Wii U emulator: Cemu 1.5.0 public release, Cemu 1.5.1 available on patreon

We recently mentioned Cemu 1.5.0, which was available to patreon supporters of the popular Wii U emulator. Version 1.5.0 has now been released publicly, and you can enjoy the performance improvement that comes with it.

Cemu 1.5.0 brings the following changes, according to the changelog:

• New enhanced controller configuration menu and emulation
  • Configure up to 8 players (assuming the game supports it)
  • Added Pro Controller and Classic Controller emulation
  • Compatible with the original Pro Controller (using mayflash adapter)
• Improved shader emulation and graphic bugfixes
• Improved sound emulation
• Reduced VRAM usage
• Small bugfixes and changes

The Cemu 1.5.0 Wii U emulator has been said to bring huge performance improvements and run some games at full speed on reasonable PC configurations, such as in this video running Mario Kart 8 below. Note that Cemu does not play all Wii U games yet, and is actively being developed.

Meanwhile, Cemu 1.5.1 is already available to the project’s patreon supporters. Cemu 1.5.1 is a minor bug fix release and brings the following changes:

Input: Fixed input for controllers with off-center axes
Input: Added axis range scaler (50% to 200%)

H264: Fixed a bug in H264DECMemoryRequirement() that could lead to a crash.

CPU: Added new instructions to recompiler: ps_mr, ps_sel, ps_l/ps_st type 6, stfdx
CPU: Recompiler will now utilize BMI and AVX instruction set to generate faster code (if supported by host CPU)
CPU: Fixed a bug in code generated by recompiler for FSUB & FSUBS where the result would incorrectly become -0.0 instead of 0.0

AX: Added API AXSetVoiceSrcRatio()
AX: Fixed a bug in voice volume update
AX: Increased audio volume
AX: Added logging for audio API

GX2: Fixed wrong colors for certain texture dump formats
GX2: Fixed vertex ordering for special cases when PRIMITIVE_RECTS is used
GX2: New implementation for tiling aperature. Still heavily work-in-progress.

Reddit have an interesting FAQ explaining, among other things, why Cemu is not open source. I felt it was an interesting read:

Q: Why is it closed source?
A: “I have a very strong vision on how the future of Cemu should look like. This includes potential contributors with whom I am already in talks with. I believe that for speedy progress, a small team of long-term, dedicated and skilled team members is better than a big team of temporary contributors. Why? Because every contributor first has to acquire the necessary knowledge about the emulated system. More knowledge means more effective emulator development since a lot of time can be saved by 1) fixing bugs faster 2) implementing features correctly on first attempt. For this approach open-source is simply not necessary. In fact, it is easier to get talented developers to join long-term when their name will have more meaning in the credits. I have also considered donation-driven development. It works very well for artists and comic authors, and I see it as a great incentive for emulator development too. But it would be problematic for a open-source project.

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But of course there are other concerns as well, like development suddenly focusing on a direction which is not favorable to the original intentions of the emulator. Example: Focus on hacky solutions to get games into playable state earlier. I can see this happen in a open-source environment more likely, because piracy can become the main source for development motivation. Another example: Splatoon is moving towards playability fast, but online features are of low priority to avoid people using the emulator to cheat in online-play and ruin the experience for everyone. With open-source code there is no easy way to steer the development focus away.

Needless to say there are personal reasons as well. Like not wanting to lose control over the project and being slightly reluctant to share the code with people who have no respect for the effort and time it took to get this far. Not to mention the 1000 messages I received along the lines of “This emulator is doomed when it doesn’t go open-source”. It makes me want to prove them otherwise. Oh and as I already stated, if development on Cemu gets stuck for a long period of time or if it is abandoned, the source code will be released anyway. I agree with the sentiment that the knowledge should not go to waste.”

Considering that the project is generating more than $2000 a month on patreon alone, I feel the authors are on good track to make it a full-time thing… How does the community feel about this?

Download Cemu 1.5.0 – Wii U emulator

You can download Cemu version 1.5.0 on their official site here.

Source: Cemu.info, via hackinformer