Cemu ultimate guide to best settings and performance boost
Playing your classic Wii U games on windows has been made super easy as Cemu has progressed over the years. With drastic improvements in performance over the years, Cemu has taken the Wii U gaming experience to the next level! Emulating on a PC can be quite demanding and often lead to performance issues. Even though Cemu is incredibly well-optimized it still requires quite a decent system to get those desired frame rates. If your system has been struggling to run Cemu, you are in the right place! Here we have listed some tweaks and changes to optimize Cemu to its full potential and give you a performance boost!
Read our ultimate Yuzu(Switch emulator) optimization guide here.
Cemu minimum requirements
Itβs important before moving on you ensure your computer meets at least the minimum requirements to run Cemu:
- Windows 7 (x64) or above
- OpenGL 4.5 or Vulkan 1.1
- RAM: 4 GB minimum, 8 GB or more recommended
- Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 X64 Redistributable:Β vc_redist.x64.exe
- 4 cores/8 threads minimum
Cemu is very CPU dependent so it gets absolutely crucial to have at least a 4 core/8 thread CPU to get playable results.
Optimising Cemu for you and getting that performance boost

Cemu has various options and settings for compiling the shaders and rendering the output here we have listed the settings you should apply to get the best performance.
- Use Vulkan API
- Enable Async shader compiler
- Enable multi-core recompiler
- Update GPU drivers
- Update to the latest version of Cemu
- Free up Ram and CPU usage by disabling background tasks
Enabling Vulkan API
Go to Options through the home screen of Cemu and navigate to general settings.

Through there under the Graphics tab choose Vulkan API to enjoy the best performance! Note: In some cases, OpenGL might work better so itβs advised to experiment a little.

Why Vulkan?
After experimenting with both OpenGL and Vulkan there was one clear winner, Vulkan. The difference was quite easily visible though both work fine and are highly optimized now Vulkan still stays one step ahead, especially for AMD cards. Vulkan offers a special Async compiler that preloads the shaders, removes stuttering entirely, and provides a smooth freeflow performance.
Enabling the Async shader compiler
In General settings, under the graphics tab go ahead and check the box against the Async shader compiler to enable Asyncrounous compiling.

What is an Async shader compiler?
Cemu recompiles shaders from time to time when running games. This can be a slow process sometimes and cause stuttering and performance drop. Enabling the Async shader compiler allows Cemu to compile those shaders asynchronouslyΒ in the background while playing the games and prevent stuttering and provide a smooth gaming experience.
Performance boost with Multi-core Recompiler
Enabling the Multi-core recompiler is very important as this can improve the performance dramatically. Selecting the Multi-core recompiler allows Cemu to use multiple Cpu cores and ultimately improves the performance.
In order to enable the multi-core recompiler, right-click on a game title on the home screen of Cemu. Then navigate to the βedit game profileβ section.

After opening the Edit game profile tab change the βModeβ under the CPU section to multi-core recompiler from single-core recompiler. Leave the quantum thread at the default value.

These settings should get you going and improve your performance drastically.
If you still see framerates are still not up to the mark you can try some other settings we have mentioned below to optimise your gaming experience.
Also read, Breath of the Wild save editor for Cemu and Tears of the Kingdom save editor for YUZU.
A little tip for Nvidia Users for performance boost
Nvidia users can make gain some performance boost by changing the following settings in the Nvidia control panel.
- Open the Nvidia control panel.
- Go to the image settings with preview under 3d settings
- Click on take me there against the βUse advanced 3D image settingsβ option.

- Navigate to the program settings and click add.
- Find Cemu Wii U emulator.exe
- Under their turn on threaded optimisation and triple buffering and click apply.
Update GPU drivers
Updating drivers can often improve performance and even fix bugs and glitches. Go to the download page of Nvidia or AMD and update your GPU drivers to their latest versions.
Update Cemu
Always make sure you are using the latest version of Cemu. Often Cemu releases updates that drastically improve the performance Download the latest version here.
Still no Results?
If you still see no performance improvements read our guide to improve the overall windows gaming performance here and make windows better for gaming.
Results
Enabling these settings should provide a significant performance boost and a smooth gaming experience. The Async shader compiler should get rid of all the stuttering issues and enabling the multi-core recompiler should improve the overall framerates!
Enjoy the fast and smooth gaming experience in Cemu!
Read our ultimate YUZU(Switch emulator) optimization guide here.
If you found this guide helpful, make sure to read more game emulation guides by us.
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