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File conversions

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ROM TO CIA

3DS TO CIA

ANY ROM TO CIA

Many games can be ported to the DS family from many other handhelds, such as games originally from the game boy or game boy advance. Porting them directly to the DS is very difficult however, so there's a standardised file type (.CIA) which acts as a sort of installation package for that game to the DS. This allows games from a buch of different consoles to be used with the same methods (downloading, uploading, updating etc.) for ease of both the user and the developers creating tools for modding DS consoles.

Converting the files

Often you might come across a game in a file type that is not CIA or NDS, meaning you have to convert it to a CIA file. Here we are calling these troublesome files 'ROMs' as that is what a digital game floating around the internet is called. You can use something called an injector to convert these files, and in this tutorial we will be using 'New Super Ultimate Injector' created by Asdolo (Asdolo94).

I will walk you through converting any ROM you could possibly find to a CIA file below:

  1. Firstly you're going to want the injector software downloaded to your computer. You can use this link to start the download, or if you feel like that's a little too sketchy, this official homebrew website is where I got that link from.
  2. Once it's all downloaded, open up the application and go to File and then New like so:
  3. Find out what console your ROM is from. The file extention (example file name: GameName.FileExtention) will help with this (GameName.GBA means the game is from the Game Boy Advance for example)
  4. Click on that console from the File New dropdown list
  5. Then, go to Project and choose Load ROM like so:
  6. Select your desired ROM file (only one at a time!!)
  7. If it gives you an 'unable to download image' error just ignore it it's completely fine
  8. The ROM may not have a game icon already, so you can use this part of the screen to add one yourself. This also shows how it will show up on your screen as an icon:
  9. Finally go to Project and Export CIA

Now that you have your shiny new CIA file, you can use this page to learn how to upload it to your DS console!

3DS FILES TO CIA

I personally like to convert 3DS files differently to any other ROM, as this method is faster, easier and can do more than one file at a time. It uses a software very aptly named 3ds-to-cia.

Converting the files

Don't get 3DS and NDS files mixed up. NDS files are installable games for the Nintendo DS, whereas 3DS files are used to emulate 3DS games on another device (usually a PC). That means you can't put 3DS files onto a real DS console strangely enough as they're not engineered to be played on one!

Here is how to make a CIA file out of a 3DS file:

  1. First off, to download the software you'll want this github link. Download the zip file and extract it
  2. The program uses the whole folder you've just extracted, not a software with a frontend UI, so stick the folder somewhere accessable the way you would an application.
  3. To use the converter, open the folder and navigate to the inner folder labelled 'roms'
  4. This is the folder you put your 3DS file(s) into, you can do more than one at a time! Be sure to get rid of any left in there from the last time you used the program as they don't delete after being converted.
  5. Back out of that folder and open the 3ds-to-cia.exe program to begin converting
  6. Once it's done running (when it says 'press enter to exit'), exit the program and check the folder labelled 'cia'

Now that you have your shiny new CIA file, you can use this page to learn how to upload it to your DS console!