dasShiny vs iDroidDS

dasShiny is a free Nintendo DS emulator for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The maker describes it as highly experimental and aims it at people familiar with cartridge folders and recent BSNES versions. Its interface looks for a gamefolder.nds/manifest.xml file; a blank manifest directs it to a ROM in gamefolder.nds/rom, which can be up to 1 GB. Setup requires ARM7 and ARM9 BIOS files and firmware, and the maker advises backing up rewritable firmware. The emulator can load homebrew ROMs, but it does not implement DLDI support for FAT access, so software that depends on that access may not work. Games listed as known to run include Super Mario 64, Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing: Wild World, along with several demos. Pokémon Diamond/Pearl is reported to save but crash at the load menu. For 3D, the maker says a high-end Core 2, i5, or i7 is pretty much mandatory in the described context. Windows users are advised to choose XAudio2 over DirectSound.

iDroidDS, also called nds4droid, is a free Nintendo DS emulator for Android smartphones. It uses DeSmuME 0.9.11 as its core and lists save states, cheat support, and screen layouts for Both, Main, Touch, Portrait, and Landscape. The project is open source under the GNU General Public License, welcomes contributions, and says the emulator has no advertisements. Supported processor architectures are armeabi-v7a, arm64-v8a, x86, and x86_64. This version requires Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or newer; the README says devices with more than 512 MB of RAM and that Android version should be able to run it. Performance can vary with device hardware and the game being emulated. The repository warns that it is not the official nds4droid repository and that the project is not stable. Issues can be reported through GitHub tickets, but reports involving devices below Android 5.0 or ROMs that do not operate correctly will be closed. Dropbox save syncing and work on the OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 renderers are listed as planned tasks. The software is provided as-is without warranty.