Virtual Action Replay

Have you ever seen thoes video of people using crazy cheats on DS / DSI games or had an action replay in the past but lost it? if so this might be your guide!

This guide assumes you have a modded 3ds with access to FBI/Universal updater.
If you do not have a modded 3ds, check out the up to date modding guide here and mod it!

The overview.

  • Using codes
  • Installing Nitrohax.cia branch 
  • Installing R4CCE
  • Adding Codes 

Installing Nitrohax.cia branch 


The program used in this guide is found here and made by Epicpkmn11, It’s a branch of the original nitrohax that was used in R4 cards.

Because this can be installed on the 3ds home screen it effectively means we have a virtual action replay. One thing to note is that it will only work with original DS/DSI cartridges.

If you want to use cheats for 3ds games use checkpoint ( which is installed during the modding process )

In this guide I will install nitrohax.cia branch via FBI.

  1. Download the Nitrohax-usrcheat.cia from the releases page 
  1. Turn off your 3DS and insert the SD card into your computer 
  2. Put the Nitrohax-usrcheat.cia file downloaded into your cias folder, if you don’t have a cias folder, make one on the root of your SD card.
  1. Eject your SD card from your computer, put it back into your 3DS and turn it on 
  2. Navigate to FBI
    1. Select “SD”
    2. Select the“cias” folder
    3. Select “current directory” 
    4. Select “Install and delete all CIAs”
    5. Select “yes”
    6. Wait for the CIA to install 
    7. Press the home menu button and you should have your software 

Now that you have the virtual action replay, you have to now either create your own dat file or download a pre-esxisitng file with cheats.

If you just want general cheats for your DS/DSI games you can download a cheats.dat file here ( it’s the one recommended by the creator of the .dat branch )

If you want to create your own codes, proceed to Installing R4CCE, if you just want a general cheat list to use, download it from above and proceed to the Using codes section of this guide that’s found at the bottom of this page.

Installing R4CCE

If you’re like me, a general cheat database isn’t enough. What if someone has made a new code and it’s not on the preexisting database or you want to make your own codes? Well this is the program to use, it allows you to create .dat files for custom cheats.

  1. Download R4CCE
  1. Unzip the folder
  2. Head into the folder and unzip the one inside 
  1. Open the folder R4DSCheatCodeEditor-1.01
  2. Open the folder Cheat code editor
  3. Run Cheat Code Editor.exe

Congrats you have installed R4CCE!

Using R4CCE

This is a very general guide on how to add codes and create a .dat file.  I have no knowledge in creating action replay codes and learned all this in about 2 days and maybe 15 hours of research.  

  1. Find a game you want to use your action replay with ( I’m using Pokemon soul silver )
  2. To find the game ID google [(your_game_name_here) game id]
    • E.g. “Pokemon soul silver game id”
  3. Find a website that has the id, sometimes websites have them and sometimes they don’t.  Better get searching! The ID for Pokemon soul silver is IPGE 2D5118CA
    • 3.1 R4CCE also has a way to game ids from roms if you have them

Now that you have your Game ID, heres how to create your cheats!

  1. Click on the Ds icon
  2. This will bring up a new menu that asks you to input a game name and a game ID. enter your games name and ID here 
  1. Next click on the window icon this will bring up a menu to input your code 
  2. From here either create or find codes you want to add to your .dat file, for this example im going to change it so that every wild pokemon is a certain species. 
  1. After pasting the code I want and adding a name, it’s ready to go! Click the save button and change the save location to desktop. Make sure the file name is usrcheat.dat
  2. You’re done! You have your codes, move onto the next section 

Using Codes 

  1. Turn off your 3DS and insert its SD card into your computer 
  2. Drag and drop the usrcheat.dat into the root of your sd card ( either the one downloaded or the one you made yourself )
  1. Eject your sd and plug it back into your 3DS
  2. Open nitrohax from your home menu with your ds game inserted 
  3. After loading, select your cheat by pressing a, then press start to start your game 
  4. If you inputted your cheats correctly it should be working