3 replies to this topic

[mikethecanuck]

Does anyone have any firsthand experience or trusted third hand info that would lend any insights into whether Wii mode runs recent, performance-intensive Wii games any better than native Wii?

We're still enjoying the hell out of our Wii for recent Lego games (Batman 2, LOTR) but getting pretty sick of these games freezing after an hour or two of play. I should say we've reached the 50% mark or so and have a lot of the extras turned on, collected many characters and so on - so I can believe we're pushing the RAM limitations of our Wii.

Which made me wonder whether we'd do any better running these games under the Wii mode on a Wii U. I haven't seen any direct commentary one way or the other to address this specific question, but the evidence I've accumulated so far is this:
- Wii mode will run nearly all Wii games on Wii U
- Wii mode has seen occasional lockups but nothing widespread
- Wii mode sees the same 512 MB of storage that Wii games have on Wii console
- to get into Wii mode sounds like its effectively booting a Wii OS
- Wii mode is apparently a hardware emulator, not a strict software-only emulator
- Wii mode games can't access the Gamepad (i.e. Wii U hardware resources)

Mostly it seems like the Wii games will experience exactly the same hardware environment constraints (by design of the Wii mode), except for two details:

1. The GPU may provide a few extra passive tweaks to make the games a bit sharper.
2. The hardware emulation, if it's like modern hypervisors, could also passively boost memory space for games that weren't hard-coded to the previous hardware upper bound.

I'm out on a limb here, trying to infer a lot without laying down my $350 for something that may not make my 2012-era Lego Wii gaming any better (and in fact, if the hypervisor/Wii mode is coded poorly, may even make things worse).

Could anyone lend any insights?

[Guy Fieri]

I don't think the Wii Mode is going to help run the Lego games better. The only improvement in Wii Mode I've heard so far was that it upgrades the graphics a little. The Lego games are notorious for having freezing and crashing problems, along with glitches on all consoles. But some sources say changing the audio setting on the Wii ( or in Wii Mode on the Wii U) from surround to stereo will help fix the freezing a little, or eliminate the problem entirely.

http://techforums.ni...age/54683#54683

[Luca]

Since the Wii U has a better video card, I've noticed it runs games a lot smoother. I can't say anything about the Lego game crashing problem, because I've never owned any Lego games.

[Scumbag]

All you need to know is Wii U is a good Wii console. It has slots do SD cards so you can transfer from Wii to Wii U.

It also accepts all WIi games and almost all Wii accessories but then you also get a HD console. Wii can't play Wii U games obviously but that should be the biggest fact to remember when considering a purchase.

I am very content with mine.