Wii, HDTV and Virtual Console Games

[DracIsBack]

I have my Wii hooked up downstairs on a 720p television through a component video cable. Although it's not an HD system, I find it isn't too bad on this type of TV (1080p would be another story). The progressive scan gives better results than I had on the GameCube (only had composite out on a 480i). Also, in playing some GC games again, it does seem that more effort has been made with Wii games to make them look a bit crisper on HD TVs.

 

One question though: does anyone here play Virtual Console games on the Wii with a high definition television? I've avoided that because I've found my traditional consoles look pretty awful when played on that high resolution. (ie. Jaguar, Genesis etc)

[MetalSlime23]

I play VC games on my 720p TV, and they look fine. I am using a component connection though. They'd probably look like total crap if I used composite instead.

[BydoEmpire]

I play my Wii on a 720p TV as well, and VC games - at least the ones I've tried - look just fine.

[Gabriel]

Tracking down the cables was a bitch, but I have mine hooked up to my HD TV. The VC games look fine.

 

The main gripe is that the Wii doesn't display them at 4:3. It will always stretch them out. So, I either have to fiddle with the aspect button on my TV remote, or change the Wii system setting from 16:9. The PS3 has this same problem when playing PS2 games. The 360 is the only one that got it right with the system automatically detecting 4:3 display and adjusting the screen accordingly.

[JamesD]

I've seen the Wii on a large HDTV. It looked like big pixels to me.

I'm not trying to bash the Wii but don't try to tell be how good it looks on an HDTV either.

My PS2 with a component video cable looks pretty good too... for a PS2 anyway.

Some of my old 8 bit computers look pretty good on my HDTV. For old 8 bit computers.

HD they are not.

 

I've heard arguments for HD-DVD/Blue Ray vs DVD and constantly see posts of how people think upconverted DVD looks just as good on 720p or a set under 40". Sorry, I have a 37" 720p set and the difference is night and day there as well. But that's not to say I don't watch DVDs... I do and they certainly don't look terrible. Not bad? Sure... but no comparison to HD.

 

The reasons I bought a 360 over a Wii were HD and the 360 games are more to my liking.

I've played several very good (and very fun) Wii titles on a friend's Wii. If it gets something I absolutely must have I might buy one, HD or not. Just don't try to kid me or yourself... it's not even close to an HD game system.

If you compare a Wii to a 360 or PS3 side by side on identical HDTVs with the same game, not that bad will be not even close.

 

Part of the reason the Wii is a hit is because it's NOT HD. That made it's lower price possible.

Not bad on HD? Sure... but definitely no comparison to actual HD.

I bought my first PS2 last year in spite of it not being HD and having a pretty good dedicated gaming PC.

I played some games I absolutely loved and thought I had to have one.

(If Sony hadn't dropped PS2 hardware compatibility from the PS3 I might have bought one of those)

 

Instead of trying to sugar coat the Wii's weaknesses, let it stand on it's strengths.

The motion controller, unique games, size, and price. For the average person that makes it a strong competitor.

I just want people that are buying a system to realize that when they hook it up to an HDTV there is a *noticeable* difference between the Wii and the other two systems on an HDTV of any real size.

 

I do think just about ANY video source looks better on my HDTV than my old TV and the better the connection the better the image. Component is much better from my PS2 than composite.

Edited May 25, 2008 by JamesD

[Atariboy]

The main gripe is that the Wii doesn't display them at 4:3. It will always stretch them out. So, I either have to fiddle with the aspect button on my TV remote, or change the Wii system setting from 16:9. The PS3 has this same problem when playing PS2 games. The 360 is the only one that got it right with the system automatically detecting 4:3 display and adjusting the screen accordingly.

 

Why would setting your Wii's setting to widescreen change anything? It's still outputted as a 4:3 signal since the 480p signal isn't flagged as widescreen, you have to set your tv to stretch 480p widescreen material to have it be displayed in 16:9. So can't you leave your widescreen setting alone on the Wii, and just switch what your television is doing to the signal? Stretch it to fill if its a 16:9 game, and keep it a 4:3 window if it's not.

Edited May 26, 2008 by Atariboy

[Lost Monkey]

I've seen the Wii on a large HDTV. It looked like big pixels to me.

I'm not trying to bash the Wii but don't try to tell be how good it looks on an HDTV either.

My PS2 with a component video cable looks pretty good too... for a PS2 anyway.

Some of my old 8 bit computers look pretty good on my HDTV. For old 8 bit computers.

HD they are not.

 

I've heard arguments for HD-DVD/Blue Ray vs DVD and constantly see posts of how people think upconverted DVD looks just as good on 720p or a set under 40". Sorry, I have a 37" 720p set and the difference is night and day there as well. But that's not to say I don't watch DVDs... I do and they certainly don't look terrible. Not bad? Sure... but no comparison to HD.

 

The reasons I bought a 360 over a Wii were HD and the 360 games are more to my liking.

I've played several very good (and very fun) Wii titles on a friend's Wii. If it gets something I absolutely must have I might buy one, HD or not. Just don't try to kid me or yourself... it's not even close to an HD game system.

If you compare a Wii to a 360 or PS3 side by side on identical HDTVs with the same game, not that bad will be not even close.

 

Part of the reason the Wii is a hit is because it's NOT HD. That made it's lower price possible.

Not bad on HD? Sure... but definitely no comparison to actual HD.

I bought my first PS2 last year in spite of it not being HD and having a pretty good dedicated gaming PC.

I played some games I absolutely loved and thought I had to have one.

(If Sony hadn't dropped PS2 hardware compatibility from the PS3 I might have bought one of those)

 

Instead of trying to sugar coat the Wii's weaknesses, let it stand on it's strengths.

The motion controller, unique games, size, and price. For the average person that makes it a strong competitor.

I just want people that are buying a system to realize that when they hook it up to an HDTV there is a *noticeable* difference between the Wii and the other two systems on an HDTV of any real size.

 

I do think just about ANY video source looks better on my HDTV than my old TV and the better the connection the better the image. Component is much better from my PS2 than composite.

 

 

The OP was asking about how VC games look on an HD television.

 

The 360 and PS3 are capable of higher resolutions. Wii get it.

[JamesD]

The OP was asking about how VC games look on an HD television.

 

The 360 and PS3 are capable of higher resolutions. Wii get it.

Sorry... I just happened to over hear someone telling a customer that was asking about the different systems that the Wii looked just as good on an HDTV and it kinda set me off.

[DracIsBack]

Sorry... I just happened to over hear someone telling a customer that was asking about the different systems that the Wii looked just as good on an HDTV and it kinda set me off.

 

LOL, yeah I'm pretty sure I didn't:

 

• try to tell you how good it looks on an HDTV - I said I found it wasn't too bad and that Wii games seem to keep in mind that people have HDTVs when compared to some GC games.
  
• I didn't compare Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to upconverted DVDs.
  
• Try to get into an argument over the merits of what system has better games.
  
• Try to convince anyone that a Wii would rival a 360 or PS3 on an HDTV
  
• Suggest the Wii was an HD system
  
• Try to sugar coat the lack of Wii's HD capabilities
  

As others have noted, I simply wanted to know how Virtual Console games appeared on HDTV. I'm a bit finicky about how games look in emulators on computer monitors. I've also disliked how older consoles look on HDTV. The Jaguar was a big one where the display annoyed me so much that I put it back on a standard CRT television.

[n8littlefield]

I actually find the slight blur of the TG16 games is less noticeable in 480p. However, I think the dark look of some NES games is more noticeable (SMB3 for example). Other than the issue of having to flip the TV's aspect ratio it works just fine.

Edited May 26, 2008 by n8littlefield

[Tempest]

I'm playing on a 36" HD CRT TV and they look just fine to me. In fact I enjoy playing them on the Wii because there isn't any fuzziness from the Pre-S-Video systems.

 

Tempest

[Lord Helmet]

The main gripe is that the Wii doesn't display them at 4:3. It will always stretch them out. So, I either have to fiddle with the aspect button on my TV remote, or change the Wii system setting from 16:9. The PS3 has this same problem when playing PS2 games. The 360 is the only one that got it right with the system automatically detecting 4:3 display and adjusting the screen accordingly.

 

Why would setting your Wii's setting to widescreen change anything? It's still outputted as a 4:3 signal since the 480p signal isn't flagged as widescreen, you have to set your tv to stretch 480p widescreen material to have it be displayed in 16:9. So can't you leave your widescreen setting alone on the Wii, and just switch what your television is doing to the signal? Stretch it to fill if its a 16:9 game, and keep it a 4:3 window if it's not.

 

If you have you're wii set for a widescreen TV, it displays everything in widescreen mode, so it automatically converts 4:3 content to 16:9. Quite irritating.

[godslabrat]

My VC games look... exactly as I would expect them to look, given the resolution of the original games. No, they don't look "fantastic" compared to current-gen games, but they are very faithful reproductions of what the games looked like in their prime. I have my Wii hooked up to the same set as my NES, SNES, and Genesis, and the real games don't look significantly different from their VC counterparts. The HD set does tweak the image a bit when it scales it to 1080p, but it treats all the systems equally in this respect, so that's a wash.

 

Manually flipping the aspect ratio is a PITA, though.

[n8littlefield]

Manually flipping the aspect ratio is a PITA, though.

It's more frustrating when you realize that the demo games included with Smash Bros don't require you to flip the aspect ratio - they are smart enough to display correctly without you having to change it yourself - so Nintendo has the code to fix it, they're just too lazy to do it.

[Atariboy]

The main gripe is that the Wii doesn't display them at 4:3. It will always stretch them out. So, I either have to fiddle with the aspect button on my TV remote, or change the Wii system setting from 16:9. The PS3 has this same problem when playing PS2 games. The 360 is the only one that got it right with the system automatically detecting 4:3 display and adjusting the screen accordingly.

 

Why would setting your Wii's setting to widescreen change anything? It's still outputted as a 4:3 signal since the 480p signal isn't flagged as widescreen, you have to set your tv to stretch 480p widescreen material to have it be displayed in 16:9. So can't you leave your widescreen setting alone on the Wii, and just switch what your television is doing to the signal? Stretch it to fill if its a 16:9 game, and keep it a 4:3 window if it's not.

 

If you have you're wii set for a widescreen TV, it displays everything in widescreen mode, so it automatically converts 4:3 content to 16:9. Quite irritating.

 

The Wii never sends out a 16:9 signal so I don't understand. If you set your Wii to widescreen, it changes widescreen capable games into a anamorphic widescreen compatible mode that appears correct when you tell your television to fill your widescreen display, but the signal outputted from the Wii is always 4:3.

 

I have no problems with my Wii set to widescreen in the options menu. I set my display's aspect ratio to full if my content is widescreen and I want it correctly displayed in 16:9, and if it's a 4:3 GC, Wii, or Virtual Console title, I set my display with the push of a button to maintain the aspect ratio it's being told to use from the device connected to it (The Wii in this case) and it displays it correctly as 4:3, with the sides being black in the unused space like its supposed to be. 480p isn't natively widescreen and doesn't (Never?) flag the content as widescreen, unlike 720p and such where what I'm saying wouldn't work. You got to have your display stretch it to be 16:9.

 

Or maybe I'm just remembering wrong, I'm currently playing it on a 480i sd set.

Edited May 27, 2008 by Atariboy

[DracIsBack]

I have my Wii hooked up to the same set as my NES, SNES, and Genesis, and the real games don't look significantly different from their VC counterparts.

 

Awesome news! Thanks to everyone who replied. Quite honestly, I just have trouble with emulated games on monitors. They never look quite right to me.

 

Though Tempest raises a good point of having S-Video and Component out instead of RF/Composite, which I hadn't thought of.

Edited May 28, 2008 by DracIsBack

[Lord Helmet]

The main gripe is that the Wii doesn't display them at 4:3. It will always stretch them out. So, I either have to fiddle with the aspect button on my TV remote, or change the Wii system setting from 16:9. The PS3 has this same problem when playing PS2 games. The 360 is the only one that got it right with the system automatically detecting 4:3 display and adjusting the screen accordingly.

 

Why would setting your Wii's setting to widescreen change anything? It's still outputted as a 4:3 signal since the 480p signal isn't flagged as widescreen, you have to set your tv to stretch 480p widescreen material to have it be displayed in 16:9. So can't you leave your widescreen setting alone on the Wii, and just switch what your television is doing to the signal? Stretch it to fill if its a 16:9 game, and keep it a 4:3 window if it's not.

 

If you have you're wii set for a widescreen TV, it displays everything in widescreen mode, so it automatically converts 4:3 content to 16:9. Quite irritating.

 

The Wii never sends out a 16:9 signal so I don't understand. If you set your Wii to widescreen, it changes widescreen capable games into a anamorphic widescreen compatible mode that appears correct when you tell your television to fill your widescreen display, but the signal outputted from the Wii is always 4:3.

 

I have no problems with my Wii set to widescreen in the options menu. I set my display's aspect ratio to full if my content is widescreen and I want it correctly displayed in 16:9, and if it's a 4:3 GC, Wii, or Virtual Console title, I set my display with the push of a button to maintain the aspect ratio it's being told to use from the device connected to it (The Wii in this case) and it displays it correctly as 4:3, with the sides being black in the unused space like its supposed to be. 480p isn't natively widescreen and doesn't (Never?) flag the content as widescreen, unlike 720p and such where what I'm saying wouldn't work. You got to have your display stretch it to be 16:9.

 

Or maybe I'm just remembering wrong, I'm currently playing it on a 480i sd set.

 

My display is never set to stretch content. It is set to standard (which lets the device send the proper signal). I do have the Wii set to widescreen and 480p because I have a widescreen HDTV. I'm just irritated because my Xbox 360 knows the difference in 16:9 and 4:3 games...but the Wii doesn't. I shouldn't have to manually do this when my DVD player, satellite box, Apple TV, and Xbox 360 can handle it. Irritating.

[Atariboy]

If your display never stretches content, how do you ever get your Wii to display games in widescreen?

 

Like I said, the Wii always sends out a 4:3 signal, you have to set your Wii to widescreen and then have your display fill/stretch your screen. If your display just does what the Wii tells it to do, it would always be 4:3 and you'd get a compressed image by setting your Wii to widescreen with things being thinner and taller than they're supposed to be. The Wii doesn't flag it as widescreen so your display still thinks of it as a 4:3 signal, and your tv needs toto stretch it to look correctly and make it appear as widescreen.

 

I got a feeling you can resolve your VC problem with the press of a button on your remote control while leaving the Wii's settings intact and set to widescreen.

 

The Xbox 360 knows the difference because hd resolutions are natively widescreen. If your playing something like Atari Anthology at 720p on a Xbox, the 4:3 content would automatically have black bars on both sides to preserve the aspect ratio, just like all 4:3 HD content. If your display gets something like a 720p signal, it's automatically widescreen. Extended definition 480p isn't natively widescreen, nor is the signal being sent out flagged as widescreen.

 

Your display needs to stretch it to turn it into widescreen. All your stuff is hd I assume (Satellite box, Apple TV, and your DVD player, which must be a upscaling player if its automatically widescreen). The Wii isn't hd capable, the best it does is send out a extended def progressive image that can be anamorphic widescreen if the game supports it (Basically fakes a widescreen image when it's still a 4:3 image by using rectangular, rather than square pixels, so it looks correctly on a 16:9 display when the television stretches it to fill the screen).

Edited May 30, 2008 by Atariboy

[Lord Helmet]

Like I said, the Wii always sends out a 4:3 signal

 

If that's the case...why even have this setting available if it does nothing?

[Atarifever]

I have a simple solution to all your problems.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Atarifever

[Atariboy]

Because that enables anamorphic widescreen, which you then have to have your display stretch to fill your 16:9 display. Looks good and is widescreen, it's just not flagged as 16:9 because the signal the Wii is sending out is still 4:3. Your display has to finish the job by making it fill the screen.

 

But you can leave that setting on and just have your set maintain the aspect ratio it's recieving (Probably a button on your remote to switch between modes) to keep it at a 4:3 signal like it's thinking it's recieving for your 4:3 GC, Wii, and Virtual Console titles. Worth a try if it works for you, I imagine it's a lot less hassle then going into settings everytime you want to play a VC title if you don't have to change it.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Atariboy

[Lord Helmet]

Well, I must investigate my settings further when I get home. Currently, my TV is set to normal, and the 360 and Wii share the same component input via a splitter. The 360 displays everything perfectly in 16:9 and 4:3 depending on the content, and the Wii is showing everything in full screen (16:9). Strange

[Atariboy]

Sounds normal, your 360 is sending everything through as widescreen (Or is letterboxing it for you when appropriate) leaving your display nothing to do about it, and your tv is stretching your Wii titles to be widescreen (Which is what you want when your Wii is set to widescreen and your playing a 16:9 GC or Wii game).

 

See if there's a setting you can switch to to maintain the aspect ratio it's recieving from the system (4:3), you may be able to just switch your tv to that to play a 4:3 game on your Wii without changing your settings in the Wii menu away from widescreen.

 

Then again, I could be wrong.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Atariboy