Super Mario 64 Hacks on Apple Silicon (Native)

Update 26.03.2025: another update of CoopDX with the latest and greatest version of the app and the Render96 Dynos resources, including actual github links. Good to see such great app further updated.

Update 18.11.2024: Amendments to CoopDX, which really rules. First preview of the SM_OSX launcher that already now shines.

Please allow me this major digression from Arcade gaming: I still adore Super Mario 64, and from time to time and fire up my Nintendo64 only for this game. I also like the game as ported to the Nintendo Switch, but the experience is basic.

Now, there have been exiting Super Mario 64 Mods and Hacks out for a while that deliver the goods. If you are capable of the Command Line and Homebrew, they are also available for under MacOS, in particular Silicon Macs. And with a MacOS-native launcher currently in revamp, things could get easier as well.

Here are the instructions for three solutions that worked for me. It's quite easily to loose focus with all the different repositories, so let's look into three solutions that work reliably.

1. smex: The oldest repo and manual install, but perfect for textures and rumble.

2. Render96ex: Not as impressive as under Windows with raytracing, but still powerful.

3. SM64CoopDX: Bleeding edge, a lot of mods and romhacks out there, though designed for cooperatives, you can also play it solo. Endless gaming.

This runs natively in MacOS Sequoia 15.1 at 60 fps

Teaser: With all three solutions discussed here, you get incredible Super Mario 64 gaming experience that hugely outperforms the original game. Out of the box comes 60fps and widescreen. It is not an emulation, but a re-compiled MacOS app. With this alone, you should be interested.

MacOS-specific hint: MacOS display scaling is your enemy for all these apps! In my own case, I have to set my 4K-monitor to native resolution without scaling, while normally I use MacOS with the largest scaling. But especially with custom textures, this scaling causes a lot of jittery effects in all three solutions. So prior to using any of the following solutions, be sure to switch MacOS-scaling off. It‘s only one click, leave the window open to revert after gaming - no big hassle.

By the way: That can also be very true under Windows11 in my own experience, only that I could not find such an easy solution there as with MacOS.

Turning off scaling is a must for hi-res textures.

Requirement for all solutions: Super Mario 64 (USA).z64 rom 

MAME 0.274 for Silicon Macs received a Dynamic Recompiler

Just a few days after my post on Intel64 builds, these thoughts became redundant because MAME 0.274 for Silicon Macs (along with other ARM64 platforms) received a dynamic recompiler. This finally brings MAME on modern Macs fully en par with Intel64 platforms and makes the Intel64 builds redundant for Silicon Macs.

That's a lot of benchmarks!

These benchmarks speak for themselves: The new dynarec lets my M2Pro Mac fly in games requiring a dynarec. Besides the listed games, probably all games requiring a CHD (Compressed Harddisk) will gain such dramatic performance improvements.

On the RetroArch side of things, the improvements are less dramatic. In games requiring a CHD, I still see games suffer, e.g. gauntleg. This will require further testing. But for complex games, MAME official is now a safe bet on modern Silicon Macs.

Mac MAME Advanced: Intel Build besides Silicon Build

It seems that one of the major drawbacks of current MacOS MAME is the lack of a Dynamic Recompiler (dynarec), which is only available for Intel64 builds. Modern Arcades can crawl even on very powerful Silicon Macs if the games relies on a dynarec. This is where an Intel build comes to the rescue.

Comparison between ARM/Silicon and Intel64 Build

What this comparison tells you:

• The ARM build fares much better in old school gaming that don't require a dynarec. 
• The Metal backend seems to catch up with the OpenGL backend, which is still faster. 
• The performance gains with an Intel64 build in games that require a dynarec are dramatic.

So here is a current Intel64 build of MAME 0.273 on Github, compiled today: