It’s been a few months since the last Cemu release, so the team behind the popular Wii U Emulator have decided to release a new update!

Cemu 1.27.0 brings significant performance improvements, such as a much faster title scan (which should be noticeable if you have a larger library). Cemu 1.27.0 also brings support for a new file format “Wii U Archive” (.wua), a container optimized for Cemu which supports multiple titles in a single file (to have for example a game and all its DLCs in a single file). And, as always, multile bug fixes, as well as under-the-hood changes.

This release is said to be “experimental”. Practically, Experimental here seems to mean it’s a beta, and as such it needs to be downloaded manually (link below).

What is Cemu

Cemu is a Wii U emulator that’s been around for quite some time allowing you to play the console’s titles on your PC. While the Wii U was a commercial flop, it is worth saying that many popular Switch titles are direct ports of its games with such titles including Mario Kart 8, Zelda: Breath of the Wild and New Super Mario Bros U. This presents the opportunity of emulating these titles on PC, often with graphics packs/mods that provide a much nicer experience, without the pretty high requirements of Switch emulators such as Ryujinx and Yuzu. Thanks to this, the emulator earned a good deal of popularity over the years as even a low-range gaming PC equipped with older cards like the GTX 960 suffices for Mario Kart 8 and many other titles.

Cemu 1.27.0 – What’s new

From the changelog:

• Reworked title management from the ground up
  • Scanning for titles should be a lot faster. Very noticable if you have a large library
  • Updates and DLC no longer need to be installed. Cemu can now detect and load them directly from the game path folders
  • The title manager window no longer is restricted to showing only one entry per title id, making it easier to manage duplicates
• Introducing support for a new file format for games which we dubbed Wii U archive (.wua):
  • Supports multiple titles in a single file (e.g. a game combined with it’s update and DLC)
  • Cemu can play them directly and display them in the game list
  • Uses compression, resulting in a smaller size than WUX or extracted folder format
  • Lossless, can be converted back to the original files
  • You can easily convert any of your games into .wua format via the Title Manager
  • A standalone tool, including source code, for packing/unpacking is available here
• Added Cubeb audio backend (see our roadmap for details)
• Added a workaround for sampler rounding behavior differences between Wii U and OpenGL/Vulkan. This fixes invisible effects in some Wayforward games
• Opening the GamePad view will no longer blank out the main window on OpenGL
• Fixed Ctrl + Tab hotkey not toggling between TV and GamePad view
• General debugger improvements. Added breakpoints will now be remembered across sessions
• Reworked PDM (Play Diary Manager) service to be a bit more accurate. If you use a full mlc dump, Cemu will show the playtime stats from your console in the game list.
• Implemented nn_ac API GetAssignedAddress() and GetAssignedSubnet()
• Improved texture cache heuristics. Should save a bit of VRAM and avoid some unnecessary texture copies
• Reworked GX2R API and fixed some bugs in the process. Transformers Prime should no longer crash on boot
• Fixed an issue in the RPL loader where it would generate the wrong branch type. Fixes Your Shape: Fitness Evolved crashing on boot
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a game tried to access the GamePad camera
• Added a way to specify IP and port before selecting a DSU controller
• Tons of under the hood changes. Including:
  • Almost fully migrated to CMake
  • Upgraded from C++17 to C++20
  • Reworked internal string handling to use UTF8 almost everywhere
  • Reworked path handling to be more robust. Relative paths and network storage locations should work now.
  • Reworked emulated system libraries: coreinit atomic, coreinit FS, nn_aoc

Dowload Cemu 1.27.0

Cemu’s download page & short change logs: https://cemu.info/changelog.html

Cemu’s Patreon page (donations): https://www.patreon.com/cemu