Best Nintendo DS Emulator iOS Apps

Nintendo DS consoles had some fantastic games and thankfully these days playing those games on the go is easier than ever. You don’t need to bust out your old dusty NDS handheld when you can simply play Nintendo DS games on your iPhone or iPad with one of the Nintendo DS emulator iOS apps on this list.

While iOS doesn’t have quite as many options as PC or Android emulator options do, there are still some really solid choices for emulating NDS games on iOS devices. We’ll be going over the best Nintendo DS emulators which you need to download and try out today.

That’s enough of an introduction, let’s get into the best NDS emulators to play your favorite classic games!

What Are The Best NDS Emulator iOS Apps?

When it comes to emulating DS games on iOS, there are two basic types of emulators that you’ll want to be aware of. One is a standalone emulator that is developed to be compatible with and only play DS games. The other option is an emulation frontend tool that not only can run and play DS games but can also play games from tons of other different systems as well through the use of its emulation cores.

Each core that you install is specific to a certain console or system and will allow you to emulate games from it. We’ll be covering both types of emulation options in this list and letting you know which is a standalone app and which is an emulation frontend.

Standalone iOS DS Emulators

iNDS

When it comes to emulating Nintendo DS games on iOS, iNDS is hands down the best DS emulator. This DS emulator app is based on the original NDS4iOS app and the real icing on the cake here is that iNDS works without having to jailbreak your iOS device. This is a godsend for this reason alone.

It’s compatible with any iOS device running up to iOS 16 and has autosave capabilities, allows for customization of the UI and various settings, has video filters available to change the look of certain games, is vibration compatible, and tons more.

Apple is pretty strict when it comes to emulation and to our knowledge doesn’t actually allow any emulator apps to be listed on the AppStore, however, you can download and install the iNDS emulator from some of the alternative app store options like TopStore, AltStore, and for folks who do have jailbroken devices, you can install it from the Cydia app store as well.

As with all emulation, you’ll need to download Nintendo DS games separately as they don’t come pre-installed with the iNDS emulator. Compatibility-wise, most Nintendo DS ROMs run very well on iNDS and you shouldn’t have too many performance issues so long as your device isn’t extremely old and outdated.

NDS4iOS

We briefly mentioned NDS4iOS just above in our previous entry on this list because the iNDS emulator is actually based on this emulator app. That being said, NDS4iOS is one of the original Nintendo DS emulators and paved the way for a lot of further development in the space. It’s another free Nintendo DS emulator that doesn’t require jailbreaking your iOS device.

It works pretty well on most iPhone iPad models and while it isn’t quite as polished as the updated iNDS emulator app, it will definitely still get the job done.

One thing to mention about the app is that it has an internal browser included for users to find DS game ROMs, although we should mention that it’s always recommended you obtain your ROMs legally to avoid any potential issues down the line.

The emulator also includes Dropbox integration for easily accessing your ROM collection and AirPlay support for playing your games on the big screen wirelessly if you want.

NDS4iOS needs an iOS device running at least iOS 5.1.1 or above in order to run and tends to work better on newer versions of iOS. It should be mentioned however that NDS4iOS is no longer actively being developed or maintained so what you see if pretty much what you get from here on out.

Nintendo DS Emulation Frontends

RetroArch

RetroArch is one of many multi console emulators that will allow you to play games from all sorts of different systems including the Nintendo DS. RetroArch runs on pretty much anything with a screen and thankfully because iPhones and iPads fit that bill, it will run on them as well!

Along with emulating the NDS, it also supports the Game Boy Advance, the original Game Boy, and tons of other consoles and handheld devices.

You’ll need to download the core for each individual system that you want to emulate games for. In regards to the Nintendo DS, you’ll want to download the DeSmuME core for playing your DS games. The DeSmuME emulator supports cheat codes, so if you’ve got some codes handy, you’re in luck.

Be sure to check out our guide on how to set up the RetroArch DS core DeSmuME.

After you’ve installed and set up the needed core, you can load up your DS games and get to playing on your iPhone or iPad.

Summary

We’ve covered some of the best Nintendo DS emulator apps for iOS in this article. We’ve given you options for standalone emulator apps as well as an emulation frontend option capable of playing any gaming system you need. At this point you should be all set and have all the knowledge you need to start playing DS games on your iOS devices, but if you have any questions feel free to let us know in the comment section down below. Happy gaming!