How to homebrew 3ds with R4 card|include 100+ homebrew apps?

The article here is to tell you how to use R4 card to install DS homebrews on 3DS and share with you some recommended homebrew apps&games.

R4 card can homebrew Nintendo 3ds, but it only supports ds homebrew apps, emulators and games, if you want to put 3ds homebrew files to the 3DS, then go to this guide. 

R4 cards support homebrews on 3DS

R4 card is compatible with DS homebrews on both 3DS and NDS handheld system. All of the following r4 3ds cards are confirmed working with the 99% Nintendo DS homebrews. 

They are the R4i sdhc rts 3ds, R4i gold plus 3ds, R4i gold pro, R4isdhc dual core, R4isdhc rts lite lite and R4i gold eu 3ds. In addition, they all come with a must to have homebrew app, that's the Moonshell, which is used as the most popular video&music player for Nintendo 3DS.

Because the Moonshell is built-in to the 3ds r4 cards, so you are no longer to install it, just follow this instruction to use it for playing Multimedia files.

Tutorial: How to install homebrews to your 3DS with R4?

Step 1. Install firmware correctly to your R4 3DS card.
Step 2. Go to search and download DS homebrews for R4 card on the Internet, you can just google DS homebrew app or games, or you can just download from our Discord server.
Step 3. Homebrew guide to each R4 card is the same, here I use the R4i sdhc rts 3ds card from r4i-sdhc.com to give you the example guide.

Step 4. You can download a homebrew game AriaDS from here, a homebrew app Colors from here and a homebrew emulator Lameboy from here.

Step 5. You must unzip the files you download, then put the new folders to your sd card root directory.

Step 6. Insert sd card back to your R4, put the R4 to the Nintendo 3DS.

Step 7. Click the icon to enter into the R4 menu, select the second "Multimedia" to start.

Step 8. You can find the colors and lameboy folders there, choose the Colors folder, press A or click the folder to open it. You can also click the homebrew game Ariads to play directly, it will run too.

Step 9. Click the HBMenu icon, so you can now enter into the DS homebrew menu on 3DS.

Step 10. Select the "Colors110ds" in the menu.

Step 11. Keep select the "Colors.nds" and press button "A" to run it.

Step 12. The the homebrew Colors will run on your Nintendo 3DS.

Step 13. In the next time, you go to "Multimedia" option of your R4 card, you will see the Homebrew app screen like this. On this screen, you can now choose any .nds file to run directly on your 3DS.

Top 30 homebrew apps and games to R4 3DS

Homebrews can be cut into 3 categories, they are the homebrew apps, homebrew emulators and homebrew games. Here to recommend you the Best DS Homebrew for R4 3DS card to download and play.

Best Homebrew Emulators for R4

• NesDS: An Nintendo emulator that runs allot of NES games without issue.
• NeoDS: An emulator for retro Neo Geo games and plays them right on your Nintendo 3DS system. 
• GameYob: An Game Boy Color emulator that pretty much runs every GB/GBC game you load in it.
• GBARunner2: An Game Boy Advance loader to play GBA games from your R4 flashcard.
• Gbaemu4ds: An Game Boy Advance loader to play GBA games from your R4 card.
• Lameboy: Lameboy Gameboy Color Emulator for The DS and 3DS 
• DSCraft: Minecraft emulator on Your Nintendo 3DS
• JEnesisDS: An emulator for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive.
• S8DS: An Sega (Game Gear, CBS Colecovision, Sega Master System, Sega SG-1000/SC-3000) emulator.
• DSx86:DSx86 is a PC emulator for Nintendo DS allowing you to run old DOS games on your Nintendo DS game console.

Best Homebrew Games for R4

• Real-Time Strategy (RTS): 'A Touch of War'
• Strategy: 'DiceWars DS'
• Roguelike Role-Playing Game (RPG): 'POWDER'
• Two-Dimensional Action: 'MegaETK'
• Real-Time Strategy (RTS) / Tower Defense: 'Warcraft: Tower Defense'
• Two-Dimensional Action: 'Xrick DS'
• First-Person Shooter (FPS): 'Quake DS'
• Physics/Puzzle: 'Pocket Physics'
• Shoot 'Em Up: 'Geo Wars'
• Puzzle Collection: 'PuzzleManiak'

Best Homebrew Apps for R4

• MoonShell: Well known multimedia player. 
• Colors!: Colors! is a painting tool that lets you make beautiful images and paintings with your stylus.
• NitroTracker: NitroTracker is a FastTracker II style tracker for the Nintendo DS, allowing you to make music and share it across devices.
• Youtube DS: Allows playing YouTube videos on your NDS (please note this program is in very early stage and might not work propperly)
• ComBox: Allow files transfer between 2 DS,computer and a FTP server on Internet. 
• ComicbookDS: Comics reader.
• DSFTP: FTP server for DS. 
• NDoS: Includes note, reader, contact list and drawing apps. 
• Okiwi DS: Web browser on NDS. 
• Trimmer DS: Trim rom directly on NDS.