Emutastic for Mac v0.7.9.1 — GameCube BIOS (IPL) support

What's New

GameCube BIOS (IPL) support — Emutastic now recognizes GameCube IPL dumps. Still not required,
but some games' visuals improve with it: titles that use the console's built-in font render their
text correctly (Star Fox Assault is a good example). Drop the file (or an archive of it) onto
Preferences → System Files, or leave it anywhere in your GameCube ROM folder — it's detected
automatically. NTSC dumps cover both USA and Japan; PAL covers Europe.

BIOS auto-detection in ROM folders — BIOS files for every system are now recognized anywhere in
that system's ROM folder (subfolders up to eight levels deep), identified by checksum and content
signature regardless of filename, and imported into the System folder automatically. Archives are
covered too: a BIOS sitting inside a .zip, .7z, .rar, .tar, or .gz in your ROM folder is
found and imported as well. The System folder itself gets the same treatment — a stray dump or
archive parked there under any name (even in Dolphin's own dolphin-emu/Sys layout) is placed into
its proper spot.

System Files improvements — entries that live in a subfolder (Saturn, GameCube) now display
their full relative path, and found status only reflects locations the emulator actually reads.

In-app updater fix — the version check previously ignored the fourth version component, so
four-part hotfix releases were invisible to it. Fixed from this version onward — which also means
v0.7.9 installs won't see an update prompt for this particular release: grab this one from the
Releases page, and in-app updates take it from there.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.9.1-osx-arm64.zip below, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. Existing installs update in-app from Preferences → About.

First launch: Emutastic is self-signed (free, non-profit — no Apple Developer subscription), so
macOS shows a one-time "Apple could not verify…" prompt. It is expected, and you will never see a
"damaged" warning — the app is properly signed, just not notarized:

• macOS 15 Sequoia / 26 Tahoe: double-click the app once and click Done on the warning, then
  open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway next to the
  Emutastic message. Confirm once and it opens normally forever after.
• macOS 14 Sonoma and earlier: right-click (Control-click) Emutastic.app → Open → Open.
• Terminal shortcut (all versions, skips every dialog):
  xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app

Emutastic for Mac v0.7.9

What's New

EmuTV — Living-Room Mode comes to the Mac

The full controller-driven, big-screen couch interface lands in the macOS build — a 1:1 port of the
Windows/Linux living-room mode. Drop onto the sofa, pick up a controller, and browse and launch your
whole library on the TV without touching a keyboard or mouse.

• Controller-first fullscreen UI — a themed system carousel and game lists you drive entirely from the
  gamepad.
• ES-DE theme engine — renders EmulationStation Desktop Edition themes, with a built-in default plus
  in-app theme browsing, downloading, and importing.
• Seamless in-window game launches (a macOS-native solution) — games render inside the EmuTV window
  through a shared-surface compositor, so there's no second window, no focus handoff, and no Dock or
  menu-bar flash. It stays fullscreen from launch to quit and drops you straight back to the couch shell.
  GL and 3D/Vulkan cores (N64, GameCube, PSP, …) both work here.
• SteamGridDB artwork, an animated TV preview, and polished presentation throughout.

Getting in: hold L2 + R2 + L3 + R3 (both triggers + both sticks clicked) for ~2 seconds from the library,
or press F9. Quit a game back to the couch with the same chord.

In-game controller combos: save state L3 + R2, load latest state R3 + L2, swap disc L3 + Start — all
rebindable per system under Preferences → Controls.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.9-osx-arm64.zip from the
releases page, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. First launch needs right-click → Open (or
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app). Existing installs update in-app from
Preferences → About.

Emutastic for Mac v0.7.8

What's New

Cloud sync — cross-machine saves & databases

Updated how saves and databases interact across machines to avoid clobbers and make sure the newest
saves always win. Each machine now keeps its own library database in the cloud-sync repo, so multiple
devices/OSes can share one repo without overwriting each other's library — while game saves stay shared
per game across devices.

Security

• Updated the bundled SQLite library to a patched release.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.8-osx-arm64.zip from the
releases page, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. First launch needs right-click → Open (or
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app). Existing installs update in-app from
Preferences → About.

Emutastic for Mac v0.7.7

A reliability tweak for Neo Geo + RetroAchievements. RetroAchievements already works for Neo Geo in
Emutastic — nothing was broken, and your games and saves are untouched. This just updates how Neo Geo
cartridge files are fingerprinted so they keep matching RetroAchievements' database no matter how the
file was produced.

What's Changed

• More robust RetroAchievements matching for Neo Geo carts. RetroAchievements identifies a game by
  fingerprinting its file. Neo Geo .neo cartridges start with a 4 KB header that can differ between
  conversion tools — same game, different header — which could keep a cart from lining up with
  RetroAchievements' database. Emutastic now skips that header and fingerprints only the cartridge's ROM
  data, the same way RetroAchievements does, so a Neo Geo game identifies and unlocks its achievements
  regardless of how its .neo file was made.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.7-osx-arm64.zip from the
releases page, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. First launch needs right-click → Open (or
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app). Existing installs update in-app from
Preferences → About.

Emutastic for Mac v0.7.6

Your saves now follow you to every machine, gameplay recording is built into the Mac with nothing to
download, and controllers behave the way they should.

What's New

• Cloud sync backs up everything now. Sync previously covered only battery saves (.srm); this
  release adds the memory cards and save data the cores manage themselves — GameCube & Dreamcast memory
  cards, PSP / 3DS / DS save data, PlayStation & Saturn cards, arcade NVRAM. Saves are organized per
  console, and a fresh machine pulls your saves down automatically — even for games you haven't imported
  there yet. (Your existing saves are tidied into per-console folders once, on first launch; save states
  aren't synced yet.)
• Recording is native — nothing to download. Gameplay capture now uses Apple's built-in VideoToolbox
  (hardware-accelerated H.264 / HEVC / ProRes) instead of needing an ffmpeg download. Choose the encoder,
  quality, scale and audio bitrate in Preferences → Media; H.264/HEVC save as .mp4, ProRes as .mov.
  Record from the in-game cog → Record (or F9).

What's Fixed

• Controllers connected after a game starts now work. A controller switched on mid-launch — or paired
  after the game opened — is picked up immediately. No more "controls are dead until I restart the game."
• Fixed a launch hang. The app could beachball on startup while scanning for controllers; resolved.
• View Recordings, game manuals, and external links open. These quietly did nothing on macOS before.
• The in-app updater works. Preferences → About now checks the Mac releases and updates in place.
• macOS remembers folder permissions. The app is signed with a stable certificate now, so you grant
  access to your ROM folders once instead of being re-asked on every launch — keep your ROMs anywhere.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.6-osx-arm64.zip from the
releases page, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. Builds aren't notarized yet, so on first launch right-click the
app → Open (or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app). Existing installs
update in-app from Preferences → About.

Emutastic for Mac v0.7.5

Emutastic plays games on the Mac now — your whole library, 2D and 3D, on Apple Silicon, with the
demanding 3D consoles hardware-accelerated through the GPU.

What's New

• Games run. The 0.5 preview could browse, theme, and configure but not play — this release wires
  up the full emulation path. Cores download from Preferences → Cores; video, audio, and controllers
  all work; save states, cheats, screenshots, and recording live in the in-game cog menu.
• 3D consoles, GPU-accelerated. Nintendo 64, GameCube, 3DS, Dreamcast, and PSP render on Apple's
  GPU (Vulkan via MoltenVK) at full speed — a locked 60fps where the game allows, with internal-
  resolution upscaling far past native (N64 up to 8×, GameCube to 4K-class). PlayStation 1 is
  hardware-accelerated too. Tune Internal Resolution, Texture Filter, and Anti-Aliasing
  live from the in-game cog → Visuals (resolution applies on game restart).
• Box art and metadata on the fly. Open a game and its cover art, details, and description fetch
  automatically from ScreenScraper — nothing to bundle or pre-download.
• Animated game-card previews. Gameplay video snaps play natively on the game cards.
• CD-i support. Drop a CD-i BIOS into the System folder and Philips CD-i games boot — the app
  stages the BIOS where the core expects it.

What's Fixed

• The in-game cog menu responds on the first click. It previously needed a double-click.
• Cores load reliably. Fixed an Apple Silicon crash that could kill a game the instant its core loaded.
• Esc leaves fullscreen instead of quitting. In 3D games, Escape now drops back to a window
  (including from macOS native fullscreen) and only quits when already windowed.
• Clean metadata. Scraped titles and descriptions no longer show raw HTML codes.

Known limitations

• PlayStation 2 has no Apple Silicon libretro core and isn't supported on this platform.
• 3D titles compile shaders on first encounter with new content (a brief one-time hitch), and 3DS
  takes a few seconds to compile at boot.

Install

Apple Silicon only. Download Emutastic-0.7.5-osx-arm64.zip from the
releases page, unzip, and move
Emutastic.app to Applications. Builds aren't notarized yet, so on first launch right-click the
app → Open (or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Emutastic.app). Existing installs
update in-app from Preferences → About.