Nandbin Melonds -

Nandbin MelonDS is an unofficial, source-available fork of MelonDS (based on an older pre-0.9 version) that focuses exclusively on:

It is not endorsed by the main MelonDS team. In fact, the mainline developers have expressed concerns about Nandbin’s changes breaking homebrew and edge-case commercial games. However, for a specific subset of users—retro handheld enthusiasts (Anbernic, Retroid Pocket, Miyoo Mini), Raspberry Pi 4/5 owners, and low-end laptop gamers—Nandbin’s fork became a lifeline.

Create a folder (e.g., melonDS_data). Place inside: nandbin melonds

If you own a 3DS/2DS, you can dump its NAND, but note: a 3DS NAND includes DSi firmware. The DSi-compatible partition can be extracted using tools like twlnf (TWL NAND File system). However, melonDS expects a raw DSi NAND, not a 3DS one. This method is advanced and error-prone.

Get the latest version from melonds.kuribo64.net. Available for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. Nandbin MelonDS is an unofficial, source-available fork of

If you install plain Melonds from the Google Play Store, you can play 95% of DS games without issue. However, to unlock the emulator’s full power, you require the Nandbin. Here is why it is essential:

There are three legitimate methods to obtain a nand.bin file. It is not endorsed by the main MelonDS team

The Nintendo DS has two 2D engines (for backgrounds/sprites) and one 3D engine. Mainline MelonDS synchronizes them tightly to avoid graphical glitches. Nandbin decouples the 3D thread from the 2D threads, allowing them to run on separate CPU cores with minimal locking. This yields 20–40% higher FPS on quad-core+ devices but introduces occasional tearing or missing geometry in games that demand strict inter-frame synchronization.

A "NAND bin" refers to a raw backup of the NAND memory from a Nintendo DSi or 3DS console. The NAND contains the system's operating system (firmware), system settings, and installed applications (DSiWare).