Hacking Wii U awful 4:3 aspect ratio support for CRT

[Newwiiuuser]

See for yourself:

Wii was great on this. Bought the Wii U to be able to continue playing VC titles since Wii VC closed. But it sucks. Is there a way to fix it?

Edit: It seems i cant share pictures.

 

[Vague Rant]

It's not that you can't share pictures, but that the image host you're using is serving a web page with an image in it, not the image itself. Here's the links to the two images you tried to post for anyone who wants to try to view them, although the second one is just giving "Image not found" on my end.

https://pasteboard.co/IRl7xwu.jpg
https://pasteboard.co/IRl837n.jpg

But yeah, the Wii U's 4:3 support is definitely pretty half-assed. All they do is add letterboxing to fit the 16:9 picture onto a 4:3 TV.

It won't solve your problem of the Wii Shop Channel being closed, but if you want to play retro stuff on a 4:3 TV on Wii U, your best option is probably to play them in vWii/Wii VC mode, since you do get true 4:3 support there. You could hack your vWii and install homebrew emulators, or use Virtual Console WADs from online/injections you create manually if you prefer to have channels for every game. Obviously it defeats the purpose of upgrading to a Wii U if you're stuck using Wii mode anyway, but it's an option.

 

[Newwiiuuser]

Wow that is a big letdown for me. As i said bought Wii U for the massive Nintendo library in Virtual Console but it seems i cant play them in the way i want. Okay no problem, will play Wii U games on HD TV or PC Monitor. Though they are few it seems. Cause i own a high end pc also the games must only Wii u exclusive.

I will return to Wii and softmod it. I saw they shared the whole VC games in one package. I will use it. Pretty clear Nintendo dont want my money. If they would keep VC open i would gladly buy many many games.

Now back to the Wii! And also looking for Switch

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

Wii U VC on an actual HDTV is actually pretty nice, though. They use proper pixel quadrupling techniques so that 240p images aren't distorted at all on a 1080p TV. I played through Super Metroid on the Wii U and it never felt bad. However, IIRC, you won't get scanline emulation, so you won't get the exact 240p CRT feel.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

Fix. Buy a cheap or secondhand 32" HDTV for $50-$100.

 

[Newwiiuuser]

Wii U VC on an actual HDTV is actually pretty nice, though. They use proper pixel quadrupling techniques so that 240p images aren't distorted at all on a 1080p TV. I played through Super Metroid on the Wii U and it never felt bad. However, IIRC, you won't get scanline emulation, so you won't get the exact 240p CRT feel.

Nice to hear and I will try but i hate input lag. Let me look at it.

Fix. Buy a cheap or secondhand 32" HDTV for $50-$100.

I have a high end 55 inch Panasonic Plasma. The matter is not that i have an HDTV. The matter is i want to play old games on CRT without zero input lag and awesome color and sharpness.

 

[Reploid]

4x3? CRT? Wiiu is obsolete but not that obsolete.

 

[Newwiiuuser]

...

 

[simbin]

play old games on CRT without zero input lag

Wii U is great for what it is.. a backwards compatible Wii and GameCube powerhouse! You'll never achieve zero input lag thru emulation however.. look into MiSTer FPGA for that.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

Nice to hear and I will try but i hate input lag. Let me look at it.


I have a high end 55 inch Panasonic Plasma. The matter is not that i have an HDTV. The matter is i want to play old games on CRT without zero input lag and awesome color and sharpness.

I am pretty sensitive to input lag in general, and I didn't notice any. I hadn't played the SNES version before to compare, though, so I can't say for sure. Furthermore, input lag will be different from TV to TV, especially if you don't use "Game Mode" (or whatever comparable setting your TV has).

 

[JFizDaWiz]

i have mine hooked up to a CRT and was playing it last night, nowhere near as bad as your setup. I was able to have it fit the letterbox image perfectly inside the frame on mine. I'm using component cables though

 

[wolf-snake]

I am pretty sensitive to input lag in general, and I didn't notice any. I hadn't played the SNES version before to compare, though, so I can't say for sure. Furthermore, input lag will be different from TV to TV, especially if you don't use "Game Mode" (or whatever comparable setting your TV has).

People like to argue N64 games on the VC have input lag but that's just how janky N64 games are.

 

[D34DL1N3R]

awesome color and sharpness.

With composite cables? Haha.

 

[Newwiiuuser]

With composite cables? Haha.

I am using Scart.the composite cables you see in the picture is misleading cause i have used them only one time to get non red tinted display on ntsc console. See my other threads...

 

[brandon916]

What's a CRT?

 

[ChaosEternal]

What's a CRT?

CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube. It was the primary technology used by TVs for 60 years to generate images until the advent of Plasma TVs in the late 90's and LCD TVs in the mid 2000's. When people refer to CRTs, they're generally talking about the TV's that used the technology rather than the tube itself. Those TVs are easily identifiable by the fact that they're massive cubes and weigh a shitload. Anyone over the age of 20 should be able to remember them, lol.

 

[MikaDubbz]

People still game on CRTs in 2020!?

 

[SG854]

Wii U can't do 240p.

 

[SG854]

People still game on CRTs in 2020!?

Hipsters that don't get with the times.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

With composite cables? Haha.

Composite cables creates more colors with dithering, it blends the colors for smooth gradation. And creates transparency effects.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

People still game on CRTs in 2020!?

Retro consoles (including VC versions) rarely look remotely decent on anything else. The Wii can output native 240p on CRTs, so it's almost perfect. The Wii U expects a HDTV, so it uses nearest-neighbor upscaling for perfect 4×4 squares at 960p, which then requires small black bars to make a full 1080p image. I don't know how they sorted the 224 to 240-line issue, though. The NES/SNES Mini has a scanline emulation mode to mimic a CRT.