Software Alternatives & Reviews

melonDS VS Dolphin Emulator

Compare melonDS VS Dolphin Emulator and see what are their differences

melonDS logo melonDS

A Nintendo DS emulator with support for commercial games.

Dolphin Emulator logo Dolphin Emulator

Official website of Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator. Download the latest version (5. 0-5763) now or ask questions on our forums for help. Enter your search in the box aboveDownloadDownload the latest version of the Dolphin Emulator (5.
  • melonDS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-10
  • Dolphin Emulator Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-02

melonDS videos

Quickly Setup melonDS Emulator For Windows & Linux!

More videos:

  • Tutorial - MelonDS DS Emulator for Nintendo Switch - How to Setup & Overview - Homebrew CFW App
  • Review - MelonDS Version 0.8.2 for For Nintendo Switch CFW

Dolphin Emulator videos

Ultimate Guide to Dolphin Emulator

More videos:

  • Review - Dolphin Emulator Vs. Gamecube
  • Review - Dolphin Emulator for Android Review!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to melonDS and Dolphin Emulator)
Gaming
39 39%
61% 61
Emulators
41 41%
59% 59
Gaming Tools
49 49%
51% 51
Gaming Software
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using melonDS and Dolphin Emulator. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare melonDS and Dolphin Emulator

melonDS Reviews

Best DS Emulator: Are These Emulators Safe And Legal To Use?
MelonDS also offers high-performance graphics and sound emulation, making it a great choice for gamers who want an authentic DS experience.
Source: appletoo.us
5 Best Nintendo DS Emulators for PC
When we talk about best DS emulator for PC, we can’t avoid MelonDS. MelonDS is also one of the best Nintendo DS emulator. It has the following advantages:
Best emulators for Android in 2023
The Nintendo DS has such a wide back catalog of games to play, many of which are both incredible and not very computationally taxing. melonDS is the best way to enjoy those games on the go, and that's thanks to its ease of use. It's a free emulator that you can download from the Google Play Store, though it's not an official port (as melonDS is made for PC originally), and...

Dolphin Emulator Reviews

  1. Can’t get anything to work

    I downloaded the most recent stable version and the most recent beta version separately to attempt the following

    Downloaded ROMS from the dolphin website to not have them register as games or allow me to upload them onto dolphin even under instruction of various YouTube tutorials

    Downloaded ROMS from other sources that checked out as safe from Reddit users and other review websites, result was a little different, it would give me an error code of 00000000 and would eventually crash the entire app.

    Ultimately this was a waste of hours of my time trying to get it to work only leaving me angry and disappointed.

  2. suggestions?

    everything is good. but i wanted to make simulate analog stick on keyboard. put it in smooth (A,1,2). but when i press opposite direction. it doesn't center itself. it just continues from where it is. can you make an option when other button presses it center automatically? i know there's more input but I can't find tutorial videos how it works.


Best emulators for Android in 2023
Dolphin Emulator is one of the most famous emulators on the planet thanks to its compatibility with pretty much everything on the GameCube and the Wii. It runs on many devices, the development team is very transparent in what they're working on with blog post updates every few months, and the team even worked to preserve Nintendo Update Server (NUS) support by creating a...
7 Best Mac Emulators For Gamers In 2022
The Dolphin Emulator has been in development since around the time the GameCube was released, and has seen plenty of breakthroughs and updates since that time.
Source: retrododo.com
15 best emulators for Android to play old favorites!
Dolphin is an interesting browser. It was around for a while, left, and it’s back now. The developers promise that it’ll stick around for a while this time. This is the only somewhat decent GameCube and Wii emulator on Android. It lets you play ROMs of games from both systems with relatively competence. It’s still in active development, though, so there are bugs. It has most...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Dolphin Emulator should be more popular than melonDS. It has been mentiond 150 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

melonDS mentions (32)

  • help with bw roms
    Use MelonDS instead, it's the most recommended DS emulator. Source: 10 months ago
  • Pokémon emulators
    You mean emulators running on PC? It took some doing, but I finally got DS Download Play to work on MelonDS. First you need to get DS firmware files. I found one on Retrostic that did not work for me. Melon told me it was an old hacked dump, and trying to boot it just got me a white screen. I found another on the Internet Archive that works. Source: 11 months ago
  • I feel like people put down MelonDS too much here
    MelonDS is actually doing a lot of really cool stuff. I can't speak too much on the Android build, but on PC they have actually gotten multiplayer too work flawlessly and they are currently working on implementing netplay. You can keep up with their progress here. Source: 11 months ago
  • Hi, new to emulators. I had a question, can I run gba and nds games on this?
    No, you can use mGBA for GBA games, and MelonDS for NDS games. Source: 11 months ago
  • Completely new to emulation
    AFAIK randomizers are usually romhacks, and so they should work on most DS emulators, I personally use melonDS, however you can find a list of DS emulators here. Source: about 1 year ago
View more

Dolphin Emulator mentions (150)

  • Replay old video games
    GameCube/Wii: Dolphin is the best GameCube/Wii emulator in my opinion: Download Dolphin. Source: 6 months ago
  • Rokid Max Review and Many Tips
    Though these consoles did not support stereoscopy originally, the Dolphin emulator can add it and output SBS. My experience was a bit mixed. Your mileage may vary. Source: 9 months ago
  • Am I the only one tired of the remakes?
    You install Dolphin emulator, go into settings and make a folder for your games where it says "directory", and then you just stick your game in the folder. That's pretty much all there is to it, that's why I think Dolphin is the best emulator. Source: 10 months ago
  • Local Co-op Action RPGs on PC
    Platform: Gamecube. The remaster scrapped the local co-op entirely (booo). This one is a bit tricky but works perfectly once setup properly in Dolphin. Source: 10 months ago
  • Any way to play without emulator?
    Emulators (especially dolphin) are very easy to run, so if you take some time to follow the quickstart guide I think you'll find it's not too hard to follow. Sites like vimm's lair are what I use for all my game roms and don't have any malware. Source: 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing melonDS and Dolphin Emulator, you can also consider the following products

DeSmuME - DeSmuME is a freeware emulator for the NDS roms & Nintendo DS Lite games created by YopYop156.

RetroArch - RetroArch is a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players.

OpenEmu - Console and Arcade video game emulator for macOS.

Drastic - Drastic is a Android DS Emulator

PCSX2 - PCSX2 a Playstation 2 emulator for android, Linux and Mac

Citra - Citra is a work-in-progress emulator for the Nintendo 3DS.