Hardware How to view 240p content with an HDTV that doesn't support 240p ?

L3gi0n0fh311 · Mar 30, 2021

I have an HDTV that does not support 240p through component/HDMI...here is a photo: https://ibb.co/n6kjbrh

I will be playing Wii/GC/N64 games... I am sure there are games that output in 240p only...

How do I view 240p content on my HDTV ? What is more appropriate? Component or Wii to HDMI adapter ?

totakeke95 · Mar 30, 2021

I don't think it's possible to output 240p if you use components, only is possible with RGB or AV composite.
The Wii VC can output 240p with a combination of buttons BUT only if you have your Wii set in 480i and your TV supports 240p output.

duwen · Mar 30, 2021

I'd recommend grabbing the 240p Test Suite homebrew - it's available for most older systems (including the Wii) and is essential for testing almost all issues surrounding 240p on modern displays.

The Real Jdbye · Mar 30, 2021

L3gi0n0fh311 said:
I have an HDTV that does not support 240p through component/HDMI...here is a photo: https://ibb.co/n6kjbrh

I will be playing Wii/GC/N64 games... I am sure there are games that output in 240p only...

How do I view 240p content on my HDTV ? What is more appropriate? Component or Wii to HDMI adapter ?

Buy an upscaler, like Framemeister/OSSC (best) or RetroTink (cheapest)

Maeson · Mar 30, 2021

...You can perfectly output 240p with component, it's not limited to RGB or AV at all. Heck, it's what I'm using right now for a bunch of stuff, and it certainly looks better than AV any day. It's a completely different matter if your TV or monitor supports it, which in this case it does not, but the Wii is capable of doing it, no issue.

Let's go part by part:

I don't know a single Wii retail game or GC game that works at 240p. The closest I can think of is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3's videos, which are 240p but the game, like the rest is 480i/p. So you do not have to worry about those.

N64 games, both official Virtual Console releases and emulated games work on 480i/p. I do not know if there's a way to force N64 VC to 240p (you can edit the config of Not64, though), but by default they are 480, with higher internal resolution than what the original N64 had, so they look less pixelated.

You can get by using 480p in pretty much everything (and you'll want to use Progressive Scan as much as possible), that's what I did for years before getting an OSSC, so don't worry too much.

And as The Real Jdbye says, if you insist on having 240p for stuff, your best bet is to get an OSSC or something of that nature, but it is a bit expensive of a solution (yet it's quite recommended going forward if you care about real hardware). The OSSC is a line doubler, letting you scale up different video formats and apply a variety of options to the picture, without adding lag. You can connect several systems too, which makes it even more useful.

For example, since I got one, I configured all my emulators and such to use 240p instead of 480p, and then multiply it by 4 (my current TV can't do x5) to get a really nice 960p picture, 3rd and 4rd generation (and handheld titles) games look amazing this way, 5th Gen systems like the N64 or PS1 (if I ever emulate it) I let them be 480p.

totakeke95 · Mar 30, 2021

I meant Wii VC games, not emulated games. In emulators can output 240p with component perfectly. N64 games is not possible.

Maeson · Mar 30, 2021

You can still do the 240p trick on NES/SNES/ETC VC games with component, the only thing is you have to change from Progressive Scan 480p to Interlaced mode 480i on the settings menu.

I don't really get why it's needed to change the video mode before, but it can be done.

Of course, I think none of this applies to PAL VC games, which work at the weird 288p 50Hz resolution and almost no modern TV supports it. It was quite annoying not being able to play my Donkey Kong Anniversary VC game once I changed from CRT to HDTV, fortunately as of today you can find an NTSC version out there.

totakeke95 · Mar 30, 2021

Exactly, that applies to NTSC games, in VC PAL it's something else.

L3gi0n0fh311 · Mar 30, 2021

I don't need a 240p signal...I just want to be able to upscale the 240p signals outputted by certain Wii/GC games to 480i/p so that I can view them on my HDTV since my HDTV supports 480i/p to 1080p input signals...

MaeseJesus said:
I don't know a single Wii retail game or GC game that works at 240p. The closest I can think of is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3's videos, which are 240p but the game, like the rest is 480i/p. So you do not have to worry about those.

So for Wii and GC games I shouldn't worry ... since they all nearly output in 480i/p ... Is there a list of GC/Wii games that output in 240p ?

Is there a cheap Wii-to-HDMI upscaler that accepts 240p/480i/480p signals as input and upscales them to 720p/1080p ? Does something like this work ?

For PS2 I use OPL+GSM to upscale the games that output in 240p(software upscaler) ... is there something similar for Wii ? like, Can Loader GX, Wiiflow or Nintendont achieve this ?

I decided to use a Windows N64 emulator since Not64 isn't that great , which one is the best ? Emulation General Wiki says that ParaLLEl and m64p are recommended ... are these two the best ? which one of them is better ?

Maeson · Mar 30, 2021

I don't think any list of 240p GC/Wii games exist because as I said, apparently no game uses it beyond the videos I said. Even the retro game collections that work through emulation do not do 240p.

There was something called Portholic HDMI adapter for Wii that supposedly, upscaled to 720, but I've never used it and it probably has been out of production for years.

Again, pretty much NOTHING is going to force you to use 240p, I've spent most of the last decade using my system and I did not need to deal with 240p unless I wanted to mess with it myself.

About N64 emulation, no idea. I do not have a good computer so I completely stopped caring about emulation on that platform and I'm out of the loop.

Hayato213 · Mar 30, 2021

You would need an upscaler like Retrotink then, that would be the easiest and cheapest compare to OSSC, and Framemeister.

Draxikor · Apr 2, 2021

@MaeseJesus Have you tried the 480p 2x mode (960p) on the ossc? How it looks on Wii games?

Maeson · Apr 2, 2021

Draxikor said:
@MaeseJesus Have you tried the 480p 2x mode (960p) on the ossc? How it looks on Wii games?

I personally find it worth using, but you have to accept that the result depends a lot on your TV and how it deals with resolutions. My TV is far from ideal, it even blocks most options when I'm using specific video modes, so I can't experience the best results.

Basically what you get is a less blurry screen because the tv has to do far less sretching to the picture, and that makes it look a lot more pixelated as a result. Too much in fact!

This is why upscalling is so benefitial for old systems with 240p resolutions. Fortunatelly though, there's an option to smooth it out that was added in one of the latter updates that improves the overall look of 480x2 a lot.

I've been using it since I got the thing, and I think I like it, and find it better than 480p passthrough, because I don't like blurriness too much, and makes certain things easier to see.

And you ask for Wii games, but I personally found that GC games gain more from it.

It's 8 AM right now, if you want I can take some pictures later. If one likes it or not depends on if they prefer a blurrier picture to hide pixels away or a sharper, more pixelated one. We are talking 480p after all.

Edit: The Pictures I took are no good, because you can't easily see the difference between passthrough and x2 when pointing a camera to the TV. Sorry, I would need a tripod or something to make photos from the exact same angle, or better yet, direct feed fotage which I can't get.

In any case, passthrough the OSSC looks pretty good too, you just choose between the softer passthrough or the sharper x2 depending on your tastes.

I'll try a bit more.

Hardware How to view 240p content with an HDTV that doesn't support 240p ?

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