Build SM64 on macOS with Homebrew and the mips64-elf-binutils tap using gmake, or use Docker for a fully containerised build without a native MIPS toolchain.
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
macOS is supported through two approaches: Homebrew, which installs the MIPS toolchain natively, and Docker, which runs the build inside a pre-configured Ubuntu container. Both produce the same output ROM.
The version of make bundled with macOS (via Xcode Command Line Tools) is too old to build SM64. Both methods below account for this — Homebrew users must invoke gmake instead of make.
Homebrew
Docker
Homebrew is the simplest option if you want to build natively on macOS. The n64-dev tap provides a pre-built mips64-elf-binutils bottle for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
1
Install Homebrew
If you do not already have Homebrew installed, run the official install script in your terminal:
Copy your original SM64 ROM into the project directory with the correct version suffix:
# Replace us with jp, eu, sh, or cn as neededcp /path/to/your/rom.z64 baserom.us.z64
5
Build the ROM
Use gmake (Homebrew’s GNU make) instead of the system make:
gmake
Running make instead of gmake will use the macOS system make, which is too old and will fail with syntax errors. Always use gmake on macOS.
Build artifacts are written to the build/ directory. The final ROM is build/<VERSION>/sm64.<VERSION>.z64.
Docker runs the build inside a Ubuntu 18.04 container that has all dependencies pre-installed. This avoids the need to install any native toolchain and works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs (via Rosetta 2 or a compatible Docker image).
1
Install Docker Desktop
Download and install Docker Desktop for Mac. Launch Docker Desktop and wait for it to finish starting before continuing.
From inside the sm64 directory, build the image. This only needs to be done once (or when the Dockerfile changes):
docker build -t sm64 .
5
Build the ROM
Mount the current directory into the container and run make:
docker run --rm --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)",destination=/sm64 sm64 make VERSION=us -j4
The --rm flag removes the container after the build completes. Build artifacts are written to the build/ directory in your local checkout.See the Docker build guide for more details on the available flags and the Linux-specific --user requirement.
