Update on 1.6.4 and other news (Patreon)

Cemu 1.6.4 will release on Monday, 12th December. 

What will change:

• Graphic improvements
• Minor audio improvements
• Minor performance boost
• Compatibility improvements
• Misc changes, bugfixes and adjusted gameprofiles

In a way, the next release has a bit of everything. Here are some of the highlights:

The problem with skys

If you have been following Cemu since it's initial release you might remember that there have always been issues with rendering skys in many games. (See these older videos: Wind Waker, Mario Kart 8) While we did find solutions that worked for certain games, the root cause remained a mystery that was never really solved, until 1.6.4 that is.

In 1.6.4 the issue is finally fixed properly. As a result XCX now correctly renders the sky and Smash no longer displays a white background on the result screen. I am sure other games are affected by this change as well but so far I have not spotted any.

Bicubic upscaling

Cemu 1.6.4 adds the option to use Bicubic instead of Bilinear filtering to upscale the output image of games. The result is that everything looks a bit smoother in fullscreen. 

Comparison screenshots from XCX: Default (1.6.3) Bicubic (1.6.4)

Just to avoid any confusion: This is not the same as MSAA (Anti-Aliasing). Cemu still has no MSAA support.

Improved compatibility

SteamWorld Dig is now playable (although sound doesn't work) and Sniper Elite V2 goes ingame (graphics are horribly broken which makes it unplayable). There are likely a few other games that progress further as well, but we have not had the chance to do extensive testing yet.

Also since I know someone will ask: None of the popular games are affected (E.g. Hyrule Warriors, MH3U, Color Splash..)

Updated game profiles and new options

We have added new game profiles and updated the old ones. Mostly to add the 'emulateSinglePrecision' option for several games to fix gameplay bugs, like the falling platforms in Super Mario 3D World.

There is also a new option which disables certain shader features, speeding up shader compilation slightly (meaning shorter stutter) and also speeding up shader execution a bit which means more FPS in GPU-bound scenarios. The downside is that this option cannot be set for every game as it can introduce graphic bugs.

In other news: Migrating the website to a new hoster

Recently the downtimes of cemu.info have gotten a bit too frequent and we decided that it's time to move the website to a more reliable hoster. By the time Cemu 1.6.4 releases the migration should already be completed. As a result, downloading new releases will be a smoother experience in the future.

We'll also use the opportunity to update the website, specifically the FAQ.

CEMU, Cemu, CEmu?

This might sound silly, but we never really settled on what capitalization to use for the name 'cemu'. Initially we started with 'Cemu' but then later on we switched to 'CEMU'. After some consideration and input from the community, we have decided to go back to the roots and declare 'Cemu' as the official correct way to capitalize the name.

That's all for today, I hope you are looking forward to the release!