The Cemu team has spoken, and they have decreed that Cemu 1.8.1 will be made available for patrons who have committed $5 toward the Cemu Patreon.

The news rolled out over on a post on the Cemu sub-Reddit, where user mh3u_dex summarized a post from Cemu team leader Exzap.

According to the post, there are continued graphics improvements in the emulator to help run games like Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Higher with higher performance and better effects. This includes improved particle effects, better transparency with fog, and better emulated shadows.

An imgur gallery contains a brief look at some of the post-processing and shader improvements made for Breath of the Wild, bringing the emulation that much closer to the original Wii U version.

Various other games have also been on the receiving end of improved capability. For instance, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition had various vertex glitches addressed that were present in Cemu 1.8.0.

In the preview shot for Cemu 1.8.1 we see that the stage geometry is cleaner and the issue with the deformation and tearing is now fixed.

The Cemu team has been blazing through the updates, adding new content and improving the playability of a lot of Wii U games.

Thanks to the Patreon backers the emulation crew have been able to focus full time on working on the Cemu, upgrading it and advancing it at a rapid rate. In fact, for 1.8.1 they’ve improved the YouTube app functionality within the Wii U’s app system, along with web-browsing. Apparently multiplayer gaming through the Wii U’s web-browser is still a ways off, but it’s also on the team’s to-do list.

Also, ahead of the June 23rd release for Patreon backers, Exzap released a game compatibility list that was just recently updated for version 1.8.1, to give gamers an idea as to what works and what doesn’t in the upcoming version of Cemu. You can check out the compatibility tracking list for more info, or visit the Cemu Patreon page for the latest backer updates.