3ds Homebrew Cartridge

admin 4/1/2019 01/04/19

For support in English, ask for help at Nintendo Homebrew on Discord.

3ds Homebrew Starter Kit

Required Reading

3DS Homebrew. Homebrew games and applications that were written for DS and DSi can run on the Nintendo 3DS in the DS mode, but in order to be able to run 3DS Homebrew Apps in native 3DS mode You have to have the 3DS hacked and unlocked. The R4i Gold SDHC card is considered as the best R4 3DS card on the market with its backward compatibility and top reliability. This can work with all consoles because it was designed to work with R4 DSi and the consoles manufactured before this. (New 3DS only) From 9.0.0-X up to and including 11.9.0-37. Super Smash Bros 3DS (full-game) and a way to broadcast raw wifi beacons. The demo (prior to the updated November 2015 version ) isn't usable with the *hax payloads.

The Homebrew Launcher has many different entrypoints, or methods of launching.

If browserhax is not an option (see the chart below), you do not already own any of these games, and do not have another 3DS that can access the Homebrew Launcher, the cheapest option is to buy a “Nintendo Selects” copy of Ocarina of Time 3D (ensure you get the correct cartridge for your region) and a Powersaves (compatible with all regions), then use oot3dhax from the chart below.

Ensure your device’s Wireless Communication is turned on as udsploit (used in the next page) will need the wireless module to be active to function, and some devices (New 3DS, New 2DS, and Old 2DS) cannot adjust the Wireless Communication setting from the Homebrew Launcher. Wireless Communication only has to be on; connecting it to an access point is not required.

To extract the .7z files linked on this page, you will need a file archiver like 7-Zip or The Unarchiver.

What You Need

The latest release of the Homebrew Launcher
The latest release of SafeB9SInstaller
The latest release of boot9strap(standard boot9strap; not the devkit file, not the ntr file)
The latest release of safehax
The latest release of udsploit
The latest release of Luma3DS(the .7z file)

Instructions

Power off your device
Insert your SD card into your computer
Create a folder named 3ds on the root of your SD card if it does not already exist
Copy boot.3dsx to the root of your SD card
Copy boot.firm from the Luma3DS .7z to the root of your SD card
Create a folder named boot9strap on the root of your SD card
Copy boot9strap.firm and boot9strap.firm.sha from the boot9strap .zip to the /boot9strap/ folder on your SD card
Copy safehax.3dsx to the /3ds/ folder on your SD card
Copy udsploit.3dsx to the /3ds/ folder on your SD card
Copy SafeB9SInstaller.bin from the SafeB9SInstaller .zip to the root of your SD card and rename SafeB9SInstaller.bin to safehaxpayload.bin
Reinsert your SD card into your device
Power on your device

Use one of the following alternate entrypoints to get into the Homebrew Launcher:

_Requires	_Editions	_Devices	_Regions	_{Game Versions}	_{System Versions}
_browserhax	_Nothing	_Preinstalled	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_All	_{9.0.0-2 up to and including 11.0.0-33}
_oot3dhax	_{Ocarina of Time 3D, Either a powersaves or another 3DS which already has the Homebrew Launcher}	_Cart	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_All	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.7.0-X}
_smashbroshax	_{Super Smash Bros}	_{Cart, eShop}	_New	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_{<1.1.3, Carts with “amiibo” on the cover are preinstalled with v1.1.4}	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.3.0-X}
_{supermysterychunkhax}	_{Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, Another 3DS which already has the Homebrew Launcher}	_Cart	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_All	_{9.9.0-X (USA/JPN) / 10.2.0-X (EUR) up to and including 11.0.0-X}
_freakyhax	_{Freakyforms Deluxe}	_{eShop, Cart}	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_All	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.7.0-X}
_basehaxx	_{Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Another 3DS which already has the Homebrew Launcher}	_Cart	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_{1.0, 1.4}	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.3.0-X}
_BASICSploit	_SmileBASIC	_eShop	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_USA	_3.2.1	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.0.0-X}
_smilehax	_SmileBASIC	_eShop	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{JPN, USA}	_3.3.1	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.0.0-X}
_stickerhax	_{Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Another 3DS which already has the Homebrew Launcher}	_{eShop, Cart}	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, KOR, USA}	_All	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.3.0-X}
_{Ninjhax 2}	_{Cubic Ninja}	_{eShop, Cart}	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_All	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.7.0-X}
_Notehax	_{Flipnote Studio 3D}	_eShop	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_{1.3.1 (JPN) / 1.0.0 (EUR/USA)}	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.5.0-X}
_RPwnG	_{RPG Maker Player}	_eShop	_{New, Old, 2DS}	_{EUR, JPN, USA}	_{1.1.4 (EUR) / 1.1.2 (JPN/USA)}	_{9.0.0-X up to and including 11.5.0-X}
_GenHax	_{Monster Hunter X}	_eShop	_New	_JPN	_All	_{9.9.0-X up to and including 11.2.0-X}

Your device should load the Homebrew Launcher

Continue to Installing boot9strap (SafeB9SInstaller)

If you have a Nintendo DS there’s no need to limit yourself to just modern game releases. Read on as we show you how to turn your NDS into a retro-gaming marvel that plays old NES, Gameboy, and even Arcade games.

The Nintendo DS might not be the most powerful handheld gaming system on the market but it’s plenty powerful to emulate many arcade games and console systems of yesteryear. If you’re willing to invest a small amount of money and a small amount of time, you can easily turn your Nintendo DS into a veritable Swiss Army knife of gaming goodness.

What Do I Need?

As much as we love free-as-in-beer projects, this project will require a small cash outlay to get things rolling. You’ll need the following things:

1 Nintendo DS (works with the DS Lite, DSi, DSiXL, and 3DS units)
1 Flash Cart ($15-40; we’ll take a detailed look at flash carts in a moment)
1 MicroSD Card (We recommend a cheap 16GB to provide room for growth)
NDS-compatible Emulators (free; we’ll review them individually later in the tutorial)
ROMs for aformentioned emulators

Assuming you already have a Nintendo DS, your cash outlay for the whole project will be $25-50 or so depending on the flash cart you pick to build your project on. Let’s take a look at flash carts to help you pick the best one.

A note on ROMs: Availability and legality of ROMs is subject to local laws and regulations. As such we cannot directly link to ROM sources here and suggest you turn to your favorite search engine for guidance.

3ds Homebrew Starter Kit

What’s a Flash Cart and Why Do I Need One?

Using a flash cart is the foundation of today’s tutorial. A flash cart is simply a custom USB adapter that has been designed to allow you to interface a common microSD storage card with your Nintendo DS. It is, if you will, a storage adapter masquerading as a legitimate Nintendo cartridge. Without a flash cart to sneak us past the authorization module in the DS, there’s no way we’ll be able to launch the homebrew software required to play homebrew and emulated games.

Because the whole market that supports homebrew/jailbreaking/modding of game consoles is frowned upon by the console industry, you can’t just walk into Game Stop and buy an adapter. You’ll most likely need to order from a foreign electronics supply house and you’ll need to be careful to avoid getting burned by fly-by-night web sites and counterfeit/dud flash carts.

In order to help you avoid getting burned we highly suggest you purchase one of the following two flash carts from a a reputable retailer. We’ve been using ModChipCentral out of Canada for all our console modding needs over the last five years and have been quite pleased with the service, product quality, and speedy shipping.

Acekard2i ($22): If you’re looking for a rock solid flash cart produced by developers with a good history of updates and support, the Acekard2i is tough to beat. It doesn’t sport a lot of bells and whistles but it gets the job done. While this is not the flash cart will be using for the tutorial, we have several years of experience with the Acekard brand and highly recommend the model for budget-conscious modders.

Supercard DSTwo ($38): The DSTwo costs nearly twice as much as the more economical flash carts such as the Acekard, but it packs more than enough extras in to make it worth paying the extra $16. The DSTwo flash cart includes an additional onboard CPU and RAM module that greatly increase the quality of game emulation. The flash cart also includes custom GameBoy Advance and Super NES emulators designed by the flash cart maker to take full advantage of the onboard processing power. We’ll be using this brand flash cart for the tutorial.

If you opt to use the Acekard2i, please reference the Acekard web site for initial setup instructions as they will vary from the DSTwo.

Setting Up the DSTwo Operating System

Once you have received the DSTwo in the mail, you’ll notice that it doesn’t come packaged with a MicroSD card and, if you put the flash card in your DS before completing the following steps, the DS won’t even register the empty flash cart.

The very first step is to properly format your MicroSD card. Yes, you can get away with simply using your operating system’s format command but we highly recommend using Panasonic’s industry recognizes SD formatting tool, SD Formatter. Doing so ensures your SD card is formatted strictly to industry standards and decreases the chance you’ll run into difficult-to-troubleshoot errors later on.

In order to enable your flash cart to work properly you’ll need to install the base operating system, known as DSTWO EOS, from the DSTwo web site. Make sure to grab a copy of the operating system and not the firmware updater (the only time the firmware updater is necessary is if a major NDS software change rolled out by Nintendo requires you to update the firmware in the physical flash cart).

Once you have downloaded the DSTWO_v.(someversionhere).ZIP, extract the contents of the folder within the ZIP file onto your SD card. The root of your SD card should now look like:

_dstwo

ds2boot.dat

readme_eng.txt

At this point you could safely eject the SD card, put it into the DSTwo flash cart, and boot it up in your DS, but there wouldn’t be much to do besides admire the pretty DSTWO EOS interface. Let’s take a moment to load up some emulators and other goodies onto the flash cart.

Populating the DSTwo with Emulators

While it’s cool to have a functional flash cart, so far it doesn’t do much. In order to get the good times rolling, we need some emulators. The following section is structured to show you the best choice for the DSTwo as well as alternative choices that will work both on the DSTwo and on other flash carts that don’t have the CPU/RAM boost the DSTwo does. While we’re inclined to install all the emulators for maximum fun, we’ve divided them by console/source so you can easily pick and choose.

Note: We’ll be using the following directory structure to keep the card tidy, unless otherwise specified you can customize the directory structure as you wish:

_dstwo

EmulatorName

ROMS – PlatformName

ds2boot.dat

readme_eng.txt

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

nesDS: Because NES emulation doesn’t require much horse power, there is no specific plugin for the DSTwo. We suggest all users check out nesDS, a more than capable NES emulator for the DS.

Download the latest version at the link above and extract the contents of the zip file to nesDS on the root directory of your card. Create a companion folder for the ROMs, ROMs – NES

Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)

DSTwo SNES Emulator: DSTwo has its own custom SNES emulator with a pile of bells and whistles including real-time saving which allows you to effectively pause a game anywhere in the action and resume when you wish.

Download the latest version at the above link and extract it to the root of your SD card. It will dump files into two separate folders NDSSFC and _dstwoplug. Create a companion folder for the ROMs, ROMs – SNES. Do not change the folder name for the emulator.

SNEmulDS: For non-DSTwo users, the best alternative to the native plugin is SNEmulDS. Compared to the native DSTwo plugin, SNEmulDS is a much rougher emulator, but through no fault of the development team behind it. Emulating the SNES without the additional CPU boost DSTwo provides introduces little hiccups like poor audio rendering and poor sprite layering. To use SNEmulDS, simply extract to SNEmulDS on the root of your card. Create a companion folder for the ROMs, ROMs – SNES

SEGA Genesis

jEnesisDS: Both DSTwo users and other flashcart users who want to play Genesis games should turn to jEnesisDS, a solid genesis emulator. Download it from the Zophar mirror and extract to the jEnesisDS on the root of your SD card. Create a companion folder for the ROMs, ROMs – SEGA

Nintendo GameBoy

Lameboy DS: Like the NES, the GameBoy is easy enough to emulate that there is no suped up DSTwo plugin for it. Simply download the latest version, extract it to LameboyDS on the root of your SD card and create a companion folder ROMs – GB.

Nintendo GameBoy Advance

DSTwo GBA Plugin: Again, this is an arena where the DSTwo shines. Emulating the GameBoy Advance on the DS is a complicated task because the DS/DS Lite have a hardware GBA slot and the later models don’t have a GBA slot at all. Most emulators require an extra flash cart to emulate the GBA. DSTwo uses onboard hardware to pull it off in a way that other flash carts simply can’t (and require third-party hardware add-ons with dicey compatibility problems).

Download the latest version at the above link and extract it to the root of your SD card. It will dump files into two separate folders NDSGBA and _dstwoplug. Create a companion folder for the ROMs, ROMs – GBA. Do not change the folder name for the emulator.

MAME Arcade Emulation

DSTwo MAME Plugin: MAME is another emulation that requires a fair amount of horse power for more complex games. The DSTwo has its own plugin specifically for MAME 0.37b5 games (if you’re curious about the specificity of that number, MAME emulators are extremely picky about version numbers and require you acquire the specific ROM release packs). Download it (hosted by PortableDev) here. Download the latest version, and extract it to MAME and _dstwoplug on the root of your SD card; create a companion folder ROMs – MAME. Do not change the folder name for the emulator.

MarcasDS: For alternative cards, MarcasDS offers limited MAME support. Without the extra CPU power it can’t play as many games, but it can crunch through some early simple arcade releases (see the included readme file and games list for more information on which games it can handle). Download the latest version, extract it to MarcasDS on the root of your SD card and create a companion folder ROMs – MAME.

When you’re done configuring the emulators, you should have a neatly organized set of

The above emulators just begin to scratch the surface of the available Nintendo DS system emulators. For a full overview of the emulation tools available—including bundles for early systems like the Atari and Colecovision—check out the awesome selection at emulation archive Zophar’s Domain.

Have a piece of Nintendo DS homebrew software, emulator or otherwise, you’d like to give a nod to? Sound off in the comments to share the wealth with your fellow readers.