Nox Emulator has emerged as one of the best app players for Windows & Mac. Thankfully, it is supported on all the commonly used Windows versions including Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7. Thankfully, it is supported on all the commonly used Windows versions including Windows 10, 8.1, 8 and 7. 10 Best Windows Emulator For Mac 1 – Parallels Desktop. Parallels Desktop is a paid emulator which is the best in this field! You can get this emulator at a price of $53.97 on your Mac OS. This emulator allows you to run windows application smoothly on a Mac OS.
2 4 likes 38,065 views Last modified Jul 13, 2019 5:49 PM
To identify your Mac, see this tip. That will tell you if you have an Intel or PowerPC Mac.
Macs have been Windows and DOS compatible since the very beginning. Most recently the following options are available for running Windows on the Mac:Apple Boot Camp support website and user to user Discussion forum, Oracle Virtualbox (see Oracle forums for 10.8.2 compatibility notes), Parallels, Crossover Mac (a form of WINE which requires no PC operating system installed), VMWare are all Intel compatible solutions for running Windows native applications on Intel Macs. Similar to WINE, Onlive provides cloud based application support for Intel Macs.Darwine (a form of WINE, which requires no PC operating system installed), iEmulator, Qemu are available for both PowerPC and Intel Macs. The website for Wintel for Mac OS X no longer exists, but was once an alternative.VirtualPC and Guest PC are options that will only run on PowerPC Macs.
As of April 8, 2014, Microsoft started charging Windows XP users a per seat license to maintain updates. Upgrade to at least Windows Vista if you want to continue free security updates. Due to emulation (for PowerPC Macs) only offering XP or less, people with PowerPC are strongly discouraged from emulating, unless they want to pay Microsoft for security updates, or can maintain XP in an isolated from network environment.
Vista's lifecycle deadline for free updates was April 12, 2017.
Windows 7 is January 14, 2020.
Windows 8.1 will be January 10, 2023.
Here is Microsoft's Office for Mac forum. It includes Outlook support an Office 2004 through 2011 support forums.Alternatives to Microsoft Officeis another tip I wrote which may be interest.
To find out if Boot Camp supports Windows Vista, 7, 8 on your Mac, read this article.
Note: Options that run on Intel Macs generally are known as Virtualization, whereas options that run on PowerPC Macs are generally known as emulation.The difference is that Intel Macs do not need to imitate the Intel CPU hardware using software. Because of this, PowerPC Macs generally handle still graphics, and text only based applications, where Intel Macs have no trouble with video or audio. Some Intel Macs are better suited to some games simply because of the graphics chip on board the Mac. If you have a question about a particular game, please don't hesitate into ask in the https://discussions.apple.com/community/windows_software/windows_compatibility forum if a game has been tried with certain virtualization under certain Mac model/vintage Mac. Also check the third party virtualization websites for forums to find out if your game has been tested under your Mac model and version of their virtualization engine.
Except for CrossOver, and WINE solutions, any solution running Windows is subject to the same security risks as running Windows on a PC within thestated Windows environment itself. The Mac OS X environment only has its own much less hazardous security risks limited to trojan horses,passing viruses on to Windows users, peer 2 peer software sending you applications which may not be tested as well as tying up your network, third party firewall software tying up your network applications when redundant on top of the built-in Mac OS X firewall, and issues running root account (using the sudo command line, or enabling it via a security application) based functions.
Mac OS X Security updates are found on Apple Knowledgebase How To 1222 article. Backup your data before installing anything new.
Anti-virus software and firewall software if installed on Mac OS X should be known to work with your installed operating system, and any updates you perform before performing those updates. CrossOver and WINE based solutions only exhibit issues for the individual application, and don't pose an operating system wide risk. If uncertain if necessary for your situation, don't hesitate to ask in the forum.
For each of these options, if you have a PowerPC Mac, your Mac's hardware has been recommended to be at least the following:
G3 - Windows 95 or Windows 98, with 256 MB of RAM assigned to emulator and 2 GB assigned to swap file.G4 - Windows 2000 or Windows ME, with 512 MB of RAM assigned to emulator, and 5 GB assigned to swapfile.G5 - Windows XP, with 1 GB of RAM assigned to emulator, and 10 GB assigned to swapfile.
For Intel Macs - XP or Vista same as XP requirements for G5 on virtualization solutions.The PowerPC G3-G5 suggestions came from VirtualPC's original specs, whereas the Intel has been arbitrarily found to be the case. Double checkthe software engine in question to ensure the specs aren't more rigorous for newer versions of Windows.
In some cases, reading and writing to Windows media may be needed that is formatted NTFS, and no Windows install is required: Macfuse, NTFS-Mac, HFS-Windows, and Tuxera NTFS all support this.
In some cases connecting a Mac formatted hard drive that supports Mac booting to a Windows machine is needed: MediaFour's MacDrive supports that.
There are volume size limitations to connecting media on 10.2.3 and earlier that are fixed in Mac OS X 10.3.
Mac OS X 10.6.4 and later support ExFat. Further info on hard drive formatting you'll find useful on this other tip which I published.
Some DVDs are not Mac OS X compatible, are best read with the now defunct company Software Architects, software called ReadDVD. You may be able to find this at places that sell old software or online.. There is also Taffysoft's UDF Media Reader, which is available for 10.4 & 10.5 PowerPC, and 10.7 Intel and later, and has been tested on 10.9 in this forum. It is unknown if it works with 10.6 and together with VLC can read Video_TS files for playback.64 bit Windows may not be supported unless you have the Macs in this article. Check with the author of the virtualization engine what limitations they have put in place on 64 bit Windows, which can also affect which applications you may be able to run in Windows.
Additional formatting tips can be found on this tip.
A third party resource for Mac Windows integration is the Macwindows website. Ignore advertising for MacKeeper on this website. Manyhave considered this malware.
Apple has these two articles for networking Macs and Windows:Switch 101: Migrate your Windows files or system to your MacMac OS X: Sharing your files with non-Apple computers
Another user tip from ds store has additional information about some of the aforementioned virtualization options.
Virtualization may also offer means of supporting Mac OS versions not otherwise supported by the Mac's hardware. See this tip on how that may be possible.
Arnold 1.7.9Amstrad CPC/CPC+ Emulator
Arnold is an extremely precise Amstrad CPC/CPC+ emulator, which can runjust about all software available for what was without question the besthome computer available in Europe in the 1980s.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 726 Kb
Atari800MacX 5.0.1This is the the Macintosh OSX Port of David Firth'sFantastic Atari 800 Emulator. Ported is the SDL version of theAtrari800 emulator to Mac OSX, and added a full native Cocoa interface,including Preferences, Menus, File Associations, Help and more.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Mark Grebe
- Modification Date: January 19, 2019
- Requirements: macOS 10.12 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 21.8 MB
Basilisk II 1.0 (2019-09-08)Basilisk II is an open source emulator of 68xxx-based Macintoshcomputers for Windows, OS X and Linux. With Basilisk II, one can bootMac OS versions 7.x through 8.1. Ports of Basilisk II are available forMac OS X, Windows, Linux and a number of lesser known systems. Usersrequire a Macintosh ROM image and a copy of Mac OS to use with theemulator.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Christian Bauer et al
- Modification Date: May 4, 2019
- Requirements: macOS 10.14 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 1.4 MB
Boycott Advance 0.4.1Boycott Advance can run the majority of existing Gameboy Advancesoftware to some degree. High quality sound emulation is supported, withmany games sounding as good, if not better, than they do on the realhardware. Having said that, Boycott Advance is not a substitute for thereal hardware. If you want to play Gameboy Advance games, then buy areal Gameboy Advance. A number of hardware devices exist for backing uporiginal Gameboy Advance titles for use on Boycott Advance. Theseinclude the Flash Advance Linker and the XGFlash.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 465 Kb
BSNES 0.6.9BSNES has a somewhat different purpose to most emulators; it focuses onaccuracy over performance. To that end, it does not include any gamespecific hacks, or idle-loop skipping optimizations commonly found inother emulators. To add to the fun, it uses a cycle accurate hardwareemulation. The net result of all this is the highest system requirementsof any software I've released to date; those without a G5 class machineneed not apply. If you meet the requirements, however, this is the mostaccurate SNES emulation available on the Macintosh platform.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 9, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 1.6 MB
DeSmuME 0.9.11Nintendo DS Emulator.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: DeSmuME Team
- Modification Date: April 7, 2015
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 1.5 MB
Dolphin 5.0Dolphin is an emulator for two recent Nintendo video game consoles: theGameCube and the Wii. It allows PC gamers to enjoy games for these twoconsoles in full HD (1080p) with several enhancements: compatibilitywith all PC controllers, turbo speed, networked multiplayer, and evenmore!
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Dolphin Team
- Modification Date: Current
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.10 or higher - 64-bit - The Development versions are the better choice with macOS 10.13 and higher
Download File Size: ~17 MB - Development versions are released every time a developer makes a change to Dolphin, several times every day!
DOSBox 0.74-3A port of DOSBox, an engine for playing classic and forgotten games for DOS on modern systems.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: DOSBox Team
- Modification Date: June 27, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 4.2 MB
Emulator Enhancer 3.0.1The Emulator Enhancer plugin adds a number of additional features tomany of the emulators available from this site (bannister.org). Theseinclude:
USB Gamepad and Joystick support
Aspect ratio correction
Bilinear Filtering
Full screen mode
Network game play (preliminary)
Screen Curvature
VBL Synchronised Video
Full instructions on how to use the library can be found in the download package.
- License: Shareware, $30
- Developer/Publisher: Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 30, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 589 Kb
Erockus Arcade 6.8Erockus ARCADE is an interface app for SDLMAME.
Erockus ARCADE does not actually play games.
Erockus Arcade is designed to simplify the use of SDLMAME.
Erockus ARCADE is not supported nor endorsed by the people behind SDLMAME.
Erockus ARCADE may not work with all versions of SDLMAME.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Eric Richards
- Modification Date: September 25, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.10 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 7.9 MB
Frodo 4.4.1Frodo is a robust Commodore 64 Emulator for the Macintosh.
Frodo was developed to reproduce the graphics of games and demos withhigher precision than the existing C64 emulators. To that end, Frodo candisplay raster effects correctly that only result in a flickering messwith other emulators. In addition to the precise VIC emulation, Frodofeatures a processor-level 1541 emulation that is able to handle about50% of all fast loaders. There is also a faster 1541 emulation for fourdrives containing .D64, .X64, .T64, or .LYNX files. Sound (SID)emulation is also provided.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 1.4 MB
Genesis Plus 1.3.2Genesis Plus is a Sega Genesis/Megadrive emulator for Mac OS X.
Genesis Plus features very accurate emulation of the original SegaGenesis, even to the point that some software which has problems on thereal hardware exhibits the same behaviour under emulation. Thisemulation comes with accurate sound support, saved states, and savedgame support.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 517 Kb
Jum52 1.1.1Atari 5200 Emulator
Jum52 supports reasonable compatibility with Atari 5200 titles. At thepresent collision detection is a bit hit and miss (no pun intended) butotherwise the emulator is solid enough. High quality sound emulation isprovided.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 391 Kb
KiGB 2.0.6KiGB is a Nintendo Gameboy emulator for Mac OS X.
KiGB features detailed and accurate emulation, which brings with itexcellent compatibility. Support for both Game Genie and Game Sharkcodes is included, as well as extremely high fidelity sound support.KiGB can even emulate the Super Gameboy.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 668 Kb
Mini vMac 36.04Mini vMac is an open source emulator of 68000 based Macintosh computers.The project's main goal being an accurate emulation of the MacintoshPlus computer. In addition to the Macintosh Plus, variations of MinivMac can emulation the Macintosh 128K, 512K, 512Ke, SE and Classicmodels.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Paul C. Pratt
- Modification Date: October 7, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.7 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 59emu Kb
Mugrat 0.4.5For many years now I have been porting emulators by others to MacOS. Mugrat marks my first attempt at writing one of my own, in this caseto emulate the Colecovision.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 30, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 409 Kb
Mupen64Plus 2.5.9Mupen64Plus is a cross-platform plugin-based N64 emulator which iscapable of accurately playing many games. N64 emulator and plugins forLinux, Mac OSX, FreeBSD, and Windows
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Mupen64Plus Team
- Modification Date: February 10, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.8 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 2.7 MB
Nestopia 1.4.2Nestopia is a Nintendo NES emulator for Mac OS X.
Nestopia is by far the most compatible of any NES emulator for Mac OS X.Using cycle-exact emulation, it is able to run titles that rely onprecise timing, and which therefore break under other emulators. Itsupports five extra sound chips and an astonishing 143 mappers. Thisaccurate emulation comes at a cost; Nestopia requires an 800MHz machinefor full speed; but if you have one, this is the best available NESemulation for Mac.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 1.1 MB
OpenEmu 2.1Retro video game emulation for macOS.
For the first time, the 'It just works' philosophy now extends to opensource video game emulation on the Mac. With OpenEmu, it is extremelyeasy to add, browse, organize and with a compatible gamepad, play thosefavorite games (ROMs) you already own.
This one does it all and in a well done interface. Nintendo, SuperNintendo, Nintendo 64, PlayStaion, Sega Genesis, Atari 2600, Game Boy, PSP etc.and more.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: OpenEmu Team
- Modification Date: November 2, 2019
- Requirements: macOS 10.14 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 41.6 MB - The experimental version supports MAME
Rainbow 1.5.8Atari 800 Series Emulator
Rainbow was one of the first emulators available for Macintosh. Despitethis, it has fairly good compatibility with original software. The MacOS X version adds an improved GUI and significantly improved sound tothe original version.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 469 Kb
ScummVM 2.1ScummVM is not an emulator.
ScummVM is a program which allows you to run certain classic graphicalpoint-and-click adventure games, provided you already have their datafiles. The clever part about this: ScummVM just replaces the executablesshipped with the game, allowing you to play them on systems for whichthey were never designed!
ScummVM lets you run these adventures: Adventure Soft's Simon theSorcerer 1 and 2; Revolution's Beneath A Steel Sky, Broken Sword 1 andBroken Sword 2; Flight of the Amazon Queen; Wyrmkeep's Inherit theEarth; Coktel Vision's Gobliiins and games based on LucasArts' SCUMM(Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) system. SCUMM is used formany games, including Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Maxand more. Compatibility with supported games is continually improving,so check back often.
Among the systems on which you can play those games are Windows, Linux,Mac OS X, Dreamcast, PocketPC, PalmOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, OS/2, PSP, PS2,SymbianOS/EPOC and many more...
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: The ScummVM Team
- Modification Date: January 15, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.7 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 24.5 MB
SDLMAME 0.214Command line Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: @roni
- Modification Date: September 25, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.9 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 101.1 MB - SDL Mame 0.214
Download File Size: 5.6 Kb - SDL Runtime Library 2.0.10
Download File Size: 542 Kb - M64 - Application to run SDL MAME without launching the terminal
SheepShaver 2.5 (2019-09-08)SheepShaver is an Open Source PowerPC MacOS run-time environment. Thatis, it enables you to run PowerPC Classic MacOS software on yourcomputer, even if you are using a different operating system. However,you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMacintosh ROM image to usethis program. SheepShaver is distributed under the terms of the GNUGeneral Public License (GPL). If you are using a PowerPC-based system,applications will run at native speeds (i.e. without any emulationinvolved). On other systems, SheepShaver provides the first PowerPC G4emulator, though without MMU, to enable the execution of MacOS Classic.Performance with the current CPU emulator using basic just-in-time (JIT)translation techniques is roughly 1/8-th of native speeds.
Features
- SheepShaver runs MacOS 7.5.2 thru MacOS 9.0.4
- PowerPC G4 emulation on non-PowerPC platforms, direct execution otherwise
- Basic but portable JIT engine (x86, x86_64, mips)
- Copy and paste of text between MacOS and the host OS
- File exchange with the host OS via a Unix icon on the Mac desktop
- Color video display with support for run-time resolution switching
- Run-time depth switching from 1 bpp to current host depth settings
- Native QuickDraw 2D acceleration for BitBlt and FillRect operations
- CD-quality stereo sound output
- Networking: SheepShaver supports Internet and LAN networking via Ethernet and PPP with all Open Transport compatible MacOS applications
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Gwenole Beauchesne
- Modification Date: September 8, 2019
- Requirements: macOS 10.14 or higher - 64-bit - If you have an existing SheepShaver setup, you can simply replace the application with the new application
Download File Size: 1.4 MB
SMS Plus 1.3.4SMS Plus is a Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear emulator for Mac OSX.
The hardware for the Sega Master System and Game Gear consoles is almostidentical from a technical standpoint, which means that when you emulateone, it is trivial to emulate the other. SMS Plus features accurateemulation of both systems, with full sound support. Just like most ofthe other emulators on this site, it can use GZ compressed ROMstransparently.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Ported by Richard Bannister
- Modification Date: March 10, 2018
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 551 Kb
sixtyforce 2.0b1sixtyforce is an emulator that runs Nintendo 64 games. It does this bydynamically translating the code that a Nintendo 64 uses into somethingyour Mac understands. Nearly every part of a Nintendo 64 has beenpainstakingly recreated entirely out of software to pull off such anamazing feat. Download sixtyforce and try it yourself!
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Gerrit Goossen
- Modification Date: October 10, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.9 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 8 MB
Stella 6.0.2The Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS), introduced in 1977, was themost popular home video game system of the early 1980's. Now you canenjoy all of your favorite Atari 2600 games on your PC thanks to Stella!
Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator released under theGNU General Public License (GPL). Stella was originally developed forLinux by Bradford W. Mott, however, since its original release severalpeople have joined the development team to port Stella to otheroperating systems such as AcornOS, AmigaOS, DOS, FreeBSD, IRIX, Linux,OS/2, MacOS, Unix, and Windows. The development team is working hard toperfect the emulator and we hope you enjoy our effort.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Stella Team
- Modification Date: October 11, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.7 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 3.6 MB
VICE 3.1VICE is a program that runs on a Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, OS/2, BeOS, QNX4.x, QNX 6.x, Amiga, Syllable or Mac OS X machine and executes programsintended for the old 8-bit computers. The current version emulates theC64, the C64DTV, the C128, the VIC20, practically all PET models, thePLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610/C510). An extra emulator is provided forC64 expanded with the CMD SuperCPU.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: The VICE Team
- Modification Date: March 30, 2017
- Requirements: macOS 10.12 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 86.5 MB
VirtualC64 3.3.2VirtualC64 emulates a Commodore 64 personal computer on your Macintosh.I started the project in 2006 to create a virtual CPU environment thatcan be used as a demonstrator program in a first or second year ofcomputer technology. Over the years I have added more and more featuresand the accuracy of the emulation has steadily increased. Despite one ortwo compatibility gaps, VirtualC64 is now able to run a large number ofC64 programs without errors.
- License: Freeware
- Developer/Publisher: Dirk Hoffmann
- Modification Date: May 25, 2019
- Requirements: macOS 10.13 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 12.5
Virtual ][ 9.2Virtual ][ is a program that emulates the vintage Apple ][ computer onyour Macintosh.
Key features:
Emulates the Apple ][, ][+ and //e
Supports USB game pad or joystick
Save a machine and resume later on
Full-screen mode
Epson FX-80 emulation
Realistic soundeffects
Virtual ][ lets you play all the old Apple games, because it supportsall graphics modes, lets you control the game paddles with a USB gamepad or mouse and emulates the internal speaker. When you want totemporarily interrupt gameplay, Virtual ][ allows you to save theentire virtual machine, and continue later on from where you left off.
But Virtual ][ also supports more 'serious' software, because itemulates many peripheral devices: floppy disk, hard disk, mouse, matrixprinter, even cassette tape! It is also able to emulate the Z80Aprocessor, allowing you to run the CP/M operatng system.
- License: Shareware, $44
- Developer/Publisher: Gerard Putter
- Modification Date: September 8, 2019
- Requirements: Mac OS X 10.11 or higher - 64-bit
Download File Size: 38.2 MB