Dolphin is the best emulator for Nintendo Wii and Gamecube currently available. With it, you can play virtually any game from the Nintendo catalog with no problems. The best part of the emulator is that, in most cases (or at least if your computer is relatively new), the graphics will be even better than they are on the original consoles. There is an exception — you can use an iPadOS emulator on your Mac. Read more about that below. But at this time, iPad apps are fundamentally incompatible with the architecture and operating. Once you have a working disk image large enough to install other software on, you can access other install disk images from the 'Unix' icon on the Mac desktop which can access the file system of the Raspberry Pi. A keyboard and a mouse. Ctrl + Escape will exit the emulator. Mini vMac (Macintosh Plus) Place your Macintosh Plus ROMs in. Dolphin is an open-source Nintendo GameCube and Wii Emulator for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (Intel-based). It is the first emulator to successfully run commercial GameCube and Wii games, and is still the only emulator capable of running commercial Wii games.
Retro Emulation on the new Apple M1 CPU is Good
Today we're going to be testing out some of our favorite emulators on the all new Apple Macbook Pro with the all-new apple silicon. Now i've actually been super excited about this. Not that it's a new macbook coming out but that it's powered by an ARM chip.
This is not running an intel cpu. This is not running an AMD cpu. This is apple silicon It's known as the M1 chip and it's an ARM cpu. Keep in mind when we get into running these retro emulators they were never designed to run on an arm chip.
They were actually designed to run on x86 because that's all these macs have been powered by for a very long time. But what apple has done is introduced something called Rosetta 2. It's a dynamic binary translator and it creates an application compatibility layer between x86 and the M1 chip.
Apple M1 Emulation
Adobe premiere pro demo mac. When it comes down to it we're actually running an emulator inside of an emulator and it's kind of weird to think about. But i've been really wanting to get my hands on one of these m1 chips so I could test out some emulation on it.
I also want to get into some gaming but this article is strictly dedicated to emulation. We're gonna test out some Sega Dreamcast, Sony PSP, Nintendo 64 (N64), Nintendo Gamecube and Nintendo Wii (Dolphin).
The three different Apple Silicon Macs available are:
MacBook Pro 2020 M1
MacBook Air 2020 M1
Mac mini 2020 M1
OpenEmu M1
With PSP I can't get the standalone version to work nor can I get the version inside of RetroArch to work. So what I used is OpenEmu. If you're familiar with emulation on mac, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about.
OpenEmu works absolutely amazing! There's a ton of different emulators that are available here but the options are very limited.
So i wasn't able to upscale at all with PSP. As soon as the developers of PPSSPP get a working version for these M1 Macs, I will run another test. It's running at 1x resolution here but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to do 3x and 4x with all the games. It actually works really well and it runs these harder to emulate games just fine.
God of War Chains of Olympus runs really smooth. As does Midnight club dub edition. N64 emulation in OpenEmu is performing great. Diddy kong racing and 007 goldeneye both run great.
Dolphin M1 Mac
The next emulator that i tested was the standalone version of dolphin for gamecube and Wii. At 1080p and performance was very very surprising. Games were running great at 1080p. I moved over to one of the harder games to run which is F-zero GX. Still at 1080p using the vulkan back-end performance is amazing here. We get minimal dips and when they did hsappen, it really wasn't noticeable during gameplay.
Another harder to run game that i usually test is Auto Modelista at 1080p vulcan back in and by this time everything was running great at 1080p so I figured we'd try to go up to 4k with
it. 60 fps 4k on this apple m1 chip. Amazing. Tthis is actually using Rosetta 2 to emulate x86 so we can emulate a Gamecube game. So basically we have two emulators running here at the same time and we're able to achieve this performance.
Since I was still here with the Dolphin emulator, I figured I'd throw a couple Nintendo Wii games at it. I didn't even bother going back down to 1080p seeing the performance in Auto Modelista at 4k. Awesome!
Conclusion
So all in all emulation performance here is actually really great. Now it's still really early so there are some emulators that aren't working. I definitely ran into some issues with Citra. I couldn't get the standalone version of PPSSPP working and when i tried to launch PSP games inside of retroarch, it just crashed. So it definitely needs some work.
The developers need to get Apple M1 CPU's in their hands so they can get this stuff working better. Personally, I'm not going to be swapping out my x86 Windows or Linux machine for something like this. At least not at this time. But who knows. Maybe a couple years down the road, Apple silicon is really going to take off and be ultra powerful.
THIS VIDEO IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!
Download Dolphin Emulator
I've been experimenting with the marvellous Dolphin Emulator recently. It's an open source project that allows us to play Nintendo Gamecube and Wii games on modern hardware. Dolphin is available for Windows, OS X and Linux.
I have a wireless Xbox 360 controller for Windows at my disposal, but the only Windows hardware I have is the first generation Surface Pro. While the controller connects without issues, the Surface sadly just isn't fast enough to run Dolphin.
My more powerful hardware is Mac based, and Dolphin runs great on my Mac Mini. But I had no idea how to connect my Xbox controller to it.
Mac Mini Dolphin Emulator Dolphin
Turns out it's actually a breeze to setup: let me show you how it worked for me on OS X El Capitan.
Which Xbox Controller am I referring to here
Before we start, let's clear up a small misunderstanding that may arise with Xbox controllers. The Xbox 360 came with wireless controllers that used to hook up directly to the console. Those are great, but traditionally there was no way to connect them to anything else (they don't use standard Bluetooth).
To alleviate this, Microsoft have released two versions of this controller for PC gamers: the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (wired, USB cable attached), and a more elegant version called the Wireless Xbox 360 Controller for Windows (same controller as the one that came with the Xbox 360, plus a wireless USB dongle).
Either controller will work fine, here's a picture of the one I'm using:
Installing the Xbox 360 controller's driver
No official Mac drivers are available for the Xbox controllers, but Colin Munro developed one back in 2005. The project was forked and further developed on GitHub, where you can find the latest version. Head over to the Releases section and download an installable DMG archive.
After installing the driver, you'll find a new item under System Preferences called Xbox 360 Controllers:
Plug in your wireless USB dongle now and press the big X button to connect the controller to the dongle (I'm assuming it's already been paired). Wired controllers simply plugin to the USB port and are connected immediately.
Open the preference pane to verify this: when connected, your controller should show up in the list.
The driver will read the controller's input, but it won't map anything you do to what a game might expect (for example, press the space bar to jump in a platform game). To use the controller with anything other than Dolphin, you'll need a small utility that will interpret controller input and translate it to keyboard and mouse movements, such as Joystick Mapper or Gamepad Companion (both available from the App Store).
However, the Dolphin Emulator has such a mapping option built in, so there's no need for such tools. Let's see how to map that Xbox controller so that it behaves just like an old Gamecube controller.
Configuring Dolphin for use with the Xbox 360 Controller
Fl studio mac producer edition. Open Dolphin and head over to GCPad. If you don't see this option, it will read 'Controllers'. That's an indication that Dolphin can't see a gamepad, probably because the driver isn't installed, or it's disabled. If Dolphin was open while you installed the driver, restart your system.
Click on GCPad and select your Xbox controller under device. By default the button mapping looks like this:
I didn't quite understand how to change this, but it's remarkably easy and only takes 30 seconds:
Take a look at the left box entitled Buttons. You'll see a column of controller buttons (A, B, X, Y, Z, etc) that correspond to the buttons on the original Gamecube controller. By default they're mapped to keyboard shortcuts you can see in the right column (for example, the Gamecube controller's A button is mapped to your Mac keyboard's X button).
To change this, simply click on the mapped shortcut. Turns out the right column in each section is made up of buttons (I didn't get that at first). Click one and Dolphin will wait a few seconds for you to press what you'd like to map to this button instead (it shows 'waiting'). If you're not fast enough, it'll revert back to the previous value.
So to setup our controller, simply press the button next to A, then press the corresponding button on your Xbox controller. Do this with every item on the menu, and within less than a minute, you'll have a fully functional gamepad setup. My results look like this:
You can store this setup if you like: type a suitable name in the Profile field at the top right and hit Save. Dolphin will also remember your setup even if you don't though.
Configuring DeadZones
See that my C-Stick in the screenshot above is pointing diagonally downwards? This can happen when an analogue stick is moved and then snaps back into the middle. The 'middle' isn't always exactly the same, so every time it snaps back, the controller will deliver a slightly different value.
When we come to launch a game, it may happen that this is interpreted as the stick being pushed into this direction, leading to an annoying in-game experience. If your stick is fair and square in the middle (like my left one), you have nothing to worry about. But if you see something like I have on the right, here's how to fix it.
When connected to a console, game pads usually calibrate themselves every time you launch a game. But because we're dealing with different software here, we may have to configure Dead Zones to alleviate such issues. Dead Zones are areas around the middle of the stick that are regarded as 'the stick is now in the middle, no matter what feedback we get'.
While Dolphin supports this feature, it's much more visible and easy to understand by opening up the Xbox Controller preference pane again. Head over to the Advanced tab and use the little slider to draw a small square around the middle of each stick's position. Anything inside that little square is now seen as 'the stick is in the middle', even if it's off by just a fraction.
Once adjusted, head back to the Dolphin GCPad configuration and map your sticks again (if you had this issue obviously, otherwise ignore my ramblings).
Enjoy Gamecube on your Mac!
Fl studio mac producer edition. Open Dolphin and head over to GCPad. If you don't see this option, it will read 'Controllers'. That's an indication that Dolphin can't see a gamepad, probably because the driver isn't installed, or it's disabled. If Dolphin was open while you installed the driver, restart your system.
Click on GCPad and select your Xbox controller under device. By default the button mapping looks like this:
I didn't quite understand how to change this, but it's remarkably easy and only takes 30 seconds:
Take a look at the left box entitled Buttons. You'll see a column of controller buttons (A, B, X, Y, Z, etc) that correspond to the buttons on the original Gamecube controller. By default they're mapped to keyboard shortcuts you can see in the right column (for example, the Gamecube controller's A button is mapped to your Mac keyboard's X button).
To change this, simply click on the mapped shortcut. Turns out the right column in each section is made up of buttons (I didn't get that at first). Click one and Dolphin will wait a few seconds for you to press what you'd like to map to this button instead (it shows 'waiting'). If you're not fast enough, it'll revert back to the previous value.
So to setup our controller, simply press the button next to A, then press the corresponding button on your Xbox controller. Do this with every item on the menu, and within less than a minute, you'll have a fully functional gamepad setup. My results look like this:
You can store this setup if you like: type a suitable name in the Profile field at the top right and hit Save. Dolphin will also remember your setup even if you don't though.
Configuring DeadZones
See that my C-Stick in the screenshot above is pointing diagonally downwards? This can happen when an analogue stick is moved and then snaps back into the middle. The 'middle' isn't always exactly the same, so every time it snaps back, the controller will deliver a slightly different value.
When we come to launch a game, it may happen that this is interpreted as the stick being pushed into this direction, leading to an annoying in-game experience. If your stick is fair and square in the middle (like my left one), you have nothing to worry about. But if you see something like I have on the right, here's how to fix it.
When connected to a console, game pads usually calibrate themselves every time you launch a game. But because we're dealing with different software here, we may have to configure Dead Zones to alleviate such issues. Dead Zones are areas around the middle of the stick that are regarded as 'the stick is now in the middle, no matter what feedback we get'.
While Dolphin supports this feature, it's much more visible and easy to understand by opening up the Xbox Controller preference pane again. Head over to the Advanced tab and use the little slider to draw a small square around the middle of each stick's position. Anything inside that little square is now seen as 'the stick is in the middle', even if it's off by just a fraction.
Once adjusted, head back to the Dolphin GCPad configuration and map your sticks again (if you had this issue obviously, otherwise ignore my ramblings).
Enjoy Gamecube on your Mac!
That's really all there's to it: grab a ROM, select it and start playing. Your Xbox 360 controller will henceforth behave just as if it was a Gamecube controller, and your Mac will behave as if it was a Gamecube (or Wii – although I haven't figured out how to connect a Wii Remote yet. Watch this space).
Not all games will run particularly well, so this isn't a complete replacement for a games console – but it's enough for several afternoons of retro gaming fun.
To give you an idea of performance: My dual core i7 MacBook Pro only has an Intel HD3000 graphics card, and it's struggling. But my quad core i7 MacMini with its Intel HD4000 card plays Pikmin just fine – however it's still not enough to enjoy Super Mario Sunshine.
If you hook up your Mac to a big screen TV, help your graphics card by switching the output to 720p rather than the default 1080p. It'll mean less work for your card and a smoother gaming experience (under System Preferences – Displays – select Scaled and pick a resolution).
As always, enjoy!
