that folder and they'll appear in the emulator.

Step 6

If your ROMS are on your PC or Mac, you can use iTunes Sharing to copy them across to the emulator.

Simply plug in your device, open iTunes, find the device on the left-hand column, and then pick the 'Apps' tab from the top of the screen.

Scroll down to find 'File Sharing' and then choose 'nds4ios' from the list. You can now drag and drop .nds files into the left-hand column.

Step 7

Whatever you choose, you'll now have a game in the ROM List on the emulator. Just tap the game name to load it.

There are also various settings for skipping frames, disabling sound, and changing the controls.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer