Best N64 Emulators for Mac OS

This article is a list of the best N64 emulators for Mac computers. There’s nothing quite like playing classic games on the original game console, but with how far N64 emulation has come in recent years, playing your favourite games has never been better for Mac users.

Emulating games is pretty simple these days. Most emulators have a free version available for Mac OSX or are completely free to use.

Get your games ready, grab your controllers, and let’s get started!

What are the best N64 Emulators for Mac OS X?

1. OpenEmu

• Price: Free
• Platform: Mac OS X devices
• Official website

As an open source emulator, OpenEmu’s usability factor is top level. The user interface is very intuitive and well designed. All of your games are automatically organized for you in alphabetical order and playing ROMs is as simple as dragging and dropping ROM files in and things just simply working. Speaking of ROMS, check out this article for the best site for ROMS.

Features

Open Emu isn’t just an N64 emulator, but allows users to play games from tons of different game consoles. The different consoles can be loaded as plugins, you just need to download kernels, and OpenEmu supports the following ones:

• Atari 2600
• Atari 5200
• Atari 7800
• Atari Lynx
• ColecoVision
• Famicom Disk Systems
• Game Boy / Game Boy Color
• Game Boy Advance
• Game Gear
• Intellivision
• NeoGeo Pocket
• Nintendo (NES) / Famicom
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo DS
• Nintendo GameCube
• Odyssey² / Videopac+
• PC-FX
• SG-1000
• Sega 32X
• Sega CD / Mega CD
• Sega Genesis / Mega Drive
• Sega Master System
• Sega Saturn
• Sony PSP
• Sony PlayStation
• Super Nintendo (SNES)
• TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine
• TurboGrafx-CD / PCE-CD
• Vectrex
• Virtual Boy
• WonderSwan

Using custom USB controllers is very simple with OpenEmu. Most USB, Bluetooth, and even your favorite joystick controller is compatible and easy to get going. It’s mostly just a matter of mapping the buttons on the physical controller to those in the emulator.

As expected, you can save game states to easily pick back up where you left off in your previous gaming experience.

OpenEmu is our pick for the best N64 emulator app gamers can install for MacOS devices. Not only is it simple to setup, but it’s user friendly and allows you to emulate various different consoles, including the Nintendo 64.

2. RetroArch

• Price: Free
• Platforms: MacOS version available
• Official website
• Discord

Retro Arch is a beautifully designed frontend interface that brings many retro gaming consoles to life in the realm of video game emulators. This remarkable creation caters to the most popular operating systems and is a great option for those looking for an N64 emulator for Mac. Setting up Retro Arch is pretty easy because of its simplicity and intuitive nature, all accompanied by a visually pleasing user interface that adds an extra layer of polish.

Features

Just like OpenEmu, Retro Arch offers many retro gaming consoles and other systems besides the N64 that you can install and play games for using cores. Whatever game you can imagine, Retro Arch is likely able to run it.

For countless gamers seeking an emulation haven, Retro Arch is the go-to app that ticks all the boxes. Out of the box, it typically delivers impressive performance across a wide range of devices. You can tweak the settings a bit to try and boost performance, look through the additional multiple features available, and setup some extra video plugins like the GLideN64 graphics plugin for a graphical upgrade if you wish.

Once your console cores are set up and ready, you’ll just locate your game ROMs and you’re ready to start playing on your Mac device. RetroArch is also one of the best N64 emulators for iOS devices like iPhones and iPads as well.

If you’re an Android user, RetroArch is also one of the best N64 emulators for Android devices too.

Mupen64Plus

• Price: Free
• Platforms: Mac OSX version available
• Official website

Mupen64Plus has been around for a very long time and is one of the first N64 emulators to arrive on the scene. It’s seen as a bit of a classic emulator based on the fact that many of the best N64 emulators out there use Mupen64Plus as their N64 emulator core.

Features

Mupen64Plus works fine on most Mac OS versions, with many users claiming it works fine on Mac OS X Sierra, however do keep in mind that as of a few months ago from the time of writing this article, many users have mentioned online that Mupen64Plus was having issues with the most recent version of Mac OS Ventura. This will likely get patched by the community soon, but do keep that in mind if using the Mupen64Plus emulator directly or using it as a core in one of the other emulators available.

Cen64

• Price: Free
• Platforms: MacOS version available
• Github

Cen64 is a passion project created by a developer who has been working hard to reverse engineer the N64 on a hardware level. The aim of Cen64 is to simulate playing games using original Nintendo 64 consoles.

Features

While Cen64 isn’t the easiest to get up and running on a Mac OS device, for those who enjoy a good challenge and are technically inclined, it is doable. Do keep in mind though that Windows and Linux versions are much easier to setup than the Mac version and that you will need to have a powerful machine capable of simulating the N64 hardware.

The Github for Cen64 states the following: “Mac: It works, but unfortunately you have to build it yourself for now.”

Sixty Force

• Price: Free version available (no save states and “Sixtyforce watermark at bottom of screen) and paid version costs $15
• Platforms: MacOS
• Official website

Last but not least on our list is Sixtyforce. While this emulator is pretty solid and does run smoothly, has solid features, and decent gameplay, it comes with a bit of a caveat. Sixty Force has both a free version and a paid version available, but the free option does not allow save states and has a watermark at the bottom of the screen.

Features

The paid version costs $15 and honestly without save game states, the free version isn’t really worth it unless you’re able to bust out an entire N64 game in one session.

With all of the other free emulators available out there, it’s a bit of a tough sell for us to have to pay for Sixty Force. While we understand that a lot of hard work has gone into making it, there are just too many other great Nintendo 64 emulators available to that are open source and free to use to justify paying for one.

Regardless, SixtyForce is a viable option if you don’t mind paying.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this list of N64 emulators for Mac devices and that you found the right one for your setup.