Nintendo DS emulation on hacked Switch consoles isn’t anything new and it’s been around for over a year first with DeSmuME-NX and then melonDS. Up till today, melonDS could run some less demanding titles at fullspeed provided you overclocked your Switch to 1.5/1.7GHz but doing this reduced battery life and generated extra heat which would undoubtedly shorten the battery’s lifespan. As a result, the only realistic way to emulate DS games on the Switch was through DraStic on Android but now, that’s changed thanks to catlover007’s work! Thanks to the JIT, melonDS can run many games well on the Switch! (Image Source)
Catlover007 has been working on writing a DS JIT for the Switch for quite a while and now, he’s released the first public build of melonDS with an ARM64 JIT and NEON GPU optimisations. According to the release post, his build of melonDS allows you to run most 2D games at good speeds and even some 3D titles like Pokemon HG without overclocking. While this build provides better performance than other melonDS for Switch releases, it doesn’t have the regular UI so controlling it might be a tad more annoying but it’s certainly doable. Shrimptacular on Reddit has tested numerous DS games on this build and he’s confirmed that the following titles work properly: