When we first discussed the Cemu emulator in October 2015, we were already excited despite its rough edges. With the Wii U heading into official retirement and the imminent arrival of the Nintendo Switch, emulating the Wii U correctly is more relevant than ever. Cemu is now at version 1.7.0d, and besides advancing by leaps and bounds, the latest builds are already exploring the emulation of compatible games at 4K resolution.
Personally, I really enjoy emulating Nintendo consoles. The Japanese giant has historically been known to despise the idea, but that doesn't stop players. There is a demand that Nintendo is not covering, or when it does, it's only partial. Not a few believe that the definitive solution for the company is to abandon hardware development and bring its franchises to other platforms; however, every time that thought sets in, Nintendo responds with a new console. The Nintendo Switch will aim to combine the best of home and portable consoles, but our enthusiasm doesn't prevent us from spotting some errors. One of them is the lack of backward compatibility with previous systems. The Nintendo Wii U has its days counted on the shelves, so emulation is shaping up as a great alternative for those who want to access its games. The project doing things best today is Cemu.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pog2Ic4qjmICemu's Progress and 4K Upscaling
Cemu entered the battlefield in October 2015, and since then it hasn't stopped gaining compatibility and performance. There is still a lot of work ahead, a detail its own developers acknowledge. But the latest version 1.7.0d works very well, and some players have started exploring the upscale feature to 4K resolution. Technically, several Wii U games support 1080p, while others reach that resolution by cheating a little. For logical reasons, one of the titles that works best on the emulator is Mario Kart 8, and although you can notice it dropping into one or two performance dips, the overall result is more than satisfactory.
Hardware Requirements for 4K
What kind of hardware is needed to achieve something like that? I imagine the requirements will come down once additional optimizations are introduced, but the main examples of 4K on Cemu are backed by the latest generation of Nvidia graphics cards. Most agree that video power is more important, and let's not forget that 4K is a monster. Dropping to 1080p or 720p will make things much smoother.
For more information, visit the official site of Cemu.
