Nintendo Wii - HD Upscaling Advice

[Alex_ntsc]

I've never had the chance to see an external scaler with a side-by-side comparison with and without. If I owned one then I guarantee you there would be pictures galore.

Why don't you visit Gordon and test out anything you want through a Lumagen? I've seen you in the AVForums, I'm sure he would let you test out at your heart's content and it would help all the communities you're a member of. I'm even willing to send you a few pounds through PayPal just to have a respected, insightful person make the kind of testing that needs to be done here. I'm sure you'd know how document it all photographically as to really be helpful to a lot of people hanging on the fence.

[JP]

The Wii's picture quality is indeed woeful on an LCD (least it is on my WLT68) and, shallow as it might be, is restricting my desire to turn the console on.

It's not shallow at all!

I know people who consider themselves to be hardcore gamers often quote that the graphics are the least important thing in games are just...WRONG!!!

Everything about a game has to be balanced to everything else in the game. Graphics are definitely a part of it, especially now when we are given high quality graphics on other formats. I wouldn't say that the quality of graphics is down to polygons, shaders, textures or one single thing it's just a matter of looking "complete" with the rest of the game.

In general, graphics are the thing we first take in about a game whether it is for good or bad reasons.

I would never say that the Wii produces poor graphics, I think like the Gamecube, it is capable of fantastic graphics...but the finished product, when those graphics are actually displayed on a HD TV are disappointing for me.

[elkatas]

It's not shallow at all!

No, it is so goddamn shallow as it simply can be, no matter what HD-TV pro group wants to believe.

[JP]

No, it is so goddamn shallow as it simply can be, no matter what HD-TV pro group wants to think.

Qualify your remark please?

[elkatas]

Qualify your remark please?

Why should I? I'm just pointing out that the same people who are bashing Wii ferociously now because of its lack of resolution, were preaching how resolution doesn't matter when PC's were only platforms with higher resolutions. Tad hypocritical.

[Bada Bing!]

I don't think any of us are "Wii bashing", but it's fairly obvious that a console with 6 year old graphics hardware outputting in 480p isn't going to look very good on a 50" HDTV.

[JP]

And again...

I would never say that the Wii produces poor graphics, I think like the Gamecube, it is capable of fantastic graphics...but the finished product, when those graphics are actually displayed on a HD TV are disappointing for me.

Wii bashing, lol???

Resolution has nothing to do with the quality of the graphics but having an over filtered blur in which the graphics are hidden under does not help the game in any form at all.

I don't play games on my PC...my personal computer is for personal computing only!!

This thread is not about anybody liking or disliking the Wii, people on here have generally commented how much they really like the console.

I started this thread to get some advice from people who know what they are talking about and I'd hate to see this one ruined again as it seems to be something that members of this community are interested in.

The other people in this thread have very kindly tried to help and are attempting to resolve this for the members of this community...I'd very much appreciate it if you allowed us to discuss the issue here. Thanks elkatas!

[elkatas]

I know people who consider themselves to be hardcore gamers often quote that the graphics are the least important thing in games are just...WRONG!!!

Here you said outright that other views are wrong, and than only your view is the only correct one. After that you started to preach about how things should be*. That is really something that I don't tolerate at all, and you aren't honestly any better than people you are belittling.

* Read: How you want them to be.

[JP]

Yeah, I remember being really happy with the quality of the Composite video output (rating it by Composite standards):

Which version of the game is that Lyris? It looks surprisingly sharp in that shot!!!

I have found that my Gamecube games (I've tried about 40 - 50 now) seem to look sharper than my Wii games. I'm not sure whether it's just because I'm expecting the Wii games to look better that makes them seem worse or not?

Is the filtering applied to Gamecube/downloaded games also?

[andrewfee]

Looks like the Gamecube Smash Brothers to me with the filtering disabled. (shame it's not a standard option for games)

[elkatas]

I have found that my Gamecube games (I've tried about 40 - 50 now) seem to look sharper than my Wii games. I'm not sure whether it's just because I'm expecting the Wii games to look better that makes them seem worse or not?

Well, there is two theories running around:

1) There is something wrong with Wii's cables or way how TVs handle Wii's signal. Reason why this could happen is that when playing Wii games, signal is sent semi-crypted via cable. When console plays Cube games, signal isn't crypted. Why it does that, we don't know. One theory is that it was made to prevent 3rd parties from doing unofficial accessories. Crypting possibly disrupts quality of signal.

2) PAL Wii's signal is borked. This is at least partially true, as I have personally seen that Zelda's progressive mode looked worse in PAL Wii than NTSC with certain sets. My friend has one of these sets, and only WarioWare looks so crisp as it should look on his PAL console. These problems didn't appear on NTSC console.

[Bada Bing!]

Here you said outright that other views are wrong, and than only your view is the only correct one. After that you started to preach about how things should be*. That is really something that I don't tolerate at all, and you aren't honestly any better than people you are belittling.

* Read: How you want them to be.

There's no grey in your world at all mate is there?

[JP]

Interesting...

What ever it is, I'm really hoping that they will be able remedy it somehow...even if it means I'd have to chip my Wii to achieve it.

The blurring does seem to be the main problem really. I've just been playing Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz on it and the graphics on that are incredibly sharp running in 480p. I'd really love my other games to be able to run looking that way.

I seem to remember reading in a few places that Sonic had terrible blurring on it? I was looking forward to that game but it does sort of put me off when I read about how the graphics have been blurred in that way!!

[Lyris]

Yeah, Secret Rings is horribly flicker filtered. I don't know why they do it, you can still see the jaggies anyway.

[Lyris]

Well, there is two theories running around:

1) There is something wrong with Wii's cables or way how TVs handle Wii's signal. Reason why this could happen is that when playing Wii games, signal is sent semi-crypted via cable. When console plays Cube games, signal isn't crypted. Why it does that, we don't know. One theory is that it was made to prevent 3rd parties from doing unofficial accessories. Crypting possibly disrupts quality of signal.

2) PAL Wii's signal is borked. This is at least partially true, as I have personally seen that Zelda's progressive mode looked worse in PAL Wii than NTSC with certain sets. My friend has one of these sets, and only WarioWare looks so crisp as it should look on his PAL console. These problems didn't appear on NTSC console.

I hope this doesn't sound rude, but the first one is a pretty outlandish theory. The video signal couldn't be encrypted. The TV wouldn't be able to display it if it was.

#2 seems odd but I've never even seen a PAL Wii running in 480p so can't comment.

I have found that my Gamecube games (I've tried about 40 - 50 now) seem to look sharper than my Wii games. I'm not sure whether it's just because I'm expecting the Wii games to look better that makes them seem worse or not?

I think a lot of GameCube games used the flicker filter less. Super Smash Bros Melee even let you turn it on or off...