HBMAME 0.289.4 (macOS app, universal)

HBMAME 0.289.4 as a universal macOS app for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, signed and notarized.

Update 30 Oct 2026: updated DMG with important Metal Shader fixes from MAME upstream

Based on upstream Robbbert/hbmame tag2894 (commit 769c449), plus one backported fix from MAME (mamedev/mame#16649): bgfx on Metal no longer shows a cyan first frame. The backport will be dropped once HBMAME includes it upstream.

Install: open the DMG and drag HBMAME to Applications. Requires macOS 13 or newer.
SDL3 is included, nothing else needs to be installed.

• On first launch, HBMAME creates its folders and a full hbmame.ini in
  ~/Library/Application Support/hbmame. Put your ROMs into its roms folder,
  or point rompath in hbmame.ini to your ROM folder.
• Frontends: use /Applications/HBMAME.app/Contents/MacOS/hbmame-launcher as the
  emulator; all arguments are passed through to HBMAME.
• Merged ROM sets: run Audit media once in the UI so clones appear under "Available".

HBMAME 0.289.3 for macOS (Apple Silicon)

Unofficial macOS build of HBMAME 0.289.3, built from the unmodified upstream tag tag2893.

Signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it runs without Gatekeeper warnings.

Requirements

• Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer), macOS 13 Ventura or later
• SDL3: download the macOS .dmg from the SDL releases and copy either SDL3.xcframework or SDL3.framework to /Library/Frameworks. Homebrew is not required.

Quick start

1. Unzip hbmame into a folder of your choice.
2. Add the plugins, language, bgfx, hash and artwork folders from the tag2893 source download next to it.
3. In Terminal, from that folder: ./hbmame -cc to create hbmame.ini, then set your rompath there.
4. Start with ./hbmame (UI) or ./hbmame <gamename>.

Relative paths in hbmame.ini are resolved from the folder you start HBMAME from, so launch it from its own folder.

Build details

• Upstream source: Robbbert/hbmame, tag tag2893, no code changes
• TARGET=hbmame USE_LIBSDL=0 MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=13.0, linked against the official SDL3 framework
• Hardened runtime with entitlements for MAME's dynamic recompiler and loading SDL3

Note

This is a personal, unofficial build. Please don't report Mac-specific issues to the HBMAME project; open an issue in this repository instead. All credit for HBMAME goes to Robbbert and the HBMAME and MAME contributors.