Nick Fernandez / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Nintendo Wii U emulator Cemu just got a new experimental update for Android.
- Based on our testing, it runs many games at full speed, but only on powerful devices.
- This is the first official alpha build, and it’s still a work in progress.
This year has been a big one for emulation on Android, and it doesn’t appear to be stopping any time soon. A big update to Android fork of the Nintendo Wii U emulator Cemu just dropped, and it features surprisingly good performance — if your phone can handle it.
Cemu is a very popular Wii U emulator for PC that’s been around since 2015. It has made great progress over the years, with most of the Wii U catalog playable on compatible hardware. However, it wasn’t until last year that playable forks for Android started to appear.
Early versions were mostly for testing, but this new V0.1 Android build is the first official alpha. It was forked by SSimco, a volunteer who isn’t officially a part of the Cemu development team. Unfortunately, the GitHub page is simply copy/pasted from the main Cemu repository, so there isn’t much information about compatibility. A FAQ page from last year indicates you’ll need at least Android 12, but there are no minimum specs listed.
Performance was excellent on powerful gaming phones, but mixed on anything else.
Android Authority tested this experimental version on two relatively powerful devices, to mixed success. The REDMAGIC 10 Pro, one of the most powerful gaming smartphones on the market, managed to run several games at full speed, with minimal graphical glitches.
Devices with chipsets older than the Snapdragon 8 Elite, including the gaming-focused Snapdragon G3x Gen 2 on the AYANEO Pocket EVO gaming handheld, saw far more jittery performance. Still, most games were playable to some degree.
You can download the latest build from the official GitHub page. Be careful when searching, as some copycat pages are already outranking the official release.
