Wii U emulation is progressing rapidly, and it won’t be long before you’ll be able to play your game library on PC.
Last year, the internet saw its first glimpses of a Wii U emulator titled Cemu. In October, release 1.0.0 of Cemu could barely load past the title page of Mario Kart 8. Just seven months later, build 1.5.0 has the same game running at a near-constant 60 frames per second.
All this development seems to be coming from one person, GBATemp forum user Exzap. Hailing from the Netherlands, he has built a strong community of supporters, boasting a subreddit with nearly 3,000 members and a Patreon bringing in more than $1,600 a month. Clearly, there’s a lot of excitement about the prospect of emulating Wii U games.
With the Wii U on its way out, and the NX set to launch next spring, emulation could be a great way to keep the Wii U community alive. Just like with Dolphin, a popular Gamecube and Wii emulator, it ,to,o has seen a massive community grow around it. The biggest draw being the ability to install texture packs for old games and upscale them to far past the original resolution. This means being able to play Metroid Prime or Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on an HDTV with much crisper-looking visuals. Not only that, gamers can play games like Super Smash Bros. Melee online, with little latency.
While Wii U games look plenty pretty, there could always be room for improvement. With 4K televisions growing in popularity, being able to play Mario Kart 8 or Bayonetta 2 at such a high resolution would be a treat.
Currently, Cemu plays nice with most computers. All it takes is a decently powerful processor, like a Core i5, and a well-equipped graphics card. Exzap says that Cemu will work well on both Nvidia and AMD cards. Gamers can download the emulator for free right now, with updates being released biweekly.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.