The Cemu Team recently released Cemu version 1.7.1 as promised for their Patreon backers. The Wii U emulator is now available to download for those of you donating $5 via the Cemu Patreon page.

One of the major new changes is compatibility improvement, such as being able to better play Wii U exclusives like Paper Mario: Color Splash with fewer graphics glitches and distortions.

Last week we reported on Cemu 1.7.1’s main focus being on compatibility for Wii U games, including increasing frame-rates for various games on lower end hardware. This is actually demonstrated with frame-rate comparisons between versions 1.7.0 and 1.7.1 by reznoire who put together a preview video of the Patreon release of 1.7.1, which you can check out below.

We see a 15fps improvement in various games, including Star Fox Zero going from 45fps to 60fps, as well as Bayonetta 2 going from 49fps up to 60fps. That’s a boost in performance by 33%.

Keep in mind that games like Bayonetta 2 still suffer from some significant drops during some heavy action sequences, but overall frame-rate gains have been made even during scenes where heavy drops are expected. For instance, in one sequence where heavy explosions are taking place on screen, in version 1.7.0 the frame-rate drops down to 34fps, but in version 1.7.1 it hovers around 43fps.

Games like Sonic Boom and Pokken Tournament have also improved, along with the NES Remix 2 gaining a boost of 30fps. Pokken Tournament is still unplayable but you can at least access the menus. Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition has also been improved from 20fps to 30fps, and Bayonetta 1 has also gone from 50fps up to 60fps, but a lot of vertex glitching has surfaced in its place.

Also, while Sonic Boom may have increased in overall frame-rate performance by 10fps, the game is still largely unplayable due to the fact that the character models and a lot of background effects are completely black.

You can expect to get your hands on the free version of Cemu 1.7.1 starting February 9th, next week. For more info on the Cemu emulator be sure to visit the Cemu.info website.