Tutorial: How to direct-boot DSiWare using melonDS DS core in Retroarch

[nonstatik]

FYI this has been possible since February 2025, but I have not seen this mentioned anywhere.

Note: you do need all BIOS (both DS and DSi) + NAND files for this to work.

How to do it:

1) Create a DSiWare subfolder in your DS games folder (or anywhere else really) and move all DSiWare games there

2) Copy 1 normal DS game and put it into your DSiWare folder (so you can access Quick Menu)

3) Load the normal DS game from your DSiWare folder. Once the game boots, go to the Quick Menu > Core Options > System and change Console Mode to DSi (experimental)

NOTE: If you never successfully booted a DSiWare game before in Native Mode, I would also suggest changing Boot Mode to Native to ensure the core sees all your BIOS/NAND files and can load DSiWare games to NAND as shown in this tutorial. This is the previous way we all had to play DSiWare in Retroarch, but if you can't do that properly, Retroarch will crash in Direct Boot Mode and you won't be able to get back into Quick Settings without manually editing a .cfg file.

4) Now choose Close Content in Quick Menu and Load Content with a DSiWare game in your DSiWare folder. If you did everything in Step 3 correctly, you should see the DSi boot menu and the game should be loaded in NAND (the gift box icon).

5) Once you can boot a DSiWare game the 'old' way in the previous steps, change Boot Mode to Direct and restart Retroarch from Quick Menu. The DSiWare game should now direct-boot automatically!

6) Lastly, after you've achieved the previous step, go back to Quick Menu after the DSiWare game has direct-booted, and choose Core Options > Manage Core Options > Save Content Directory Options

You should now be able to direct boot all DSiWare games in your DSiWare folder, AND your normal DS games in your normal DS folder without having to change any settings ever again. After checking that this all works, you can delete the normal DS game from the DSiWare folder.

Unfortunately there are no DSiWare videos at EmuMovies. I personally use Stacher to make my own from existing YouTube gameplay videos.

Edited May 4 by nonstatik