Native Wii U Snes9xGX / FCE Ultra GX / Visual Boy Advance GX Ports

Tantric · Friday at 2:36 AM

It took a fair bit of effort (including changes to libmocha, libdvm, libntfs, and libsmb2), and there weren't homebrew examples for reference for much of what I built, but I've made native Wii U ports for the GX emulators. There's some QoL fixes for the other versions as well, but the big effort was completely abstracting the console hardware interactions so that this port (and any future port) becomes pretty simple. Anyone looking to do ports of their own or an updated, fully-functional reference should check out libgui (renamed from libwiigui).

https://github.com/dborth/snes9xgx/releases
https://github.com/dborth/fceugx/releases
https://github.com/dborth/vbagx/releases
https://github.com/dborth/libgui

Wii U Release Notes:

Requires Aroma - run the latest Aroma release and launch the .wuhb directly from it
Output up to 1080p, with a new GPU-powered ScaleFX upscaler shader and a Sharp Bilinear shader, plus a scanline shader
Crisp, upscaled menus with sharper text and HD artwork
Full Wii U GamePad support - touch screen, buttons, and rumble (including in-game rumble) - alongside Wiimote, Nunchuk, Classic Controller, and Wii U Pro Controller
Correct 16:9 aspect ratio handling, with Wii U aspect ratio handling
SD card plus up to 3 USB drives at once, with hotplug. USB supports FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS (requires Mocha, an optional Aroma component)
Press the HOME button to open the Wii U menu overlay. In game, HOME still opens the app menu.
Sound plays on both the TV and the GamePad
Recommended: install Bloopair to pair Bluetooth controllers (Switch Pro, Joy-Con, DualShock/DualSense, Xbox, and more) as if they were a Wii U Pro Controller
The new GBA JIT is ported to Wii U, fully working, and on by default. You can check whether it's enabled under Settings > Emulation. If it's off and can't be turned on, that depends on how the app was launched - it's recommended to launch the .wuhb directly from Wii U menu with the latest Aroma
Network shares now use libsmb2 (replacing the old SMB code) for modern SMB2/3 server support, on GameCube, Wii, and Wii U.

Enjoy!

KirbyChyn · Friday at 8:54 AM

Awesome work

Akiranon · Friday at 6:27 PM

This is amazing and something I've always wanted to see. Gave them a whirl and they're incredible! Thank you so much for your contributions to the Wii (U!) homebrew scene, Tantric!

The only oddity I've noticed so far is that in VBA GX, the screen size setting "maintain aspect ratio" seems a little strange. It stretches the image to the sides horizontally, but at the same time vertically squished the image, creating black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I'll see if I can take a pic of it later.

TriggerCoder · Friday at 7:42 PM

WOA! Thanks a lot @Tantric , that was unexpected!!!, but something I was looking forward since the beginning of the WiiU Hombrew Scene.

Sowden · Friday at 10:48 PM

Thank you so much for releasing this! After doing some testing, I found one odd bug with the covers or artwork. It's seeming to be taking images from other files and putting it over itself. You can see 8n the images I've posted. And does the 4:3 still look a bit stretched to anyone else? But anyway, thank you so much for having Bloopair work with it!

Tantric · 2026-10-03T03:08:54+0100

Sowden said:
Thank you so much for releasing this! After doing some testing, I found one odd bug with the covers or artwork. It's seeming to be taking images from other files and putting it over itself. You can see 8n the images I've posted. And does the 4:3 still look a bit stretched to anyone else? But anyway, thank you so much for having Bloopair work with it!

That is a pretty neat issue. I didn't run into it, I'm thinking because my images are all the same size. Try the latest pre-release and see if it's fixed!

Post automatically merged: Yesterday at 3:09 AM

Akiranon said:
This is amazing and something I've always wanted to see. Gave them a whirl and they're incredible! Thank you so much for your contributions to the Wii (U!) homebrew scene, Tantric!

The only oddity I've noticed so far is that in VBA GX, the screen size setting "maintain aspect ratio" seems a little strange. It stretches the image to the sides horizontally, but at the same time vertically squished the image, creating black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. I'll see if I can take a pic of it later.

I agree - I think the logic there wasn't quite right. Give the pre-release a try - I think it's correct now.

Vetus_Mundi · 2026-10-03T05:02:59+0100

This is great. Thank you @Tantric.

The snes9x port has pro controller issues with me. I am not sure if it was from changing the aspect to the more correct option or not. I started a game, changed the aspect, and no controls were mapped on the pro controller. I mapped them but there are also issues with the analog directions not being entirely right.

The version of Aroma that I am using (I think) is from last year. I have seen at least one comment about the newest version, though this comment was from a time somewhat recent, not being stable or something. Also, SPC700 is not audible. Emulator menu sound effects do work though. Another issue with both this and fcuegx that happens to me is ui stretching. I am using the pre-release build.

(Could you port Genesis Plus GX as well?)

games-intros · 2026-10-03T09:06:05+0100

Please FIX BUG in SUPER STAR WARS GAMES , both Games INTRO .... I returned to 5.0.2 version. Check that

Sowden · 2026-10-04T04:33:35+0100

Tantric said:
That is a pretty neat issue. I didn't run into it, I'm thinking because my images are all the same size. Try the latest pre-release and see if it's fixed!

The pre-release fixed it! I dono what it was about it, because the Snen9GX didn't do it. Thank you so much dude. It's amazing that I don't have to boot into vWii for this now. Just a small thing though. Is it me? Or does the 4:3 on the Gamepad still look a bit stretched? It could totally be me, I'm just putting that out there. But the picture looks super sharp! And one small request. Since the Gamepad is fully adopted now. When you're playing a game, and you hit Home to go to that menu screen. Could that show the battery level for the Gamepad as well? Other than that, it's absolutely perfect. Thank you for thinking of us Wii U owners!

Tantric · 2026-10-04T05:10:54+0100

It actually does show the battery, it's just currently lumped in with player 1. I've been mulling over how to display all of the connected controllers and battery levels. It would be useful for the USB controllers on the Wii version too.

woooody · 2026-10-04T05:30:47+0100

@Tantric Thank you for this wonderful project.
I have two questions.

When setting the language to Japanese or Korean, in which directory should I place the font file (.ttf)?
Regarding VBAGX, the rotation sensor isn’t working. What should I do? (In the Wii port, I can control the game by tilting the Wii Remote by default.)

Tantric · 2026-10-04T06:01:49+0100

woooody said:
@Tantric Thank you for this wonderful project.
I have two questions.

When setting the language to Japanese or Korean, in which directory should I place the font file (.ttf)?

Regarding VBAGX, the rotation sensor isn’t working. What should I do? (In the Wii port, I can control the game by tilting the Wii Remote by default.)

I think just in vbagx. I did wire it up for Wii u but didn't test it. Same goes for the rotation sensor. I didn't test that. Which game?

woooody · 2026-10-04T06:06:55+0100

Tantric said:
I think just in vbagx. I did wire it up for Wii u but didn't test it. Same goes for the rotation sensor. I didn't test that. Which game?

For example, WarioWare: Twisted!, KIRBY Tilt 'n' Tumble.
Also, how about the .ttf file? It didn't work even when I placed it in the same directory as the .wuhb file.

Sowden · 2026-10-04T06:13:14+0100

Tantric said:
It actually does show the battery, it's just currently lumped in with player 1. I've been mulling over how to display all of the connected controllers and battery levels. It would be useful for the USB controllers on the Wii version too.

Oh is it really? My Gamepad has a really interesting battery mod that I installed in it. It shows nothing on my screen, but maybe that's because of the mod

But otherwise, fantastic port. I know you don't work on the Genesis emulator, but it would be amazing if you could pull that off. Cheers my dude!

BlazeHeatnix · 2026-10-04T08:21:17+0100

How does the input lag compare to official VC releases on Wii?

Osakasan · 2026-10-04T08:54:16+0100

Ooookay? I wasn't expecting this when i woke up today.

Damn, downloading ASAP. Hopefully we'll get more of these in the future, i'll take them over retroarch any time.

Tantric · 2026-10-04T10:10:43+0100

woooody said:
For example, WarioWare: Twisted!, KIRBY Tilt 'n' Tumble.
Also, how about the .ttf file? It didn't work even when I placed it in the same directory as the .wuhb file.

Both should be fixed on the pre-release. the readme has been updated too, but sd:/vbagx/ko.ttf and jp.ttf should work now.

TeleTubby666 · 2026-10-04T11:00:53+0100

Would it be possible to add a feature to mark games as favorites? Searching through a large ROM collection on a network share every time you start up can take a bit of time. A favorites list would make jumping back into our favorite games so much faster and easier.

Thank you for all your great work!

Osakasan · 2026-10-04T11:01:03+0100

Ok, so i just tested the SNES and GBA emus, for the GBA one particularly i've used V-Rally 3 wich is quite heavy and i used to play a lot.

They run beautifully. No complaints from me at all, also i can't confirm that the GBA Aspect ratio is fixed in the current release.

Gosh, we need more like these.

woooody · 2026-10-04T11:43:15+0100

Tantric said:
Both should be fixed on the pre-release. the readme has been updated too, but sd:/vbagx/ko.ttf and jp.ttf should work now.

Thank you for the fix. Both the .ttf file and the rotation sensor are working fine.

I have one more request.
In the Wii version, if I named the game file in Japanese, it would appear in Japanese in the list, but in the Wii U version, the text appears garbled.
If possible, I’d like this fixed as well.

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