Emulators on Wii U

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Revision as of 12:11, 7 October 2024 by 108.162.245.38 (talk)
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Nintendo Wii U
Wii U.png
Developer Nintendo
Type Home video game console
Generation Eighth generation
Release date 2012
Discontinued 2017
Predecessor Wii
Successor Nintendo Switch
Emulated
For software that emulates the Wii U, see Wii U emulators.

Emulators (Legacy, via vWii)

Most emulators available for the Wii will also work on vWii (virtual Wii) mode on the Wii U, and some of them even support the Wii U Pro Controller or the Wii U Gamepad. However, due to sandboxing, there won't be any performance gains compared to running those emulators bare-metal on a Wii. In WiiVC inject mode you can slightly improve performance by overclocking with c2w_patcher and a patched c2w.img.

Nintendont, while not an emulator, enables the ability to play GameCube games on the Wii U as well, with little compromise.

Emulators (Multi-system)

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
RetroArch 1.19.1 GPLv2 (Copyleft)
Virtual Console N/A Proprietary

Please note that RetroArch isn't currently compatible with Aroma. Support for Aroma is being worked on. For now, in order to run RetroArch, you will have to use an older hack such as Tiramisu (Haxchi and Mocha also both work, but really shouldn't be used at this point).

RetroArch

Available cores (as of Retroarch 1.19.1)
Cores Game/System Recommended
2048 2048
cap32 Amstrad - CPC/GX4000 TBD
crocods Amstrad - CPC TBD
anarch Anarch TBD
fbalpha2012 Arcade TBD
fbalpha2012_cps1 TBD
fbalpha2012_cps2 TBD
fbalpha2012_cps3 TBD
fbalpha2012_neogeo TBD
mame2000 TBD
mame2003_plus TBD
mame2003 TBD
mame2003_midway TBD
ardens Arduboy TBD
arduous TBD
stella2014 Atari - 2600
a5200 Atari - 5200 TBD
atari800
prosystem Atari - 7800 (ProSystem) TBD
mednafen_lynx Atari - Lynx
handy TBD
hatari Atari - ST/STE/TT/Falcon TBD
mednafen_wswan Bandai - WonderSwan/Color
cannonball Cannonball TBD
nxengine Cave Story TBD
jaxe CHIP-8/S-CHIP/XO-CHIP
gearcoleco Coleco - ColecoVision TBD
puae Commodore - Amiga TBD
puae2021 TBD
vice_x128 Commodore - C128 TBD
frodo Commodore - C64 TBD
vice_x64 TBD
vice_x64sc
vice_xscpu64 Commodore - C64 SuperCPU TBD
vice_xcbm5x0 Commodore - CBM-II 5x0 TBD
vice_xcbm2 Commodore - CBM-II 6x0/7x0 TBD
vice_xpet Commodore - PET TBD
vice_xplus4 Commodore - PLUS/4 TBD
vice_xvic Commodore - VIC-20 TBD
prboom Doom TBD
dosbox_svn DOS TBD
bk Elektronika - BK-0010/BK-0011(M) TBD
freechaf Fairchild ChannelF TBD
reminiscence Flashback TBD
gme Game Music Emu TBD
vecx GCE - Vectrex TBD
gong Gong
gw Handheld Electronic TBD
squirreljme Java ME TBD
jumpnbump Jump 'n Bump TBD
lowresnx LowRes NX TBD
lutro Lua Engine TBD
minivmac Mac II TBD
o2em Magnavox - Odyssey2 / Philips Videopac+ TBD
freeintv Mattel - Intellivision
fmsx Microsoft - MSX
uw8 MicroW8 TBD
mrboom Mr.Boom (Bomberman) TBD
bluemsx MSX/SVI/ColecoVision/SG-1000 ~
quasi88 NEC - PC-8000 / PC-8800 series TBD
nekop2 NEC - PC-98 ~
np2kai slowdown but best PC98 core
mednafen_pce_fast NEC - PC Engine / CD
mednafen_pce NEC - PC Engine / SuperGrafx / CD
mednafen_supergrafx NEC - PC Engine SuperGrafx
DoubleCherryGB Nintendo - Game Boy / Color TBD
fixgb
gambatte
gearboy
sameboy
tgbdual (white screen)
gpsp Nintendo - Game Boy Advance
mgba
vbam ~
vba_next ~
fceumm Nintendo - NES / Famicom
fixnes
nestopia
quicknes TBD
pokemini Nintendo - Pokemon Mini TBD
snes9x Nintendo - SNES / SFC
snes9x2002 ~
snes9x2005
snes9x2005_plus
snes9x2010
mednafen_vb Nintendo - Virtual Boy (Beetle VB)
oberon Oberon RISC Emulator TBD
mu Palm OS TBD
retro8 PICO-8 TBD
pocketcdg PocketCDG TBD
tyrquake Quake TBD
vitaquake2-rogue Quake II - Ground Zero (vitaQuake 2 [Rogue]) TBD
vitaquake2-xatrix Quake II - The Reckoning (vitaQuake 2 [Xatrix]) TBD
vitaquake2-zaero Quake II - Zaero (vitaQuake 2 [Zaero]) TBD
vitaquake2 Quake II (vitaQuake 2) TBD
xrick Rick Dangerous TBD
scummvm ScummVM TBD
picodrive Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD/32X (crash)
genesis_plus_gx Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD
genesis_plus_gx_wide
gearsystem Sega - MS/GG/SG-1000
x1 Sharp X1 (X Millennium) TBD
81 Sinclair - ZX 81 (EightyOne) TBD
fuse Sinclair - ZX Spectrum
neocd SNK - Neo Geo CD
mednafen_ngp SNK - Neo Geo Pocket / Color
race (crash)
pcsx_rearmed Sony - PlayStation TBD
superbroswar Super Bros War TBD
numero Texas Instruments TI-83 TBD
theodore Thomson - MO/TO TBD
tic80 TIC-80 TBD
uzem Uzebox TBD
vaporspec VaporSpec TBD
wasm4 WASM-4 TBD
ecwolf Wolfenstein 3D TBD

Emulators (Single system)

Arcade

Centipede Arcade

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
Centipede Wii U 20160128 ?

Commodore

Commodore 64

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
YAPE 4 U 0.70.2 GPLv2 (Copyleft)

Fantasy computers

CHIP-8

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
CHIP8 Emulator 2.2-GX2 GPLv3 (Copyleft)

PICO-8

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
fake-08 v0.0.2.20 MIT (Permissive)

Nintendo

DS

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
NooDS rolling GPLv3 (Copyleft) ~ (slow at 15-20fps, WIP)
Hachihachi (internal emulator for NDS Virtual Console) ? Proprietary

Game Boy / Color / Advance

Name Latest version License Active GB GBC GBA Recommended
gacubeboy 1337
9000
Proprietary
GBiine 0.2b Proprietary ~ ~
NooDS rolling GPLv3 (Copyleft)
m2engage (internal emulator for GBA Virtual Console) ? Proprietary

Gacubeboy: small emulator coded in 8 hours. Uses GX2 graphics but has a lot of graphical glitches. Poor compatibility. No sound.
GBiine: Wiiu Heig-Boy port. Can open a few gbc roms, just the ones designed for dual usage in gbc and original gb, like Links Awakening DX, but in gb mode (no color). Supports saves. No sound.
NooDS: while this emulator is focused on nintendo ds, it can make use of the emulated slot-2 to actually load gba games, which do run fullspeed but with some minor glitches.
Retroarch is generally the best choice. Alternatively, there are good gb/gbc/gba emulators in wii mode, like mgba or vbagx.

NES

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
Heritage (internal emulator for NES Remix) Heri2 {{License|Proprietary}]
LiteNESU 0.0.0-preR2 ?
LiteNESU 16 in 1 2016 ?

LiteNESU: one of the first homebrew programs for the wiiu. Barely a PoC. Slow, without sound, low compatibility. Cant load games from the scard. You'll have to host and load the game from the network, next to the payload, with the old browser method. Or, alternatively, bundle the roms inside the elf executable (16in1) at compilation time. You'd better use retroarch, or the injection method, or one of the emulators on the wii side like fceugx.

Nintendo 64

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
VESSEL (internal emulator for N64 Virtual Console) ? Proprietary

Pokémon Mini

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
Libretro PokeMini (PokeMini port by rw-r-r_0644) 0.01 ?
PokeMiniU (PokeMini port by shutterbug2000) 2.2 Proprietary

PokeMini by rw-r-r_0644 is an early and obsolete retroarch core.
PokeMiniU is based on the original Pokemini standalone emulator, but it's one of the first homebrew emulators and is full of bugs: tiny screen, lots of graphical glitches, wrong colors...
In both cases, you will prefer the most recent retroarch with the newest pokemini core.

Sony

PSP

Name Latest version License Active Recommended
PPSSPP 1.5.x ?

Source ports

Name Latest version License Active Recommended Supported games
Cave Story Engine 2 git
archive
[1] [N 1] Cave Story
Crispy Doom U git GPLv2 (Copyleft) Doom I–II, Final Doom
EasyRPG git GPLv3 (Copyleft) RPG Maker 2000 and 2003 games
LÖVE Potion 3.0.1 MIT (Permissive) Love2D LUA engine
MegaZeux 2.93b GPLv2 (Copyleft) Caverns of Zeus and other ascii style games like ZZT
Ship of Harkinian 8.0.4[N 2]
Nightly build
? The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (any PAL version)[N 3]
Sonic Mania Wii U git Non-commercial [N 4] Sonic Mania (Plus)
SpaceCadetPinball git MIT (Permissive) 3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet
Super Mario 64 Port git ? Super Mario 64
  1. Cave Story Engine 2, or CSE2 for short, received a DMCA cease and desist notice from Nicalis, the current IP owner of Cave Story, despite the original Cave Story being a freeware developed by Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya.
  2. Since the Wii U version of Ship of Harkinian is ported by a different developer (Wii U port developed by GaryOderNichts), it may not always be updated alongside the mainstream ports (Windows, macOS, Linux/Steam Deck, Switch) of Ship of Harkinian, may be due to incompatibility issues in certain updates. Since v6.1.2, the Wii U port was absent for v7.0.0, v7.0.1, and v7.0.2 releases, but returned in v7.1.0 after various fixes were made.
  3. As of v8.0.0, Ship of Harkinian supports any PAL ROM of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for Nintendo 64 or GameCube (SoH Compatibility Checker to check if your ROM is supported). Launch the PC version and locate the ROM to generate an oot.otr file to place in the soh Wii U app folder. Additionally and optionally, you can load the PAL version of the Master Quest version in the PC version to create an oot-mq.otr to add another game mode.
  4. This unofficial Wii U port of the Sonia Mania Decompilation project plays and loads great. Some frames will drop during giant ring special stages when too many 3D assets appear on the screen but performance is arguably bearable. Missing features as of v1.0.3 include screen filters, the 'DLC' option in the main menu doesn't do anything (but 'Encore Mode' works when dlcEnabled is set to y in Settings.ini) and limited mod support.