Updated 4/21/20
With OpenEmu, it is extremely easy to add, browse, organize and with a compatible gamepad, play those favorite games (ROMs) you already own. Download Now v2.3.3. For macOS (OS X) 10.14.4 or above. Please read special instructions for opening. In theory, OpenEmu is also compatible with some arcade ROMs, but support is experimental and your success getting these games to run may vary. In general, MAME ROMs are the only type that can be. Playing GBC/GBA/NDS Games and other games on OpenEmu Playing your favorite games on OpenEmu is pretty straightforward and easy. You simply need the game file, for Pokemon GBC, GBA and NDS all you need to have is the ROM file. Step 1: Download the desired ROM file on the internet (Check Emuparadise.me). Free GameCube Games (GameCube ROMs) Available to Download and Play for FREE on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. RomsGet Has The Largest Collection of GameCube Games Online.
I've written in the past about emulation and OpenEmu, a multi-console emulator front end that uses multiple emulation cores to provide a unified experience to macOS (OS X) emulation.
OpenEmu also sports MAME Arcade emulation support, but its a bit tucked away.
Step 1: Download OpenEmu Experimental
Go to openemu.org and click the swatch and download OpenEmu Experimental, and install it.
This scfeenshot of the OpenEMU site is old. The design on the OpenEMU website has slightly modified to make the experimental version easier to find
Step 2: Install the MAME core
Once installed, launch OpenEmu, open preferences, and select cores. Click the install button next to MAME.
Step 3: Install games
Games can be nabbed from the usual suspects like emuparadise (defunct), the legality of this is fairly grey. OpenEmu only supports zipped ROMs, so if the ROM comes in a .gz or .rar, be sure to decompress its contents and rezip it. Name it the exact name as before (but with the new extension of zip). OpenEmu's MAME core is version 0.149.1, so its significantly behind the windows version (from 2013 to be exact). Some sites will list the earliest known support needed for the rom in question.
Notably, you'll want access to the dipswitches, hitting F2 repeatedly while the game is launching will take you to most ROM bios screens that enable modes like free play. Note, I had issues resuming games and had to force quit MAME resuming so you may want to hold off resuming games.
Optional: NeoGeo Emulation
Gamecube Games For Openemu
Emulating NeoGeo games requires one extra step, you'll need to get the NeoGeo ROM, the one I used is from emuparadise which is now defunct, try a popular search engine and search 'Neo Geo BIOS'. Drag the Neo Geo zip into OpenEmu. You'll see the NeoGeo ROM in your game list, but ignore it and double-click the games as you normally would.
Good luck with OpenEmu. I suggest checking out the Dolphin Emulator as it has a great macOS port for GameCube and Wii, and PCSX2 for Windows for Playstation 2 emulation. Both are able to play old games in HD and UHD depending on your CPU/GPU.
Other recommendations from this blog:
- Running up MAME Arcade emulation with MAME/MESS - How to set up the most current version of MAME on MacOS. OpenEMU's MAME core is 7+ years old, and there are quite a bit of newer arcade games supported in more recent versions.
- Installing Provenance on iOS 11 with a Jailbreak - Provenance is an iOS multi-console emulator based off of OpenEMU, supporting consoles from the 8 bit and 16-bit eras. The step process hasn't changed for iOS 13.
Snes Games For Openemu
Updates: 4/21/20 - copy editing, note about layout change on OpenEMU's website, striking out emuparadise as its now defunct.