just curious.

TWiLight Menu++ is considered an emulator for DS.

I would consider that emulator because it's not normal hardware/game cartridge.

what about an r4 card? that would be legal right? because its loading a rom onto original hardware

@Ramen_YTRamen_YT
@bluebearyoutubebluebearyoutube Loading from an SD card (commonly known as USB loading or flash loading on other consoles) leads to different timings due to the flash device's read speed. The software used may also alter accuracy in certain cases. This is especially noticeable on disc-based games.

With flash carts (R4, Everdrives, SD2SNES, EZ Flash, etc.). There is absolutely no difference from the console side and data reads are still limited by the intended bus.

My personal opinion is that, unless we know for a fact it runs exactly the same as a cartridge, it should be lumped in with emulators. I wouldn't straight up disallow it since DS emulators aren't very accurate to begin with.