Cemu Guide

[Lordmonkus]

***Disclaimer***
Some of the information in this post may be outdated and useless at some point in the future as Cemu progresses and matures so if you are reading this in the future and something is no longer correct it is beyond my control. Right now version 1.7.3 is the publicly available version of Cemu and 1.7.4 will be out in a week.

While personally I don't think that Cemu is ready yet for day to day use by most people I do think it is certainly progressed enough to start compiling some settings and tips to getting it set up in Launchbox.

Part 1: Setting up Cemu

Setup Cemu like you would any other emulator by adding it to Launchbox using the Manage Emulators window and assign it to the Nintendo Wii U platform. For the command parameters you will want to use:
-f -g
This will load the game in fullscreen, without the -g it will not load a game.

To properly exit a game using the Escape key on your keyboard and your controller automation button in Launchbox / Bigbox you will want an AutoKotkey Script, use the following:
; This section closes Cemu when pressing Escape
$Esc::
{
    Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

Part 2: The games

When you get your games you will want to make sure they are the emulator version and not the ones made for an actual Wii U. These can be in a single .wud file or they can be in a whole bunch of loose files and folders. If you have a single .wud file then you will simply add that file to Launchbox like any other game rom. If your games are a bunch of loose files and folders you will want to look in the folder named "code", in there you will find a file with the extension .prx and the name will most likely be something not even closely resembling the games real name. The .prx file is the file you will want to import into Launchbox. Obviously the metadata scraper will not know what to do with this file name because will be something completely irrelevant in name so you will have to edit the game after to rename and scrape it.

Part 3: Performance

Because Cemu is such a new emulator it needs more work done to it to optimize it for performance and get more games working and even then unless you have a fairly decent computer do not expect it to run fast. Ideally you will want a newer generation and faster i5 or i7 but a faster AMD CPU can run this as well. For reference I have an AMD 8350 @ 4 GHz and games like Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Captain Toads Treasure Tracker and Wind Waker HD all run at 100% speed.

Another thing in regards to performance to keep in mind is this, no matter how fast your system is the first time you play through a game you will get lots of stuttering as the emulator generates a "shaderCache" file in the shaderCache folder. However you can download shadercache files off the internet though and you put these in your \Cemu\shaderCache\transferable folder. The first time you load game after putting a shadercache file in this folder the emulator will then have to process and cache these files for your system and you will see a white bar and numbers while it does this. This process will take some time and depending on how big the cache file is it could take several minutes but the first time is the longest time, subsequent times will be much shorter. If after getting a cache file you load a game and you do not see the cache processing you may have to find the name of the cache file and rename it to match your game. What I do to find the exact name is I have a second install of Cemu to load a game in and then look in the folder where the shadecaches are and get the name. They will look something like this "9708a1d3.bin", they are not named logically so you will need to do some figuring on your own.

Since I do not if the sharing of shadercache files are covered under copyright laws or not I won't tell you exactly where you can get them but a simple Google search for "Cemu cache" should yield results and there is a reddit page where you can get cache files.

Part 4: Eye Candy

Right now there is no built in options to change the emulators resolution or other graphical effects, the presumably will change in the future. This does not mean that there is nothing that can be done to make certain games look better though. Like shadercaches above you can find "Graphics Packs" and you simply put the packs folder in the \Cemu\graphicsPacks folder. Fortunately these will be named logically and inside the games pack folder there will be a simple .txt file with a bunch of settings. To use these packs once you have downloaded them and put them in their proper location simply open Cemu and then go to the Options menu and Graphics Packs, this will open a window where you can enable and disable the options you want.

There is no Anti Aliasing yet as far as I could find out but what I did for that was to simply make a profile in my video cards driver profile for Cemu and forced it on through hardware.

Here are some screenshots for you to enjoy, 4K internal rendering and AA enabled.

[5thWolf]

Great job posting this!!! Super helpful!!!!

[ALIE]

Hey @lordmonkus or anyone else who maybe can help. Anyone with experience in updating games i tried following this guide 

It downloads the update, creates the folder. i copy them and it overwrites but the game still stays on 1..1.2 or something.  trying to get the latest update installed . 

Edited August 20, 2017 by ALIE

[Talclipse]

Is there somehow i can hit a button on my controller and it exit cemu just how esc does? I haven't found a way yet.

[Talclipse]

34 minutes ago, Talclipse said:

Is there somehow i can hit a button on my controller and it exit cemu just how esc does? I haven't found a way yet.

Nvm i just modded your AutoKotkey Script and subbed out the "esc" for "joy7" and when i hit button 7 on my controller it will exit.Thx.

[Minuteworld]

I wonder if someone here could help me here instead of me having too make a separate topic for this one tiny issue, i know how to do this, i located all the .rpx files for my wiiu games and they work. i have 3 wiiu games currently (used too have more but trying to figure this out, i deleted the names for the .rpx files, tip: DON'T DO THAT) which are mario kart 8 with the dlc, smash for wiiu and hyrule warriors with all updates and dlc. i followed this guide too a T (im sure i did) and mario kart 8 and smash launch from launchbox and bigbox but hyrule warriors does not. this is strange because it opens from within cemu but not launchbox. every game starts loading a game compiling shaders and when they're done, it launches the game. hyrule warriors when launching from launchbox compiles the shaders but then immedietly crashes. again, the game works from within cemu.

 

I am using the newest launchbox version and cemu 1.15.0c's patreon build. can anyone give me advice on how i can launch hyrule warriors from launchbox?

[Minuteworld]

same thing is happening with breath of the wild, what am i doing wrong here?

 

 

Edit- fixed it. good thread too read up on: 

 

Edited December 7, 2018 by Minuteworld

[bojo5150]

Does anyone know how to associate a controller profile to a specific game? It doesn’t look like it’s an option in the CEMU game profile settings.

I have various controller profiles and wish to automatically load the correct one when launching the game. (Ie when launching Mario 3D World I want my P1_Mario_3D controller profile to automatically load. Right now I can’t use Launchbox because I need to go into CEMU’s options and load a controller profile each time.

[Narpstar]

Can you hide the black loading screen with the white progress bar at the start of all Cemu roms? I hate it.

[neil9000]

3 minutes ago, Narpstar said:

Can you hide the black loading screen with the white progress bar at the start of all Cemu roms? I hate it.

You could try using the startup screens to hide it, but all games take a different length of time to build the shader cache, so you will never get it correct. It's just something you have to deal with in emulators that build a shader cache i'm afraid.

[Fry]

2 years later this guide was super helpful to me.  Thank you so much, @Lordmonkus!

 

On 3/9/2019 at 8:35 AM, bojo5150 said:

Does anyone know how to associate a controller profile to a specific game? It doesn’t look like it’s an option in the CEMU game profile settings.

I have various controller profiles and wish to automatically load the correct one when launching the game. (Ie when launching Mario 3D World I want my P1_Mario_3D controller profile to automatically load. Right now I can’t use Launchbox because I need to go into CEMU’s options and load a controller profile each time.

It's not possible through CEMU's interface but there is a (cumbersome) way to do this.  I use a windows batch file as an additional application which will replace the controller profile with a different configs for each game when the game starts up.  For each game that I need to set up different button mappings for, I do the following:

1. Open CEMU
2. Options > Input Settings
3. Map buttons for controller 1 and controller 2 specific to the game you're setting up
4. Close the input settings and close CEMU - I don't bother saving the controller mappings with any special profile name, just map them and close everything.  Also, closing CEMU probably isn't necessary, but I want to make sure the input settings get written.  I think you just need to close the input settings form and the controller profiles are written to your hard disk.  
5. Go into your CEMU's installation folder and find the controllerProfiles folder.  Inside there you should see files called controller0.txt (for player 1 controls) and controller1.txt (for player 2 controls).  I guess if you mapped controls for other players those will be there too.  If you saved them with a specific profile name they will be there too.  Copy those txt files.
6. Go back to your CEMU folder and create a new folder.  I call it "MY CONTROLLER CONFIGS"
7. Go into your new folder and create another folder for the game you just mapped
8. Paste the controller0.txt and controller1.txt files there
9. Go back to the "MY CONTROLLER CONFIGS" folder and create a batch file, I call it Set[GameTitle].bat.  So like SetMarioKart8.bat.
10. Right click that file and edit with notepad or notepad++
11. Paste these lines in there
12.         xcopy /y "D:\Emulation\Emulators\CEMU\MY CONTROLLER CONFIGS\Mario Kart 8\controller0.txt" "D:\Emulation\Emulators\CEMU\controllerProfiles\"
13.         xcopy /y "D:\Emulation\Emulators\CEMU\MY CONTROLLER CONFIGS\Mario Kart 8\controller1.txt" "D:\Emulation\Emulators\CEMU\controllerProfiles\"
14. Fix the file paths to match your system - the batch file is copying the controller0.txt and controller1.txt files into your CEMU controllerProfiles folder and the /y switch is saying to replace the files if they already exist.  This is why I don't save my profiles with any fancy names so I can just replace the default controller profiles that CEMU expects to be there when it starts up and it just works because it's looking for those file names
15. In Launchbox, find your game, right click, and edit
16. Go to additional apps tab
17. Click Add Application - Enter a name, select the path to that bat file you just created, check run before the application (and I check wait for exit to be safe even though it takes a fraction of a second)

Now, I haven't set up a ton of CEMU games so far so every game I have has an additional application to set up it's controller profile.  However, if you find that like 90% of games have a default profile and there's just a handful that need special settings then the approach I took with Redream for dreamcast games and works exactly the same is to create a default profile and custom profiles for the games that need it.  Then set the additional application to copy their custom profile for on start and another additional application to copy the default controller profiles back on exit so that I didn't have to set up an additional app to set the default controller profile on all the default games.  Not sure if this makes sense but that's how it works for me.   If you need some screen shots or clarifications I'm happy to add more info but this feels pretty verbose already so I'll leave it there.  

[bojo5150]

@Fry Great stuff Fry! Thank you for posting this!

[ozboss]

So if anybody else is also trying to exit Cemu with an XboxOne controller:

The buttons of the controller don't get picked up by AHK (if anybody knows a solution please let me know)

The only button that does is the guide button.

Here the script:

vk07sc000::
{
    Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

[neil9000]

2 minutes ago, ozboss said:

So if anybody else is also trying to exit Cemu with an XboxOne controller:

The buttons of the controller don't get picked up by AHK (if anybody knows a solution please let me know)

The only button that does is the guide button.

Here the script:

vk07sc000::
{
    Process, Close, {{{StartupEXE}}}
}

I use a XBOX ONE controller with all my emulators just fine, and i can exit no problems at all. Sounds like you have a different issue if your buttons are not being detected.

[ozboss]

43 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

I use a XBOX ONE controller with all my emulators just fine, and i can exit no problems at all. Sounds like you have a different issue if your buttons are not being detected.

Yes the emulators work fine, just AutoHotkey doesn't pick up any buttons but the guide button.

How do you exit Cemu with your controller?

Edited October 10, 2019 by ozboss

[neil9000]

7 minutes ago, ozboss said:

Yes the emulators work fine, just AutoHotkey doesn't pick up any buttons but the guide button.

How do you exit Cemu with your controller?

Yes it works just fine with AHK, thats what i was saying. I can set exit emulator to Back & B in Launchbox and that will exit emus just fine,as will Back & A which i have set to show the pause screens.

[neil9000]

14 minutes ago, ozboss said:

Yes the emulators work fine, just AutoHotkey doesn't pick up any buttons but the guide button.

How do you exit Cemu with your controller?

I dont have CEMU setup at the moment, but if i recall you just need that script you posted but sending escape instead and that will exit with the Automation exit combo.

[ozboss]

34 minutes ago, neil9000 said:

Yes it works just fine with AHK, thats what i was saying. I can set exit emulator to Back & B in Launchbox and that will exit emus just fine,as will Back & A which i have set to show the pause screens.

Oh wow ok I figured it out now

I just activated the controller for LaunchBox and saw the hotkey option for exiting games and this worked flawelessly.

So I had a look inside Big Box again and well....

I had a hotkey combo setup within Big Box for the option: Exit (idk if translated correctly) but that was just for exiting Big Box....

The correct option would have been : Close Active Window

This was at the very bottom for me and I must have overlooked that option.

Anyway yes this works now for me aswell, but still it helped me to solve this problem:

This is the prefered solution for me as I find it more intuitive to exit out of games with the guide button, for people that are not as familiar with my setup.

Anyway thank you very much

[Pineappleking]

Edit: I found an easy way. I use "Spacedesk" for Windows/Android.
https://www.spacedesk.net/de/#products

Hello everyone,

no new post since 2019, but I hope someone can help me.
How did you solve the problem with the controller?
Some games can only be played with a second screen.
I thought an Android smartphone would be best.
So I downloaded the IDisplay app. This allows me to set up my cell phone as a second wireless screen in Windows.
But the problem is, as soon as I start CEMU in full screen mode, the screen on my smartphone freezes.
I've already found a few tutorials on the Internet, many of which are considered outdated and no longer work.
The others seem very complicated to me. Sometimes with several apps/programs that have to run in parallel.
What is your solution?

Edited October 4, 2023 by Pineappleking