ACE3DS

ACE3DS running on a DS

ACE3DS is an R4-compatible emulator for the Nintendo DS/3DS system lines and can emulate various 8 to 32-bit consoles. Similar to PocketNES, the software was originally developed and sold for hobbyists to store their ROM collections and homebrew software on rewritable flash cartridges, but was soon used by pirates to sell multicarts loaded with usually 200-500 preloaded DS games of varying quality.

Overview

ACE3DS boasts a lot of features, including cheats, online firmware updates, DS Download Play support, a vast collection of emulated consoles ranging from NES/Famicom to the Neo Geo, and a large ROM capacity. Over the years, many accessories and upgrades were released, thus adding many more features to the standard cartridge.

Usage in Pirate Multicarts

ACE3DS is commonly used in DS multicarts by pirates to make standalone bootlegs or multicarts. Most of these are R4 carts with a different label. The multicarts usually contain around 200 to 500 games. Many cartridges feature games from popular franchises, such as Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Sonic, Pokémon, etc, and games based on popular cartoon, anime, TV show and movie franchises, such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, Spider-Man, Transformers, Ben 10 and SpongeBob SquarePants, among others. Some titles are featured twice on carts, as pirates tend to use a mesh of European and American ROMs of games, sometimes even featuring homebrew titles.

The DS games featured on these carts tend to crash and corrupt game saves more often. Some carts based on ones by r4isdhc.com, even contain the infamous R4 bomb which makes the cartridge unusable after activating on its set date. However, this can be bypassed by setting the console's internal date to anything before that date.

Known Carts

• 520-in-1
• 489-in-1
• 482-in-1
• 208-in-1
• 23-in-1 Pokémon
• 2-in-1 Pokémon Black & White
• 2-in-1 Pokémon Black 2 & White 2
• 2-in-1 Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver
• 3-in-1 Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum

Gallery

A typical ACE3DS cartridge.

Generic case used for a DS pirate multicart.

Cartridge.

Standalone bootleg R4 release of Pokémon Black Version (notice the RP rating in the bottom left corner).

2 in 1 Pokémon Black & White multicart.

2 in 1 Pokémon Black & White 2 multicart.

2 in 1 Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver multicart.

3 in 1 Pokémon Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum multicart.

23 in 1 Pokémon game compilation multicart.

208 in 1 cartridge.

These multicarts usually appear as SpongeBob's Atlantis Squarepantis or Deep Labyrinth when inserted into a DS.

The front of the ACE3DS 489-in-1 box

The back of the ACE3DS 489-in-1 box

Trivia

• While one of ACE3DS's main features is to emulate various game consoles, no pirate cart seems to be bundled with any ROMs to use with the software's emulators.