Arcade Emulation on Macs - Status Report December 2023

Update 13 January 2024: Further great news for all Aracade fans.

1942 has RetroAchievements! One of my all-time arcade favorites finally received nice Achievements. Needless to tell that I won't master this set at any point in time, but for all you hardcore gamers, this is definitely something to head for.

OpenEmu 2.41! After some two years, the emulator with a MacOS feeling, OpenEmu, has been finally updated again. If you download the "Experimental" version, you also receive a MAME 250 core. One word of caution: It is still Intel only. However, some initial testing on my M2 Mac mini showed nice performance. In MacOS Sonoma, OpenEmu also activates the Gaming Mode in fullscreen. I certainly will always prefer RetroArch/FinalBurn Neo, but if you want to engage into all this configuration hassles, OpenEmu is worth a try.

Update 22 December 2023: Have a good festive season with a lot of good arcade gaming! These great news will help you so spend some quality gaming time. I also tweaked the main text a bit. Cheers!

Bubble Bobble has RetroAchievements! The wait is over, and these Achievements are pure joy. RetroArch and FinalBurn Neo (don‘t forget to turn the koko-aio shaders on, and my repository of course contains dedicated artwork). It’s a great experience and raises this brilliant game to a new level.

AttractMode Plus updated to 3.0.7, the signed app for Silicon Macs is online: https://github.com/oomek/attractplus/releases/tag/3.0.7

Arcadeflow layout for AttractMode Plus updated to 16.7, grab it here: https://github.com/zpaolo11x/Arcadeflow/releases/tag/16.7

Happy holidays! And again: All here strictly non-commercial, i.e. no ads, and any comments trying to benefit will be removed.

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Inspired some interesting reads out there (Dolphin Emu progress reports, PCSX2 progress reports, and last but not least https://www.readonlymemo.com/) I do this status report in December 2023 on Mac Arcade emulation (including iOS emulation).  Don't get me wrong: Those emu progress reports are much more into technical stuff than this blog - still the format inspires. And it's also a very good moment to do this, as there is a lot of good things to report. And before you ask: No tvOS experience here, sorry ;-).

In short: Arcade emulation on Macs/iOS was never better than now. Let's discuss why.

(1) MacOS Sonoma: Upgrading to the latest MacOS from Ventura was hassle-free. The new OS just works, and so do all emulators so fae (and Homebrew, most importantly). For sure, you will ask about this Game Mode that landed in MacOS for the first time. Happy to report that RetroArch properly launches in Game Mode when in fullscreen (MacOS tells you this with a notification each launch). 

Apologies for Shots in German ;-).

However, MAME official does not seem to launch in Game Mode (at least no notification pops up). Don't ask me about any performance differences, which are anyways hard to measure in RetroArch. But according to the official documentation (link above), it should definitely be no disadvantage for the gaming experience. 

In short: Sonoma is good to head for.

(2) FinalBurn Neo (RetroArch Core for MacOS/iOS): This core continues to impress and remains a clear number one in Mac Arcade emulation. The RetroArch documentation provides a nice summary of the main differences between MAME and FinalBurn Neo: https://docs.libretro.com/library/fbneo/ - in short, FinalBurn Neo takes compromises on accuracy in favor of playability by accepting 'quality of life hacks' that MAME doesn't. Since my latest post on this core (actually a full setup guide on RetroArch for Arcade games), the developers took huge efforts to stay in sync with MAME official (as of this post, this is version 261). Highscore support further increased for my favorite games. And most importantly, it is the only reliable RetroArch arcade core for RetroAchievements. Remember: For playing in HC Mode (the real thing without save states and rewind), you need to disable the rom hack core option when running FBNeo and restart.

In short: FinalBurn Neo remains the best Arcade emulator on MacOS/iOS systems.

(3) MAME current (RetroArch Core for MacOS/iOS): This core also received a lot of updates and improvements. As of this writing, it is in sync with MAME official (version 261). Biggest improvement for me: It now works like all other Arcade Cores with the koko-aio shader, so the presets behave in an identical manner. This makes the core as my personal fall-back for all games that FinalBurn Neo does not support (i.e. very old games, such as monochrome games with a colorful backdrop). Main disadvantages compared to FinalBurn Neo: long startup times due to large core size, less stable in some games, no RetroAchievements support (it works from time to time, but it is not officially supported), difficult hiscore support that does not always work for me. 

In short: MAME current is my favorite fallback core for arcade games that Final Burn Neo does not support. Which also means: I hardly use official MAME these days.

(4) Arcade Artwork for koko-aio version 0.4ng: Another big news is that I finally released a new version of my Arcade artwork for koko-aio. Download the new version in my GitHub repository here (this became now a 338 MB download). See the Release Notes for details.

All presets are 'nightyfied' ... 

This release is based on the new generation (ng) presets of the koko-aio shader, which took another leap forward in terms of quality and features. At the same time, I try to stay as closely as possible to Upstream, so that future updates are less of a hassle.

This release delivers 60 presets of some of my favorite arcade artwork (personal choice, of course), and I will try to add further artwork along the road. I provide the presets for FBNeo, MAME current and the two MAME 2003 cores (side note: in my testing, MAME2003plus behaves very buggy on Apple Silicon Macs, so it's not really an option for me right now, the presets also work nicely in MAME2010, but that core only works in Windows for me).

... which gives many games strong immersion.

All presets are currently based on the preset Monitor-Ambilight-Immersive, which is particularly impressive with this artwork. Based on a rather dark artwork, the ambilight effects that are triggered by the game graphics can really impress. Try it out by yourself and you will see (some video will come later). 

All artwork is also now in 4K resolution (or at least close to 4K). I did this with an open source ai upscaler called Upscayl. At least on my 4K monitor, the results are satisfactory for my personal taste, so I brought all these artwork images in 1090p to 4K. Since recently, the app is also native on Apple Silicon.

In short: I am very happy with this 0.4ng release of Arcade Artwork, glad to receive any feedback from your end.

(5) Next big thing - RetroArch Cloud Sync for Apple Devices: You read it right, developer warmenhoven delivered a new RetroArch feature that is currently exclusive for Apple devices (MacOs/iOS/tvOS), and it is a true game changer for me personally. It is available on nightly builds of RetroArch for MacOS, iOS and (I guess also) tvOS. It syncs the most important settings of RetroArch on your personal webdav account for seamless syncing between several Apple devices - config, saves and states. A deleted folder contains data that have been replaced during sync by a new version (non destructive option, enabled by default). The sync is triggered (i) at RetroArch launch and (ii) after closure of a single game.

The folder structure of my personal webdav account.

Why only Apple devices? According to warmenhoven's Discord posts, he could only implement it on Apple devices, so if a Windows/Linux/Raspbian developer would take on this, it would be availble across further devices. 

I am still in testing - but what this means for Arcade games (FinalBurn Neo and MAME cores) is:

• You have a seamless real-time backup of your valuable game configurations. That alone is huge.
• You sync your highscores across multiple Apple devices (a real life saver in iOS, where copying is very tedious; works for FinalBurn Neo and MAME2003, whereas MAME current highscore support is hard to configure in RetroArch).
• You sync your shader configurations (e.g. koko-aio.slangp) across multiple Apple devices .
• If you use Save States (they are forbidden in RetroAchievements HC mode), they sync nicely as well.

Brief instructions how to set up RetroArch Cloud Sync:

• Go to: Settings/Saving/Cloud Sync/
• Enable Cloud Sync - ON
• Cloud Sync Backend - webdav (you apparently need an own webdav account)
• Cloud Storage URL (generate a RetroArch folder there and include it in this URL)
• Username
• Password
• Start with your main RetroArch installation. First sync apparently takes time, as all data on your main install are synced to the Cloud. Check and be sure that this finishes properly.
• Add another RetroArch install, i.e. your iOS device:
• Check very properly folder settings in Settings/Saving - you need to have identical folder settings here (if these settings deviate, you apparently end up with different sync directories on your webdav account - happened to me, so be warned):
• Sort Saves into Folders by Core Name
• Sort Save States into Folders by Core Name
• etc.
• (I am still working on the setup and testing what's the right folder structure on the webdav server according to these settings, but it seems that turning save folders off seems to be better for the Arcade cores)
• Once you have finished the setup, the backup sync should start.

First results look very promising, so I will definitely continue using this splendid new feature.

(6) RetroAchievements: RetroAchievements play a less important role on Arcade games, as more complex games on consoles can provide a much richer Achievements experience. Still it's worth to check the RetroAchievements development on Arcade games from time to time. Let me share my current personal favorites, as an update to my introductory blog post on RetroAchievements:

1943; Blazing Star; Dig Dug; Galaga; Galaxian; Gyruss; Moon Patrol; Phoenix (in all these games, I have some chances to reach some of the Achievements, but all in all, you must be a quite professional Arcade player to obtain RetroAchievements; it's much easier in other systems).

But do have a look at the Arcade list yourself - it's already 296 Arcade games: https://retroachievements.org/gameList.php?c=27

(7) Mixed Bag of further improvements spotted (since approximately 1 June 2023):

- Improved mouse behavior in RetroArch window: When run in windowed mode, RetroArch in MacOS grabs the mouse much more properly. A very convenient improvement. Of course, done by warmenhoven. 

- HDR for iOS RetroArch: During his tireless work, warmenhoven implemented an HDR feature for iOS. Although my iPad Air 3 does not support HDR, it provides a broader P3 color space. Turning on HDR might not be the right thing technically, but I seem to get more saturated video. At least worth a try.

- Logfile generation in iOS RetroArch: Also thanks to warmenhoven, you can now log to a file if you are in troubles. The logfiles are now saved in the log subdirectory of the RetroArch data folder on your iOS device.

- Audio and Video filters in iOS RetroArch: Again, done by warmenhoven. I even haven't tested such filters so far in any install, might be worth a look in case of some harsh old school audio. 

(I might have forgotten some more of them, but you'll get the idea)

I hope that you have enjoyed the read, and as always, happy to get any feedback on this new content!