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Native

Pokémon Diamond on PC

Nintendo DS Pokémon Diamond running on PC through native. Supply your own copy of the game.

About the game

The fourth generation, in Sinnoh. It split the physical and special attack calculation per move rather than per type, a change that reorganised the whole series strategy.

Developer
Game Freak
Publisher
Nintendo
Genre
RPG
Original game
28 Sep 2006

How this port works

This is a native port: the game was rebuilt to run as a real PC program with no emulator in the loop. That usually means better performance, arbitrary resolution and mod support — and it is why these run well on modest hardware.

Decompilation of Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

How to install

  1. 01First things first: this is a work-in-progress decompilation of Pokémon Diamond, not a PC port. What comes out are Nintendo DS ROMs.
  2. 02Building it yields pokediamond.us.nds (SHA-1 a46233d8b79a69ea87aa295a0efad5237d02841e) and pokepearl.us.nds (SHA-1 99083bf15ec7c6b81b4ba241ee10abd9e80999ac). Both versions come out of the same build.
  3. 03The repository carries no game data: your own copy is required.
  4. 04The setup steps live in the repository INSTALL.md, and the contributor instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md.
  5. 05For contacts and the other pret projects, the reference is pret.github.io.

These projects ship no game data. Supply your own copy.

Frequently asked

Do I need the original game to play Pokémon Diamond on PC?

Yes. The project distributes no game data — you supply your own copy or dump. Every project in this scene works this way, and it is what lets them stay publicly hosted on GitHub.

What does "native" mean?

This is a native port: the game was rebuilt to run as a real PC program with no emulator in the loop. That usually means better performance, arbitrary resolution and mod support — and it is why these run well on modest hardware.

Will Pokémon Diamond run on a low-end PC?

Native ports and recompilations skip CPU emulation entirely, so they are usually far lighter than an emulator for the same console. With no published measurement for this project, though, any estimate would be guesswork — test it on your own machine.

When was Pokémon Diamond released?

The original game shipped in 2006, developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo. This PC port is from 2026.

Which systems does it support?

The current release ships builds for Windows. The game originally shipped on Nintendo DS.

Is it legal to use?

The project is public and open source, maintained by pret, and contains nothing from the commercial game. Responsibility for the game copy you use is yours — which is why the developers require you to supply your own.

More Nintendo DS ports