Welcome to Dev-Scene and Nintendo DS (NDS) homebrew.

NDS has a large and thriving Homebrew community.
This Wiki is dedicated to NDS homebrew. It contains information about the DS, hardware, running homebrew code and developing applications and games.

• If your unaware of what the NDS is, Click Here.
  
• For some technical details regarding the NDS, Click Here.

Our Homebrew Catalog contains a huge selection of homebrew Applications, Games, Emulations and other homebrew releases.

You just bought that nice and shiny DS and your wondering what else you can do with it apart from playing games? Well, then homebrew might be for you.

What is homebrew and what does it mean for me?

Homebrew is software written by hobbyist programmers and anyone can create games and applications for the NDS.

There is a wide variety of games, emulators and utilities available for free download.

Many methods have been discovered to run homebrew software on the Nintendo DS. The DS will normally only boot Nintendo DS Cartridges that were digitally signed by Nintendo but the homebrew community has dicovered different methods of booting unsigned DS programs - The most common using a Passthrough and a media cart. [Discussed in Hardware]

When a standard GBA cart is started normally from the GBA slot on the DS, it boots into GBA mode that cannot access any of the new DS hardware (Wifi, Touch Screen, etc). To get access to full DS mode and run from the GBA slot, a Passthrough method is needed to trick the DS into full DS mode.

What method depends on which Firmware version your DS is running.

Check your DS Firmware version using the Firmware Colour Test.

If you're lucky and your DS has firmware V1-3, You'll be able to boot using a standard PassME or over wireless with the WifiMe method.

If your DS is running firmware V4-6, The PassME2 must be used.

Recently, another method called the NoPass (because it required no original cart to work, unlike PassMe-style devices) and works with ALL known DS firmware revisions.

Any of these booting methods allow homebrew to be loaded from the GBA slot, meaning existing GBA flash cartridges can be used for DS Homebrew.

But what do I NEED?

There are a lot of possibilities how to run homebrew on your NDS, each with their own advantages & disadvantages. In most of the cases you will need extra hardware. Our Hardware page will give an overview of what hardware that is available and the possible solutions for running homebrew.

To boot homebrew you require: A NDS, A Passthrough (If FlashME is not installed) and a GBA media cart, This is all thats required - After that, all that is requried is too copy/paste whatever you want onto the Media CF/SD card.

The Most popular setup is : A NDS, A NoPass and a GBAMPv2 CF.

Introducing FlashME

Once you have the hardware required to run DS homebrew, you can install FlashME. A replacement modified firmware that can be flashed and lets you run DS code from the GBA slot directly without a Passthrough device. This method is not compulsory (eg: Keeping the original firmware for warranty purposes or otherwise) but highly recommended for convenence.

Once FlashME has been installed you can also load homebrew over WiFi using WMB. This can be highly useful for developers testing their code without having to copy/flash the updated release onto the Hardware cart each time.

I'm Stuck/I've got questions

Firstly, I would recommend checking the Frequently Asked Questions and reading the guides.

If your question is still unanswered.. You can visit the Forum and/or join the Dev-Scene IRC #Dev-Scene channel.

Categories: Draft | NDS | NDS Guide