Homebrew Is it true Wii can't do 256x240p resolution not even with homebrew?

Gameboy Color

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I heard somewhere that the Wii can do 240p but it can't lower it's horizontal res that low. Is that true? thx I notice retroarch doesnt have 256x240 but has like 332x240 or something like that.
 

SuperrSonic

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The Wii runs at 480p/480i/576i - anything else is resized to those resolutions.

This is incorrect, the Wii can do 640x240p, otherwise HDTVs wouldn't have had problems with the Virtual Console. Or CRTs wouldn't give Virtual Console games scanlines. Plus there's all the fancy TVs that tell you what signal the TV is getting and is recognized as 720x240p which is correct.

256, 320, or anything else gets filtered to 640 pixels but doubling them to 512 or 640 gives you a sharper image, there are other resolutions like 384 or 352 that can't be doubled obviously but output is still decent and sharpish.

So it's not a true 256x240 image but the difference in quality is so small that it doesn't really matter and the pixel aspect ratio on the SNES is more or less the same(actually it isn't but the stretch from 256 to 4:3 makes it like that) as the Wii so you're getting a very accurate image.
 

SuperrSonic

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Yeah, noooo... Since when is that the case? Ever heard of scaling? :)
I already said there was horizontal scaling to reduce the amount of filtering, so why would I not have heard of it?
If there were vertical scaling you would not get a progressive field with composite or s-video, the problems with HDTVs, scanlines in CRT TVs, etc.

Here; eke eke himself wrote several times about the process:

"the Wii always output the same resolution signal, which is 720x480 (720x576 for PAL) interlaced/progressive or
720x240 (720x288 for PAL) non-interlaced (also called double strike or "Original" in emulators).
the maximal active screen SIZE (size that can be rendered by the Wii GPU in one pass) corresponds to the size of the
embedded framebuffer (EFB) and is 640x528.
the video hardware can then be configured to position (generally centered but it´s up to the developer) your
rendered screen (640x448 or 640x224 for example) in the video signal window (720x480 or 720x240 as explained
first), the "inactive" pixels being output to black.
what i do in "original" mode is to render the emulated active screen (320x224 for most Genesis games but some
games use 256x224 and Master System or Game Gear games do as well) then DOUBLE it horizontally to 640x224 or
512x224 inside the embedded framebuffer, using Wii GPU texture hardware (GX) scaling.
GX scaling by default applies heavy bilinear filtering when upscaling so I have to disable hardware filtering if I want
the image to remain sharp and not blurry. The fact that the screen width is simply doubled prevents scaling (generally
visible when games are scrolling if you use a non-integer scaling ratio with no filtering).
This other way is to use a feature of the Wii Video encoder which is able to upscale horizontally the framebuffer
rendered by the Wii GPU up to the max. resolution (720 pixels), without any noticeable filtering ( understand, not
blurry).
So what I do is taking the rendered frame buffer, 640x224 (384x224 with overscan emulated) or 512x224 and let the
Video Encoder upscale it to a COMMON and FIXED size (something like 644 pixels, which comes from my calculation
based on Genesis and Wii pixel clocks, and match my observation against my real Genesis output on the same TV).
And yes, the 256x224 original screen also needs to be upscaled to that common width because pixels in this mode
wasn't square pixels at all on the real thing, while Wii pixels always are. Similarly, pixels in 320x224 mode aren't
exactly square, which is why the screen is still upscaled to little than simply 640 pixels. All of this is because of the
different pixels used on Genesis in the different resolution modes and on the Wii.
Lack of sharpness [when in 256 horizontal and not 512] is undoubtedly due to filtering being applied, either through
software or through hardware."
 

Foxi4

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So essentially the 720x240 mode is a "necessary evil" that allows for 480i and springs from the frame buffer size, fair enough. I did not know that you could use it as an actual display mode, I thought the system was limited to what the display settings allow. Thanks for the clarification. ;)
 

sj33

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The Wii can do 240p, but many TVs cannot display that resolution over Component. It's a problem with the TV, not the Wii. A very common problem though, which is why most emulators on the Wii output as 480i/p as standard.

You can force most emulators to output native 240p. Genesis Plus GX and Retroarch, for example.
 

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