Welcome, new person! This is a guide for everyone who has never had any contact with emulating "new generation" consoles or has forgotten how to do certain things.
Please carefully read the explanation and the needed steps! Skipping something can lead to having to redo everything!
Be Advised THE ONLY LEGAL WAY TO OBTAIN GAMES IS TO DUMP THEM FROM YOUR/OR YOUR FRIEND'S CONSOLE
ONLY DUMP GAMES THAT YOU OWN! PLAY & BE LEGAL! Ignoring this warning has been known to lead to ISP Warnings, Account Termination, or Fines
What is Cemu?
The Wii U runs "Café OS" and Cemuemulates the system. It creates the possibilty to run Wii U data formats on a PC, e.g. dumped games. For more advanced information about Café OS, check out this link: http://wiiubrew.org/wiki/Cafe_OS
System Requirements
■ OS
◊ CPU
● RAM
○ VRAM
♦ GPU
□ Graphic API
■ Windows 7 (x64) or above, Windows 10 recommended.
◊ Recommend at least 4 core 4 thread CPUs, but 2/Dual Core CPUs will work for lighter titles. Cemu makes use of up to 5 cores.
● Minimum of 4GB for light titles, 8GB for most titles, at least 16GB or more for compatibility with every title.
○ OpenGL - Preferably at least 2 to 6GB.
♦ NVIDIA GPU: Runs as expected on most recent driver.
□ OpenGL 4.1 (4.6 is used if available)
■ Cemu cannot run on 32bit systems.
◊ The higher your CPU benchmarks for Single Thread speeds/performance, the better it will perform on Cemu.
● For AMD Ryzen CPUs, having great RAM quality will boost your CPU's performance.
○ Vulkan - Preferably at least 4 to 6GB. Has instability issues with 2GB or less.
♦ AMD GPU: Runs as expected on most recent driver
□ Vulkan 1.0 (1.2 will be used when possible)
■ Cemu can run on Linux with Wine. A native Linux build is planned in the distant future.
◊ The higher you can overclock your CPU and manage its temperature, the better it will perform on Cemu.
● The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is considered a heavy title, 16GB recommended.
○ If you do not have a viable amount of VRAM you will be much more likely to encounter crashes or much worse performance overall.
♦ Intel GPU: Not officially supported. Heavy visual glitches, runs best on Vulkan.
□ There are no current plans for other Graphic APIs
Download & Install Cemu
Download & Install Cemu
Download the latest version of Cemu. Check Cemu's website for the latest release.
Unpack the cemu_x.x.x.zip file.
Start the emulator by double-clicking Cemu.exe.
Installing extensions like Cemuhook for video playback, code patching in graphic packs and more.
Games rated this are games that have no discernible issues. No graphical or audio glitches, no crashes, no bugs that didn't exist in the original game. Quite simply, they run perfectly.
Games in this category are playable to the end of the game. Can have some minor graphical or audio glitches or issues, but these do not greatly affect playability or prevent game completion.
Games in this category can get in-game and usually run very well, but major graphical or audio glitches or game-breaking bugs make it difficult to continue playing or finish the game.
Games in this category manage to load at least a screen before crashing, or can get through the in-game menus before crashing, or sometimes in-game before crashing, but they generally crash CEMU at some point.
Games in this category do not load in CEMU. Either they crash immediately following the first load attempt, or they display a black screen until you close CEMU.
Dumping your Games, Updates, DLC - or Transferring Saves
Video Walkthrough by Chriztr
This video covers all three methods of dumping your WiiU games, game updates, DLC and the online files.
This guide also covers where to place the online files, a basic Cemu setup, and how to install it all!
The video is based from my personal experience and Serfrost's [Cemu, Getting Started] & [Cemu Setup Guides]
An SD card and a way to put files on it (if your PC doesn't have a SD card reader, you could use a laptop that does have one).
A homebrewed Wii U with CFW (see https://wiiu.hacks.guide/ for a guide on how to do this). Just make sure that you know how to launch Mocha CFW, Haxchi CFW, or CBHC (Coldboot Haxchi) and go into the Homebrew Channel.
It's absolutely required that you have enough space on your computer to store the games.
Dumping to SD or USB Storage: You'll need to have an SD Card with 25+ GB freespace or have a separate USB stick that's FAT32 formatted with enough space.
You'll also need to place a few files on your SD card. Choose the steps according to which method you use:
Using Haxchi or Coldboot Haxchi (CBHC) CFW:
For dumping Physical Discs: Download Disc2App from [ Here ] and extract it into the base directory of your SD Card.
FTP Method: Download the FTPiiU Everywhere .elf (for Haxchi or CBHC) from [ Here ] and place ftpiiu.elf into your SD:\wiiu\apps folder.
NAND Dump Method: The files pack from [ Here ] - select Wii U only - extract the files into the base directory of your SD Card.
Using Mocha CFW:
For dumping Physical Discs: Download Disc2App from [ Here ] and extract it into the base directory of your SD Card.
FTP Method: Download the FTPiiU Everywhere .elf (for Mocha) from [ Here ] and place ftpiiu.elf into your SD:\wiiu\apps folder.
NAND Dump Method: The files pack from [ Here ] - select Wii U only - extract the files into the base directory of your SD Card.
Dumping Physical Discs [Does not include Updates or DLC]
Steps for Physical Disc Games
Dumping the game to your PC
1. Remove your Game Disc from the Wii U, Disc2App will ask for it later.
2. Insert your SD card back into your Wii U and if using one, your FAT32-formatted USB device.
Make sure you use the correct USB port - do not let the Wii U format your USB device.
3. Open the Homebrew Channel.
(4a.) For CBHC (Coldboot Haxchi): Run Disc2App.
(4b.) For Haxchi or Mocha: Run Haxchi or Mocha CFW first and let the Wii U restart. After that, try launch Homebrew Channel and now run Disc2App.
Failure to run the CFW before running the Homebrew Channel/Disc2App & other Homebrew will result in not succeeding in what you want to do.
5. Select either SD or USB drive to dump your game discs on.
Again, make sure that there is 25+ GB free on your SD card/USB drive. If you're using a USB drive, make sure it's FAT32 formatted.
6. When asked, insert the disc for your game.
7. The game is dumped to SD/USB:\install\[TitleID Folder]
8. After it finishes, dump your next game or press the Home button to exit and turn off your Wii U.
9. Now, eject the storage device you dumped your game discs onto and access the SD card or USB device on your PC.
10. You can rename the [TitleID] folder of each game to the name of the game and move it to some folder you want to store your games in while playing them on Cemu.
We recommend putting your Cemu and the Games folder together so everything isn't strewn about like spaghetti. Do not put Updates or DLCs in your Games folder.
2. Extract the zip and go to that folder. Copy the same 3 files from the folder into each dumped game folder (or only 1 folder if you've dumped only 1 physical game).
3. In each of the folders you've copied those files to, hold down CTRL and select both title.tmd and title.tik.
4. Drag those 2 files onto CDecrypt_v2.0b.exe which will decrypt the game into Code, Content, and Meta folders.
If dragging & dropping does not have any effect for you, you may click in the Window Address bar and type CMD , then press Enter--bringing up Command Prompt.
You may then copy and paste the following command & send. To paste, right-click in the CMD window blank space. The command is as follows:
.\CDecrypt_v2.0b.exe .\title.tmd .\title.tik
(5a.) Afterwards, you may now delete all files in this game folder, except the folders Code, Content, Meta.
(5b.) You may now repeat the steps until you've decrypted all of your physical disc dumps.
Now that you've finished processing the base game, there's likely an Update or some DLC you have on your Wii U.
Note: The update is absolutely required for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to work on Cemu.
(3a.) For CBHC (Coldboot Haxchi): Run FTPiiU Everywhere.
(3b.) For Mocha: Run Mocha CFW first and let the Wii U restart. After that, try launching the Homebrew Channel again, and now run FTPiiU Everywhere.
4. On your screen, you should be able to see a line "Listening for data connections at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:XXXX". Note down the text at the end with the numbers in it.
5. On your computer, open FileZilla.
6. From the File menu in the menu bar, open the Site Manager.
7. Click on the New Site button.
8. Now, you'll want to configure the settings on this new "site":
In the Host field, put in the longer xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx part you noted down.
In the Port field, put in the rest of the numbers of that thing you have made a note of, represented by the XXXX.
Change the Encryption to "Only use plain FTP (insecure)"
Change the Logon Type to "Anonymous"
9. Go to the "Transfer Settings" tab and click the checkbox to enable the "Limit number of simultaneous connections" and then set the amount of connections to 1.
10. Then click the Connect button and you'll be set! You can just use this site again if you want to connect to your Wii U. Make sure that it now shows folders on the right side of the program.
(11a.) Navigate to storage_mlc/usr/title/ on the right side of the program if you have installed Games, Updates, or DLCs you're looking for to System Storage/NAND (Internal Memory).
(11b.) Navigate to storage_usb/usr/title/ on the right side of the program if you have installed Games, Updates, or DLCs you're looking for to an external USB harddrive or thumbdrive.
12. Then, open one of the following folders, depending on what you want to dump.
The 00050000 folder for Games
The 0005000E folder for Updates
The 0005000C folder for DLC
13. Once you've opened that folder, you'll have to find the folder that corresponds to what you
wish to dump. Inside, find the folder who's 8 digits match the last 8 of the game's Title ID.
Before you transfer the files to your computer, navigate on the left side of the screen to the directory you want to store your
Games for Cemu, or a separate location for storing the Updates/DLCs before you install them later. If you keep Games
together with the Updates and DLCs in the same folder this will confuse Cemu, so absolutely do not do this.
14. Now, it's as simple as right-clicking the folder you've just found and clicking "Add files to queue".
Repeat the steps from above for each game/update/DLC you want to transfer. Once you're done with adding them to the queue, you can continue with the next steps.
15. Press CTRL+P to start transferring everything that you've queued...
This process will take a long while, hours even. You can leave the program running while you do other stuff.
Be really careful to not accidentally delete or mess stuff up! If you follow every instruction carefully, you should be fine.
If you get failed transfer errors during an Update or DLC transfer, you can probably ignore this. Retry the transfers to make sure, if they fail again you should be okay.
16. You can now exit FTPiiU Everywhere with the Home button and close FileZilla once it's done transferring the files (when it says "Queued files" and nothing else after that on the left-bottom of the program).
17. Rename each dumped Game/Update/DLC folder to reflect what it is (like for example Mario Kart 8 - Update etc.).
18. For Updates and DLC's, you'll first need to install them in Cemu first before you can use them at all. Read the update instructions for more info.
After installing Updates and DLCs you may save them in a storage space for emergency use to fix a corrupt install later on, or you may delete them permanently to save space.
NAND Dump Method: Dumping Digital Games, Updates, and DLC
Dumping the MLC NAND of your Wii U for Installed Games, Updates, and DLC instead of using FTP
If FTP fails for you and you cannot find out why, you can instead dump the entire MLC NAND to your SD Card. You cannot use a USB stick or drive to do this.
SD Card with 8GB (16GB preferred,) free space for White Wii U Models. (White model has 8GB internal storage.)
SD Card with 32GB (with at least 29.3GB free) or 64GB free space for Black Wii U Models. (Black model has 29.1GB internal storage.)
Your SD card has to be formatted FAT32 for the Wii U to be able to read it and the allocation unit size is best set to 32KB.
On larger SD cards (64GB+) Windows will not let you format the SD as FAT32, to circumvent that use guiformat
If you didn't grab it earlier, the files pack from [ Here ] - select Wii U only - extract it into the base directory of your SD Card.
Steps:
1. Launch the Homebrew Launcher with your preferred method explained earlier in this guide.
2. Run the nanddumper homebrew application. Nanddumper will not work with Regular Haxchi CFW or Mocha CFW in use, restart the Wii U if this is the case.
3. Set the options to only dump OTP, SEEPROM, and MLC(8GB/32GB)
4. Press A to begin the dump. The dump will default to the root of your SD card in 2GB chunks; 4 files for 8GB or 15 files for 32GB.
If when transferring the mlc.bin.part0# files it says there is an error/corruption, skip that file and transfer the rest.
If this happens you will need to try to re-dump the MLC NAND with nanddumper again. Afterwards, try to copy the part that was previously corrupt to the location of your non-corrupted parts, saving time.
7. Download this zip and extract one of the scripts into the location of your 4 or 15 mlc.bin.part0# files.
8. With everything in place, run the script. It will copy the part files and merge them together into mlc.bin (this will take awhile, especially with a 32GB Wii U)
After it finishes, store the mlc.bin.part0# somewhere just in case the combined mlc.bin is corrupt.
Now we must extract the files from your combined mlc.bin to allow you to browse the files freely.
9. You must now download WFS Tools, unfortunately it is only pre-built for Windows, I do not know much of Linux or MacOS methods.
12. You will now need to open a CMD window in your mlc.bin directory, there are a few ways to do this -
a.) In the File Explorer address bar, type CMD and press enter.
b.) You can hold shift & right-click the blank area of the current location and open a CMD or PowerShell window.
c.) If you're savvy you can cd to the required directory, but I'll leave that to you.
13. Edit the following command in notepad, etc, to replace the Example path with your own "Extracted" folder path, the path must be wrapped in " " - aka quotes.
15. I recommend keeping your mlc.bin or the Extracted files somewhere safe. CEMU may end up allowing the use of more files in the future!
16. Follow the majority of the FTP Method in the earlier section of this Guide to figure out where your Installed Games, Updates, DLC, and Save files are located in your Extracted MLC NAND folder.
Transferring Save Data between your Wii U and CEMU
Transfering Saves between Wii U and CEMU
Make sure that your Wii U is connected to the same network as your computer.
Insert your SD card into your Wii U.
Open the Homebrew Channel.
For CBHC (Coldboot Haxchi): Run FTPiiU Everywhere.
For Mocha: Run Mocha CFW first and let the Wii U restart. After that, try launching the Homebrew Channel again, and now run FTPiiU Everywhere.
On your screen, you should be able to see a line "Listening for data connections at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:XXXX". Note down the text at the end with the numbers in it.
On your computer, open FileZilla.
From the File menu in the menu bar, open the Site Manager.
Click on the New Site button.
Now, you'll want to fill in the Host and Port field.
In the Host field, put in the longer xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx part you noted down.
In the Port field, put in the rest of the numbers of that thing you have made a note of, represented by the XXXX.
Go to the "Transfer Settings" tab and click the checkbox to enable the "Limit number of simultaneous connections".
Then click the Connect button and you'll be set! You can just use this site again if you want to connect to your Wii U. Make sure that it now shows folders on the right side of the program.
Navigate to storage_mlc/usr/save/00050000/ on the right side of the program if you have installed the game to System Storage/NAND.
Navigate to storage_usb/usr/save/00050000/ on the right side of the program if you have installed the game to an external USB device.
After you've opened that folder, locate the folder who's 8 digits match the last 8 of your game's title ID.
Open, out of the multiple 8000000X folders that you'll see, the folder that that belongs to your user account. They're numbered in order of creation.
Transfering save files from Wii U to Cemu:
Launch the game in Cemu and open your log.txt that's in the same folder as your Cemu.exe file and look for the line where it states your game's "Save Path".
Go to that location on the left side of the FileZilla window and open the 80000001 folder (or the folder ID that corresponds to your account.) Remove all the files and folders in this folder. (This will wipe any current save data in use for this game within Cemu to prevent problems.)
On the right side of the window, select all of the files and folders and right-click the selection. Click Download and wait for the files to transfer.
You can press the home button to quit FTPiiU and test it out. You can also exit FileZilla.
Transfering save files from Cemu to Wii U:
Launch the game in Cemu and open your log.txt that's in the same folder as your Cemu.exe file and look for the line where it states your game's "Save Path".
Go to that location on the left side of the FileZilla window and open the 80000001 folder (or the folder ID that corresponds to your account.)
On the right side of the window, remove all of the files and folders. (This deletes the save data for this game on your Wii U to prevent problems.)
On the left side of the window, select all of the files and folders and right-click them. Click Upload and wait for the files to transfer.
After it's done, you can press the home button to quit FTPiiU and test it out.
Extra tip:
If you want to play around with other people's save files, you can visit these two threads:
To use your Update or DLC for a game, you must install it via Cemu's UI. Once you open Cemu, go to `File -> Install Update or DLC` and then navigate to the Update/DLC folder. Open the Meta folder and select the Meta.xml file.
Using Dumped Games
If you store all of your games in their own folders, you can keep all of the folders / games in a centralized Game Folder. Point Cemu to this folder, and as long as the games are WUD/WUX with keys in keys.txt or RPX with their meta.xml in their Meta folder, they will show up in Cemu's UI.
If you do not have a meta folder / file for your RPX game, we highly suggest you use FTPiiU Everywhere to get the data so you can have the game show up; otherwise you may use a method below:
Simply point Cemu's game directory in Options > General Settings to your folder that has all of your games. - This folder must not have Updates or DLC in it.
If you have the required information where it should be in the `keys.txt` file, the games should show up in Cemu's UI.
To launch an RPX format game:
RPX format games must have a Meta Folder & all data in order for it to show up in Cemu's UI. (If it doesn't, see the last bullet point.)
Simply point Cemu's game directory in Options > General Settings to your folder that has all of your games. - This folder must not have Updates or DLC in it.
If you do not have Meta data, you may use File > Load and browse to the game folder, open the code folder and then select the [name].rpx executable.
Lists of Various CEMU Options
Keyboard Shortcuts
Alt + Enter
Toggle between windowed or full screen.
Esc
Leave full screen.
F12
Copy a current-res screenshot to the clipboard.
Windows 10 - Win + Shift + S
Opens a quick screenshot tool and copies your selection to your clipboard to paste anywhere.
To start a game via the command line, open Command Prompt in the folder (by e.g. Shift + R -> cmd and use cd to open the Cemu dictionary or Shift + RIGHT_CLICK -> Open command window here inside the application folder).
Arguments: