Ios Emulator For Mac M1

Status of the PS2 Emulator on Mac with the M1 Chip Since Apple’s new silicon chip is still relatively new, the compatibility of PCSX2 on M1 chips is still a hit or miss. The good news is that users across the PCSX2 forums have been sharing their experiences running games using PS2 emulator on Mac natively. IOS 14 Simulators not working in VS 19. Recently, I started developing in VS 2019 with a new Mac Mini with the new M1 chip. With the most recent version of XCode installed (12.3) and most recent MacOS (11.1), I am getting a black screen when trying to use the iOS 14.3 simulators through VS. However, instead of using the remote simulator in VS.

Android Emulator For Mac M1
Ios Emulator For Mac M1 Download
Ios Emulator For Mac M12
Ios Emulator For Mac M1 Free
Run Ios Apps On Mac

After putting us in the dark for a few months, Apple has finally launched the first few Silicon-based MacBook laptops and the Mac Mini. Apple Silicon, a name due to the custom material that Apple is using to build these chips, is expected to change the entire Mac lineup from Apple, offering enhanced performance, better power savings, and many other features.

This brand-new chip from Apple will change the way Mac devices compete with other laptops and desktops in the market, taking the best advantage of the leap that the Silicon Valley company is proud of. However, a transition like this is not just about enhanced performance and speed. For Apple, the M1 chip indicates the beginning of creating a rich ecosystem — through universal apps and beyond.

Before we talk about universal apps for Apple Silicon Macs and how they make our lives better, we’d have a brief introduction to Apple M1.

Quick Jump to…

What’s the Apple M1 chip?

As per the technical definition, Apple M1 is an ARM-based SoC (System on a Chip) that has been completely designed by Apple Inc. This chip belongs to the Apple Silicon lineup of SoCs that Apple claims to launch as a part of its shift from previous methods.

Previously, Apple used CPUs and GPUs from Intel and AMD to power its MacBook, Mac Mini, iMac, and Mac Pro devices. However, in June 2020, Apple announced its transition from intel to Apple Silicon, promising a custom-made chip by the end of the year: Apple M1.

As a chip that powers an entire Mac device, the Apple M1 translates to many incredible things. Some of such features are:

Apple has designed the M1 to be even more compact while increasing the performance per watt. It is a breakthrough figure when compared to what the Intel Macs are offering.
The M1 combines multiple chips like processor, I/O, security, and memory into a single chip. Intel-based Macs had needed separate chips for all these needs. It has 16 billion transistors, just saying!
Unified Memory Architecture, known as UMA, allows Apple M1 to share memory resources across a Mac. This translates to incredible speeds when it comes to video and image processing.
The M1 chip also claims to give up to 3.5x CPU performance, and it Apple’s highest-performance CPU at this point. This massive processing power and optimization brings the best Mac experience.
Capable of up to 11 trillion operations per second, M1 is the best space for machine learning. Apple says that the latest Neural Engine can offer up to 15x faster machine learning performance.
Apple M1 also comes with an 8-core GPU inside, which can handle up to 25,000 concurrent threads at a time. This translates to up to 2x faster GPU performance without needing anything discrete.
Because Apple has optimized every single aspect of the chip, it can offer record-breaking battery life. For instance, the 13-inch MacBook Pro runs for up to 20 hours on a single charge!

Along with all these fantastic features, we have the power of macOS Big Sur and Universal Apps.

More importantly, though, the M1 chip marks the beginning of a 2-year transition. Although Apple offers its support for Intel-based Mac devices, it won’t be the case after a few years. That is, the company is all set to abandon Intel chips.

By doing so, Apple can gain better control over how its devices perform in real life.

The Big Sur prize

We can’t talk about Apple M1 without talking about macOS Big Sur. In case you didn’t know, macOS Big Sur is the latest macOS release from Apple.

According to Apple, it has designed macOS Big Sur to assist the organization, developers, and users with the transition to Apple Silicon. This particular release comes with several features that will create an ecosystem that is powered by universal apps and easy development, among other things.

Even when we keep these core ideas aside, macOS Big Sur marks a noticeable change in the way how macOS has looked and felt. The visual overhaul itself is an impressive reason you should check it out, and you can see how Apple is trying to create a unified platform with compatible UI and app elements.

As for those devices powered by Apple M1, Big Sur has been designed to take the best advantage of the chip inside. For instance, Apple has brought in features like Instant Wake, quicker app launches, snappier system animation, and the power of Metal.

[ Related: macOS 11 Big Sur: How Fast Is It? ]

As always, Apple has pushed its security game with the M1 chip. Now that a single SoC manages everything regarding the computer, you can get additional features like hardware-verified secure boot and encryption for all files. That these security measures are built into the core architecture makes them superb.

You can check our coverage of macOS Big Sur if you want to know more about the OS release, though. Here are also top 30 free apps can uplift your macOS Big Sur experience in one way or another.

For the time being, let’s look at how macOS Big Sur makes a difference to the transition.

How the M1 Chip integrates with Big Sur to maximize transition

As we said, macOS Big Sur packs many features that help users get the best out of the Apple M1 chips. Even then, two core changes define how the transition that we talked about would take place.

#1 Universal Apps

Universal apps are applications that can run natively on both Intel-based and Silicon-based Macs. It means these apps would be run on M1-powered Macs as smoothly as they run on Intel-powered Macs. Now that a lot of developers are launching the Universal App versions of their apps, the transition would become more comfortable than ever.

To understand the importance of universal apps, you should understand that M1 and Intel chips use different architectures. The M1 chip belongs to the ARM architecture, while Intel has been following x86 architecture. However, with the launch of Big Sur, a developer can create an app that would work seamlessly on any of these architectures.

A universal app for macOS can take the best leverage of the M1 chip when it runs on an Apple Silicon-based Mac. If you have an Intel-based Mac, don’t worry; it will work just as fine. From the developers’ perspective, this step can lower the burden to a great extent. Because Apple has built everything into the latest version of Xcode, converting an app into a Universal App is an easier task.

This is the crux. If you have an Intel-based Mac, you got nothing to worry about. You will get all those great apps on your device as you used to. However, even when you upgrade to an M1-based Mac — which you’ll have to sooner or later —, you can use the same apps, with better performance and speed. For instance, the Neural Engine on the M1 can make remarkable changes in how you handle high-resolution media.

Long story short, universal apps are what enable the smoothest transition. It helps the developers create apps that serve the customers right when they are on Silicon or Intel-based Macs.

#2 Rosetta II

While Universal Apps take care of the compatibility aspect on the way forward, Rosetta II does something a lot more incredible. Rosetta II is an exclusive emulator that allows Apple Silicon-based Macs to run apps that were initially designed for Intel-based Macs.

Rosetta II is why those who bought the latest M1-powered Macs don’t have to wait for developers to launch native apps for Apple Silicon. Instead of doing that, they can download and install the Intel version of the same apps, giving the same performance Macs have provided in the past.

This is how Rosetta II works with M1-powered MacBooks and the Mac Mini. The Rosetta II emulator would understand the instructions that an old program provides to an Intel-based Mac. The emulator will then translate the same instructions to a language that the M1 chip can understand. As a user, you may not see the name on macOS. Everything it does is done in the background.

There are some crucial differences, though. For instance, Rosetta II will not bring you the super-fast speed or performance you’d get from Silicon native apps. Apple says that some made-for-Intel apps can run faster on an M1-based Mac. However, in general, a universal app or a native M1-based app would outperform an Intel-based app that runs via Rosetta II.

Long story short, Rosetta II isn’t about bringing the best speed. It’s to ensure that you can have a superb macOS experience with M1 without waiting for developers’ convenience.

This is how the M1 chip integrates with the macOS Big Sur release so that users can shift to an M1-based Mac without any hassle.

How will universal apps benefit users?

Here are some ways universal apps can benefit Mac users.

Multitasking becomes easier than ever with the help of universal apps. Did you know that you will be able to run iOS apps on your Mac without any trouble? You can install these apps, and they do run in a window. More importantly, users will be able to achieve an impressive experience.
Universal apps make it tension-free to upgrade from an Intel-based Mac to an M1-based Mac. In my case, when I move away from my 2019 MacBook Pro sometime later, I need not worry about any kind of compatibility issues.

Now that you know the benefits of universal apps, shall we check out the top universal apps for Silicon Macs that you can download today?

Top universal apps for Apple silicon Macs

#1 Apple Apps

As you can probably guess, Apple has updated all its app to become universal. That is, your popular apps like Safari, Keynote, Numbers, etc. have been redesigned to take the best advantage of Apple M1 Macs. More importantly, professional apps like Final Cut and Logic Pro have received updates.

Apple says that the Final Cut Pro universal app can now use the Neural Engine and advanced options for easy video transcoding. Likewise, Logic Pro X has brought enhanced performance into the package. If you’ve an M1-based app, you can also expect better performance from apps like GarageBand.

#2 Da Vinci Resolve

Da Vinci Resolve, the industry-grade film editor, is also prepared for the era of M1 Mac devices. The latest version of the suite, 17.1, has been designed to take the best advantage of the Apple Silicon while running equally smoothly on Intel-based Macs.

The developers say that the new Da Vinci Resolve will be able to bring the best results through a combination of CPU and GPU processing. The Neural Engine also helps the software to handle video exports and color-correction tasks with better efficiency.

#3 Pixelmator Pro

The latest version of Pixelmator Pro, one of the most popular photo editors for Mac, is a universal app that can run on M1 Macs and Intel-based Macs. In addition to the broad support, developers behind the app have also optimized the app for enhanced performance.

Built using Swift, this app can also make the best use of the new Neural Engine and ML features if you have an M1 MacBook Air, Pro, or Mac Mini. You can download the latest version of Pixelmator Pro from the App Store or the official website now.

#4 Darkroom

Darkroom, a popular photo editing app among iOS users, was one of the first to get into the universal apps bandwagon. When the developers decided to bring the app to macOS, they also brought in support for M1 Macs with it. If they have Big Sur installed, Intel Macs can also run this app.

Unlike the iOS version of the app, Darkroom for Mac has been optimized for enhanced performance as well as an improved User Interface. The entire design language goes in sync with the Big Sur design, and there is even an option to get a premium version of the app via the App Store.

#5 Ulysses

Ulysses has been regarded as one of the best writing apps available for Mac and iOS. Taking one of the first leaps, Ulysses has also made its universal app available on the Mac App Store. This means you can enjoy a smooth performance on both devices.

In addition to the support for M1-based Macs, Ulysses has included several features, especially a new, improved Revision Mode. This mode allows you to make comments and suggestions that make editing tasks feel like a breeze.

#6 Fantastical

Fantastical is another awesome app that is available as a universal app for M1 and Intel-based Macs. If you’re looking for a calendar app better than the built-in calendar, Fantastical is an excellent option. It comes with an improved design as well.

According to an official tweet from the developer, the latest version comes with advanced support for macOS Big Sur as well. For instance, you can avail of new widgets, Microsoft Teams support and weather alerts. You can expect these features in the iOS and iPadOS versions as well.

#7 Sparkle

Another popular app among professionals, Sparkle is one of the first apps to go Universal on M1 Macs. The version you download from the official website will now work fine with Intel and M1-based Mac devices. It should have improved performance while rendering code and exporting files.

Sparkle is an awesome app that redefines how you create great websites across multiple platforms. This site builder works close with your code to ensure the best security and privacy. There are options to add various elements like eCommerce purchases and SEO support.

#8 Nova

Nova is an excellent code editing app available for Mac and it has released a universal app as well. So, if you have an M1 Mac with you, you won’t have trouble in getting the best performance while editing/compiling a variety of codes.

[ Related: Top Online Platforms to Learn Programming Languages ]

Android Emulator For Mac M1

In addition to the powerful design and customizability, you can take advantage of its themeable interface as well as flexible workflows. You can, in addition to customizing the basic settings, install extensions for extra features.

#9 Alfred

The trusty Spotlight alternative Alfred is also ready for the big transition to Apple Silicon. However, the app does not have an official universal app yet. Instead, if you have an M1-enabled MacBook or Mac Mini, you’d have an option to download the universal version.

#10 1Password

We have recommended 1Password as one of the best free password manager for Mac. Just like Alfred, it is now running an M1-optimized version alongside. There is now an option to download the Silicon version if you have a compatible Mac.

1Password offers incredible password management features that we see only in premium options. It allows you to store as many passwords as you like and access them from a multitude of devices. In the end, you can get peace of mind.

More to come…

Here are some more apps that recently received updates with Apple Silicon support. Several apps have also received compatibility updates for Apple’s latest operating system, macOS Big Sur. There will be more universal apps that run natively on Apple Silicon in the coming days.

PDFpenPro / Slack / BetterTouchTool / Cinema 4D / Downie 4 / HazeOver / iStat Menus / Keyboard Maestro / ScreenFloat / CleanMyMac X / Parallels

We just want to remind you that the transition to M1 Macs is in its early stages. Only a few developers have shown the final builds, but more is to come. In the event itself, Apple had mentioned that apps from high-end developers like Microsoft and Adobe would have universal support in the coming months. Therefore, if you were quick enough to grab an M1 Mac, stay tuned.

Tackling macOS on ARM¶

It is an understatement to say that Apple dropped a bomb on the PC industry with the M1 ARM processor. ARM is a Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture that was specifically designed for efficiency with portable devices. With a tight instruction set instead of the ever ballooning mess that is x86, ARM was able to get away with literally less processor while performing optimized tasks, giving it exceptional power efficiency. However given unoptimized workloads, an ARM processor would need many more cycles to perform it than an x86 CPU. All combined, ARM was the processor of choice for battery life in portable devices, but when pushed they had poor overall performance compared to Intel's x86 processors. It was a processor for casual things like phones, and not really meant for 'real work'. But that is the past.

Intel's iron grip of process superiority has long slipped, and the ARM instruction set has carefully expanded to more efficiently handle more tasks while not sacrificing power efficiency. Yet even with ARM reaching datacenters and even some interesting hardware giving us a glimpse at what could be, ARM's reputation as being weaker than x86 has remained firmly entrenched.

But with M1, Apple has completely shattered this foolish notion. Not only can the M1 perform the same tasks as their former Intel processors, they can do it faster even when using their Rosetta 2 translation layer! All of this while still providing considerably better single threaded performance compared to Intel. Let's just say they had gotten our attention.

We immediately put it through its paces. Using the Rosetta 2 translation layer with Dolphin's x86-64 JIT, the M1 easily ran most games at full speed and handily outran like-class Intel Macs. The experience wasn't entirely smooth due to jitter from Jitting a JIT, yet the processor proved itself more than capable of handling Dolphin. But the fact it had to do it through a translation layer was a huge performance bottleneck. Developers thought, why not just use Dolphin's AArch64 JIT for native support? And thus, the race was on as several people tried to figure out the hurdles of getting Dolphin's AArch64 JIT to run on the M1.

Unfortunately, getting the AArch64 JIT to work wasn't exactly trivial. Apple requires W^X (Write Xor Execute) conformance for native macOS M1 applications. What it does is make it so that areas of memory must be explicitly marked as for WriteorExecute, but not both! Because it's easier and hasn't been forbidden on any of the prior platforms that Dolphin supports, the emulator previously just marked memory regions used by the JIT as for WriteandExecute. This requirement from Apple is mostly a security feature to prevent bugs in programs that read untrusted data from being exploited to run malware. Outside of emulators, the primary place that you'll actually see self-modifying code is web browsers, which is often a vector for attack on a computer.

This was thankfully a lot less strict than on iOS devices, which strictly forbid mapping memory as executable whatsoever and made iOS untenable for us to officially support. Apple even provides documentation for helping developers port JITs to macOS on ARM. Skyler used a method described in the documentation that would change the mapped memory between Writeable when emitting code to Executable when executing code. Since Dolphin wasn't designed for this, there were a few hiccups along the way, but eventually everything was massaged into working with the new restrictions.

Once that was out of the way, the focus shifted towards maintainability and setting up the infrastructure. Beyond getting it to run correctly, this was by far the hardest challenge to official M1 support. Dolphin's infrastructure is rather complicated and sensitive to changes. Moving macOS builds over to a universal binary (x86-64 and AArch64 all in one) along with getting the hardware necessary to build macOS universal binaries was a challenge and could have proven to be an expensive endeavor. In the end, MacStadium made the move extremely inexpensive by providing us with free access to M1 hardware, so we were able to focus on making Dolphin's buildbot infrastructure handle the new builds.

Ios Emulator For Mac M1 Download

Putting the M1 Hardware To The Test¶

So now that it runs, you're probably wondering how does it run. There's a few things we need to keep in mind. Dolphin's AArch64 JIT isn't quite as mature as the x86-64 JIT. While things aren't as bad as they were a couple of years ago and compatibility should be roughly the same thanks to efforts from JosJuice, it is still the less complete of the two JITs.

One of the differences is instruction coverage. Any PowerPC instruction that isn't included in the JIT has to fallback to interpreter, which costs a huge performance penalty. Most common instructions are covered by both JITs at this point. There is one important feature missing in the AArch64 Jit, though: memchecks. Thankfully, this only affects Full MMU games such as Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, III, and Spider-Man 2. There are some niceties missing from AArch64 JIT, too, like JitCache space reuse used to prevent spurious JitCache flushes.

AArch64 does have its advantages, though. Namely, the processors have 31 registers, compared to the 16 available in x86-64 processors. The PowerPC processor we are emulating has 32 registers, and while it is rare for all of them to be used within a single code block, more registers is always nice to have. Another difference is that AArch64 and PowerPC have 3 operand instructions while x86-64 only has two.

Ios Emulator For Mac M12

As you can see, it makes emulating some instructions much cleaner and easier than on our x86-64 JIT. Alright, enough with the boring details. How does the M1 hardware perform when put up against some of the beasts of the GameCube and Wii library? We also included data from two computers featured in Progress Reports previously for comparison.

Ios Emulator For Mac M1 Free

There's no denying it; macOS M1 hardware kicks some serious ass. It absolutely obliterates a two and a half year old Intel MacBook Pro that was over three times its price all while keeping within ARM's reach of a powerful desktop computer. We were so impressed, we decided to make a second graph to express it.

Run Ios Apps On Mac

The efficiency is almost literally off the chart. Compared to an absolute monstrosity of a Desktop PC, it uses less than 1/10th of the energy while providing ~65% of the performance. And the poor Intel MacBook Pro just can't compare.

Taking Things a (Lock)Step Further¶

After doing strenuous performance testing on the macOS M1 and its Apple Silicon, it was clear that it was powerful. The problem is that if you give developers a new toy, they eventually decide to push things further and further. This was the first time we got to see Dolphin's AArch64 JIT really stretch its legs on something other than a phone or tablet with an ultra aggressive governor that's also limited by graphics drivers. What is the absolute worst idea that we could come up with given this new found power? Netplay.

This was the real test to see if the AArch64 JIT and x86-64 JIT truly equals. We couldn't exactly test this before because the Android GUI lacks netplay support, but macOS runs the desktop version with no compromises. That includes having full netplay support. Now, testing this was mostly a joke because there are tons of differences between the JITs. Everything from instruction coverage to known rounding errors. The chances of this working was next to zero. But there was no reason to stop and think if we should - technology had made it so we could.

And it actually worked! We just can't be certain exactly how well yet due to limited testing. Every single game we've tested on netplay so far has managed to synchronize, albeit with Dolphin's desync checker giving a false positive. Testers have tried everything from Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Party 5 to things like spectating The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. All of the sessions stayed in sync.

This might not be true for all games. Up until earlier this month, games like Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, F-Zero GX, and Mario Kart Wii would immediately desync due to physics differences. Thanks to the work of JosJuice, those rounding bugs in the AArch64 JIT and interpreter (...we'll get to that in the Progress Report) are now fixed, meaning these games should at least have a chance to sync on netplay.

Because of limited libraries, we don't have a great idea of what games will work and what games are problematic. As a stress test, Techjar and Skyler played the Super Mario Sunshine Co-op Mod. The physics calculations in Super Mario Sunshine are extremely sensitive to CPU rounding bugs and it provided a tough test for both JITs. Oh yeah, they also enabled the 60 FPS hack just to make things even more interesting.

Everyone knowledgeable on Dolphin's JITs thought that cross-JIT netplay would be impossible, at least without tons of dedicated fixes. Yet here we are, able to experience it first hand. And it can only get better from here, as we are now able to monitor and test JIT determinism on netplay. While you might be excited to dive right in, it's important to note that we were only able to test a few games and we have no idea what compatibility will look like when unleashed on the wider library.

Note:Yes, we're aware that Windows and Linux AArch64 devices existed before the M1. There was no allure to testing netplay on those because they could not run Dolphin reasonably. We really didn't expect this to work or we probably would have tried it sooner.

In Conclusion¶

There's little else we can say: The M1 hardware is fantastic and higher tiers are on the way promising even better performance. But what we have is already efficient, powerful, and gives us a mainstream AArch64 device that isn't Android and uses our AArch64 JIT to its fullest potential. The only big downside is the proprietary graphics API present in macOS that prevents us from using the latest versions of OpenGL and forces us to use MoltenVK in order to take advantage of Vulkan. That is a very small price to pay to get a glimpse at some really cool hardware that redefines what an ARM processor can do. There's undeniable excitement for the next generation of AArch64 hardware to see how much further that this can go.

EDITORS NOTE: A small error was noticed in our 9900k performance testing. This has been corrected. However, the differences are very minor and do not affect our conclusion.

Growhunter128