Looks great. Kinda wish I had a widescreen crt since there are some things I think would look really good on one that I’m just not willing to sacrifice the aspect ratio for.
It is rather weird but also quite awesome that by using gecko codes on Xenoblade Chronicles you can get to see more of the environment at once in 4:3 than you could in the original 16:9 aspect.
Would be nice if this could be done with all the Wii games that are 16:9 only, but I am guessing it all comes down to the rendering engines used to if you can force them to display the additional display area without ending up in a cropped to 4:3 aspect.
I suspect since Xenoblade Chronicles is an RPG, it probably had a long development time and was likely initially made for the 4:3 aspect ratio but at some point they were told it needed to be moved over to 16:9 so they just moved the UI and cropped the top and bottom off the 4:3 rendering for an easy fix.
The UI elements feel quite cramped together, more so than I’d expect if it was originally intended for 16:9.
Shame there doesn’t appear to be a way at present to move the HUD upwards so the map is more appropriately positioned in the top right of the screen when in the 4:3 aspect ratio.
Maybe some talented coder will find a way to do that in future?
I thought about this problem for awhile. I got a Panasonic Plasma 16:9 EDTV for $40 on Craigslist. It needs a repair or calibration to display most of the inputs properly, but already my Wii games are looking the best they ever have on it. I’ve got my Wii U on it with HDMI to DVI adapter. DVI is great, any set like this with DVI input can get straight digital 480p widescreen.
just wanted to add that Xenoblade Chronicles with the 4:3 patch on a CRT is just glorious
haven’t been able to get some other games to work though. I got Skyward Sword working, but New Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Kirby’s Return to Dreamland don’t seem to like the codes unfortunately
