Play NES Games on Your Mac with Nestopia, an NES Emulator for Mac
Nestopia is a really good emulator on the PC. Unfortunately, the Mac version does not have all of the fancy emu stuff the PC version comes with. Sure, Nestopia works if you want to emulate NES games on your Mac at the barest level, but it could be so much more.
Remember, to emulate NES games with Nestopia you need to have the NES roms. Acquiring roms that you do not own a hard copy of is illegal. Bright Hub will not tell you where to find roms, so don’t ask.
Download and Installation (4 out of 5)
Nestopia is available at this website. Just download the file and it will mount on your desktop. Open it and you should be able to use Nestopia. You need to have a Mac that runs on at least 600 mhz for Nestopia to work. If you want controller support you need to download Emulator Enhancer.
Features (3 out of 5)
Nestopia for the Mac is a watered down version of the PC emulator. Nestopia on the Mac can emulate most NES games just fine, sure, but you only have two window size options: thumbnail or full screen. I like full screen but it’s a bit fuzzy and out of focus. It also makes NES games look super dated.
Nestopia only supports freeze states. You can save an unlimited number of freeze states, but there is no in game save option. You can play around with the interface and the video in Preferences, but there aren’t as many options as other emulators.
If you have Emulator Enhancer, which you can use for free but will eventually need to buy for $30 if you want all the features, you can connect USB controllers just fine. However, I’m a bit peeved that the original Nestopia offered controller support free of charge, but that option was taken away in the Mac version of Nestopia.
Usefulness (4 out of 5)
If you have a Mac and want to play old NES games on it then you’ll need Nestopia and Emulator Enhancer to be able to do that. None of the other Mac NES emus work well at all, so this is really your only option.
Overall (3 out of 5)
Yes, Nestopia works, but it is so stripped down from the PC version that it is disappointing. Also, the fact that one has to pay for controller support is ridiculous considering no other emulator has such restrictions, besides other emulators programmed by Richard Bannister.
