23 replies to this topic

[Josh89]

Hey guys and gals! I'm new to the forums and something that came to my mind due to the Wii U supporting HD and being backwards compatible with Wii games is the way they will look. Sure, It's impossible to tell right now since no details at all hint to this, but could the Wii U have the capability to upscale Wii games to HD (Kinda like the VD-W3)? If not, then why not?

I'd love to play Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Monster Hunter Tri and Red Steel 2 on HD!

Please run wild with your thoughts, cheers!

Edited by Josh89, 05 July 2011 - 11:59 AM.

[Caius Casshern Sins]

I think it was said the wii u will not be upscale wii games. I would be cool if it could do, but some games will not look good when unscaled on HD.

[AMAC]

I'm no expert, but it seems likely to me. Dolhpin, a Wii and Gamecube emulator can do the games for those consoles in HD, so I imagine the Wii U will be capable of doing it too. You can see loads of Dolphin screenshots in this thread, if you're interested.

[Feld0]

I think it was said the wii u will not be upscale wii games. I would be cool if it could do, but some games will not look good when unscaled on HD.

That was never said.

There's a little bit of a terminology error here. "Upscaling" would refer to taking the Wii's rasterized 480p output and scaling it up to 1080p through a filtering method. The result's usually a blurry, pixelated, overly sharpened, or watercolour-esque mess. What you're looking for here is forcing Wii games to run and output in 1080p, so no upscaling is necessary.

I don't see any technical limitations preventing this from being possible. The Wii U still uses a PowerPC processor, so Wii games could run far more effectively on it than they do on the x86 and x86_64 processors we have in our computers. The Wii was also able to force Nintendo 64 games to run at 480p on the Virtual Console, so it's logical to assume they could extend this functionality to Wii games.

I'm gonna call this one "likely".

[Caius Casshern Sins]

That was never said.

There's a little bit of a terminology error here. "Upscaling" would refer to taking the Wii's rasterized 480p output and scaling it up to 1080p through a filtering method. The result's usually a blurry, pixelated, overly sharpened, or watercolour-esque mess. What you're looking for here is forcing Wii games to run and output in 1080p, so no upscaling is necessary.

I don't see any technical limitations preventing this from being possible. The Wii U still uses a PowerPC processor, so Wii games could run far more effectively on it than they do on the x86 and x86_64 processors we have in our computers. The Wii was also able to force Nintendo 64 games to run at 480p on the Virtual Console, so it's logical to assume they could extend this functionality to Wii games.

I'm gonna call this one "likely".

Thank you for clearing that up Feld0, so this function should be used in the wii u

[Dementis]

Yes... but upscaling doesn't make it HD.

There was an analogy I read on NeoGaf once, it should help you understand a bit better.

Imagine a balloon that isn't blown up. That's Standard Definition.
Now, imagine that same balloon inflated. That's High Definition.
You can increase the size of the balloon by stretching the balloon. It now looks bigger, but it's wrinkled and stretched. This is upscaling.

Edited by Dementis, 06 July 2011 - 06:16 AM.

[Camcam281]

When I think of this, I remember the 3DS.

On the 3DS, if you put in a regular DS game, that game would look a lot better. It wouldn't make it 3D, it just looked a lot clearer and less pixely.

So my guess is, on the Wii U, if you put in s regular Wii game, that game would look a lot better, but it wouldnt be in HD.

Thats what I think on the matter

[SuperCow]

The Wiiu will not likely display Wii games in true 1080p because this would require an incredibly complex emulator that probably wouldn't reach full speed on some titles and would have numerous rendering issues on some games.
Dolphin isn't perfect by far. Did you know that Dolphin cant render Rouge Squadron 2/3 (for the GC) without massive graphics glitches and a slow speed that make it practically unplayable even on the most powerful PCs today?.
The graphics issues can be solved by more developer time, but the slow speed CANNOT be solved because there is no way to emulate the piece of hardware that Rouge Squadron uses perfectly enough on today's GPUs. You need to fall back to software rendering which is the cause of the slow speed.

So a "catch all" emulator is out of the question. Nintendo will likely go for hardware backwards compatibility (Like the GBA on DS or DS on 3DS or GC on Wii) which will entail the Wii's 480p resolution. If you don't currently have component cables for your Wii you will still see a significant increase in image clarity because you will be seeing 480p for the first time from your Wii games (along with the better colors that go along with better cables). Brawl in 480p with the Deflicker turned off looks really good on my 50" TV even though I have to sit close due to the wired GC controller. It is a really big improvement over the composite cables (480i) that come with the Wii.

So:
Will the Wiiu be able to upscale Wii games to 1080p (what your TV does already and what the PS360 do with the majority of their games when you select 1080p in the options)?
Yes
Will the Wiiu be able to display Wii games in native 1080p?
No
Will my Wii games look better on the Wiiu?
Yes, if you get a Wiiu with a hdmi or component cable and you currently do not have component cables for your Wii.

[Hamez]

If you look at an upscaled screenshot, you will see a brilliant HD game world, but you will notice that the HUD icons cannot be upscaled, because they were already set to be a certain number of pixels, making it look like crap.

So, no, not a good plan.

[Desert Punk]

Every Xbox 360 has an upscaler chip built in so even 720p 360 games can be upscaled to 1080p. Nintendo tend to cost their designs down so I don't think it will have such a chip but considering that the wii u will be many times as powerful as the wii there is ample processing power in the system to upscale the graphics. To keep 100% compatbility the Wii U may have a wii gpu in addition to the wii u gpu and its quite possible it will be configured so that the wii u gpu improves the wii image. Many tvs don't accept interlace images via hdmi. They don't like 480i or 576i over hdmi and not all wii output is 480p. As long as the signal is in the digital domain i.e. hdmi then if necessary your tv will do the upscaling anyway to a high standard.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I would expect the Wii U CPU and GPU to be fully compatible with the Wii so no emulation or additional hardware required.

I would also expect the GPU to upscale automatically as its been a standard function of PC GPUs for some time.

For some reason however the PS3 lacked this functionality and it caused a LOT of problems for people with older HDTVs which did not support 720p, the PS3 would drop to 480p instead of upscaling to 1080i/p that the TVs supported. It would be silly for Nintendo to risk the same problem as its perfectly possible people upgrading from a Wii to the Wii U will pick up a cheap second hand HDTV rather than opting for new so could still hit this problem.

So yes, I expect the Wii U to upscale but I doubt very much it will render games natively to 1080p. Its a shame, as I had an Xbox game that on Xbox 360 accidentally rendered at 720p and it looked brilliant. Microsoft then later "fixed" the problem so it only upscaled, and it looked like crap. Even with the HUD remaining in SD, rendering the rest of the game in HD looks a lot better in my opinion. Its about time consoles had "advanced" sections where people can choose options like this under a strict "customer support will not help you with this option turned on" rules. But Nintendo are the least likely to do this.

[SC7639]

I know you can buy a Wii HDMI converter Click here so i wouldn't see why it's not possible but unfortunately I don't think it will happen

Edited by SC7639, 10 July 2011 - 02:41 PM.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I know you can buy a Wii HDMI converter Click here so i wouldn't see why it's not possible but unfortunately I don't think it will happen

I see no mention of upscaling there, it just converts the 480p component output into 480p HDMI. Its not going to look any better than plain 480p component would.

[StreetPassWanter]

Darn! I acidently clicked yes when I wanted to say no!

[GeneralCraezy]

I put no. I saw somewhere it said that its not gonna happen :/ sorry to bust your dreams guys

[Caius Casshern Sins]

I put no. I saw somewhere it said that its not gonna happen :/ sorry to bust your dreams guys

I saw it before too, and Feld0 recently saw it and it is on the blog now. I don't know why but maybe it is a compatibility issue.

[Feld0]

Yeah, CRAZY's right. Wii games will look and play exactly as they did on the Wii on the Wii U. I found a story about that yesterday: http://wiiugo.com/co...ii-games-in-hd/

[SuperCow]

I see no mention of upscaling there, it just converts the 480p component output into 480p HDMI.  Its not going to look any better than plain 480p component would.

Upscaling does nothing to improve the quality/looks of the image, in fact, upscaling will reduce the quality of the image compared to playing the game on an SDTV. All it is used for is resizing the image to fill the screen. Without upscaling, Wii games would be played in a very small window in the center of your TV. Your TV does upscaling already. If it is a big TV, it likely has a good upscaler (Which means an upscaler that looses less of the image quality).

I saw it before too, and Feld0 recently saw it and it is on the blog now. I don't know why but maybe it is a compatibility issue.

Yes, it is a compatibility issue.

Maybe I should try to post less of a wall of text next time cause it seems no one reads it.
All of this was answered already.

[Dementis]

Guys! It is being upscaled! It just won't be HD!

[BazzDropperz]

When I think of this, I remember the 3DS.

On the 3DS, if you put in a regular DS game, that game would look a lot better. It wouldn't make it 3D, it just looked a lot clearer and less pixely.

So my guess is, on the Wii U, if you put in s regular Wii game, that game would look a lot better, but it wouldnt be in HD.

Thats what I think on the matter

Weren't people complaining that DS games look worse when played on the 3DS?