I've been having the time of my life playing retro Nintendo64, NES, SNES, and Game Gear games since I discovered OpenEmu. I bought a few USB Nintendo 64 controllers and I'm like a kid again, even sharing that joy with my two young children. Using ROMs from cartridge-based games is easy but CD-based consoles, like the Sony Playstation, are a bit harder; OpenEmu provides a warning about extra dependencies needed to each system. I was curious as to how to difficult it would be to get a CD-based game going so I gave it a shot, and it was much easier than expected. Let's have a look at how I did it!
The BIOS’s come in handy when you need to use one with an emulator in Emuparadise Bios so you can look to this section for all your BIOS needs!! You can easily get here in emuparadise easily get emu paradise bios Emuparadise Bios Files. File Name: OpenEmu2.0.6.1.zip File Size: 41.48 MB System: Multiple Systems Version: 2.0.6.1 Downloads: 619,887 Requires OS X 10.11 or higher. An all-in-one emulator.
Step 1: Get a Game with CUE File
My first step was downloading a game. Any game ISO or BIN must come with a CUE or CCD file:
A cue sheet is a plain text file with a .cue extension containing metadata used to describe the layout of a CD, normally accompanied by one or more data files dumped from the original disc.
Most game download sites will bundle a CUE file with the ISO or BIN as this is a standard dependency for most emulators. Drag both the BIN file and CUE file into OpenEmu and the game will be properly imported. You cannot yet play the game, however; you're missing the BIOS files.
Step 2: Get the Playstation BIOS Files
Opening a game without the required extra dependencies will prompt OpenEmu to tell you what to go get. OpenEmu requires the BIOS files for Sony Playstation to be available. You can download the Playstation BIOS files from the OpenEmu website. Do not try placing the BIOS files anywhere in your system core -- instead simply drag the three BIOS files into OpenEmu and the app will do the rest.
Step 3: Play!
A CUE file, a BIN, and the BIOS files are all you need to get Playstation games working within OpenEmu! I presume the process is mostly the same for Sega CD and other CD-based consoles. Happy gaming!
Updated 4/21/20
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
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.
Download Bios For Open Emu Browser
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.
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
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.
Download Bios For Open Emu Browser
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.
Openemu Mac Download
Updates: 4/21/20 - copy editing, note about layout change on OpenEMU's website, striking out emuparadise as its now defunct.
