Cemu, the world’s first Wii U emulator, is now available

A Wii U emulator for the PC, known as Cemu, has suddenly surfaced on the gbatemp forums. It is said to be fully functional in terms of running and rendering commercial games. However, at this point in time, it’s pretty unoptimized and will need a number of updates before it can perform well on a wider range of PC hardware. At present, you should expect low frame rates and long load times.

Currently, the emulator lacks controller support, and you have to make do with a PC keyboard. You’ll be able to configure the Wii U Gamepad functions to your keyboard via the emulator’s key mapping menu. Also, audio support is unavailable at present. Given that this is a very early build, these features are likely to come soon in future updates.

Cemu requires OpenGL 3.3, and can run encrypted Wii U images (WUD) and RPX/RPL files. It supports an internal resolution of 1920×1080, provided that the game you’re running also supports it natively. Also, keep in mind that the emulator only supports 64-bit Windows operating systems.

According to the release notes, the emulator has been tested on Intel and Nvidia hardware. AMD hardware, both CPU and GPU, have yet to be tested with Cemu.

You can download the emulator from the link provided here. For controller inputs, follow the link here.