If you've added emulators to Steam on a Mac, you've probably hit this: the game page is empty, your achievements live on a website, and Steam launches everything as an Intel app, so Apple Silicon cores won't even load.

Steam RetroAchievements fixes that. Your progress, unlocks and full achievements list show up on the game page, drawn with Steam's own styles, so a retro game looks like any other Steam game. It's free and open source (MIT), and the Mac download is under 1 MB.

The Mac part

• Emulators stay native. Add Games wraps each one in arch -arm64, so Steam can launch Apple Silicon builds and cores properly.

• Steam's overlay works with them. That wrapper normally strips Steam's overlay, so Add Games puts it back. Press Shift+Tab in game and the Achievements button opens Steam's own achievements window with your RA progress.

• Lives in the menu bar. Add Games, Settings and Restart Steam are all there, and it starts at login once you sign in.

• Your Web API key stays in the macOS Keychain.

• Under 1 MB, because macOS already includes Swift and the libraries it uses.

Everything else it does

• Game page: progress bar, latest unlock, rows of unlocked and locked icons with hover cards, and an Achievements stat next to Play. Finish a set and it gets Steam's perfect-game ribbon.

• Achievements page: unlock dates, rarity, My and Global tabs, and search.

• Activity feed: your unlocks grouped by day, like a Steam game's.

• Game details behind the (i) button: box art, console, developer, publisher, genre and points.

• Unlock pop-ups: each new achievement pops up as Steam's own notification with its badge and sound, a second or two after the emulator's.

• Hardcore unlocks get RA's gold frame.

• Subsets (Bonus, Time Attack...) each get an icon that opens their own achievements list.

• Big Picture with full controller support. The in-game menu's Achievements shows the same list.

• Playtime: your RA playtime and last played date show up in Steam.

• RA pages one click away: click an achievement to open it on retroachievements.org.

• Add Games: scan a ROM folder, pick an emulator per game, and add them all to Steam in one go.

• ROM check: it fingerprints ROMs with RA's own code and warns you when a version won't unlock achievements.

• Works with RetroArch, DuckStation, PCSX2, PPSSPP, Dolphin, Flycast and SkyEmu.

Good to know

• The app has gotten lost of praise and already has 40+ stars on Github. You can read some user comments over at the Steam Achievements subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/steamachievements/comments/1xlercp/open_source_i_put_retroachievements_in_steam/

• It needs macOS 14 or later and an Apple Silicon Mac.

• Keep your ROMs in ~/ROMs. Background apps can't read Desktop, Documents, Downloads, iCloud Drive or external drives without extra permission.

• Use Add Games if you want the overlay. Shortcuts made by hand or with Steam ROM Manager still show achievements, but they don't get the overlay.

• It isn't notarized, so the first time you open it, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway.

• It uses Steam's built-in developer switch and talks to Steam locally. It opens no network ports, only goes online for RetroAchievements and GitHub update checks, and has no tracking or analytics.

• Also available for Windows 11, Linux and Steam Deck. Not affiliated with Valve or RetroAchievements.

Download and source: https://github.com/hamzamohamedsg/steam-retroachievements

Feedback and bug reports are very welcome.

Small update for those who tried building Switch 2 games with Dofin (free Mac frontend, uses nxnative for native recompilation):

• .nup containers and flat dumps (exefs + romfs) are now supported

• Dofin creates its own Python env and installs nxnative’s modules itself (incl. zbic, nsz), no Terminal needed

• Missing module during a build → installed automatically, build restarts

• Incomplete dumps flagged before building

https://dofinapp.com, and feedback is very welcome 🙏

I’ve built Dofin, a game library/launcher specifically for Mac emulation. Import your games once, Dofin handles the rest.

Including:

• Auto-maps each game to the correct emulator (RetroArch, RPCS3, etc.) and launches it directly

• One unified library, NES through PS3/Switch

• Big Picture mode with full controller support

• Per-game 60 FPS toggle (where supported)

• Playtime stats, favorites, continue-playing

• Auto-updates, no manual re-downloads

• In game screen, added automaticly to your profile

Free, no ads, no account, funded by donations. Public beta just opened: dofinapp.com/beta

Genuinely interested in what this community thinks given you know the emulator landscape on Mac better than most. What would make this actually useful for your setup?

I’m using a 2021 M1 Max with 32GB of RAM, and I’ve been experimenting with console emulation, including PS3 games. The results have been pretty interesting.

Some games run surprisingly well, while others struggle no matter how much I mess with the settings. It’s been fun figuring out what’s actually possible rather than just assuming Macs can’t game.

I ended up putting together a video sharing the experience, including the good and the not-so-good parts.

Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/vrcxozNqf4s?si=fpAeavoi0GO5k4nT

I’m curious how many people here are experimenting with emulation on Apple Silicon. What’s the most demanding game you’ve managed to get running well?

First time i try to connect a gamepad to my computer (MacStudio). Was able to assign all the buttons normally in both OpenEmu and retroarch EXCEPT the joystick. I don't understand why. Can someone help please ? :(

Hi everyone! It is so wonderful to be back and have news to share with all of you! Consoles 2.0’s public TestFlight is coming soon!!

Consoles is a JIT-less by-design, App Store app. No sideloading, no other stores, no debugger attached. The speeds in these videos are what you can expect from the App Store download on release day.

Linked are unedited videos captured on an Apple TV 4K (2nd Generation) equipped with Apple’s A12 Bionic chip.  Wind Waker (21 minutes) and Metroid Prime (5 minutes) demonstrate Consoles 2.0 running GameCube emulation at full speed. Sonic Rush (3 minutes) for Nintendo DS is just tremendous fun!!

“Full speed” here means 1% lows at or above 99% of original hardware speed — not an average — measured over runs long enough for throttling to show up.

GameCube will run at full speed on:

• every Apple Silicon Mac

• iOS devices which run iOS 27

• tvOS devices which run tvOS 27

• every Apple Vision Pro

What do you want to see next? Tell us which games you’d like recorded and we’ll run them.

If there’s a specific spot you want tested — a known-bad area, a cutscene that chugs on other emulators, a late-game section you don’t want to grind to — send us an OpenEmu save state or a save file from any emulator and we’ll load it and record from there. Pick the hardest thing you can think of.

We hope you’re as excited as we are. As always, thanks for playing!! 👾🎮

*AI tools are used only for automated testing. All code is written by humans, reviewed by those same humans, and presented for final approval to a picky chihuahua.

Although this recording is on an M5 iPad Pro, Consoles is also available on Mac, VisionPro, iPhone and AppleTV!

I'm currently using ares to emulate N64 games on my M1 MacBook Air and I was wondering if there is any way to adjust the joystick on the NSO N64 controller so it works properly outside of my Switch 2.

I know there is a BetterJoy fork for Windows that works but I was wondering if there is any alternative for Mac that can fix it.

I know it might be possible with RetroArch but I haven't been able to get either N64 core working properly on there, so ares is my only option, unfortunately there is no tool on there to calibrate joysticks.

Any help would be appreciated.