Driver:Mac PPC

Apple Macintosh series (PowerPC-based)

WARNING - This page is a Work In Progress! (Last updated June 30, 2026 for MAME 0.288+).

Designed by a team led by Steve Jobs, the Macintosh was Apple's follow-up to the Apple II series that finally stuck, after many attempts. Macintosh computers are still being made today, albeit with very different hardware and software technology. Macintosh computers have used 4 different processor architectures over time; PowerPC was the first of 3 major transitions, and it began in 1994.

Quickstart

The Quickstart section of the 680x0-based Macintosh page applies here too.

Models and Clones

NuBus-based

• Power Macintosh 6100/60 (1994 - driver name pmac6100)

- The first PowerPC based Macintosh. Includes a 60 MHz PowerPC CPU, 8 MiB of RAM standard, and a processor-direct slot which can accept a NuBus adapter card to plug in a single NuBus card.

PCI based

• Power Macintosh 7200 (1995 - driver names pmac7200 for 75 MHz, pmac7200_90 for 90 MHz, pmac7200_100 for 100 MHz, and pmac7200_120 for 120 MHz, added in MAME 0.290)

- Lower-midrange PCI machines based on the "Catalyst" architecture. Available with a PowerPC 601 CPU at 4 clock speeds (75, 90, 100, and 120 MHz). The 7200 came in a desktop case; the Power Macintosh 8200 is the 7200 in the same mini-tower case as the NuBus-based Power Macintosh 8100.

• Power Macintosh G3 (1998 - driver name pwrmacg3, became working in MAME 0.290)

- Also known as the "beige G3" to differentiate it from the later Blue and White G3, which was also officially named "Power Macintosh G3". Originally intended to be a CHRP machine that would run both Mac OS and Windows NT. Includes a 233 MHz PowerPC 750 CPU, 32 MiB of RAM, an ATI Rage II or Rage Pro GPU, and 3 PCI slots.

The default configurations

• pmac6100: as shipped, with 8 MiB of RAM, and the -ramsize option can accept 16M, 24M, 40M, 72M, and 136M.

Technical info

Driver:Mac_68K:Tech_Info

Errata

Known things wrong with these drivers. If it's listed here, I know about it, so it will eventually be fixed, hopefully.

None at this time.

Solved

• (Fixed in MAME 0.290) Quake crashes when it starts showing its demo.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.290) Finder windows sometimes draw with a corrupted background initially and then repaint correctly when covered with another window and then uncovered, particularly in Mac OS 9.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) Systems 7.5.0, 7.5.3, and 7.5.5 may throw an Error 11 if saved PRAM exists. Other System/Mac OS versions do not have this issue. Deleting the PRAM (a file named 'cuda' inside the 'pmac6100' folder in your MAME nvram folder) will allow a clean boot.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) System 9.1 works but does not run full speed. Use 9.0.4 or 8.6 instead. NOTE: 9.1 will have heavier host system requirements than 9.0.4 and previous versions, but running it full speed is well within reach for many of today's computers. It's no sweat on an M3 MacBook Pro, for instance.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) A whole bunch of issues were fixed including sound, stability, and compatibility.