Cemu: what is it, what is it for and technical characteristics pc

CEMU is one of the best emulators that we can currently test. Although as you know, behind each console and its corresponding piece of hardware and software there is usually an enthusiastic community that continues to enjoy these teams even long after the company that developed them stopped supporting them.

Among these users who refuse to turn the page, enthusiastic developers can be found who, through their knowledge and good work, explore and extend the possibilities behind each console.

Communities like the one in charge of CEMU, a popular emulator that wants to rescue the spirit of Wii U on PC and give its excellent titles the prominence that the Nintendo console could not give them in life, emerge from a cocktail like this.

Index of contents

What exactly is CEMU?

CEMU is the abbreviation for Café Emulator and it is the most widespread and well-known Wii U emulator. Its curious name comes from Café OS, the operating system through which Wii U hardware operates to run and launch its titles.

The CEMU project began its journey in 2015 as a launcher of backups of Nintendo console titles and since then has received constant support from its developers, greatly encouraged by the 2017 release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BotW) which, given the tremendous success with the public and criticism of the title and the disappointing performance of the Wii U version, drew the eyes of many users to an alternative way of running the well-known video game.

The result was the accelerated evolution of the emulator, which is currently in an enviable state in terms of compatibility level for the short time it has been developing, as well as in a user community that actively follows the progress of this software.

The hardware necessary to use it

One of the most interesting points of this evolution was the optimization of the emulator and the necessary hardware to execute it correctly. Emulation is typically a very resource-intensive process for a team, especially when this process involves powerful hardware, but given the advanced state of knowledge about Café OS and IOSU by the developer team, this does not seem to be the case for CEMU.

For reference, these are the minimum requirements of the emulator along with the hardware recommended by users to run CEMU in 2016 compared to running it in its latest version:

Minimum requirements according to Team CEMU. Recommended hardware in GBATemp forums.

Although, removing titles like BotW, or Mario Kart 8, these recommended requirements are rarely going to be insufficient to run the console titles in their native resolution and even go further through the built-in options.

A different way to play your

But CEMU's features aren't just about running or slightly improving Nintendo's console titles. The emulator is capable of loading graphic packages that visually modify the console titles in a more profound way.

Whether disabling options or reducing the resolution of textures and other elements for the most modest teams, such as expanding the resolution and adapting other graphic elements to enjoy games at higher resolutions and qualities (4K modifications are very popular), we have seen great changes in different titles through these tools, even forming large projects from them.

A dedicated team for a closed project

The team behind the well-known emulator (Team CEMU) carries the project closed by publishing news through its official page, but despite this obscure procedure for users, unusual among developers of this type of software in the past, the guys at Team CEMU continue to update the project on a regular basis.

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They have recently released their latest public update, 1.15.12b, while continuing to expand emulator compatibility. One of the most anticipated currently is future support for the Vulkan API in addition to the current OpenGL that they make use of, which they hope will further improve the performance of users' supported hardware.

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