Hacking Fixing vWii Mode

[XacTactX]

Hey folks, I have been researching this issue and I'm so grateful for this thread, but I just plugged my Wii U into my TV after not using it for several years and I've noticed a problem that is even more basic that what you guys are discussing. My console is plugged into a PC monitor and I selected 480p in the output settings, but then I noticed that it's sending a 720x480 output, and my display doesn't have any way to force an aspect ratio because it assumes that the signal uses square pixels, it only has basic settings like 1:1 and Fill Screen (no god please no), so it seems like I can't get a 4:3 aspect ratio no matter what I do. Is there a way to fix this

 

[SK91]

I don't know if it's

Hey folks, I have been researching this issue and I'm so grateful for this thread, but I just plugged my Wii U into my TV after not using it for several years and I've noticed a problem that is even more basic that what you guys are discussing. My console is plugged into a PC monitor and I selected 480p in the output settings, but then I noticed that it's sending a 720x480 output, and my display doesn't have any way to force an aspect ratio because it assumes that the signal uses square pixels, it only has basic settings like 1:1 and Fill Screen (no god please no), so it seems like I can't get a 4:3 aspect ratio no matter what I do. Is there a way to fix this

I don't know if it's possible for Wii. maybe with the aroma plugin or USB Loader GX but that 720x480 is probably staying like that so long as you keep it that way on the system settings. If you want it for GameCube games it should be feasible with Nintendont through the video with option maybe? I haven't really tested it in 480p.

 

[XacTactX]

This thread is a great resource, I think one way to really improve it would be to make a list that describes each kind of problem that the Wii or WiiU has, which consoles are affected by it, if the problem can be fixed, and a list of homebrew or methods to fix each problem. Off the top of my head these are the problems that I've heard about:

1. 480p Pixel Problem (Pre-040 Wii consoles)
2. 480p Deflicker Filter (all Wii and WiiU consoles)
3. Wrong viewport size for vWii (WiiU only)
4. 4:2:0 chroma subsampling (WiiU only)

It would be great if someone could make a more thorough version of this list with examples and links to resources so people that don't understand these things can learn more easily

I don't know if it's

I don't know if it's possible for Wii. maybe with the aroma plugin or USB Loader GX but that 720x480 is probably staying like that so long as you keep it that way on the system settings. If you want it for GameCube games it should be feasible with Nintendont through the video with option maybe? I haven't really tested it in 480p.

Thanks, I think if I play Wii games in widescreen and I set my monitor to Fill Screen at least I can get the correct aspect ratio, but it won't work for 4:3 content. And you're right about Nintendon't, the width option should be able to get the correct aspect ratio if I always set it to 640. Not a perfect solution but I guess it's the best I'll get. It's so frustrating that Nintendo has done such a poor job with the vWii image quality, the Wiiu could've been the ultimate console for playing GC/Wii/WiiU, I'm so tempted to just buy a Wii and an OSSC so I don't have to deal with this

 

[Sissel]

@GaryOderNichts do you think it'd be possible to add an extra brightness step (plus + up/down) lower so we can actually turn off the gamepad screen while still using it as a controller and/or audio output?

This is actually a really interesting idea, weirdly enough, in this other thread Hacking the WiiU gamepad something like this could be achieved, some breakthroughs have been made, so let's hope that in the future we could turn the gamepad screen off and still use the gamepad as a controller when entering vWii either by an aroma plugin or by some modifications in the gamepad firmware.

Also the ability to turn off the Infrared lights of the gamepad when entering vWii would help a lot with battery life

 

[N7Kopper]

This is actually a really interesting idea, weirdly enough, in this other thread Hacking the WiiU gamepad something like this could be achieved, some breakthroughs have been made, so let's hope that in the future we could turn the gamepad screen off and still use the gamepad as a controller when entering vWii either by an aroma plugin or by some modifications in the gamepad firmware.

Also the ability to turn off the Infrared lights of the gamepad when entering vWii would help a lot with battery life

The GamePad already supports a mode like that, although it's officially unused. The Padcon plugin lets you use it (it's pretty neat for using amiibo when you're not playing a GamePad-reliant game) but having it on vWii would be even more useful, letting you just use it as a regular controller.

 

[Ethelbert]

I'm so tempted to just buy a Wii and an OSSC so I don't have to deal with this

I ended up kinda the same. I got GBS-Control for PS2 and Wii's are super cheap, so I grabbed one.
The red Mario 25th one, which I understand is guaranteed to be the newer revision of the original model.

Previously I played some Wii games on Wii U and it was fine for my eyes, but there's also fun to just getting a new console to tinker with. (Which was also one reason to get a PS2 too.)

 

[Sissel]

The GamePad already supports a mode like that, although it's officially unused. The Padcon plugin lets you use it (it's pretty neat for using amiibo when you're not playing a GamePad-reliant game) but having it on vWii would be even more useful, letting you just use it as a regular controller.

Yeah, I am aware of padcon, it would be the definitive solution if it also worked on vWii

 

[creedof69]

Hi, everyone I just figured out the Wii U problem with the pal gamecube bios. I tried to patch the .bin bios several ways by hexadecimal but with no result as i'm going blindly and pretty every things concrete are encrypted. I also tried to keep a ntsc bios (without language selection so) and manage to make it read pal games but no result so on.
Do you think that this problem could even be solved or am I dreaming for nothing ?

I heard that it was caused by the Wii U supported video output while the pal bios was the only one that use a weird resolution/framerate ratio. So the only 2 things We can do is to find the video output info inside the .bin file to overwrite it by the same as the 2 others NTSC bios, or someone said that We had to patch the caf2vWii (in a thread from 2016). And then i found this thread so I don't know if We've made some progress in almost 10y and thanks to isfshax We can do more risky experiment but yeah... Should I give up ? ^^

 

[SK91]

Hi, everyone I just figured out the Wii U problem with the pal gamecube bios. I tried to patch the .bin bios several ways by hexadecimal but with no result as i'm going blindly and pretty every things concrete are encrypted. I also tried to keep a ntsc bios (without language selection so) and manage to make it read pal games but no result so on.
Do you think that this problem could even be solved or am I dreaming for nothing ?

I heard that it was caused by the Wii U supported video output while the pal bios was the only one that use a weird resolution/framerate ratio. So the only 2 things We can do is to find the video output info inside the .bin file to overwrite it by the same as the 2 others NTSC bios, or someone said that We had to patch the caf2vWii (in a thread from 2016). And then i found this thread so I don't know if We've made some progress in almost 10y and thanks to isfshax We can do more risky experiment but yeah... Should I give up ? ^^

I'm confused, Nintendont let's you load any game regardless of the region of your ipl

 

[creedof69]

I'm confused, Nintendont let's you load any game regardless of the region of your ipl

No for exemple if you start a PAL game, but you put the ntsc ipl that you named "iplpal.bin" it will load the ntsc one and you will be stuck on the ipl with 1st the red message saying "the GameCube can't read this disc please insert a Nintendo GameCube book" If you don't press A to flip the Cube, and then you just see a "?" in the game section of the cube.
Just like if you put a wrong region in a region locked gamecube.

 

[N7Kopper]

Yeah, I am aware of padcon, it would be the definitive solution if it also worked on vWii

The mode that it uses is an existing GamePad mode, so getting vWii to invoke it should hypothetically be doable. I would like to see it too.

 

[Anastimafilia]

followed all the instructions and the vWii mode no longer has black bars on each side but they return when I open the HBC, any way to fix this?

 

[september796]

How can I make vWii at 1080p look like it does in 480p, color-wise? I found 1080p outputs very saturated colors compared to more natural on 480p.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

How can I make vWii at 1080p look like it does in 480p, color-wise? I found 1080p outputs very saturated colors compared to more natural on 480p.

I do not have a Wii U myself, but when I borrowed the Wii U from a family friend a few years back, I found that my TV was actually a bottleneck in terms of why I found 1080p and 720p to look quite a bit crisper than 480p.

Doing subsequent tests from a PC using a native 480p image revealed that my TV's built-in upscaling from a digital 480p input is substantially more mediocre than if I feed it native 1080p signal but upscale the PC's 480p image with just doing a basic bicubic/lanczos upscale.

Therefore it's quite possible that you're simply seeing a similar sort of thing and you should also investigate with a PC if this is the case on your own TV. Not only that, but if the TV natively has trouble displaying full chroma, then that's going to inherently hurt color reproduction at something like 480p vs if it were upscaled to 1080p (which can handle up to 540p of color resolution even with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling; compare that to a mere 240p that 480p would have with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling).


For reference, the super-easy way to test this is to just use a basic image editing program like XnView or IrfanView and resize whatever high-quality high-resolution photo you want to no larger than 640x480, and save it as a PNG named "480.png" or the like. Then open that resulting PNG in that XnView or IrfanView program, and do a resize via lanszos to 1440x1080 and save it as a different PNG named "1080.png" or whatever. Now set your PC to a 640x480 video output (in Windows this can be achieved by using the "compatibility" tab in right-click > properties on whatever program, including IrfanView or XnView) and view your 480.png image in fullscreen, and just study it for a while. Now go back to having your PC output at 1920x1080 (i.e. uncheck the corresponding "compatibility" option) and open your "1080.png" image and view it in fullscreen. For fancy-pants bonus points, connect two different PCs and have one PC outputting at 640x480 displaying "480.png" and another PC outputting at 1920x1080 outputting "1080.png" (you can possibly even use a game console or the like in place of the PC for the "1080.png" image as long as the system is outputting a native 1080p image of course for photos and such).

 

[SK91]

I notice Wii titles released on the Wii U eshop seem to be completely devoid of chroma bleeding, is this replicated in injections, can it be replicated in the vWii itself?

 

[BlazeHeatnix]

How do eShop Wii games factor into this? evWii supposedly also works on those, but in my experience, they always will look blurrier than USB loader GX (assuming all settings are correct).

 

[Tur7L3]

How do eShop Wii games factor into this? evWii supposedly also works on those, but in my experience, they always will look blurrier than USB loader GX (assuming all settings are correct).

Not much greater however the best setting USB Loader GX has (remove deflicker filter) is now part of UWUVCI, app which allows you to do your own "Wii eShop" games for Wii U by providing the dump and goin wild. Highly recommended

 

[BlazeHeatnix]

Not much greater however the best setting USB Loader GX has (remove deflicker filter) is now part of UWUVCI, app which allows you to do your own "Wii eShop" games for Wii U by providing the dump and goin wild. Highly recommended

Is there any kind of benefit to playing Wii games this way? If the image quality ends up being the same, then why not just cut out the middle man and just play the games through USB Loader?

 

[niuus]

Is there any kind of benefit to playing Wii games this way? If the image quality ends up being the same, then why not just cut out the middle man and just play the games through USB Loader?

None. You'll see some people on facebook groups or forums obsessed on pretending installed titles on the menu are original games. Loaders will always be the most complete option for tweaking a bit the horrible video output on the Wii U.

 

[Tur7L3]

Is there any kind of benefit to playing Wii games this way? If the image quality ends up being the same, then why not just cut out the middle man and just play the games through USB Loader?

I mean it's accesible through the Wii U menu so there's that, it just looks more homogeneous and nice, while also being practical por a pickUpAndPlay sort of style. Plus, you can make the Gamepad usable as a controller in compatible games this way, which USB Loader doesn't allow.