Editing Emulators on macOS

|logo = Apple Computer (1998).jpg

|release = 2001

|last-release = macOS 14 Sonoma

:''This page is about emulators that run on macOS (previously Mac OS X).''  

 

{{for|software that emulates macOS on other hardware|MacOS}}

{{for|emulators that run on Classic Mac OS|Emulators on Legacy systems#Classic Mac OS}}

 

The Mac has had two main operating systems over its history: The "Classic" Mac OS versions 1 through 9, and Mac OS X (Ten, not Ex) which is now referred to simply as macOS. Classic was a closed-source proprietary OS, whereas macOS is based on an open-source Unix variant called Darwin. This Unix base helps with Linux compatibility.

The first several releases of macOS up to 10.4 Tiger contained support for Classic applications, but this was later dropped.

macOS has supported three major cpu architecture changes: IBM PowerPC (PPC), Intel x86/x64 and most recently Apple Silicon (Arm64). There have also been minor architectural changes such as moving from 32-bit PPC processors to the 64-bit PPC G5, or from Intel's 32-bit x86 to 64-bit x64. Each time there was a hardware transition, Apple provided ways to continue to support older software on the new systems.

Rosetta was a software emulation layer that helped PPC applications to run on x86/x64 Macs. It was built into 10.4.4 Tiger, but was an optional install in macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard and not available at all for 10.7 Lion. Rosetta 2 currently facilitates x64 software to run on Arm Macs. While Rosetta performs very respectably for most software, it adds extra overhead which can reduce performance on demanding games and emulators.  

Apple also introduced Universal Binaries that bundle software for different architectures into a single app bundle. For example, Universal 2 app bundles contain x64 and Arm versions of software in one app. This is very useful for portability, or for people who don't know or care about their Mac's specs. If you know what CPU your Mac has, the advantage of getting the specific version for your CPU is that it will have a smaller file size than the universal binary. However the size difference is usually tiny, so just using the universal binary is usually the way to go.

One issue with this is that a lot of emulators are cross platform, and Metal is only for Apple's platforms. The Vulkan backend for Windows and Linux is similar to Metal, but does not have support on macOS. So many emulators will develop a Vulkan backend and use the MoltenVK translation layer, which will take Vulkan instructions and convert them into their respective Metal equivalent. However not every Vulkan instruction has a Metal version, so either workarounds have to be designed, or some features cannot be supported at all.   

;*Remember that emulators can have different levels of completion or compatibility. If a game you are trying to run does not work properly with a recommended emulator, try a different one. All this means that to find an emulator that works well for your Mac you should understand its specs first. Choose an emulator that supports your CPU architecture natively where possible. The emulators shown here will indicate the processor architecture it supports. Generally you should choose an emulator that supports Metal where available if you are on a modern Mac. MoltenVK should be more performant than OpenGL, although there may be compatibility issues. OpenGL may work, but some emulators need to use a version newer than OGL 4.1 that macOS doesn't support. In cases like this the emulator will be marked as not having OpenGL support. This list shows the latest versions of the emulator software. If you have an older CPU and the latest version does not support it, some emulators will keep archives of older versions that might, check out their website.

;*Some games have native [[Source Ports on macOS]], which can be better than playing through an emulator. Also see [[Game engine recreations and source ports]] page for a list for all platforms.

Many emulators for macOS can be played very conveniently with [https://openemu.org OpenEmu] which provides an iTunes-like interface for your game collection and uses various different emulator cores to play them, including command-line only emulators such as MAME and Mednafen. The systems emulated are listed [https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/wiki#supported-systems here]. In keeping with their goal of simplicity, some advanced features such as upscaling are generally not available. There is also no Arm build of OpenEmu available at time of writing.

[https://www.fightcade.com Fightcade] is a matchmaking frontend for playing many arcade fighting games online with other players. There is no Arm build at the time of writing.

Some emulators target specific games rather than emulating whole systems, with ScummVM alone supporting over 300 games from various systems and more being added all the time.

 

Other projects are more considered source ports rather than emulators. See here for a list of [https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Source_Ports_on_macOS source ports] that work on macOS.

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| [https://aarongiles.com/dreamm {{DREAMMVer}}]

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| [https://aarongiles.com/dreamm/docs/v21/#intro-games List]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

===Sega Atomiswave===

| [[Flycast]]

| [https://github.com/flyinghead/flycast/releases {{FlycastVer}}]

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| [https://sdlmame.lngn.net {{MAMEVer}}]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

===Sega Model 3===

| [[Supermodel]]

| [https://github.com/trzy/Supermodel 0.3a]

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| [https://sdlmame.lngn.net {{MAMEVer}}]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

===Sega NAOMI/NAOMI 2===

| [[Flycast]]

| [https://github.com/flyinghead/flycast/releases {{FlycastVer}}]

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| [https://sdlmame.lngn.net {{MAMEVer}}]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

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===SNK Neo Geo MVS===

|[[ares]]

|[https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/releases {{aresVer}}]

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| [[FinalBurn Neo]]

| [https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo/releases/ {{FinalBurnNeoVer}}]

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| [https://sdlmame.lngn.net {{MAMEVer}}]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

===Arcade LaserDisc===

| [[MAME]]

| [https://sdlmame.lngn.net {{MAMEVer}}]

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| [[Hypseus Singe]]

| [https://github.com/DirtBagXon/hypseus-singe/releases {{HypseusSingeVer}}]

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| [[ares]]

| [https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/releases {{aresVer}}]

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| Nes-emu-iOS

| [https://github.com/tsalvo/nes-emu-ios/releases git]

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| SwiftNES

| [https://github.com/agg23/SwiftNES git]

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| {{✗}} <ref group=N name=compile>Must compile from source.</ref>

| [https://nin.nax.io Nin]

| [https://github.com/Nax/nin/releases git]

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| [[Mesen]]

| [https://github.com/SourMesen/Mesen2 {{MesenVer}}]

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| {{✗}} <ref group=N name=compile>Must compile from source.</ref>

| [[Nestopia]]

| [https://github.com/0ldsk00l/nestopia {{NestopiaVer}}]

| {{✗}} <ref group=N name=compile>Must compile from source.</ref>

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===Super Nintendo===

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|[[bsnes]]<br/><small>(Official)</small>

|[https://github.com/bsnes-emu/bsnes/releases {{bsnesVer}}]

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|[[Bsnes#List_of_forks|bsnes-hd]]<br/><small>(forked bsnes)</small>

|[https://github.com/DerKoun/bsnes-hd/releases {{Bsnes-hdVer}}]

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| [[Mesen]]

| [https://github.com/SourMesen/Mesen2 {{MesenVer}}]

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| [[Mednafen]]

| [{{MednafenURL|releases/}} {{MednafenVer}}]

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| {{~}} <ref group=N name=openemu>Command line application. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

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|[[Snes9x]]

===N64===

| [[ares]]

| [https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/releases {{aresVer}}]

| [[Mupen64Plus]]

| [https://openemu.org {{Mupen64PlusVer}}]

| {{~}} <ref group=N>Only available as a core. Best played using OpenEmu.</ref>

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| [[simple64]]

| [https://github.com/thekovic/simple64/releases/tag/v2021.5.30 v2021.5.30]

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{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

! scope="col"|<abbr title="32-bit Intel">x86</abbr>

| [[Dolphin]]

| [https://dolphin-emu.org/download/?ref=btn {{DolphinVer}}]

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| [[Dolphin]]

| [https://dolphin-emu.org/download {{DolphinVer}}]

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===Wii U===

! scope="col"|Gamepad Support

| [[Cemu]]

| [https://github.com/cemu-project/Cemu/releases {{CemuVer}}]

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! scope="col"|<abbr title="32-bit Intel">x86</abbr>

! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]

| [https://ryujinx.org/download Releases]

| {{~}} <ref group=N>Some games may work with an x64 Intel Mac, but performance will be sub-par.</ref>

|[[Suyu]]

| ~

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| {{✗}}[[History_of_emulation#Lawsuits|*]]

| {{✗}} <ref group=N>Yuzu has been discontinued. Various forks are available.</ref>

===Game Boy/Color===

| [[SameBoy]]

| [https://sameboy.github.io/downloads {{SameBoyVer}}]

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| [[SkyEmu]]

| [https://github.com/skylersaleh/SkyEmu/releases {{SkyEmuVer}}]

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| [[ares]]

| [https://github.com/ares-emulator/ares/releases {{aresVer}}]

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| [[mGBA]]

| [https://mgba.io/downloads.html {{MGBAVer}}]

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