Run Mac OS X Tiger (the PowerPC version) on your Apple Silicon Mac or Linux PC, with working 3D graphics.

Old PowerPC Macs and their software, back on a modern Mac: the Aqua desktop with Quartz Extreme, Core Image and OpenGL apps, accelerated by your Mac's own GPU.

Other PowerPC emulators give Tiger a simple "dumb" screen, so everything graphical is drawn slowly by the emulated CPU, and Quartz Extreme and Core Image are switched off.

ppcosxkvm emulates a real graphics card that Tiger already knows: the ATI Radeon 9700 PRO. Tiger uses Apple's own driver for it, exactly as on a real Power Mac G4. Everything that driver asks the card to draw is handed to your GPU through Metal (on a Mac) or Vulkan (on Linux, and on a Mac with --gpuvulkan).

• ✅ Quartz Extreme: windows and the Dock composited by the GPU
• ✅ Core Image: reported as supported, with the programmable shaders it needs
• ✅ OpenGL apps: e.g. Chess, with depth, anti-aliasing and textures
• ✅ Easy to use: one line to install, one word to start

• 💻 A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer) and Homebrew (the installer tells you if it's missing), or an Intel Mac with MacPorts (Homebrew no longer supports Intel; see below), or a Linux PC with a Vulkan GPU driver and git (Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora or Arch: the installer gets the rest with sudo)
• 💿 Mac OS X Tiger (or Leopard) for PowerPC, which you provide yourself. Either:
  • a Tiger or Leopard install DVD image (.iso, .dmg, .cdr or .toast), or
  • a Tiger disk you already have from another emulator, such as UTM, VMware, VirtualBox or a raw image
• 📦 About 25 GB of free disk space

Open Terminal and paste:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/linuxkid473/ppcosxkvm/main/install.sh | bash

That's it. It takes a few minutes the first time, and when it's done you have a new ppcosx command. (If Terminal says ppcosx: command not found, open a new Terminal window.)

Pick one:

A. Install Tiger from a DVD image

ppcosx install ~/Downloads/MacOSX-Tiger.iso

A window opens with the Tiger installer. First open Utilities → Disk Utility, erase the hard disk as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), then install onto it. The step-by-step guide walks through every screen.

B. Use a Tiger disk you already have

ppcosx import ~/VMs/Tiger.vmdk        # also .qcow2 .vdi .vhd .img, or a UTM .utm

Your original file is copied and never changed.

ppcosx

Other handy ways to start it:

• 🖱️ Mouse stuck in the window? Press Ctrl + Option + G (Linux: Ctrl + Alt + G) to get it back.
• 🎮 Metal or Vulkan: on an Apple Silicon Mac the Radeon renders with Metal; add --gpuvulkan to use Vulkan (through MoltenVK) instead. Intel Macs and Linux always use Vulkan: the Metal renderer needs an Apple GPU.
• 🖥️ Intel Macs work, but more slowly: the AltiVec speed-ups are for ARM processors, and the Radeon goes through Vulkan and MoltenVK.
• ⏻ Turning it off: use Apple menu → Shut Down inside Mac OS X, like a real Mac. Closing the window is like pulling the power plug.
• 💾 Save a restore point: with the VM off, run ppcosx snapshot save my-backup, and later ppcosx snapshot restore my-backup.
• 🐢 Speed: the whole PowerPC processor is emulated in software, so expect roughly a G4-era Mac. The graphics are fast and run in parallel with the emulated processor, like a real graphics card, and on Apple Silicon the G4's AltiVec vector instructions (used by QuickTime and Core Image) run as the host's NEON instructions. Heavy apps are still bound by the emulated CPU.
• 📁 Your files (the Mac OS X disk and settings) live in ~/.ppcosx/vm.
• ✅ Is 3D really working? In Mac OS X, open Apple menu → About This Mac → More Info → Graphics/Displays. It should say ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, with Quartz Extreme and Core Image Supported.

1. Run ppcosx doctor. It checks the usual suspects.
2. Try safe mode: ppcosx --vga.
3. Look in the troubleshooting guide.
4. Still stuck? Open an issue with the output of ppcosx doctor, your Tiger version, and a screenshot.

Tested on Mac OS X 10.4.11 and 10.5.8. For the best results, update Tiger to 10.4.11 with Apple's 10.4.11 Combo Update (PPC), or Leopard to 10.5.8 with the 10.5.8 Combo Update.

• 📘 Getting started: the full walkthrough
• 🧰 Using ppcosx: every command and option, moving files in and out
• 🩺 Troubleshooting
• 🔌 The ATI ROM: optional, and why
• 🔬 How it works: the emulated Radeon, the Metal/Vulkan translation, and how the emulated CPU is kept fast
• 🛠️ Developing: building from source, debug switches, profiling, tests

• No Apple or ATI software is included. You provide Mac OS X yourself.
• The scripts and docs here are GPL-2.0-or-later (LICENSE). The QEMU fork is GPL-2.0, like QEMU.
• The bundled firmware is free software (OpenBIOS, QemuMacDrivers and classicvirtio).

Built on QEMU and Spartan0285/poweremu-qemu, whose Radeon 9200 emulation this project extends to the Radeon 9700, with the hardware cursor driver from PowerEmu. It also uses OpenBIOS as shipped by UTM, QemuMacDrivers, classicvirtio, and Mesa's R300 documentation.