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Cemu (Wii U Emulator) introduces customizable graphics (increased internal res&more)

Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?
 

Peterthumpa

Member
Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?

This should help:

Exzap said:
Due to the way rendering on Wii U works this is not easily possible.

For those that care about the technical details: Cemu already internally tells the game to use 1080p resolution but that only defines the final output resolution and it's up to the game to choose whatever resolution it wants for the intermediate steps. For example, lots of games render the scenery in 720p or lower and then upscale that to 1080p at the end of the frame. Even if the final output is 480p the game would still use 720p as internal resolution because the engine has been tailored towards that specific resolution. Increasing the resolution can only be done by patching the game code, or by implementing game-specific hacks into the emulator. For comparison, other emulators like Dolphin can just scale up everything by 2x and it will work (with some exceptions). If I do the same in Cemu it will break almost every 3D game since quite a large number of shaders rely on pixel-perfect precision and accurate filtering.

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/4bodqt/has_the_cemu_team_commented_on_resolution/
 
I just watched a video of XCX benchmark which is posted last week.

The game's running at 25-ish fps on a 4670 & 750ti combo. It's not maxing the cpu nor gpu at all.


You can only thread code not designed to be multi threaded so much. The wii u is a tri-core design, and most modern pcs are 4-8 cores, not even counting hyper threading.
 
Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?

Pcsx2 and dolphin have similar issues, and have similar databases with hacks and special rendering options per game... On wii u, it's just complicated further.
 

finalflame

Gold Member
Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?

My understanding is this: what you want to be able to change universally is the game's internal rendering resolution, or the resolution that the game's rendering pipeline uses to render the graphics. Unfortunately, there is not a simple system level API hook that is used by all games to determine that internal rendering resolution. Instead, each game has its own variable way of handling the resolution in its rendering pipeline, before ultimately spitting the final result out to the framebuffer.

Because of this, you can't just create an option that makes the system tell the game "render at this res!", but instead need a specific patch for each individual game, based on that game's specific rendering pipeline, to tell it how/where to increase the rendering res. I think this fits in to how a lot of people said developing on the WiiU isn't trivial, and/or the fact that a lot of developers probably used a lot of rendering tricks to get a certain level of performance on the WiiU.

That's my understanding from reading the Reddit thread posted in the OP. It'd be awesome if someone who has developed a WiiU game chimed in to correct this/clarify :)
 

finalflame

Gold Member
"Because power doesn't matter"

"It's all about the art"

*Bashes head into wall*

;_;

Yah, I mean, even seeing Wii games upscaled in Dolphin was already indicative of this. Upscaled XC to 4K already looks goddamn amazing. It's a shame Nintendo doesn't prioritize power, because it just opens so many doors to making their games truly breathtaking.

Fight me.

In Smash Bros.

I'll party with you

in smash, Nintendo's #1 party game.
 

Galava

Member
2 more years f dev of CEMU and we'll have a litera WiiU inside our PCs running almost everything perfectly. God, can't wait.
 

-shadow-

Member
"Because power doesn't matter"

"It's all about the art"

*Bashes head into wall*

;_;
In all fairness, Mario Kart at 720 looks amazing. It's just... Well most people don't use a 720p screen anymore. Honestly I'm more surprised by how blurry Splatoon looks. It's rather weird to see.
 

M3d10n

Member
Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?
For more or less the same reason you can't make an universal resolution override for PC games. The Wii U isn't a fixed function console, there's no single location in memory or API function you can hack that will override the rendering resolution without breaking the game. For starters, a lot of games use multiple render targets for a variety of purposes and you'd have to find out which one(s) are the ones where the game is rendered to. Viewport transformations are done via vertex shader and not fixed function hardware and are likely to have hardcoded viewport sizes in them.

Basically, you need to "Durante" each game to unlock the resolution.
 
You can play with pretty much any USB controller you have, like most emulators out there.

Ah right, I was a bit confused with the site saying only the DRC (GamePad), Pro Controller and Classic Controller is emulated. PS4 controller it is then.
 

Seik

Banned
BoTW at 1440P/ 60FPS...yes

Don't get carried away..

Yes, you'll be able to play Zelda in 1440p...even 4K if you're ambicious and have the rig for it! :)

60fps though? Unless the base game on Wii U is set to that, which most likely won't happen, you probably won't have your 60fps.
 
Don't get carried away..

Yes, you'll be able to play Zelda in 1440p...even 4K if you're ambicious and have the rig for it! :)

60fps though? Unless the base game on Wii U is set to that, which most likely won't happen, you probably won't have your 60fps.

Well, if the physics aren't tied to framerate then there really should be nothing stopping people from playing at 60FPS right?
 

Chavelo

Member
What kind of video card would you need to comfortably run the games in a higher resolution or with the custom textures?

Dolphin and CEMU are making amazing progress in emulation. :D
 
Well, if the physics aren't tied to framerate then there really should be nothing stopping people from playing at 60FPS right?

Even if they aren't you can't just magically flip a "60fps switch" :p It might be possible but it's impossible to tell until the game is out.

Also 1.7 should be available for non-Patreons next week right?
 
Even if they aren't you can't just magically flip a "60fps switch" :p It might be possible but it's impossible to tell until the game is out.

Also 1.7 should be available for non-Patreons next week right?

Well ya, but eventually you should be able to "hack" in a 60FPS mode. It's already possible on Dolphin.
 

Dereck

Member
I'm gonna read some tutorials on ripping games and I'll get back to the thread, because my computer is more than capable for this.
 

jett

D-Member
That is crazy. I think this emulator has better performance than the 3DS one. Emulator coders are some really talented people.
 
I'll have to look into this. My Wii U broke down some time back but I still have my games. Maybe I won't have to hold out hope for a Bayonetta Switch port.
 

Durante

Member
Can someone explain to me the "every game needs to be patched in order to unlock other resolutions" thing?

I know a thing or two about engines but do not understand how each Wii U game defines its own resolution and it simply cannot be done as a system-wide setting in the emulator?
A modern console game works mostly like a PC game with some internal rendering resolution. Or even multiple ones for different steps of the rendering pipeline.

The nice thing in the emulator use case is that you are already "interpreting" all the graphics API calls of the game anyway, so in theory you have all the hooking points you need right there. Still needs to be done per game (though some classes of games might be very similar).
 
I just followed this linked from the cemu reddit sidebar labeled how do I rip my games.

http://pastebin.com/WVqrbWg2

It was fairly painless. I am ripping XCX right now. It is digital but I assume discs work the same way. I have a few disc games I might give a try.

Nice. I'll back up all of my digital games this weekend then. It's nice to know that I don't have to worry if my Wii U ends up dying one day. Even if most of the big titles will be ported to Switch and/or future consoles from Nintendo, there will always be some games that will never appear on any other console.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
If Switch can do Wii U-esque visuals in 1080p then I'll be satisfied, some of these screens look outstanding.

Yeah with proper HD it does look like a visible step above 360 era graphics in some cases, the Xenoblade shots are *great*
 

jediyoshi

Member
MPvfg2Y.jpg


OCjUu6K.jpg


Reminder, there's a Cemu OT

I assume saves are cross-compatible between Cemu and real hardware?

Haven't seen testing of Cemu saves on an actual Wii U, but real saves definitely work in Cemu.

Well ya, but eventually you should be able to "hack" in a 60FPS mode. It's already possible on Dolphin.

For reference, there are no 60fps mods for the modern Zelda games on Dolphin as it stands. Every single action needs to be manually "fixed".
 
Games like Yoshi's Woolly World and Paper Mario Color Splash in 4K resolution will look gorgeous once they're playable with little to no graphical issues.
 

Dereck

Member
Whenever I try to run a wud file, my emulator crashes.

I'm using the proper unlock code too, don't understand how this works.
 
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