The version numbers correspond to the version of MAME. Because this is an arcade game you need to insert coins. Use the arrow keys and press enter to load a rom. This is the very featureless rom selection menu.

Double-click M64 app we downloaded above in step 3 and you should be able to run the games from the menu.

Make a roms folder if it doesn’t exist.

M64 is a small app that you can double-click to run SDL MAME without opening the Terminal. To make it easier, download M64 and unzip it into your MAME folder. Usually you would need to open a Terminal, navigate to your MAME folder and type.

One of the files extracted is named mame64.

Unzip it and you’ll see a bunch of folders and files.

(You will also see links to MESS which is a computer and console emulator). You will want to download the highest version that is 64-bit.

Copy the SDL2 from the DMG to this folder.

In the menubar click Go > Go to folder….

On your Mac, open the /Library/Frameworks folder:.

Open the DMG and you should see the SDL file.

Download the SDL 2 Runtime Library for Mac OS X (Direct Link).

This is a multimedia library that lets MAME display graphics, sounds and read keyboards and game controllers. They’re easy to use but they’re old, unsupported and abandoned. Also, avoid MAME ports named MacMAME and MAME for OS X. It’s actually a commandline program that you run by typing in commands via the Terminal. Note: SDL MAME is not user friendly it’s not a matter of double-clicking and expecting it to run. You can run MAME using OpenEmu’s Experimental version or use the “official” version which is called SDL MAME for OS X compiled by r0ni aka In part 1, we’ll go over how to run SDL MAME at the very barest bones.

MAME is a program that “runs” or emulates a large library of arcade games.

Neo geo emulator mac el capitan