DeSmuME
DeSmuME is a popular and best-in-class Nintendo DS emulator that is capable of playing all the games released on DS, giving enthusiasts the opportunity to enjoy themselves without actually buying the console. It is developed by three authors and is mainly targeted towards casual gamers, hackers, and you tubers, and speedrunners. The emulator is compatible with Mac OSX and Microsoft Windows, with both of them offering a plethora of experience. It is famous in the industry and is currently being used by many mobile Nintendo DS emulators, making it one of the few known because of this.
DeSmuME Alternatives
#1 GPemu
GPemu is a Chrome Extension that serves as a video game emulator designed to play ROMs of various gaming consoles, including Gameboy Advance, NES, Gameboy, and SNES. As a web-based console emulator, it is capable of playing all your favorite games in decent quality. It regularly receives new updates aimed at enhancing the user experience. The recent update came with save support that allows you to resume progress after quitting a game. GPemu works with many extensions such as .vec, .32x, .sms, .gb, .nes, .gba, .sfc, .mgw, .gen, and many more. It is open-source, and you can check the files and even contribute to the project by visiting the GitHub page.
#2 ePSXe
ePSXe is a popular, feature-rich PlayStation video game console emulator that allows you to play classic PS games directly on your PC, negating the need to search and buy a console. To run it, the user must have an x86-based computer running either Linux or Windows. Furthermore, those with Android mobile devices can also use it by installing the app on their phones. It is developed by three authors who are also in charge of maintaining it, such as actively releasing new updates aimed at enhancing its functionality, improving performance, and delivering the best experience to the community.
The emulator relies on the hardware of the system, namely the GPU and CPU, to power games. This means the more capable your PC is, the better the results will be. Though in recent years, the developers have released patches that allow people with older hardware to run games decently. The best feature is that it is multilingual and available in several languages, attracting the interest of people from all corners of the world.
#3 Visual Boy Advance
Visual Boy Advance is an open-source emulator that allows you to run GBA (Gameboy Advance) without hassle. This allows you to download ROMs, plug it into the GBA, and then run it comfortably. The requirements are few and are the same as any other emulator, needing only Windows and DirectX. You should get the latest version of DirectX to get the best performance out of it. The emulator is available free-of-cost, needing no payment or sign up. Furthermore, the setup is lightweight, meaning a hard disk with small space is sufficient.
#4 Mednafen
Mednafen, previously called Nintencer, is an open-source SDL and OpenGL solution compatible with multiple OSes including Microsoft Windows, RISC OS, BSD, and Linux that packs several emulation cores developed by third-party and original authors and offers them in one package. You can administer it easily by using the command line. The features include support for saves, game rewinding, and capturing screenshots during gameplay. It supports many systems, namely WonderSwan, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Atari Lynx, Sega Saturn, Virtual Boy, PC-FX, PC Engine SuperGrafx, Master System, Sega Saturn, and more.
#5 Higan
Higan is a high-performance, feature-rich, and multi-system emulator developed using extra care to deliver a smooth experience. It comes with an intuitive and unique interface which is not seen before in other emulators. The only thing to know is that it might take you some time to get comfortable with it, but otherwise, there is nothing to worry about. Through the UI, you can handle the emulation without hassle.
The features of the emulator include Debugger, Save states to enable you to resume the game after exiting, Color correction, Adaptive synchronization, and many more. Another information that is worth mentioning here is the supported hardware which includes several devices like ColecoVision, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Super Famicom, Super Game Boy, MSX, MSX2, WonderSwan, WonderSwan Color, SwanCrystal, and Pocket Challenge V2.
#6 mGBA
mGBA is a multi-featured emulator developed to enable you to play Game Boy Advance ROMs. Its goal is to work much faster than rival GBA emulators, and for this reason, you will find its performance to be much better than other similar solutions. It offers many features lacking from existing emulators and has the capability to run Game Boy Color and Game Boy games without difficulty. The features include support for cheat codes, super-fast emulation, several smaller things, multiple savestate slots, rewind functionality, loading from 7z and ZIP files, enables you to capture screenshots, e-Reader support, game debugging, allows you to configure frameskip up to 10 and many more.
#7 Nostlan
Nostlan is a cross-platform game launcher compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. You can think of it as the Netflix of Video games. It is designed to identify games you have and download their box art automatically. You can perform various actions on it with the help of a game controller, keyboard, or mouse.
The features that it offers include scanning multiple databases sites to find HD box art, being fully compatible with multiple OSes, runs perfectly well on projectors, and UHD displays, classic UI themes for supported gaming consoles, enables you to customize it according to requirements, and more. It supports multiple gaming systems such as Xbox 360, Arcade, Nintendo Switch, DS, Wii U, Wii, GBA, SNES, 3DS, PS3, and PS2. Besides gaming hardware, it also supports several emulators like Yuzu, bsnes, MAME, Dolphin, Xenia, DeSmuME, Cemu, Ryujinx, Mgba, and many more.
#8 WinDS PRO
WinDS PRO is a freeware bundle that contains multiple emulators to enable you to plug and play GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS games. It is designed to meet the demands of gamers who wish to enjoy all the past GBA and NDS games but don’t have the means to do so. You don’t need to be in possession of next-gen hardware or expensive PC components, and you can easily run it on a simple PC and interact with it using the mouse and keyboard. The package consists of several NDS emulators such as DeSMuME, iDeaS, as well as emulators for GBA like VBA, NO$GBA, and myZoom. After downloading the pack, you can test the emulators and choose the one that meets your requirements.
#9 BoycottAdvance
BoycottAdvance is a decent emulator built from scratch to empower you to play Gameboy Advance games without restrictions. It is one of those solutions that you can download on the PC and enjoy your favorite GBA games. There is a huge catalog of games to explore and play, although some of the titles are not playable, which is not much of an issue, considering the size of the gaming library. You only need to download the ROMs, insert them in the emulator, and start having fun. The emulator itself is compatible with Mac and Windows computers with separate versions for both. The features include the ability to take screenshots, save states, and sound support.