Thanks for the lively discourse in the comments. Some notes (I may update this as more comments come in): - This M2 Mac Mini is currently on sale for $499 on Amazon: amzn.to/3KhxlCH - Although development has halted on the emulator, AetherSX2 is available for Macs with silicon chips and I tested it after making this video. It runs like a dream, and resolves any issues I had with PS2 games lagging in PCSX2. I was able to play God of War II and Jak & Daxter at 4K resolution with zero issue. I've added more info to the written guide. - For the Sega Saturn interlacing/combing artifacts in Beetle Saturn, I found that using a CRT royale or bob shader resolves the issue. Some options include misc/bob-deinterlace, misc/bob-and-ghost-deinterlace, crt/crt-geom, crt/crt-royale, and crt/phosphorlut. - The heavy-duty CRT royale shaders work great on this setup within RetroArch, even with a combination of other features like run-ahead and rewind enabled, every core ran at full speed. - Regarding input lag on MacOS, I ran a series of tests with retro games including bluetooth and wired controllers, and tried to tax the system heavily with shaders and other features enabled, and everything still ran very well. I didn't feel any difference compared to playing these same games via RetroArch on a Windows PC, although adding run-ahead of 2 did make the experience feel a little more responsive (and still played very well). I wouldn't consider myself extremely sensitive to lag but it was a genuinely excellent retro gaming experience. - I understand the Apple hate, for example I don't agree with their stance on repairability and user upgrades. But it is also nice to see what other computers can accomplish outside of general Windows/PC spaces, and enjoying retro games on a Mac doesn't need to turn into a competition with other platforms. The reason for making this video was to show that if you own a Mac, or are interested in getting one, it does a great job with emulation right now. As a point of clarification, MacOS is not "walled off" in the same way that iOS and iPadOS is -- you can freely install apps (as is demonstrated with installing the emulators in this video).
That interlacing you saw on the Saturn might have had something to do (MIGHT, I'm speculating here) with how some Saturn games did some funny business with their resolution, like running their foreground elements in 480i and background in 240p or something. On a CRT you could do stuff like that, line to line changing the resolution, and I saw in a Retro RGB video how some upscalers handle that poorly.
@@NoobixCube after doing some more digging, apparently it is due to the interlaced signal being deinterlaced with a "weave" algorithm, which also happens on cheap DVD transfers of old TV shows. The shaders I mention above convert the deinterlacing to reduce the effect but with some additional motion blur.
@@RetroGameCorps fair enough, but I've been repairing apple and other products for years and Apple had been the top manufacturer that has screwed Right to repair in the states since day one it's so heartbreaking that a great tech company that makes very good hardware will screw the small independent repair shops! I hate apple, but i support you brother keep it up!
If you get the “unknown developer” pop up, you should be able to right click on the app and click open, this time it will give you a “run anyway” command. Should save you from having to go into the settings app to find and allow it like you did
@@RetroGameCorps Have any guides or tips for a Windows Mini PC ? I'm thinking of refreshing my setup, buying a new (Windows) HTPC/Mini and a new Laptop (mac). That seems like a better combination than the other way around (Windows Laptop + mac Mini). I feel like for today's standards it should have an AMD r7-6800u for the iGPU performance. An r9-6900hx is nice, but it's not much of an upgrade, yet the price would be too high. Based on your chart, the Mac Mini M2 at USD $500 does pretty well, with the exceptions you've noted. But there doesn't seem to be any comparable (6800u +) Mini PCs out there at that USD $500 price point. Unless you know some, or can point the way forward. Cheers and Aloha.
@@ekinteko as far as "price friendly" emulation power from a """reputable""" manufacturer, this is probably a good a it gets.. Arguably there are cheaper mini-pc with arguably better performance with tweaking; but it'll be from some random company in China... This is a really tempting option tbh... my 2cents
@@unbearifiedbear1885 I found this guy; the Venus UM773. It's the cheapest 6800u variant out there. On sale now for around USD $550 online. That gets you 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
@@ekinteko if you want you could just plug your Mac into your monitor and use it as a desktop for emulation It will still be super quiet and since the processors are basically the same there should be little to no performance penalties A windows mini pc for the price of a Mac Mini could be a bit of a stretch right now, however if you don’t mind getting a slightly bigger pc then it will do just fine!
I found your channel a couple of weeks ago and have been hooked. I've watched a bunch of your videos on retro handheld emulators. This guide is perfect for me as I have a Mac. While I've been able to run different emulators, it's always nice to find a guide that is using the same OS I'm using and is very detailed. Keep up the great work!
I think this will be a very good value in about 2 years once corporate users start selling these to upgrade to a newer model. These are very popular among creative workflow offices right now, so there should be a very healthy supply of them once that sell-off happens. Plus we should see emulator support for Mac / Apple silicon be a lot more mature in a couple years time, so performance will be better on the same hardware.
I was honestly thinking with how Asahi Linux is progressing, I would pick one up maybe 8 or so years down the line when they'll presumably basically be seen as e-waste and use it as a home server.
@@liamness yes! I'm *still* using a 2010 Mac mini server & it works great for what it is. [I'm just catching up w Asahi developments today & impressed]
@@sockrabbtt I don’t have a windows Pc, at the moment. It works well for me. I do a lot of video work (just 1080) and music on it, also. Have had great luck with Saturn stuff.
@@DoubleDguitarwierd. I’ve seen that emulated before on video with Mac mini with no issue. Better than some cheap windows pcs even. Although windows you could get a pretty good performance for around the same price
I absolutely loved this. While more than half was review as I already casually enjoy retro on my MBP M1, the remainder was pure gold. Time to complete my retro arcade setup! 😎
So much easier to drag apps out of the dock instead of using the context menu. Also, you can launch the app by ctrl- or right-clicking on the app and choosing Open (at least that worked up to Monterey, maybe they changed it in Ventura).
Already have the base M2 Mac Mini. I use Dolphin on it already and it runs very well. One thing I'd like to mention is if you're a student or a teacher, you can get the base M2 Mac Mini for $499.
OpenEmu is amazing and honestly I prefer its design over a lot of the PC offerings. It's a better "out of the box" experience as well. Something like LaunchBox is really neat and customizable, but it can honestly feel overwhelming for users. OpenEmu is nice because you can just drag and drop ROMs and it'll scrape the information and allow you to boot seamlessly from its launcher (for supported emulators). I just wish they had more integration for 6th generation consoles.
@@seadx6 I have not as I'm not much of a Linux guy, but I may see what it's about to get an idea. From a quick glance it looks similar to OpenEmu's design which I like.
There haven’t been major updates to OpenEmu for a while, apparently people are having a lot of problems with it on Apple silicone. Still works brilliantly on my old intel Mac tho. I hope they’ve not abandoned it completely
I 100% agree . Its just sad that if I want to play PS2 games (and its a major one for me) I still have to go on Windows, but for all the other retro consoles, OpenEmu is all I need.
I've been running Citra on my M1 Macbook Air for a while now, and it has been great emulating 3ds games. There is a specific ARM build for it that someone made, but I found it too buggy (it would randomly crash too often). So I have been just using the old Mac build and running it through Rosetta and it has been great.
How much of what he talks about in this video for mac mini, can be used on an M1 macbook air? If most of it works, and/or works with minor tweaks, I might try loading up a bunch of the emulators he talks about in here on my own M1 macbook air and save myself $600 for a new mac :P :D
@@IronDad-ml3wq M2 is only about 10-15% faster than the M1 chip, but your Air will definitely get a bit hotter than a Macbook Pro or Mac Mini and thus may throttle. Give it a shot! :)
All of it, I have an M1 Air with 16GB of RAM and it runs everything up to and including PS3 games really well. PCSX2 has support for the Metal API now too which really makes a difference if you want to emulate PS2 games. AetherSX2 was more performant but the developer isn't working on it anymore so I went back to PCSX2 and found they've updated and streamlined it hugely. @@IronDad-ml3wq
Out of all the retro game review channels I watch, you are the only that shows your face, and I really like it. I think it helps the audience feel more connected with you. Love your content, keep it up!
I’m of the opposite opinion, not because I don’t like seeing Russ’ face (although I think he looked much better - younger, too! - without a beard 😅), but because every second spent on his face is one second stolen from showing us what he’s talking about. In fact, what I like about his channel is how efficient it is: to the point (except for cat breaks, but let those pass 😂), no frills and, thank goodness, no stupid faces.
You’re the first person I’ve ever seen with a Mewithoutyou shirt. I’ve seen them plenty of times in our hometown of Philadelphia. Great video as well, but you already knew that. 👌
I remember seeing that wouldn’t be possible for more modern systems like the Wii U or the Switch, at least for now. But there is an alternative, there is databases of “pre-run” shaders (basically people who have ran the game and compiled shaders once who then share their shaders). I think I remember about a manager for ryujinx (ryusak) that automatically download shaders for the games you have, there might be something similar for cemu
I just bought a refurbished M1 mac mini and I am excited to see what retro emulation I have fun with on it. Thanks for this timely (for me) video! The pricing for the M2 machines aren't so enticing when you earn and spend in Canadian dollars so I'll have to live vicariously through M2 owners to some extent. :).
The performance difference from M1 to M2 isn’t huge, to be honest. I have an M1 MacBook Air and it handles everything I throw at it. Enjoy your new computer!
I'm also a primary mac user so I'm glad to see this :D I really hope Apple catches up with the gaming cause there is a huge audience of people who would like to have one or two devices to enjoy the games they love most :)
Unfortunately async compilation is not an option in the Mac version of Cemu, you can toggle it on but it will give you an error that says it is currently not working. The graphics driver doesn't support the necessary Vulkan extension.
Appreciate the video, thanks! A lot of discussion on the internet is basically "hurr durr just get a better pc for same money" but I got mac for work and far away from home and got to make do with what I have.
I have the Mac Mini M1 model that came out a couple of years ago. I like both Mac and PC for totally different reasons. Yeah, Macs aren't the best for gaming (though getting better) and Apple does have poor user upgradiblity and pricing. One thing I like though is that apple stuff just WORKS. It connects seamlessly and stuff transfers over without any issues. Like I may wanna upgrade my cheap mac-mini with a more powerful mac mini (in time) and I know I'll be able to transfer over all data in my sleep. Cuz it's Apple.
Recently got a mac mini to try for the first time and I liked it so much that now I use it as my primary pc and then I stream my pc games with moonlight.
What a great video, huge thanks to you! I've been messing around with the Dolphin emulator on my MacBook Air M2 (16 GB Ram) and tested Resident Evil 4, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Gun, Super Mario Sunshine and it's pretty impressive. My device never gets heated, games are running smoothly. And OpenEmu is just a great way to play GBA and Sega games easily. I love how most of the emulators works great on M1-M2. Soon I'll try Cemu for the WiiU games. Thanks for the video again, I'm sure it'll help lots of people just to get opinion about emulating games on Mac!
This is incredibly useful. I'm going on a work trip and don't want to bring 2 laptops but don't want to be bored to tears overnight or during the flight. My work computer is a Mac and I'll be outfitting it with Dolphin and Retroarch. I have an Android phone, but some of the emulators have really bad lag. This saves me a lot of bag space. Thanks!
13:05 if you right-click/control+click on the app it will then give you the "Open" option even from an un-trusted developer. Saves a trip to settings. Great video!
my plan is to buy one with more ram as an all purpose machine so i'm looking forward to play and work hard on an impressive beast, the fact the entry model only has 8gb and still performs that well is mindboggeling.
I just purchased a Minisforum HX80G with 32GB Ram / 512GB SSD ($700) as a dedicated streaming PC for my G Cloud, Odin, and RP3+. Best decision ever. I love it so much. About the same dimensions of a M2 Mac Mini but comes with a discrete GPU (6600M), more RAM, and more storage for about the same price.
Really cool video. I wasn't expecting to be, but I have to admit I'm impressed. At $499, this Mac Mini costs roughly 10% of my desktop workstation and probably gets about 70% of the emulation experience. Excluding fringe things like high refresh rate, extreme graphics mods, and brute-forcing poorly optimized games, this thing largely goes toe-to-toe with my system. Considering it's a machine that's 10% of the price, 10% of the size, and 10% of the power-draw, its a pretty compelling value.
Dude! The shirt!!! I saw mewithoutYou in a small cafe show in PA back in like 2001 or something way before their first album dropped. Back when they still played "Flamethrower" lol! Haven't thought about them in years.
At 27:46 he mentions that the dock always pops up when quitting a game. Has anyone found a Mac OS setting to stop that from happening? My controller doesn’t have a home button so I have to grab a keyboard every time.
Tip: you can also right-click the app that only gives the "move to trash" or "Cancel" options and click "Open" from that context menu, and it'll give a prompt that features an "open" button so you can access it normally :)
I’m quite enticed by the low price point along with the 2TB external SSD. I’d use someone’s college info to get that sweet sweet discount. One of my fave things about your content Russ is how you provide cost effective alternatives & solutions to expensive gear and/or tech.
What’s crazy is that iPads have this exact chip. If we could side load these emulators it could be the best mobile emulation platform. Frustrating to be locked out due to the App Store
Yes, I'd love to see a full-fledged MacOS option on the M-chip iPads, I understand why Apple wants to separate those user experiences but it would be nice to have a super-powered emulation tablet without having to be constrained by iPadOS apps and sideloading.
Great guide! I really considered getting a Mini, but the exchange rate didn't make the price as attractive in Japan. Bought a used powerful desktop PC (Ryzen 7 5800X + RTX 3070) locally, but hope to replace my underwhelming Windows laptop with a MacBook someday since I like working in both environments. Maybe I'll get a Mac Mini for my mom 🤔
Oh nice! I'm glad you put this together, I'm already using a 2012 mac mini as my Media computer, and I've had a few emulators running on it from time to time, but nothing as comprehensive as what you've set up here. I know a bunch of these won't run on my legacy Mini (or not very well) but it's inspired me to dig in a little deeper and clean up my emulation system a bit more.
16:06 I would guess that the Fighting Vipers game is actually running in 480i and the emulator is only doing a simple weave deinterlacing. I've seen this happen with some ps1 emulators on games that run in 480i. I would guess that either rendering at a higher resolution or if possible, changing the deinterlacing method in emulator settings to something different, would both fix the "issue". Not really an issue though, just a weird quirk that makes the visuals look different since we are not playing on CRT TVs anymore.
Hey, have you tried aethersx2 instead of pcsx2? The optimization is incredible, as I’m able to run many ps2 games at 4K on my m1 MacBook Air, and every one I’ve tested can do a stable 1440p 60fps (burnout 3, gt4, etc). A shame that people have harassed the developer to a point of shutting it down.
I sold my Nintendo Switch and been in emulator heaven! Played Front Mission Remake, FE Engage, Octopath Traveler from start to finish. Currently playing OT2 and there are so many cheats for every game. I like the 60FPS hacks for most games. Been playing PS2 and PS3 games as well and using PS4 controller for all my emulators. The Mac Mini is a powerful computer that can also run windows games via virtulization like Parallels or Wine. Can't go wrong with newer macs.
Idk if I could especially with so many systems I lost when I was younger. But yeah I prefer emulation over regular console gaming I was on and off and just prefer emulation especially on android or anything handheld just more convenient
As a long time Mac user, and RUclips humor Video Game channel host, it’s great to see this kind of video illustrating simple emulation setup on a Mac. I love my Mac mini M1, and now I may have to get that external SSD just for doing this on my Mac mini. Thanks for the great vid!
this i pretty awesome to see. im using an old mac Mini from 2012 running batocera to run classic games.. runs DreamCast, Ps1 and N64 pretty solid.. havent tried but want to test xbox on it and ps2 at some point.. the Minis are sleepers for sure. i went with batocera for a fail proof system my GF could use as she loves the retros more than i do.
note on the quietness/thermals - apple is focusing on being quiet like A LOT. they have some weird settings on this. i have the m1 macbook pro and i can reach 76C without the fans kicking in. and i mean not that they are quiet, i mean they are turned off. i think they turn on after 80C or something like that, which is kind of ridiculous. i guess if the chip is ok with such temperatures this is ok with the desktop versions, like the mac mini, but the laptop versions, if you hold them in your lap, its getting REALLY hot. so i downloaded the Macs Fan Control app and put a custom fan curve.
My iMac m1 gets 90ºC using simple iOS apps. Not macOS apps, no, i mean very simple iOS apps downloaded from the appstore. And using VMs too, like opening edge with parallels. Kinda weird. It goes from 45º to 90º, no in between, the same goes for the fans, they are either completely silent or PS4 airplane mode, lol.
@@xeienar hm... without any cooling (passive and active) it's easy for a cpu to jump in temp. with addition of the stupid fan curve they have, my guess is either the passive cooling is way too weak, or maybe the thermal paste is not working. i would suggest downloading the macs fan control and put a custom setting for the fan to start at 45 or so. if it still does the same, then maybe there is a problem with the passive cooling. the fan itself is stupidly set without that app, so it's normal to jump like that when it reach 90 I have it set like that, and it usually stay at about 1400 rpm which is still pretty quiet.
Only just installed ryujinx last week on my m1. Having grown up in the 80s with NES and pretty much forgetting about gaming for the last 30 years, I am now having a blast showing all this stuff to my 7 year old daughter. I suspect buying a switch is on the cards in the next couple of years
Thats why I bought a refurb i7 2020 iMac with the Radeon XT card last year. I can have the absolute best of both world. This computer is still pretty decent for gaming on Windows 10 via bootcamp and I love to play retro games on macOS. I'll keep this mac as long as I can.
I used mac way back when the imacs were white, the first Intel ones, and decided to get a mac mini when the m1 chip came out. I got it for video editing and OBS but it turned out to be my daily driver. I have played some SNES/Genesis but not much else. I'll have to give all these emulators a shot and see how the m1 mac mini does!
I've been using OpenEmu for 10 years and have Retroarch on a modded Playstation Classic (mini). I never emulated anything more modern than PS2 or DS games. Now after watching this I'm considering a Mac Mini and then building a gaming station/arcade cabinet look with a 32 - 55inch LCD or OLED.
You can actually set the dock to autohide in the system settings so it will never show up unless you push your cursor against the bottom edge of the screen. You can also bind autohide toggle to a key. I have it binded to my F17 key, very useful I believe you can also remove the fullscreen transition animation with terminal commands, but I'm not sure if it still works in the new macOS
It’s important to keep in mind that this thing is $600 and offers performance similar to a gaming PC that costs $1000+. Considering you can possibly catch these on sale or refurbed, you could be looking at a sub-$500 emulation machine that’s only going to improve over time. That’s an insane deal. I’m curious if the M1 machines do as well as this as the GPU didn’t change too much between generations.
For the "Unknown Developer", if you Right-Click or Control Click on your Mac, choose Open and it just ask you to authorize the App with your Login Password.
Let's put it this way, the M2 mini APU has about 4TFlops of performance. That is PS4 pro XBox Series S levels of performance. It should be able to emulate everything up to PS3... If the emulators are working properly.
Using retroarch for me was so frustrating even with your guide it is such a hustle. Why they can't make easy out of box "default" experience for everybody who just want to play and not dive deep into the settings, updates, cores etc...
Thanks for the lively discourse in the comments. Some notes (I may update this as more comments come in):
- This M2 Mac Mini is currently on sale for $499 on Amazon: amzn.to/3KhxlCH
- Although development has halted on the emulator, AetherSX2 is available for Macs with silicon chips and I tested it after making this video. It runs like a dream, and resolves any issues I had with PS2 games lagging in PCSX2. I was able to play God of War II and Jak & Daxter at 4K resolution with zero issue. I've added more info to the written guide.
- For the Sega Saturn interlacing/combing artifacts in Beetle Saturn, I found that using a CRT royale or bob shader resolves the issue. Some options include misc/bob-deinterlace, misc/bob-and-ghost-deinterlace, crt/crt-geom, crt/crt-royale, and crt/phosphorlut.
- The heavy-duty CRT royale shaders work great on this setup within RetroArch, even with a combination of other features like run-ahead and rewind enabled, every core ran at full speed.
- Regarding input lag on MacOS, I ran a series of tests with retro games including bluetooth and wired controllers, and tried to tax the system heavily with shaders and other features enabled, and everything still ran very well. I didn't feel any difference compared to playing these same games via RetroArch on a Windows PC, although adding run-ahead of 2 did make the experience feel a little more responsive (and still played very well). I wouldn't consider myself extremely sensitive to lag but it was a genuinely excellent retro gaming experience.
- I understand the Apple hate, for example I don't agree with their stance on repairability and user upgrades. But it is also nice to see what other computers can accomplish outside of general Windows/PC spaces, and enjoying retro games on a Mac doesn't need to turn into a competition with other platforms. The reason for making this video was to show that if you own a Mac, or are interested in getting one, it does a great job with emulation right now. As a point of clarification, MacOS is not "walled off" in the same way that iOS and iPadOS is -- you can freely install apps (as is demonstrated with installing the emulators in this video).
That interlacing you saw on the Saturn might have had something to do (MIGHT, I'm speculating here) with how some Saturn games did some funny business with their resolution, like running their foreground elements in 480i and background in 240p or something. On a CRT you could do stuff like that, line to line changing the resolution, and I saw in a Retro RGB video how some upscalers handle that poorly.
@@NoobixCube after doing some more digging, apparently it is due to the interlaced signal being deinterlaced with a "weave" algorithm, which also happens on cheap DVD transfers of old TV shows. The shaders I mention above convert the deinterlacing to reduce the effect but with some additional motion blur.
@@RetroGameCorps can u make a video on a STEP BY STEP on how to get a ROM to down load and get a ROM to work
Great vid!
I mostly agree with most Mac hate, but it's great that people can enjoy retro gaming and emulation in all systems.
@@RetroGameCorps fair enough, but I've been repairing apple and other products for years and Apple had been the top manufacturer that has screwed Right to repair in the states since day one it's so heartbreaking that a great tech company that makes very good hardware will screw the small independent repair shops! I hate apple, but i support you brother keep it up!
For the mac users, I hope that Valve eventually makes a version of Proton available as well.
If you get the “unknown developer” pop up, you should be able to right click on the app and click open, this time it will give you a “run anyway” command. Should save you from having to go into the settings app to find and allow it like you did
Nice tip, thanks!
@@RetroGameCorps Have any guides or tips for a Windows Mini PC ?
I'm thinking of refreshing my setup, buying a new (Windows) HTPC/Mini and a new Laptop (mac). That seems like a better combination than the other way around (Windows Laptop + mac Mini).
I feel like for today's standards it should have an AMD r7-6800u for the iGPU performance. An r9-6900hx is nice, but it's not much of an upgrade, yet the price would be too high.
Based on your chart, the Mac Mini M2 at USD $500 does pretty well, with the exceptions you've noted. But there doesn't seem to be any comparable (6800u +) Mini PCs out there at that USD $500 price point. Unless you know some, or can point the way forward. Cheers and Aloha.
@@ekinteko as far as "price friendly" emulation power from a """reputable""" manufacturer, this is probably a good a it gets..
Arguably there are cheaper mini-pc with arguably better performance with tweaking; but it'll be from some random company in China...
This is a really tempting option tbh... my 2cents
@@unbearifiedbear1885 I found this guy; the Venus UM773. It's the cheapest 6800u variant out there. On sale now for around USD $550 online. That gets you 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.
@@ekinteko if you want you could just plug your Mac into your monitor and use it as a desktop for emulation
It will still be super quiet and since the processors are basically the same there should be little to no performance penalties
A windows mini pc for the price of a Mac Mini could be a bit of a stretch right now, however if you don’t mind getting a slightly bigger pc then it will do just fine!
I found your channel a couple of weeks ago and have been hooked. I've watched a bunch of your videos on retro handheld emulators. This guide is perfect for me as I have a Mac. While I've been able to run different emulators, it's always nice to find a guide that is using the same OS I'm using and is very detailed. Keep up the great work!
I think this will be a very good value in about 2 years once corporate users start selling these to upgrade to a newer model. These are very popular among creative workflow offices right now, so there should be a very healthy supply of them once that sell-off happens. Plus we should see emulator support for Mac / Apple silicon be a lot more mature in a couple years time, so performance will be better on the same hardware.
I was honestly thinking with how Asahi Linux is progressing, I would pick one up maybe 8 or so years down the line when they'll presumably basically be seen as e-waste and use it as a home server.
@@liamness yes! I'm *still* using a 2010 Mac mini server & it works great for what it is. [I'm just catching up w Asahi developments today & impressed]
have you found a particular website that sources corporate sell offs? I want to be armed & ready 2 years from now :)
You think offices upgrade their computers every 2 years? What fantasy world do you live in?
@@Robstrap Haha, so true!
Another thing to mention is that joycons work with mac now and are great to use with dolphin as a wiimote.
Shit yeah!
I have been doing a lot of Gamecube and Saturn emulation on my Mac mini. It’s been great.
how capable is it generally? is it your main system or do you have something else? perhaps something windows?
@@sockrabbtt I don’t have a windows Pc, at the moment. It works well for me. I do a lot of video work (just 1080) and music on it, also. Have had great luck with Saturn stuff.
@@DoubleDguitar you haven't by chance tried NFS Hot Pursuit 2 (GameCube) on it, have you?
it's one of the few my old dell can't handle at all
@@sockrabbtt not that one, I know the Star Wars Rogue Squadron type games wouldn’t run on it, but most others have.
@@DoubleDguitarwierd. I’ve seen that emulated before on video with Mac mini with no issue. Better than some cheap windows pcs even. Although windows you could get a pretty good performance for around the same price
I absolutely loved this. While more than half was review as I already casually enjoy retro on my MBP M1, the remainder was pure gold. Time to complete my retro arcade setup! 😎
Shoutout to that mewithoutyou shirt
I went from a search for a live video of Julia to this. It was so weird.
I saw, and I immediately hit the uppy thumb. How does this video-machine of a man also have time to find good tunes?
Russ gets better and better
King beetle song is my favorite
Hell yeah, I knew Russ was a real one
So much easier to drag apps out of the dock instead of using the context menu. Also, you can launch the app by ctrl- or right-clicking on the app and choosing Open (at least that worked up to Monterey, maybe they changed it in Ventura).
Already have the base M2 Mac Mini. I use Dolphin on it already and it runs very well. One thing I'd like to mention is if you're a student or a teacher, you can get the base M2 Mac Mini for $499.
OpenEmu is amazing and honestly I prefer its design over a lot of the PC offerings. It's a better "out of the box" experience as well. Something like LaunchBox is really neat and customizable, but it can honestly feel overwhelming for users. OpenEmu is nice because you can just drag and drop ROMs and it'll scrape the information and allow you to boot seamlessly from its launcher (for supported emulators). I just wish they had more integration for 6th generation consoles.
Have you tried GNOME games? It is an amazing frontend
@@seadx6 I have not as I'm not much of a Linux guy, but I may see what it's about to get an idea. From a quick glance it looks similar to OpenEmu's design which I like.
@@f937r you can even add your Steam games and games from other launchers too
There haven’t been major updates to OpenEmu for a while, apparently people are having a lot of problems with it on Apple silicone. Still works brilliantly on my old intel Mac tho. I hope they’ve not abandoned it completely
I 100% agree . Its just sad that if I want to play PS2 games (and its a major one for me) I still have to go on Windows, but for all the other retro consoles, OpenEmu is all I need.
I've been running Citra on my M1 Macbook Air for a while now, and it has been great emulating 3ds games. There is a specific ARM build for it that someone made, but I found it too buggy (it would randomly crash too often). So I have been just using the old Mac build and running it through Rosetta and it has been great.
How much of what he talks about in this video for mac mini, can be used on an M1 macbook air? If most of it works, and/or works with minor tweaks, I might try loading up a bunch of the emulators he talks about in here on my own M1 macbook air and save myself $600 for a new mac :P :D
@@IronDad-ml3wq M2 is only about 10-15% faster than the M1 chip, but your Air will definitely get a bit hotter than a Macbook Pro or Mac Mini and thus may throttle. Give it a shot! :)
All of it, I have an M1 Air with 16GB of RAM and it runs everything up to and including PS3 games really well. PCSX2 has support for the Metal API now too which really makes a difference if you want to emulate PS2 games. AetherSX2 was more performant but the developer isn't working on it anymore so I went back to PCSX2 and found they've updated and streamlined it hugely. @@IronDad-ml3wq
Out of all the retro game review channels I watch, you are the only that shows your face, and I really like it. I think it helps the audience feel more connected with you. Love your content, keep it up!
Wow, thanks!
I’m of the opposite opinion, not because I don’t like seeing Russ’ face (although I think he looked much better - younger, too! - without a beard 😅), but because every second spent on his face is one second stolen from showing us what he’s talking about.
In fact, what I like about his channel is how efficient it is: to the point (except for cat breaks, but let those pass 😂), no frills and, thank goodness, no stupid faces.
@@suntorytimes1 What a befittingly odd opinion
@@suntorytimes1 I agree with you
You’re the first person I’ve ever seen with a Mewithoutyou shirt. I’ve seen them plenty of times in our hometown of Philadelphia. Great video as well, but you already knew that. 👌
One of my favorite bands!
We’ll be like torches 🔥
Regarding Dolphin Stuttering, you can enable “Compile shaders before start” so it doesn’t stutter even on the first run
Would CEMU have this ability?
@@sc3ku yes
I remember seeing that wouldn’t be possible for more modern systems like the Wii U or the Switch, at least for now. But there is an alternative, there is databases of “pre-run” shaders (basically people who have ran the game and compiled shaders once who then share their shaders). I think I remember about a manager for ryujinx (ryusak) that automatically download shaders for the games you have, there might be something similar for cemu
So glad I found this channel. Loving your content, great work!
I just bought a refurbished M1 mac mini and I am excited to see what retro emulation I have fun with on it. Thanks for this timely (for me) video! The pricing for the M2 machines aren't so enticing when you earn and spend in Canadian dollars so I'll have to live vicariously through M2 owners to some extent. :).
The performance difference from M1 to M2 isn’t huge, to be honest. I have an M1 MacBook Air and it handles everything I throw at it. Enjoy your new computer!
Can’t stand our bs dollar when having to order from the states or even worse the uk.
I haven't tried PCSX2, but AetherSX2 ran all of the games you showscased flawlessly out of the box. I'd consider using that over PCSX2.
yes. aethersx2 way better
As a Mac gamer who loves retro platforms this is a real treasure! Great content!
I just got an M2 Mini. I’m going to try this out. Thanks for this.
I'm also a primary mac user so I'm glad to see this :D I really hope Apple catches up with the gaming cause there is a huge audience of people who would like to have one or two devices to enjoy the games they love most :)
For Cemu I would recommend turning on async compilation, it completely eliminates stuttering
Yep, Cemu definitely has async compilation.
Unfortunately async compilation is not an option in the Mac version of Cemu, you can toggle it on but it will give you an error that says it is currently not working. The graphics driver doesn't support the necessary Vulkan extension.
@@RetroGameCorps oh I had no idea, that sucks
Ordered the new M4 Mini so intrigued to see the leap there’s been in this space of time
Appreciate the video, thanks!
A lot of discussion on the internet is basically "hurr durr just get a better pc for same money" but I got mac for work and far away from home and got to make do with what I have.
I have the Mac Mini M1 model that came out a couple of years ago. I like both Mac and PC for totally different reasons. Yeah, Macs aren't the best for gaming (though getting better) and Apple does have poor user upgradiblity and pricing. One thing I like though is that apple stuff just WORKS. It connects seamlessly and stuff transfers over without any issues. Like I may wanna upgrade my cheap mac-mini with a more powerful mac mini (in time) and I know I'll be able to transfer over all data in my sleep. Cuz it's Apple.
lol here because the new m4 Mac mini series out now 👀 guess we need a update video
Recently got a mac mini to try for the first time and I liked it so much that now I use it as my primary pc and then I stream my pc games with moonlight.
What a great video, huge thanks to you! I've been messing around with the Dolphin emulator on my MacBook Air M2 (16 GB Ram) and tested Resident Evil 4, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Gun, Super Mario Sunshine and it's pretty impressive. My device never gets heated, games are running smoothly. And OpenEmu is just a great way to play GBA and Sega games easily. I love how most of the emulators works great on M1-M2. Soon I'll try Cemu for the WiiU games. Thanks for the video again, I'm sure it'll help lots of people just to get opinion about emulating games on Mac!
How did cemu run for you?
Is your Air the 8-core or 10-core?
This is incredibly useful. I'm going on a work trip and don't want to bring 2 laptops but don't want to be bored to tears overnight or during the flight. My work computer is a Mac and I'll be outfitting it with Dolphin and Retroarch. I have an Android phone, but some of the emulators have really bad lag.
This saves me a lot of bag space. Thanks!
I was waiting for you to make this video. Keep it up Russ!
13:05 if you right-click/control+click on the app it will then give you the "Open" option even from an un-trusted developer. Saves a trip to settings. Great video!
Kudos for the Maldita Castilla running in the background. Awesome game...
Solid video my G. Well done.
Im not sure if someones pointed it out yet but at 7:50, that is not Shadow of the tomb raider, its actually Rise
my plan is to buy one with more ram as an all purpose machine so i'm looking forward to play and work hard on an impressive beast, the fact the entry model only has 8gb and still performs that well is mindboggeling.
I loved openemu and I kinda wish we had something like it on PC as it was intuitive.
I just purchased a Minisforum HX80G with 32GB Ram / 512GB SSD ($700) as a dedicated streaming PC for my G Cloud, Odin, and RP3+. Best decision ever. I love it so much.
About the same dimensions of a M2 Mac Mini but comes with a discrete GPU (6600M), more RAM, and more storage for about the same price.
The HX80G is a great little PC! I am using my HX99G as my primary Windows PC at the studio right now.
the "open anyway" for unsupported devs/apps can also be done with just right click on the icon and open.
Love the shirt. My fav songs:
Fox's Dream of the Log Flume and Watermelon Ascot
Finally! Been waiting for this video since 2020. :)
This video rocks! I didn't know I could game on my Mac :) Now I want to try it out
Really cool video. I wasn't expecting to be, but I have to admit I'm impressed. At $499, this Mac Mini costs roughly 10% of my desktop workstation and probably gets about 70% of the emulation experience. Excluding fringe things like high refresh rate, extreme graphics mods, and brute-forcing poorly optimized games, this thing largely goes toe-to-toe with my system. Considering it's a machine that's 10% of the price, 10% of the size, and 10% of the power-draw, its a pretty compelling value.
Dude! The shirt!!! I saw mewithoutYou in a small cafe show in PA back in like 2001 or something way before their first album dropped. Back when they still played "Flamethrower" lol! Haven't thought about them in years.
At 27:46 he mentions that the dock always pops up when quitting a game. Has anyone found a Mac OS setting to stop that from happening? My controller doesn’t have a home button so I have to grab a keyboard every time.
Any point in revisiting Mac emulation for retro gaming? You always do fantastic videos, Russ. You’re my go to channel on emulation, hands-down.
Tip: you can also right-click the app that only gives the "move to trash" or "Cancel" options and click "Open" from that context menu, and it'll give a prompt that features an "open" button so you can access it normally :)
I’m quite enticed by the low price point along with the 2TB external SSD. I’d use someone’s college info to get that sweet sweet discount. One of my fave things about your content Russ is how you provide cost effective alternatives & solutions to expensive gear and/or tech.
I'm emulating on M1 Mac Mini and it's freaking awesome!
Great tutorial! Thanks as always!
What’s crazy is that iPads have this exact chip. If we could side load these emulators it could be the best mobile emulation platform. Frustrating to be locked out due to the App Store
Technically possible. People side load gba emulators on the iphone. Now its up to people wanting to, honestly
@@marcofontinha6296 yeah I’d love to see RPCS3 ported to iOS because clearly the chip can handle it, which is crazy impresssive
Yes, I'd love to see a full-fledged MacOS option on the M-chip iPads, I understand why Apple wants to separate those user experiences but it would be nice to have a super-powered emulation tablet without having to be constrained by iPadOS apps and sideloading.
Retro arch can be sideloaded easily along with dolphin , delta, ppsspp and a few others. You can easily do most of these on the iPads and iPhones
This why I LOVE my Galaxy Z Fold4. This is an emulator beast.
You can even change apple loading logo with emulatonstation logo :D Also, you can completely disable the dock in terminal
Great guide! I really considered getting a Mini, but the exchange rate didn't make the price as attractive in Japan. Bought a used powerful desktop PC (Ryzen 7 5800X + RTX 3070) locally, but hope to replace my underwhelming Windows laptop with a MacBook someday since I like working in both environments.
Maybe I'll get a Mac Mini for my mom 🤔
Oh nice! I'm glad you put this together, I'm already using a 2012 mac mini as my Media computer, and I've had a few emulators running on it from time to time, but nothing as comprehensive as what you've set up here. I know a bunch of these won't run on my legacy Mini (or not very well) but it's inspired me to dig in a little deeper and clean up my emulation system a bit more.
Lovely! Great content! Also Mac user. Only thing I miss is the PC gaming part 😢
Actually for 3DS you can run an experimental version of Citra and runs pretty well.
The kerrygold comparison gets me every time.
I bought an external 2 TB Harddrive full of Games from Ali Express. It works fine on my MacBook Air mid 2013 and also on Windows.
16:06 I would guess that the Fighting Vipers game is actually running in 480i and the emulator is only doing a simple weave deinterlacing. I've seen this happen with some ps1 emulators on games that run in 480i. I would guess that either rendering at a higher resolution or if possible, changing the deinterlacing method in emulator settings to something different, would both fix the "issue". Not really an issue though, just a weird quirk that makes the visuals look different since we are not playing on CRT TVs anymore.
Yes you were right, using CRT royale shaders fixed it. forums.libretro.com/t/beetle-saturn-core-has-strange-dithering-scanlines-effects/22355
I had a macbook many years ago with OpenEmu and it was pretty nice to use.
Awesome video
Recently bought an M1 MacBook Air. It’s had virtually identical performance up to WiiU, even at upscaled resolutions.
No AetherSX testing? Development stopped, but the executable is still available for download.
I didn't realize that they had a MacOS build until this morning, I tested it now and yeah it's great!
Love the mewithoutYou shirt!
Great video! Awesome shirt too
Hey, have you tried aethersx2 instead of pcsx2? The optimization is incredible, as I’m able to run many ps2 games at 4K on my m1 MacBook Air, and every one I’ve tested can do a stable 1440p 60fps (burnout 3, gt4, etc). A shame that people have harassed the developer to a point of shutting it down.
This is the comment I was looking for. A Mac emulation guide without mentioning the humongous work of aethersx2 would simply not be complete.
would love to see you test an i3 12th gen mini pc or optiplex if compatible. Would be cool to see how it stacks up to the i5s you have done.
If you want an optiplex vid, he briefly did a demo in the botocera video with his sons pc. (It's an optiplex)
Tip: you can just drag icons in and out of the Mac dock
Not sure if it will fix your Dock showing up problem, but go to System Settings -> Desktop & Dock -> Automatically hide the dock (change to yes)
I sold my Nintendo Switch and been in emulator heaven! Played Front Mission Remake, FE Engage, Octopath Traveler from start to finish. Currently playing OT2 and there are so many cheats for every game. I like the 60FPS hacks for most games. Been playing PS2 and PS3 games as well and using PS4 controller for all my emulators. The Mac Mini is a powerful computer that can also run windows games via virtulization like Parallels or Wine. Can't go wrong with newer macs.
Idk if I could especially with so many systems I lost when I was younger. But yeah I prefer emulation over regular console gaming I was on and off and just prefer emulation especially on android or anything handheld just more convenient
this are switch games and they play good emulated on the mac mini?
I didn’t know there were other options out there for Mac besides open emu. I can finally play twilight princess! Thanks for these guides homey
As a long time Mac user, and RUclips humor Video Game channel host, it’s great to see this kind of video illustrating simple emulation setup on a Mac. I love my Mac mini M1, and now I may have to get that external SSD just for doing this on my Mac mini. Thanks for the great vid!
After watching this video i would like to do this with the new mac mini m4. This might be the best emulation console
this i pretty awesome to see. im using an old mac Mini from 2012 running batocera to run classic games.. runs DreamCast, Ps1 and N64 pretty solid.. havent tried but want to test xbox on it and ps2 at some point.. the Minis are sleepers for sure.
i went with batocera for a fail proof system my GF could use as she loves the retros more than i do.
MWY shirt alert! Love it.
Love the mewithoutYou shirt. Happy to see you're into "retro" music too. :)
which emulator would you use for playing old pc games from 90s like need for speed or fifa etc??
Haha! I love the butter block size comparison.
note on the quietness/thermals - apple is focusing on being quiet like A LOT. they have some weird settings on this. i have the m1 macbook pro and i can reach 76C without the fans kicking in. and i mean not that they are quiet, i mean they are turned off. i think they turn on after 80C or something like that, which is kind of ridiculous. i guess if the chip is ok with such temperatures this is ok with the desktop versions, like the mac mini, but the laptop versions, if you hold them in your lap, its getting REALLY hot. so i downloaded the Macs Fan Control app and put a custom fan curve.
My iMac m1 gets 90ºC using simple iOS apps. Not macOS apps, no, i mean very simple iOS apps downloaded from the appstore. And using VMs too, like opening edge with parallels. Kinda weird. It goes from 45º to 90º, no in between, the same goes for the fans, they are either completely silent or PS4 airplane mode, lol.
@@xeienar hm... without any cooling (passive and active) it's easy for a cpu to jump in temp. with addition of the stupid fan curve they have, my guess is either the passive cooling is way too weak, or maybe the thermal paste is not working.
i would suggest downloading the macs fan control and put a custom setting for the fan to start at 45 or so. if it still does the same, then maybe there is a problem with the passive cooling. the fan itself is stupidly set without that app, so it's normal to jump like that when it reach 90
I have it set like that, and it usually stay at about 1400 rpm which is still pretty quiet.
This is exactly the video I’ve needed. Thank you!
Only just installed ryujinx last week on my m1.
Having grown up in the 80s with NES and pretty much forgetting about gaming for the last 30 years, I am now having a blast showing all this stuff to my 7 year old daughter.
I suspect buying a switch is on the cards in the next couple of years
These videos are interesting to me, especially since I know that I won't buy a Mac. I am glad that there is emulation support for Mac users.
Thats why I bought a refurb i7 2020 iMac with the Radeon XT card last year. I can have the absolute best of both world. This computer is still pretty decent for gaming on Windows 10 via bootcamp and I love to play retro games on macOS. I'll keep this mac as long as I can.
I used mac way back when the imacs were white, the first Intel ones, and decided to get a mac mini when the m1 chip came out. I got it for video editing and OBS but it turned out to be my daily driver. I have played some SNES/Genesis but not much else. I'll have to give all these emulators a shot and see how the m1 mac mini does!
Ryujinx Switch emulator works decently. Been playing Metroid Prime Remastered and it’s a blast. Others want to crash though sadly.
I run OpenEmu, Redream, and Dolphin on a 2019 MBP and they run perfectly fine.
I've been using OpenEmu for 10 years and have Retroarch on a modded Playstation Classic (mini). I never emulated anything more modern than PS2 or DS games.
Now after watching this I'm considering a Mac Mini and then building a gaming station/arcade cabinet look with a 32 - 55inch LCD or OLED.
Sweet shirt, dude!
Really digging the mewithoutYou shirt.
Great job Russ!
Thanks Bill! This one was fun to put together.
Good stuff, keep it up.
That's really cool you can boot straight into Emulation Station on powering the Mac Mini up.
You can actually set the dock to autohide in the system settings so it will never show up unless you push your cursor against the bottom edge of the screen. You can also bind autohide toggle to a key. I have it binded to my F17 key, very useful
I believe you can also remove the fullscreen transition animation with terminal commands, but I'm not sure if it still works in the new macOS
I also like to set the speed of the reappearance of the dock to instant. There's a terminal command for it...
It’s important to keep in mind that this thing is $600 and offers performance similar to a gaming PC that costs $1000+. Considering you can possibly catch these on sale or refurbed, you could be looking at a sub-$500 emulation machine that’s only going to improve over time.
That’s an insane deal.
I’m curious if the M1 machines do as well as this as the GPU didn’t change too much between generations.
That's a good question, I'm not sure how an M1 would perform but I've heard great things as well. And those can be found for much cheaper right now!
I think emulation is mostly cpu dependent so I don’t think the gpu’s being similar matters unless you’re trying to play pc games
Fairly new to channel but never knew you had a face...lol ...... Good to put a face to the great content! Keep it up.
I have been waiting to get a M2, currently running 2 iMacs with TDM as my daily set up
For the "Unknown Developer", if you Right-Click or Control Click on your Mac, choose Open and it just ask you to authorize the App with your Login Password.
Let's put it this way, the M2 mini APU has about 4TFlops of performance. That is PS4 pro XBox Series S levels of performance. It should be able to emulate everything up to PS3... If the emulators are working properly.
Remember its the cpu that mostly matters, but im sure m2 has enough of that too.
Using retroarch for me was so frustrating even with your guide it is such a hustle. Why they can't make easy out of box "default" experience for everybody who just want to play and not dive deep into the settings, updates, cores etc...
Being able to play Zelda Windwaker HD is worth it alone. But I’m also pumped to try out Boom Blox with Switch joy on controllers as Wii controllers.
Did you create this device?