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Cemu, World's First Wii U Emulator, Suddenly Released

Nyoro SF

Member
Wouldn't this mean there is a system wide Wii U hack available? I was under the impression that was what was necessary for emulation development to take place, active backend knowledge only possible post-hack. I assume then they have it kept under wraps, because I thought I would have heard something if the Wii U were so easily broken into. Maybe I'm incorrect and they are doing something else?

Either way, this is good news for future emulation prospects once it all gets ironed out. AA option for Wonderful 101...!

Project M 2 here we come. With the GLORIOUS return of snake.

Pog
Champ
 

Pokemaniac

Member
Hows that rock you've been living under for the past few months? Cozy?

It's not exactly obvious for someone not actively following it. I'd have no idea what was going on with Wii U homebrew if I didn't lurk on forums where people discuss that kind of thing.
 

Rich!

Member
It's not exactly obvious for someone not actively following it. I'd have no idea what was going on with Wii U homebrew if I didn't lurk on forums where people discuss that kind of thing.

Where's your sense of humour?

That post was a lead up to me blowing his mind with info, and you've gone and scuppered it.

Damn you
 

awake

Member
It's going to be a long time before this is actually in a state where people will prefer to use it over the actual console. Most likely, the Wii U will no longer be an active platform at that time.

I don't even understand why you have to explain this. The games don't even run (at a playable level) and the NX is probably not too far away so while the developers try to find ways to make games largely playable, we'll probably have NX for almost a year..
 

Rich!

Member
I don't even understand why you have to explain this. The games don't even run (at a playable level) and the NX is probably not too far away so while the developers try to find ways to make games largely playable, we'll probably have NX for almost a year..

People were worried about the same thing with Citra. That emulator can now play OOT3D at near enough full speed - but even then, by the time it's at the stage when its ready for the average user the 3DS will be long behind us.

Wii U emulation is even further out.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Where's your sense of humour?

That post was a lead up to me blowing his mind with info, and you've gone and scuppered it.

Damn you

Rich pls. LOL
I haven't been following the Wii U homebrew & hack scene at all, so I have been unaware of any recent developments. Looking it up now it looks like a lot of progress was made in a short amount of time.
 

Rich!

Member
Rich pls. LOL
I haven't been following the Wii U homebrew & hack scene at all, so I have been unaware of any recent developments. Looking it up now it looks like a lot of progress was made in a short amount of time.

Well, theres a kernel exploit - WebKit based. It's very hacky and temperamental right now, and only has real strength for 5.3.2 firmware

So far there is a working backup loader (Wii U titles from SD), firmware spoofer, NUS title downloader and a sweet app that allows you to use a GameCube controller as an input for most games, including Mario 3D World and Wind Waker. It works really well, as long as the gamepad doesn't go into standby (shares the same syscalls)

So yeah, beginning steps really
 
Project M 2 here we come. With the GLORIOUS return of snake.

tumblr_nda9e0Uszx1u0wtwho1_500.gif


And we'll make our OWN Smash 4 ballot, with WONDER RED, AND K ROOL!

Oh and Super Mario Maker on PC, wonder how much fun that'll be?
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Well, theres a kernel exploit - WebKit based. It's very hacky and temperamental right now, and only has real strength for 5.3.2 firmware

So far there is a working backup loader (Wii U titles from SD), firmware spoofer, NUS title downloader and a sweet app that allows you to use a GameCube controller as an input for most games, including Mario 3D World and Wind Waker. It works really well, as long as the gamepad doesn't go into standby (shares the same syscalls)

So yeah, beginning steps really

Time to stop WiiU's automatic fw updates I guess, damn I'm probably too late already ain't I?
 

Pokemaniac

Member
Well, theres a kernel exploit - WebKit based. It's very hacky and temperamental right now, and only has real strength for 5.3.2 firmware

So far there is a working backup loader (Wii U titles from SD), firmware spoofer, NUS title downloader and a sweet app that allows you to use a GameCube controller as an input for most games, including Mario 3D World and Wind Waker. It works really well, as long as the gamepad doesn't go into standby (shares the same syscalls)

So yeah, beginning steps really

This may seem a bit pedantic, but the Webkit exploit and the kernel exploit are separate. You use the WebKit exploit to gain user-mode access, and, using that, run the second exploit to get kernel-mode access.

The distinction is important because they would/did get patched separately
 

Rich!

Member
This may seem a bit pedantic, but the Webkit exploit and the kernel exploit are separate. You use the WebKit exploit to gain user-mode access, and, using that, run the second exploit to get kernel-mode access.

The distinction is important because they would/did get patched separately

Yes, but does it really need explaining to that level of detail in a post written explicitly to explain it in simple terms?

The WebKit exploit is the entry point, therefore the one I made reference to.
 
It's going to be a long time before this is actually in a state where people will prefer to use it over the actual console. Most likely, the Wii U will no longer be an active platform at that time.

Most likely the successor of the successor of the Wii U successor will be out by then.

People seriously expect this emulator to be useful in this decade or next decade? We have such emulator announcements for the xbox360 and ps3 before and still none of this emulators is more than a joke.

Emulate a multiprocessor system with special graphic chips, edram etc. is an achievement that no little hobby developer will accomplish ever.
 

Pokemaniac

Member
Yes, but does it really need explaining to that level of detail in a post written explicitly to explain it in simple terms?

The WebKit exploit is the entry point, therefore the one I made reference to.

I suppose the way you phrased it isn't too bad, but I'm generally rather wary of oversimplifying things. People can make some pretty bad assumptions when you do that.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Very early on teams like Fail0verflow had said the internals were so similar to the Wii that cracking it wouldn't be too hard, and now it looks like emulators got there too.
 

Pokemaniac

Member
Very early on teams like Fail0verflow had said the internals were so similar to the Wii that cracking it wouldn't be too hard, and now it looks like emulators got there too.

The Wii and Wii U are different enough in key areas that the approaches to writing a (good) emulator for them are very different. There are some pretty good reasons why the Dolphin developers shut down attempts to add Wii U support to Dolphin.
 

kinggroin

Banned
We've had Super Mario Maker on PC for over a decade now. With slopes.

39008d1351405466-pc-luner-magic-ps3-snes-emulator-mainlunarmagic.png


smtko_bia.gif


340


http://fusoya.eludevisibility.org/lm

I guess this is why I have absolutely no intention of buying Mario Maker. I've been designing and playing my own SMB, SMB3 and SMW levels for years and years now.

That looks ugly, unintuitive, intimidating and hacky. Meh.

I'd rather have what Nintendo has out with eventual expansions tacked on. Plus I won't have to buy a rom cart thingy to extract my game images.
 
That looks ugly, unintuitive, intimidating and hacky. Meh.

I'd rather have what Nintendo has out with eventual expansions tacked on. Plus I won't have to buy a rom cart thingy to extract my game images.

Playing Mario Maker made me want to fuck around with LunarMagic and, to be honest, it's a lot simpler than you'd expect it to be. It's nowhere near as intuitive as Mario Maker, but by the end of a sitting I had a simple stage mapped out.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
This has me really hoping that the NX is the equivalent of the Wii/4 ductaped Gamecubes situation so that this emulator has some decent progress on NX after its released.

Getting games playable on an open platform ASAP to allow for modding, arbitrarily high resolutions, and all the other goodies.
 
Unless you plan on pirating games, you will still need to buy a Wii U and the games you want to play, so... Nothing has changed.

Let him dream. It is not likely that this emulator will work decent in the next two decades. And at that point in time it makes not a difference anyway.
 
Unless you plan on pirating games, you will still need to buy a Wii U and the games you want to play, so... Nothing has changed.
Plus get a PC if he hasn't got one. Seems like the person's very focused on PS4 at least, but I might be wrong of course.
 

Rich!

Member
I don't think that's right.

It's not right. It's a messy grey area depending what country you live in. If you own the game, you are entitled to make backups of it in many regions (and in the US, no one should rightly give a shit if you back up your own legally purchased CDs or games, regardless of what big business says).

The issue is obtaining the ISO of a Wii U game. Even if you own the disc, you cannot rip it without the console. No other method exists. So you gotta download it - which is something else entirely. Is it morally OK? Maybe. Legal? Probably not. But in a location where you can't legally rip a Blu Ray you own to your computer without breaking the law, everything is muddied and stupid.
 

Lernaean

Banned
As a person who is regularly playing games on emulator, there is no doubt in my mind that what we do, even the best of us, is piracy.

Creating a way for future generations to have access on older games is one thing and it's not just good, it is essential, but we all know that most people out there just download and play games because it's the free alternative.

Owning the games I emulate is very important to me, and believe me, i do own all games i emulate, including some arcade, even if the rips are not mine, but imo the most important thing is to have actually supported those games when they released and when the hard working developers really needed the support.
 

Velurian

Member
I agree and disagree at the same time.

1. Emulation as such is not piracy. Sony tired to prove it with Bleem! but lost the case and so a precedent was made. So de jure, emulation is fine. There is some confusion around the ownership of the bios files of the console but granted you own a console you extracted the bios file from you should be fine. Or so seems to be the general attitude.

So in short, emulation is not piracy.

2. Naturally you need to own the games that you emulate and by buying the games you emulate you naturally support the gaming industry.

So if you buy legal games and emulate them on your pc in a legal manner (extracted bios etc) then it should be fine and everybody should be happy. Even console makers.
 

Lernaean

Banned
That all is fine if that's what the majority is doing which is not.
The majority just downloads an emulator and some roms and is having a good time playing free games.
 
As a person who is regularly playing games on emulator, there is no doubt in my mind that what we do, even the best of us, is piracy.

Creating a way for future generations to have access on older games is one thing and it's not just good, it is essential, but we all know that most people out there just download and play games because it's the free alternative.

Owning the games I emulate is very important to me, and believe me, i do own all games i emulate, including some arcade, even if the rips are not mine, but imo the most important thing is to have actually supported those games when they released and when the hard working developers really needed the support.

Right on. I love emulation, but nothing tires me more than members of this community (and others, like Pirate Bay and such) trying to bend backwards into some pseudo-arguments that we're doing the 'right' thing by pirating. It's bullshit. People just like to get shit for free, and have no problem taking something if they feel they can get away with it.

I'm no saint either. Even though i've paid for every PC game i played in the last 7 years, have a Netflix-sub, Spotify premium, Dutch broadcastservice-sub, i use Dolphin and Popcorn Time too. Why? Because I can and i like what it has to offer.
disclaimer: of course i own all the Wii-games and movies i watch on Popcorn too. That goes without saying -.-
 

Velurian

Member
That all is fine if that's what the majority is doing which is not.
The majority just downloads an emulator and some roms and is having a good time playing free games.

Here is something to ponder about:
What if it is impossible to obtain hardware or software by legal means?

Not even sure you can get a ps2 anymore from stores or games for it for that matter.
In that respect I dont really hold it against people who emulate that stuff because you cant really get it any other way.
This applies to both, games and hardware.

Its actually thanks to the popularity of emulation that a lot of the great games from the past still live on.
The platform holders and devs dont really care about them anymore. At least not enough.

You could ofc argue that you can get hardware and software second hand but how is that better than piracy for the dev or platform holder?
You just get a more authentic experience as an end user but thats it.
In many cases emulated versions are even better than the original ones. Usually just graphically because of AA etc, but in some cases even gameplay wise - for instance I played tekken 3 @ 53 fps because it was a much faster and enjoyable experience then.
 
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