Misc Nintendo Wii U 1080p vs 480p output for Virtual Wii

[V10lator]

No, it’s showing a TV upscaling an improperly scaled 480p stretched to the full TV, versus a much more proper scale to 1080p by the Wii U, then scaled by the TV.

My guess was that the TV has 1080p native output but even if it would be more (4k, 8k) that's no problem as "upscaling" from 1080p to 4k simply means showing each pixel 4 times. No real scaling algorythm needed. Same for going from 4k to 8k.

Most CRT’s do not do 480p

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't CRT eat almost any resolution you feed them (except when too high) ? So any modern (HD)CRT should do it, no?

even then the Wii U will look worse than the Wii running 480p because of the way the Wii U degrades 480p output.

Prove? From Reddit:

480p and 1080i are fantastic on HDCRTs and 720p is still quite good. 240p and 480i are meh on them. The Wii U can't output in 240p, so on SDCRTs it won't look amazing for retro but will still be quite serviceable. HDCRTs will look pretty damned good.

The lowest resolution the Wii U will output over HDMI or component is 480p. Which works well for representing the originally 240p and 480i content of the Virtual Console. You'll need an EDTV, HDTV, or BVM or other multisync monitor for this. An SDTV won't do the trick. I recommend picking up some Wii component cables to use with the Wii U, since only a few select late model HD CRTs actually have HDMI.

 

[QuarkTheAwesome]

While we're having an argument, does anyone know if the vWii in composite 480i mode looks alright on a non-HD CRT? I've been thinking of getting a little setup going and have really liked how an original Wii looks on that screen. I assume the vWii's composite output would be identical?

 

[V10lator]

@QuarkTheAwesome AFAIK The Wii U can't output 240p while the Wii can. From a quick search I can't find a video or image of a Wii U hooked to a SD CRT but other 480p sources:

(Source: )

 

[trogdon]

I

My guess was that the TV has 1080p native output but even if it would be more (4k, 8k) that's no problem as "upscaling" from 1080p to 4k simply means showing each pixel 4 times. No real scaling algorythm needed. Same for going from 4k to 8k.

Correct me if I'm wrong but don't CRT eat almost any resolution you feed them (except when too high) ? So any modern (HD)CRT should do it, no?

Prove? From Reddit:

The large majority of TV’s do not use nearest neighbor to upscale 1080p content to 4K, or 4K to 8k. They use an interpolated method as that looks better for video based content which is what TV’s are designed for.

Again, most CRT’s out there are SD which max at 480i, and not HD.

Here is a direct comparison between the Wii in 480p over component versus the Wii U in 480p over component. First image is Wii, the second is Wii U. Note the blurriness of the Wii U file, the cut off pixels on the top and bottom, and the chroma errors (red and green fringing around other colors) visible on the top icons.

Additionally, here is a comparison between the Wii U’s vWii in 480p versus 1080p. Note the extreme blur in 480p mode (first image) versus the clearer checkerboard in 1080p (second image).

All this to say, the vWii mode on Wii U has compromised image quality which is most notable when the Wii U is set to 480p output.

 

[leejaclane]

That Wii U screenshot has other oddities too -- it appears to be not just cropped (since the pixel count is the same on the screenshots) but slightly zoomed in, as well as having black edges. That's really odd if that's the raw output for the image from Wii U, it doesn't really make sense why they'd do it that way -- but I'm no expert. I wonder if the same problem is there for composite (RCA) cables in 480i.

I have a couple questions though @trogdon, apologies if they seem irrelevant but bear with me for a moment. What game is that? Also, is the screen size option in Wii U settings at its default or has it been changed? I'm referring to the option that essentially resizes the visible portion of the screen, adding black frames around it with arrows in the corner, I believe it's mostly intended for correcting for overscan on older TVs that have no user settings for overscan but I could be mistaken.

EDIT: Whoops I didn't see that this hasn't been posted in for over a month, didn't mean to necropost, I was using the search function.

 

[MG4M3R]

This is misleading, the 480p image has less visible aliasing because it has a loss of detail versus the 1080p image which scales more accurately. Just look at a checkerboard test pattern in 240p test suite via the homebrew launcher and you can see how blurry the pattern is in 480p mode.

While I do believe you, this doesn't make any sense...

A 480p image can't be integer scaled to 1080p, it can go either 960p stretched to 1080p or 1440p compressed into 1080p, by this logic 480p should give the best picture unless we could go 960p with black borders or something

That being said, most Wii games have a blurry filter over its games, maybe the filter is turned off or get weaker on higher resolutions, I don't know...