Wii U emulator Cemu 2.1 out now with AppImage and Flatpak support for Linux

After going open source back in mid 2022, the Wii U emulator Cemu started providing experimental builds with Linux support and now it's out proper with the new Cemu 2.1 release.

Released late yesterday there's a lot of big improvements in this new release, that really advances Wii U emulation. This release brings together the 93 experimental releases since Cemu 2.0, they said to think of this like "the final experimental update". Basically, they're saying it's now properly ready for everyone to try out.

Major new additions include:

• Added appimage and flatpak releases for Linux.
• Added an experimental release for macOS. Available for x86-64 only for now but it can be run on ARM macs through Rosetta 2 emulation. MoltenVK is used as the graphics backend.
• Added a tool to emulate the USB portals for Skylanders and Disney Infinity.
• Added NFC/NTAG support. Pokemon Rumble U figures can now be scanned from a file similar to the existing Amiibo scanning.
• Added support for titles stored in .wuhb (Wii U homebrew) and .app (NUS) format.
• Added support for connecting to Pretendo network services.
• Cemu on Windows is now non-portable by default for new installations only. All data and config files will be stored in %appdata%/Cemu. This makes the Windows installation match other platforms. Existing installations will not be affected.
• Added portable mode by placing a directory named portable next to the Cemu executable. Cemu will then store data and config files in this folder. This works on all platforms.

And for those interested in the Linux improvements:

• Added wayland support.
• Added support for storing MLC and game files on case-sensitive filesystems.
• Added an option to enable GameMode.
• Brought online features on a par with Windows builds.
• Enabled DSU controller support.
• Emulated games can now access HID devices from the host via libusb (e.g. Skylanders portal).
• Many changes to improve robustness of the Linux build.
• Added debug option to create core dumps on crash.
• Improved diagnostics logging in case of crashes or other exceptions. Cemu is now also shipped with symbols so that stack traces show function names.
• The CPU and memory statistics in the overlay now work on Linux.
• The background colors of the Game List now match the brightness of the window theme instead of always using bright colors.
• Fixed an issue where closing the GamePad window would freeze Cemu.
• Fixed a bug where the GamePad window would not render anything with OpenGL.
• Fixed an issue where some UI dialogs would cause Cemu to crash after closing them.
• Fixed many smaller UI issues specific to WxWidget's wxGTK backend.

There's also numerous improvements to their OpenGL and Vulkan renderers, lots of upgrades to the input system, fixes to online play support and much much more.

Incredible work by many different coders.

More on the official site and GitHub release notes. You can download via Flathub easily.