Wii U emulators

Nintendo Wii U

Developer	Nintendo
Type	Home video game console
Generation	Eighth generation
Release date	November 2012
Discontinued	January 2017
Predecessor	Wii
Successor	Nintendo Switch
Emulated	✓

For other emulators that run on Wii U hardware, see Emulators on Wii U.

The Wii U is an eighth-generation console released by Nintendo on November 18, 2012, at $349.99. It has a 3-core IBM PowerPC CPU at 1.24 GHz with 2 GBs of RAM and an AMD Radeon GPU. It is the first console by Nintendo to output high-definition (HD) resolutions, such as 720p and 1080p. It includes a tablet-like controller, known as the Wii U GamePad, to provide certain additional gameplay. Notably, it can play all Wii games as well as support the Wii Remote controllers for native Wii U games.

Emulators

Name	Platform(s)	Latest Version	Enhancements	Hardware features and peripherals	Compatibility	FLOSS	Active	Recommended
PC / x86
Cemu		Artifacts 2.0-79 Flathub	~	~	52%	✓	✓	✓
Decaf		git	✗	✗		✓	✗	✗
Kinnay		git	✗	✗		✓	✗	✗
Mobile / ARM
Cemu		1.0 (source only)	~	~	?	✓	✓	roadmap

Comparisons

Cemu (compatibility)

An initially closed-source Wii U emulator created in October 2015, regularly updated every 2 to 5 weeks. It can run a sizeable amount of games. As of 2022, Cemu is no longer in the experimental stage, it's now fully open-source, and a macOS port has been released.

Decaf

Can boot some commercial games. It's developed sporadically.

Kinnay

Emulates the Wii U processors and hardware at the lowest level. It's able to emulate all the way through boot1, IOSU, and Cafe OS up to the Wii U menu. Written by the leading Decaf developers, exjam and kinnay.

Hardware features and peripherals

Name	cemu
Nintendo Network	✓
Amiibo	~*
Wii U Menu	~*
GamePad Screen	✓*
Virtual Console	✓*
Wii Mode	✗
Skylanders Portal of Power	~
LEGO Dimensions Toy Pad	~

Nintendo Network

The Nintendo Network is Nintendo's online service which provides online functionality for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U systems and their compatible games.

Emulation of Nintendo Network is possible with Pretendo: Open-source project that aims to recreate Nintendo Network for the 3DS and Wii U using clean-room reverse engineering. Pretendo supports any client that can interact with Nintendo Network.

Currently the only emulator with this kind of functionality is Cemu. Cemu 2.0 officially supports Pretendo under your network account options in the emulator. For information on how to get started with Cemu, check out the documentation.

See Preservation projects page for more information about other revive projects.

Wii Mode

The Wii U is compatible with all Wii games and Wii accessories such as the Wii Remote (Plus), Wii Nunchuk, and the Wii Balance Board. It is possible to migrate most downloaded software and save files from a Wii to a Wii U.

Also it supports Wii games that allow you to connect to the DS if you're gonna play them on the WiiU.

The Wii U is not compatible with GameCube discs or accessories, although a homebrew application for Wii Mode exists that enables GameCube hardware and GameCube controller support. A USB GameCube controller adapter with four ports was released exclusively for use with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and does not support any other Wii or Wii U games.

Skylanders Portal of Power

Cemu can communicate to the USB device directly if you have the Skylanders portal even though currently it has minor issues. There is no official Skylanders portal emulation for Cemu at the moment, but you can use this unofficial modified version which has an emulated portal of power included.

There is a pull request for adding "Skylanders Portal of Power" emulation to cemu though.

LEGO Dimensions Toy Pad

cemu can communicate to the USB device if you have the Toy Pad. Just like RPCS3 there is no Toy Pad emulation for the cemu at the moment but you can use LD-ToyPad-Emulator for that.

Enhancements

Name		cemu
Graphics	Resizable Internal Resolution	✓
	Ultrawide hack Widescreen already supported on Wii U system. But there is no support by system for render games in other ratios such as ultrawide 21:9 or super ultrawide 32:9.	✓
	Texture packs	✗
	Ray-tracing	Implementing ray-tracing in an emulator is unfortunately quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future. However you can try "Screen-Space Ray Traced Global Illumination" shader using ReShade.
	Pre-rendering AA (MSAA, SSAA)	✗
	Super-resolution techniques (DLSS, XeSS and FSR 2+)	Requires access to the depth buffer and temporal data like motion-vectors so it's quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future.
Performance	Overclock	✗
	Internal Framerate Hack	✓
	Frame generation techniques (LSFG, DLSS-G, ExtraSS and FMF)	Implementing frame generation technique in an emulator is unfortunately quite challenging and unlikely to be feasible in the near future. Input latency will be the most important factor when it comes to frame generation. While LSFG app can be used with cemu, please be aware that some visual glitches and artifacts may occur at this time.
	Preload optical disc image to RAM For users with sluggish multi-platter HDDs or plagued by horrible seek times, this enhancement might offer smoother experience, potentially reduced power consumption; it also shines when disc images reside on a network drive. Although keep in mind that preloading image would take some time, and it will require additional amount of RAM capacity.	✗
Post-Processing	Post-rendering AA (FXAA, TXAA and MLAA/SMAA)	~
	Post-rendering scaling (Sharp bilinear, Lanczos and FSR 1)	✓
	Filters	✗
	Shader Chain	✗
TAS features	Macros/Scripts/Lua	✗*
	Rewind	✗
	Fast-Forward/Turbo Speed	?
	Savestates	✗*
	Movie recording/playback	✗*
Controls	Mouse Injector Compatible	✗
	Input lag-mitigating technique	✗
Quality of life	Streamable compression format	✓
	Built-in Graphics mod editor/manager	✗
	Built-in Cheat Manager	~
	Built-in Custom resolution/CRTSwitchRes For using this on Windows OS you need CRT Emudriver. Another option is using EDID editor tool such as "Custom Resolution Utility".	N/A Eighth gen home consoles and beyond only have digital video output anyway.
	Per-Game Profiles	✓*
	Command Line Options	✓*
RetroAchievements		✗
Free Look Free Look is a enhancement feature that allows manipulation of the in-game camera.		~
Debug Features

Dolphin support for Wii U

You might have read about an unofficial branch of Dolphin with Wii U support — but don't get your hopes up. While the PowerPC architecture in the Wii U is the same as the Wii and GameCube (this fact alone was the reason why Wii emulation was added to Dolphin. It was originally GameCube-only), this support is nothing more than the file viewer features (region, internal name, various info, list of files and folders inside ISO and a way to extract them) being expanded to Wii U disc images. Nothing has been done on the actual emulation front as far as Dolphin is concerned, and the Dolphin developers have said that they are not interested in adding Wii U support to Dolphin.