Most powerful console to be emulated by a Wii U

[wayl0n2raddd]

I was thinking about getting heavier games from consoles such as the Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 and was wondering if they can be emulated on Wii U, only for me to find out that they aren't any available emulators for them, or any open-source emulators for said consoles that I know of. I then started wondering, "What IS the most powerful consoles that can be emulated by a Wii U?" Feel free to let me know what's available or what you guys think.

 

[Flame]

Just check the retroarch thread. It's pretty much it. It's like PS1 and N64. It's not because it can't do stronger consoles. it's just people don't want to put the time and effort into the Wii U homebrew. Let's say 0.1% is homebrewed and a small fraction of those are devs. You have limited devs working on homebrew.


https://gbatemp.net/threads/retroarch-wiiu-wip.447670/

 

[Technician]

The sony psp is the most powerful console, that can be emulated by the wii u. Not all games are playable though. Just some 2d games run smoothly on it. So yeah, there might be your line of possibility.

 

[Orbots]

the most powerful console that can be emulated by wii u are the wii (native support) and gamecube (native support that was hidden but is still there) use nintendon't for gamecube

 

[Ettino]

emulated. native support.

Pick one. You can't have both.

 

[MikaDubbz]

the most powerful console that can be emulated by wii u are the wii (native support) and gamecube (native support that was hidden but is still there) use nintendon't for gamecube

You're even recognizing that it isn't emulation, yet you still suggest them... odd. No, by their very nature, loading .isos or .wbfs files, or the like for GameCube and Wii games on the Wii U does not qualify as emulation. It's awesome and great that it's natively able to handle these games (especially when the system was never intended to play GameCube games) (likewise for the small handful of Triforce games), but this is not the answer to OP's question. In terms of emulation, the most powerful console the Wii U console handles decently is one of these 4: PS1, N64, PSP, or DS.

Having said that, in theory the Wii U could handle more. The Dreamcast would probably emulate quite decently on the Wii U under the right supervision. Perhaps even the PS2 as well (though I have doubts on that one). But it would take a ton of dedicated work under the right people that understand all this hardware and how to make the most out of it. (N64 and PS1 emulation is listed here, yet both are only marginally better on a Wii U than a Wii, despite the fact that both could likely be at near perfect levels of emulation on the Wii U compared to where they currently stand (which still isn't all that bad, mind you) if someone worked on making them work on the native side of the Wii U over the vWii side (even with overclock on)).

 

[UsernamesAreWeird]

No PSP emulation on Wii U is terrible

Don't bother with it

 

[MikaDubbz]

No PSP emulation on Wii U is terrible

Don't bother with it

Well that is just flat out, stupidly wrong. It depends entirely on the game. Some games are awesome, some are godawful. You're wrong to suggest for everyone to not bother with it, depending on the games you want to play. I mean you want the GTA Stories games? Don't even bother. You want the highly addictive Patapon series? The Wii U is absolutely a place worth playing it on.

 

[Technician]

You want the highly addictive Patapon series? The Wii U is absolutely a place worth playing it on

How did you manage to run the game Patapon? For me it just hangs after 1 minute with 1 frame per second. Did you overclock your wii u?

 

[CORE]

Dreamcast would be the limit no fancy Rendering Resolutions etc. But 640x480 should be doable.
Just getting Hardware Acceleration etc seems to be the issue with WiiU and Time and Interest.

PSP could be improved for decent compatability.
PS1 Has come along way.

I would say Jaguar but only one guy has truly done the Jaguar service with BigPEmu.
https://www.richwhitehouse.com/jaguar/
He really does deserve support and credit he is also working on BigInstinct a Killer Instinct 1&2 Arcade Emulator.

3DO should be capable.

Saturn clearly has potential along with N64.

But Recompilation Ports could be a thing hopefully for N64.

Perhaps a Decompiled N64 Virtual Console then it can be improved.

 

[Ettino]

Well that is just flat out, stupidly wrong. It depends entirely on the game.

Totally. Last time I tried out the PS1 core on retroarch most classic JRPG games run great on it. Some fighting and racing games run terrible on it however.

 

[azy77]

Totally. Last time I tried out the PS1 core on retroarch most classic JRPG games run great on it. Some fighting and racing games run terrible on it however.

Eh? On my retroarch Aroma, there is no PS1 game that doesn't run full speed. That includes Tekken 3, Tobal 2, Ridge Race R4, Ridge Racer Turbo Mode...

 

[Ettino]

Eh? On my retroarch Aroma, there is no PS1 game that doesn't run full speed. That includes Tekken 3, Tobal 2, Ridge Race R4, Ridge Racer Turbo Mode...

Good to know it's improved.

 

[ChibiMofo]

I run many PS1 games at full speed on my New 3DS XL. It is sad that the much more powerful Wii U doesn't at least have a good Dreamcast emulator on it. Then again, I'd never in a million years use it since my PC would always be able to do that and far more far better. Don't expect the size of the Wii U homebrew scene to suddenly exponentially expand. It was and is a very unpopular system. It was a 7th gen console (GPU/CPU power wise) at the start of the 8th gen. It was never going to succeed and didn't.

 

[azy77]

I'd 100% use a DC emulator on it, I much prefer using the Wii U for retroarch in the lounge with my kids than a much more powerful laptop in the corner of a room.

Playing PS1 in SD feels more enjoyable to me than in HD with all the anti wobble physics on my laptop, simply as it's connected to a large TV and feels more plug and play for others to join in. It gives me that 90's vibe and when I look at the Wii U size and age, I can't help but feel impressed at it and at all the developers that help continue to make it a multi platform beast with a multitude of controller options.

 

[niuus]

I would say Jaguar but only one guy has truly done the Jaguar service with BigPEmu.
https://www.richwhitehouse.com/jaguar/
He really does deserve support and credit he is also working on BigInstinct a Killer Instinct 1&2 Arcade Emulator.

By joining his Patreon is a very likely way to ask for ports of both BigPEmu and BigInstinct to a PowerPC architecture. It is the only qualified guy to do it, and 100% deserving of it, not only because of his very talented coding skills, but to help with his medical bills too.

 

[sonictopfan]

Well that is just flat out, stupidly wrong. It depends entirely on the game. Some games are awesome, some are godawful. You're wrong to suggest for everyone to not bother with it, depending on the games you want to play. I mean you want the GTA Stories games? Don't even bother. You want the highly addictive Patapon series? The Wii U is absolutely a place worth playing it on.

Several PSP games run flawlessly on WiiU, not that I use it since I have better ways but I've played a few PSP games on WiiU that ran flawlessly.

 

[mrmagicm]

PSP emulation would perfectly work, IF Emulator was updated on this platform!

 

[N7Kopper]

In terms of raw potential, the Wii U is probably akin to the Xbox 360, just with a different architecture. In practice, it's a very underutilized system, owing in no small part to how underappreciated it was in its lifespan.

This tracks, because it was also underutilized by official developers, who stuffed motion control gimmicks into their ports rather than leveraging dual-screen play in place of split-screen. *coughsplintercellcough*