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System Requirements

macOS 11.0 Big Sur or higher is required to run Dolphin.

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Hardware Requirements

  • Processor: CPU with SSE2 support (modern 3 GHz Dual Core recommended, not older than 2008)
  • Graphics: Graphics card supporting OpenGL 3.3 (OpenGL 4.4 recommended)

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Build Requirements

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Required Tools

  • CMake - Build system generator
  • Xcode Command Line Tools - Provides Clang compiler with C++20 support
  • Git - Version control
  • Python 3 - Required for universal binary builds

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Installing Prerequisites

Install Xcode Command Line Tools: 
xcode-select --install
Install CMake (via Homebrew): 
brew install cmake
CMake will inform you if your compiler is too old or if you need to install any missing packages.

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Building Dolphin

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Clone the Repository

First, clone the Dolphin repository and initialize submodules: 
git clone https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin.git
cd dolphin
git submodule update --init --recursive
Make sure to pull submodules before building. Building without submodules will fail.

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Build Methods

Dolphin can be built for a single architecture or as a universal binary supporting both x64 and ARM:
Build a binary supporting your current architecture (Intel x64 or Apple Silicon ARM).
1

Create build directory

mkdir build
cd build
2

Configure with CMake

cmake ..
CMake will automatically detect your architecture and configure accordingly.
3

Compile

make -j $(sysctl -n hw.logicalcpu)
This uses all available CPU cores for faster compilation.
4

Locate application bundle

An application bundle will be created in ./Binaries/Dolphin.app.You can now run Dolphin by opening the app bundle.

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Running Dolphin

After building, you can run Dolphin in several ways:
Navigate to the Binaries (or universal) folder and double-click Dolphin.app.

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Command Line Usage

Dolphin supports various command-line options: 
# Launch a game directly
./Dolphin.app/Contents/MacOS/Dolphin -e "path/to/game.iso"

# Run in batch mode (no UI)
./Dolphin.app/Contents/MacOS/Dolphin -b -e "game.iso"

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Available Video Backends

  • OGL - OpenGL
  • Vulkan - Vulkan API (requires MoltenVK)
  • Metal - Apple Metal (native macOS graphics API)
  • Null - No rendering
  • Software Renderer - CPU rendering (debugging only)

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Uninstalling

To uninstall Dolphin: 
# Remove application bundle
rm -rf Binaries/Dolphin.app

# Or for universal builds
rm -rf universal/Dolphin.app
To completely remove Dolphin, also delete the global user directory if you don’t plan on reinstalling:
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dolphin

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Troubleshooting

Install CMake via Homebrew:
brew install cmake
Install the tools:
xcode-select --install
If already installed, ensure they’re up to date:
softwareupdate --install -a
Ensure you’ve initialized and updated all submodules:
git submodule update --init --recursive
Universal binary builds are more complex and may require:
  1. Both x64 and ARM versions of dependencies
  2. Universal (fat) libraries for dependencies
  3. Additional CMake arguments to locate libraries
Run with --help to see available options:
python ../BuildMacOSUniversalBinary.py --help
Consider building for your current architecture only if you don’t need universal binary support.
CMake will inform you if your compiler is too old. Update Xcode Command Line Tools:
softwareupdate --install -a
xcode-select --install
Many libraries are bundled with Dolphin. If CMake reports missing dependencies, install them via Homebrew:
brew install <package-name>

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Performance Tips

Use Metal Backend

On macOS, the Metal backend often provides better performance than OpenGL on Apple Silicon.

Enable Optimization

Ensure you’re building in Release mode (default) rather than Debug for best performance.

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DolphinTool Usage

Dolphin includes a command-line tool for disc image operations: 
./Binaries/Dolphin.app/Contents/MacOS/dolphin-tool COMMAND -h

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Common Operations

./dolphin-tool convert -i input.iso -o output.rvz \
  -f rvz -c zstd -l 5 -b 131072