DSPico for Nintendo DS

Back in 2008, during the Nintendo DS flashcart boom, finding a good cart was easy. They were everywhere, competing, piling on features, and evolving quickly. Then the R4 arrived — and basically crushed the market. Prices dropped from roughly $100 to $15.

You’d think that with that kind of hype there wouldn’t be any quality issues. But it went the other way. The race to get even cheaper meant quality was the first thing to suffer.

When EZ-Flash Parallel showed up, a lot of people were ready to pay extra for a “proper” solution without compromises. In practice it turned out to be a pretty controversial product with a whole set of issues.

And now, in 2025, a new player appears on the market — DSPico by LNH-team.

After getting burned by EZ-Flash Parallel, I’m not eager to build sky-high expectations. But first impressions suggest this is finally a flashcart you can recommend without doing a bunch of “but…” and “however…”.

Let’s take a closer look.

Where to buy?

You can buy the cart on AliExpress.

Note: there’s a version with USB Type-C. It costs more, but instead of the outdated Micro-USB it uses a modern Type-C connector.

By the way, about the cable. When my first DSPico arrived, it only worked with one out of three Micro USB cables.

What’s in the box

DSPico by LNH-team is fully open source. Which means whatever the Chinese sellers ship is basically their own interpretation of what the “bundle” should look like.

For example, one seller ships a bare cart in a black shell — no label, no box, nothing at all.

Another one makes a proper set: a nice box, stickers, and even a cable included.

Setup

Setting up the flashcart has two steps:

1. Copy the menu/firmware files to the microSD card;

2. Check the microcontroller firmware and reflash it if needed.

And you should do them in exactly that order.

You can only tell that your microcontroller firmware isn’t suitable for Nintendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS after the cart’s menu files are already on the microSD. Otherwise the error looks the same — the console just “won’t see” the cartridge.

Download the archive prepared by the AliExpress guys:

https://limewire.com/d/HP5wT#PgBdZPG6zP

Inside you’ll find a folder called SD Card Files. You shouldn’t copy the folder itself — copy the files from it straight to the root of the card.

After that, you can also add your own games to the card.

Microcontroller

Probably the toughest part of DSPico is the microcontroller firmware. More precisely: flashing is actually easy. What’s genuinely hard is building the microcontroller firmware yourself.

If you look “under the hood”, you’ll see a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller inside.

On one hand, it gives developers a lot of room. On the other — if the Chinese sellers didn’t ship a proper firmware, you’ll have to dive into some fairly wild compilation territory.

But before going further, you need to figure out which firmware you have.

There are two options:

1. Microcontroller firmware that only works on Nintendo DS;

2. Firmware that works on NDS, NDSi, and 3DS.

It’s easy to test: insert the cartridge into a Nintendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS.

If it doesn’t launch and the console behaves as if nothing is inserted, you have option #1 — it won’t work on NDSi or 3DS.

So if you use DSPico only on Nintendo DS or DS Lite, you don’t need to do anything (unless you’re assembling it yourself and your chip is blank).

But if you have an NDS-only version and you want to play on NDSi or 3DS, you’ll need to reflash it.

If you want to try building the firmware yourself, check this video: https://youtu.be/o7IuaewHNTQ — it’s the simplest Windows approach.

Or you can download a ready-made DSPico.uf2 file uploaded by the AliExpress guys.

Once you have DSPico.uf2, the rest is straightforward.

1. Open the cartridge.

2. Plug a USB cable into the cartridge connector.

3. Hold the button on the cartridge.

4. While holding the button, connect the cable to your computer.

The cartridge will show up as a removable drive (for example, RPI-RP2). At that point you can release the button.

Inside you’ll see two files:

• INDEX.HTM
• INFO_UF2.TXT

Just copy DSPico.uf2 onto that drive. After copying, the device will disconnect and then automatically reconnect.

After that, reassemble the cartridge and use it — the new firmware is installed.

Usage

Sure, right now the cartridge doesn’t do that much. You can’t exit a game back to the menu, and there are no save states. But it reliably launches Nintendo DS games and — most importantly — it runs Nintendo DSi games on an unmodified Nintendo DSi and an unmodified 3DS.

After boot you land in the main menu. Basically there are only two options here:

1. Launch a game.

Just highlight the game you want and press A.

2. Open settings.

Note: you can’t do this via touch — only with the D-pad.

There aren’t many settings yet.

Layout – icon layout style.

Sorting – sorting from A to Z or the other way around.

That’s it — no other options. Personally, I miss a “hide technical folders” setting.

Because all those system folders are something you’d rather hide and not see in the main list.

Extra features

Even though the cart is still quite basic, it does have a couple of “secrets”. Правда, at first glance it’s not very clear who would actually need them.

The developers prepared a set of apps for DSPico. As I understand it, it’s more of a demo of what you can do with the cartridge in general.

You can download them on GitHub:

https://github.com/LNH-team/dspico-usb-examples/releases/

There are four apps available:

1. mass-storage.nds – gives direct access to the microSD card through the cartridge;

2. usb-microphone.nds – lets you use an NDS, DSi, or 3DS as a microphone for your PC;

3. usb-speaker.nds – routes PC audio to the console;

4. usb-video.nds – lets you use a DSi / 3DS as a webcam for your PC.

To run these apps, you’ll need to do a bit of juggling:

• Plug the cable into the cartridge;
• Insert the cartridge into the console and launch the app;
• Connect the other end of the cable to your computer.

The end result is a pretty weird-looking setup.

In my view, the most useful app here is mass-storage.nds.

You power on the console, launch the app, and connect the whole thing to the computer. After that you can calmly copy games onto the microSD card.

I wouldn’t call it a life-changing improvement. But if, say, your card reader dies — this can absolutely save you.

Epilogue

Sure, right now the cartridge still looks too simple. Next to it, Wood R4 DS or DStwo 4 in 1 seem like a more “correct” purchase. But that feeling is misleading. Even today I’d put DSPico in first place — purely because it can run DSiWare.

If you have a Nintendo DSi or Nintendo 3DS, you effectively gain access to an entire library of DSi games. Yes, both consoles can be modded and you’ll get roughly the same result. But then the obvious question is: why do you need a DS flashcart at all?

DSPico has real potential. And from here it will depend on whether the developers keep going — because, in practice, they’re doing this work for free.