If you are searching for the best 3DO emulator, then look no further, we have recommendations for the PC, Mac & Android devices for you.
The 3DO, or its full name, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, is part of the first generation of home game consoles which is where cartridge games began to be dropped in favour of the CD format.
This brings its own changes with emulation as you will now deal with CD images, rather than ROM dumps of cartridge games. Check out our list of the best 3DO games to get you inspired!
Here are our recommendations for the best 3DO emulators.
Best 3DO Emulator For Windows PC
4DO is renowned for being one of the best 3DO emulators on Windows PCs and it’s certainly our favourite.
A fork from the FreeDO emulation project, 4DO offers some excellent features including CPU overclocking and resolution upscaling, all desirable features for the modern retro gamer.
There are a few games here and there that have the occasional glitch, but officially, 4DO is still being supported, so we can assume that this will only continue to improve with time. 4DO at this time though is one of the best emulators for PC.
4DO Features Include:-
- Save States
- Auto Load Previously Played Game
- Smooth Image Upscaling
- Double Resolution Rendering
- ‘Hqx’ Post Processing Up To 4x
- Increase Clock Speed Settings
- Audio Buffer Settings
- Controller Input Configuration (Up To 6 Players)
- Screenshots
Best 3DO Emulator For Mac
The best 3DO emulator for Mac users comes in the form of the Opera core for RetroArch.
Opera is actually a Libretro port of the 4DO emulator and benefits from many of the same features listed above. With it being a RetroArch core, it is really easy to get hold of. Simply go to download cores in RetroArch and search for ‘The 3DO Company – 3DO (Opera) and install the core.
Take note of these 3DO BIOS files that you will be required to obtain in order to play games. A 3DO BIOS file will need to be copied to the ‘systems’ folder of the RetroArch installation, just use the one for the region you wish to emulate.
Best 3DO Emulator For Android
Like with the Mac, the best 3DO emulator for Android users is also the Opera core on RetroArch. RetroArch on Android devices is, without doubt, the easiest way to dive into a world of nostalgia, all available in the palm of your hands.
You can obtain the required 3DO BIOS files by doing a quick search online for the files detailed in the RetroArch Libretro documentation here.
The Opera core for RetroArch has a decent amount of options specific to the 3DO core, including the ability to overclock the CPU to make games run quicker as well as the usual built-in RetroArch display options to cool filter effects to your games, such as CRT scanline effects which really help older games appear less blocky.
So in summary, there are some really great options when it comes to 3DO emulation across all platforms.
The 3DO is part of the fifth generation of consoles and the first wave of CD-based consoles, you may be interested in checking out the best Sega Saturn emulator or wondering what is the best Atari Jaguar emulator, Atari’s ’64-bit’ console which shunned CDs in favour of cartridges.
It doesn’t stop there, read our guide to emulators and take a deep dive into the world of retro gaming emulation.
A lifelong avid gamer and computing enthusiast, Matt has decades of Retro Gaming experience. Now over 40 years old, Matt now even considers himself retro, but fortunately, nobody has developed a Matt emulator (not yet at least!).
