I am a amateur, i only have the toys here, but try Wii on 20l5 in 480p and after 480i , you will se what i speak
CRT is ideal image quality wise, but I don’t have or have the space for a widescreen CRT. And the games were built for widescreen in most cases, apart from probably year 1 games.
So yeah I have the same struggle, there is no ideal screen easily available as it was a transition TV technology console. A widescreen CRT would be a dedicated Wii TV for me really.
CRT for me, but Wii is primarily an emulation box in my case. I have hooked the Wii up to our main flat panel (4k TCL) for some DKCR and Mario Galaxy and I was not impressed, especially after playing 3D World and Tropical Freeze so much on the U. I still need to get a VGA converter and try 480p on a PC CRT though.
On the flip side, I have been very impressed with Dolphin for Wii games on flat panels. If emulation doesn’t bother you it may be a good option. Mario Galaxy and DKCR both benefit greatly from a 720p or 1080p upscale.
Wii and GameCube are the only consoles where I consider emulation to be a viable option. Dolphin is just that good and the community has created so many HD texture and shader packs, it’s really quite wild !
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I mean… I don’t know why you’d consider those more viable than earlier consoles, especially 2D ones where even a few cycle-accurate emulators exist.
OG Xbox games would also probably look amazing on such a screen if you were able to snag one. A dedicated screen for 2 consoles is a tall order though. I wouldn’t be able to do it in my home at this point.
Still, fortunately nearly every Xbox game has a 4:3 option. Wii games without the option really do suffer a lot.
I don’t mind playing these on my CRT with borders, but I worry about the pixels aging at different rates/image retention during long periods of play.
The smaller size of the screen, however doesn’t bother me like it used to.
I have to say, emulation for 3D systems is way more appealing to me in general than for 2D systems. 3D just responds better to upscaling, filtering, and texture/asset upgrades. PS1 and GC/Wii are systems where I believe you can have a superior experience from emulation than from OG hardware, assuming compatibility for the game in question.
Then again, this is probably true for some 2D systems as well but people seem a lot more anal about 2D emulation being 100% faithful to the original hardware (myself included). Opinions seem much more evenly split on 3D systems and visual upgrades/changes).
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I don’t like seeing SD 3D games in higher resolutions. They tend to look more angular and flat unless the game is remastered with better textures and remodeled with better geometry.
Plus prerendered backgrounds never look good when the game is rendered at a higher res due to the contrast of native resolutions of in game assets.
Mainly because I feel that with 3d engines you can improve upon the experience in so many ways with an emulator and dolphin is by far the most accurate emulator out of any gen 5+ console.
Internal resolution increase
HD texture packs
Shaders and lighting
Fps improvement
De interlacing is a non issue
Etc etc
I feel that when emulating a 2d console the best you’re going to achieve is native hardware quality and I’d rather play it on native hardware. I can’t play melee @4k/60,online, in widescreen, with Wiiu textures and models on native hardware but I sure can in dolphin and it’s glorious
Standard definition obscures both the texture and 3d asset quality on a huge amount of games on the 6th generation consoles, they were producing far better visuals than they were actually displaying at the time.
I remember playing Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story back to back just before buying a PC and I was genuinely floored when I raised the internal resolution to 1080p and saw how much previously hidden detail was being shown.
So this is a little off topic, but this thread has me realizing that I am probably missing out by keeping my Wii in 4:3 mode on my plasma TV. Do you all switch aspect ratios at the system level every time you switch between Wii and VC games?
For me the issue is the games primarily being designed around 4:3 or 16:9. If 4:3 (which was surely the case for all Gamecube/Xbox games) then a 16:9 screen would be wasted on them since black bars would be the way to maintain their original design.
But Wii is kinda mixed. Zelda was likely 4:3 but after a while I feel like the games started expecting 16:9, just based on playing in both and seeing that scenes seemed to be framed for it. Mario Galaxy for example seems framed for 16:9.
16:9 mostly, and switch aspect on the TV to use VC. Most games are designed for 16:9 I think.
However, for certain forced 4:3 WiiWare games, you have to switch the console to 4:3 because in 16:9 they play in lower resolution in widescreen, because the Wii’s widescreen is of course anamorphic. It’s the reason VC games run ‘squashed’ by default, they put out an accurate signal. Rockman 9 and Castlevania Adventure Rebirth for example. Really annoys me.
Pre-rendered backgrounds I will concede, along with 2D elements and menus, but man do I love me some Spyro at 1080p!
To be honest, I tend to run all of my PS1 games at native resolution then integer scale that, but some PS1 games and all GC/Wii games I have tried look much better to my eyes with a bump to native resolution.
No… just set to 16:9 and leave it. When playing 4:3 content, use the formatting settings of yours screen to add borders.
Makes sense. Is there a list of those games that really need 4:3 enabled anywhere? I just tried Castlevania Rebirth and, yeah, it’s way blurry in 16:9.
Standard def also hides a lot of the seams in the graphical tricks used in lower res content. Xenoblade especially I find looks more consistently nice at a well displayed 480p than when upresed. 2D elements in the 3D world seem to blend in much better at a lower res.
Agreed with Wii looking great over OSSC with these settings, although still second best next to a 480p CRT. But nonetheless a big improvement over what we had in the past.
Despite the picture quality edge of Wii games on a CRT, I still think most Wii games were made for, and are better played, on a HDTV. The PQ tradeoff is worth it since OSSC achieves a result that looks good.
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Both posts are pretty much my feelings. I am not really into emulators as a rule i am more OK with emulating 3D games than I am with 2D. I have plenty of good ways to get my SNES or Genesis to look good on a CRT or a HDTV but I don’t have that option in 3D games outside of emulation.
I wish Firebrand X would do an OSSC setting for Wii. I was surprised how much better he got the 16 bit consoles looking with a few tweeks that I didn’t do before. I bet with a few adjustments I could be happy going that route with the Wii.
Wii looks great on my 20L5 but its so damn small and I have to sit back farther than i’d like to keep the Wii motes working right.
I agree when it comes to widescreen only games. They’re just too small on a 20L5 and need more screen real estate to feel immersive.
4:3 still looks great though.
This is exactly why I think Wii games were made with HDTVs in a somewhat spacious setting in mind, and despite the SD res. I also had immersion and wiimote problems playing up close on a CRT.