It is an open-source project whose purpose is to bring macOS game emulation into the realm of first-class citizenship. The project leverages modern macOS technologies, such as Cocoa, Metal, Core Animation, and other third-party libraries. One third-party library example is Sparkle, which is used for auto-updating. OpenEmu uses a modular architecture, allowing for game-engine plugins, allowing OpenEmu to support a host of different emulation engines and back ends while retaining the familiar macOS native front end.
Currently, OpenEmu can load the following game engines as plugins:
- Atari 2600 (Stella)
- Atari 5200 (Atari800)
- Atari 7800 (ProSystem)
- Atari Lynx (Mednafen)
- ColecoVision (CrabEmu)
- Famicom Disk System (Nestopia)
- Game Boy / Game Boy Color (Gambatte)
- Game Boy Advance (mGBA)
- GameCube (Dolphin)
- Game Gear (Genesis Plus)
- Intellivision (Bliss)
- NeoGeo Pocket (Mednafen)
- Nintendo (NES) / Famicom (FCEUX, Nestopia)
- Nintendo 64 (Mupen64Plus)
- Nintendo DS (DeSmuME)
- Odyssey² / Videopac+ (O2EM)
- PC-FX (Mednafen)
- SG-1000 (Genesis Plus)
- Sega 32X (picodrive)
- Sega CD / Mega CD (Genesis Plus)
- Sega Genesis / Mega Drive (Genesis Plus)
- Sega Master System (Genesis Plus)
- Sega Saturn (Mednafen)
- Sony PSP (PPSSPP)
- Sony PlayStation (Mednafen)
- Super Nintendo (SNES) (BSNES, Snes9x)
- TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine (Mednafen)
- TurboGrafx-CD / PCE-CD (Mednafen)
- Vectrex (VecXGL)
- Virtual Boy (Mednafen)
- WonderSwan (Mednafen)