this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Mac-only household and I can’t afford a PC just for gaming. I don’t want one, anyhow. I’ve been gaming since 1977 and have always preferred consoles, from the Intellivision through every Nintendo (except the Wii), PlayStation, and Xbox iteration. I like controllers and hate Windows with the passion of a white dwarf.
But that’s just me.
Many emulators run on mac or Linux and you can buy usb-ended controllers for damn near every console that has ever existed.
Oh shit, really? I didn’t know that. Mac hasn’t been good for gaming historically, and I basically gave up trying ages ago.
I think you’ve just destroyed my week.
I haven't owned a mac in a long while, but I had one around 2012 and back then I was happily running N64 and SNES emulation and was somewhat active in the Super Mario World romhacking scene. I can only imagine it has improved since then. I know for a fact you can run tons of emulators on Linux because I have them all installed on my steam deck.
If you can do it on Linux, you can do it on Mac, right?
It’s a Unix system.
There are some programs where this isn't true thanks to Apple's M1 chip design not being compatible natively with x64/x86 applications. But most emulator projects support the M1.
On Intel Macs this is always true.
Can confirm - used to run Windows 11, got a steamdeck -> installed all the emulators - switch emulation is OP, was so impressed I ended out switching gaming pc over to linux. 90% of titles run just fine, the remaining 10% seem to be certain EA titles (and apparently that's just due to their crappy launcher).
Emulators to check out:
Linux-specific gaming (outside of Steam - Valve's Proton compatibility layer seems to make almost all titles work):
Take a look at the video from Retro Game Corps going over retro gaming on Mac.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XohIHgpe1NI
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XohIHgpe1NI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
https://www.retroarch.com/index.php?page=platforms
RetroArch has versions for both ARM and Intel based Mac's. You shouldn't have a problem playing up to Dreamcast, possibly later. There is a bit of a learning curve, but RetroArch is on pretty much everything now, and it's worth learning.
I bought a 130 dollar mini-pc that I slapped Batocera on, it turns any computer into a console that runs tons of emulators.
It's revitalized my love of casual gaming