Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Emulation on Apple Silicon is quite amazing

pastrychef

pastrychef

macrumors 601
Original poster
Sep 15, 2006
4,760
1,465
New York City, NY
Ever since I got my M1 Max Mac Studio about two months ago, I've been messing around with retro console emulators and I've found the experience to be quite amazing. The following are the emulators I've been messing with and my experiences:
  • AetherSX2 (PS2 emulator) - So far, I haven't come across anything that this emulator can't run and upscaling to 4K makes these old games look fantastic.
  • Dolphin (GameCube + Wii emulator) - I have not tried Wii games on this but GameCube games run extremely well. I upscale to 4K on this emulator too.
  • RPCS3 (PS3 emulator) - I haven't played with this emulator as much as I have with AetherSX2 or Dolphin... I only tested a few games. Oblivion and Skyrim seem to run well. They are among my all time favorite games and I look forward to playing them again. I've only tried 1080p scaling on this and it looks great.
  • Redream (Dreamcast emulator) - This emulator is also amazing but it has been crashing on me when I try to go full screen so I have to play in window mode...
  • Xemu (Xbox emulator) - I just discovered this emulator and haven't played around with it enough to critique...

I have been having a lot of fun playing with these emulators. All these emulators work perfectly with my Dual Shock 4 controller but I have had no luck at all getting my wired Xbox 360 controller to be recognized in macOS Monterey.

I know that there are also emulators for older consoles but I haven't tried them out yet. I've read that OpenEmu works very well, but it lacks the ability to upscale graphics which is a deal breaker for me...

What have your experiences been?
 
  • Like
Reactions: throAU, T'hain Esh Kelch, Basic75 and 5 others
pastrychef said:
Ever since I got my M1 Max Mac Studio about two months ago, I've been messing around with retro console emulators and I've found the experience to be quite amazing. The following are the emulators I've been messing with and my experiences:
  • AetherSX2 (PS2 emulator) - So far, I haven't come across anything that this emulator can't run and upscaling to 4K makes these old games look fantastic.
  • Dolphin (GameCube + Wii emulator) - I have not tried Wii games on this but GameCube games run extremely well. I upscale to 4K on this emulator too.
  • RPCS3 (PS3 emulator) - I haven't played with this emulator as much as I have with AetherSX2 or Dolphin... I only tested a few games. Oblivion and Skyrim seem to run well. They are among my all time favorite games and I look forward to playing them again. I've only tried 1080p scaling on this and it looks great.
  • Redream (Dreamcast emulator) - This emulator is also amazing but it has been crashing on me when I try to go full screen so I have to play in window mode...
  • Xemu (Xbox emulator) - I just discovered this emulator and haven't played around with it enough to critique...

I have been having a lot of fun playing with these emulators. All these emulators work perfectly with my Dual Shock 4 controller but I have had no luck at all getting my wired Xbox 360 controller to be recognized in macOS Monterey.

I know that there are also emulators for older consoles but I haven't tried them out yet. I've read that OpenEmu works very well, but it lacks the ability to upscale graphics which is a deal breaker for me...

What have your experiences been?
Click to expand...
I've compiled and run a few other platforms myself and have had a great experience! It's amazing how well these work given how fast they are.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastrychef
I've just a bit of experience with OpenEmu and it's not native yet. Even so it's still great at all the 2d games I throw at it. It can handle the advanced CRT shaders too. Some of the shaders were too much for my old Air(2015), especially if I didn't want the fan on full blast.

It's more convenient than the Switch in a way with a 1 cable usb-c monitor connection. And Nintendo's own wireless throwback controllers and the Mac make a great pair.

I suspect Apple's M chips are great with emulation because of fast single core performance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gudi, T'hain Esh Kelch, tranceking26 and 1 other person
Pugly said:
I've just a bit of experience with OpenEmu and it's not native yet. Even so it's still great at all the 2d games I throw at it. It can handle the advanced CRT shaders too. Some of the shaders were too much for my old Air(2015), especially if I didn't want the fan on full blast.

It's more convenient than the Switch in a way with a 1 cable usb-c monitor connection. And Nintendo's own wireless throwback controllers and the Mac make a great pair.

I suspect Apple's M chips are great with emulation because of fast single core performance.
Click to expand...
Looks like you can build it. May give this a try to build a native one.
 
For some color I compiled doxbox and dosbox-x, scummvm, atari800, and FUE for Apple Silicon and run lots of stuff "native." They run massively better and smoother than even on my MacBook Pro 16 Intel.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastrychef
I’d like a Mac 680x0 emulator. I’m pretty sure they exist, but I’m too lazy to look. 😜
 
pastrychef said:
How have your experiences with UTM been? I've read mixed reactions to it...
Click to expand...
Yeah It's mixed for some things. I have used it for various use cases (x86 Ubuntu or Debian VMs.). I've even used on my Intel mac to run a ARM-based Debian for testing ARM assembly. It does work and is a whole lot better than it used to be. It does work super well for PPC or 68000 macOS.

Oh and I also ran for guts and shiggles Windows 95 in a base PC emulation on my M1.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastrychef
thedocbwarren said:
Yeah It's mixed for some things. I have used it for various use cases (x86 Ubuntu or Debian VMs.). I've even used on my Intel mac to run a ARM-based Debian for testing ARM assembly. It does work and is a whole lot better than it used to be. It does work super well for PPC or 68000 macOS.

Oh and I also ran for guts and shiggles Windows 95 in a base PC emulation on my M1.
Click to expand...

I played around with UTM today and I'm very impressed with how well Windows 11 (Arm version) runs!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: thedocbwarren
<shameless plug>

If any RPCS3 users have been getting frustrated with it disconnecting the Bluetooth controller after 15 minutes (and possibly crashing the game with it)... I've just fixed it*. Go download the latest build :)

*Plus credit to shinra-electric on GitHub for actually submitting the fix into the main product.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: bobbytomorow, ceevee and pastrychef
pastrychef said:
Ever since I got my M1 Max Mac Studio about two months ago, I've been messing around with retro console emulators and I've found the experience to be quite amazing. The following are the emulators I've been messing with and my experiences:
  • AetherSX2 (PS2 emulator) - So far, I haven't come across anything that this emulator can't run and upscaling to 4K makes these old games look fantastic.
  • Dolphin (GameCube + Wii emulator) - I have not tried Wii games on this but GameCube games run extremely well. I upscale to 4K on this emulator too.
  • RPCS3 (PS3 emulator) - I haven't played with this emulator as much as I have with AetherSX2 or Dolphin... I only tested a few games. Oblivion and Skyrim seem to run well. They are among my all time favorite games and I look forward to playing them again. I've only tried 1080p scaling on this and it looks great.
  • Redream (Dreamcast emulator) - This emulator is also amazing but it has been crashing on me when I try to go full screen so I have to play in window mode...
  • Xemu (Xbox emulator) - I just discovered this emulator and haven't played around with it enough to critique...

I have been having a lot of fun playing with these emulators. All these emulators work perfectly with my Dual Shock 4 controller but I have had no luck at all getting my wired Xbox 360 controller to be recognized in macOS Monterey.

I know that there are also emulators for older consoles but I haven't tried them out yet. I've read that OpenEmu works very well, but it lacks the ability to upscale graphics which is a deal breaker for me...

What have your experiences been?
Click to expand...
I have the Apple Mac Studio Ultra with Studio Display. I am wondering if there is any way possible to connect the floppy disk drives of an Apple II+ to my rig. I have many documents that I would like to bring forward. The Apple IIGS would be a solution, but where to find a working reliable unit is the question. I would prefer not to use that solution.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AdamBuker
maccompaq said:
I have the Apple Mac Studio Ultra with Studio Display. I am wondering if there is any way possible to connect the floppy disk drives of an Apple II+ to my rig. I have many documents that I would like to bring forward. The Apple IIGS would be a solution, but where to find a working reliable unit is the question. I would prefer not to use that solution.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about a 5.25" floppy drive? I have no idea. Lol

But if you're talking about a 3.5" floppy drive, when I first got my Mac Studio, I dug out my old USB floppy drive and plugged it in just to see if it worked and, lo and behold, it did! I don't know if the Apple II+ file format is something that macOS can read though...
 
It is the 5.25" floppy. I wish I had purchased the 3.5" floppy that worked on the Apple II+ back in the day.
 
Pugly said:
I've just a bit of experience with OpenEmu and it's not native yet. Even so it's still great at all the 2d games I throw at it. It can handle the advanced CRT shaders too. Some of the shaders were too much for my old Air(2015), especially if I didn't want the fan on full blast.

It's more convenient than the Switch in a way with a 1 cable usb-c monitor connection. And Nintendo's own wireless throwback controllers and the Mac make a great pair.

I suspect Apple's M chips are great with emulation because of fast single core performance.
Click to expand...
I really like OpenEMU. The emulation is fast enough with Rosetta 2 that not yet being native is not a barrier.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gudi
pastrychef said:
Have you tried RetroArch with Emulation Station?
Click to expand...
I can't answer for haralds, but I personally find that RetroArch's increased flexibility comes with a terrible usability. It's fiddly to set up and very user-unfriendly: you can spend hours on trying to get it to work and constantly run into walls when it fails to run emulator or ROMs without any indication what went wrong.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SlCKB0Y, tonyr6 and pastrychef
MrGunny94 said:
Depends on what you want, but I always go back to Parallels even for simple Linux VMs.
Click to expand...

thedocbwarren said:
Same here as Parallels works so well.
Click to expand...


I tried Parallels many, many years ago on my old Mac Pro. I hated how it installed stuff all over the place and tried to integrate Windows app in to macOS. I want Windows as sandboxed as possible.

It took me hours to find and delete all the junk Parallels installed and I never tried it again.
 
pastrychef said:
I tried Parallels many, many years ago on my old Mac Pro. I hated how it installed stuff all over the place and tried to integrate Windows app in to macOS. I want Windows as sandboxed as possible.

It took me hours to find and delete all the junk Parallels installed and I never tried it again.
Click to expand...
Mine puts the VMs and everything attached to it all together in the same place you set it? Give it the trial :)
 
MrGunny94 said:
Mine puts the VMs and everything attached to it all together in the same place you set it? Give it the trial :)
Click to expand...
I guess pastrychef is referring to the shortcuts and extra application folder(s) for Windows applications which Parallels insists on creating on default.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastrychef
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back