Not usually a “ho ho ho the passage of time” person, but I read the updates to this thread, then saw this tweet and “have turned to dust.”
https://twitter.com/Bhaal_Spawn/status/1593993079115190272?s=20&t=X8EGj-NxFNomKTKMpzhm8A
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@“Syzygy”#p96202 Well, hooking up my own Wii is inconvenient at the moment but I feel like 90% sure I don’t have that menu on mine, so I can only suppose this is an undocumented change between hardware revisions
I don't think it is. I have that exact same option on my launch day Wii.
Got some reference pics for why I think the best case scenario for playing Wii games is to swap between TVs depending on the game (which I’ve spoilered to try and avoid flooding the thread with images because I’ve noticed there’s a high data usage tag but idk if spoilering the image helps I don’t post here much!!!)
### **IMAGES TAKEN IN WII’S 4:3 MODE**
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/L7ilfj5.jpeg]!<
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/opp2mlQ.jpeg]!<
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/LyawQXY.jpeg]!<
@"captain"#p96222 Speaking of setting it to 16:9 while on a 4:3 display, I just did that and booted up Sin and Punishment and that makes it look pretty normal actually. Arc Rise Fantasia is also kinda normal, but gets noticeably cut off in menus.
### **IMAGES TAKEN IN WII’S 16:9 MODE**
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/HQXVKGo.jpeg]!<
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/GwRGQ5n.jpeg]!<
But I’m rolling a Philips brand television, and maybe their CRTs use a weirdo resolution that messes with my results the way the way @Syzygy said their HDTVs sport a strange resolution recognized by 360s but not PS3/Wii. In conclusion I think the best bet for anyone considering playing Wii games is to ~~avoid the headache and confusion by considering to play something else instead?~~
Please go to wii in the WC in 2023 (and any other year)
the 4:3 with bars looks fine to me honestly - my tv is a 32" so it'll look good enough. I do need to try my 16:9 philips CRT too thoughhhhhh
@“deadbeat”#p96243 Oh my. In the case of both of those I would almost certainly use the 4:3 setting actually, don‘t want the UI spilling off the side of the screen. When I play S&P2 (soon(?)) I guess I’ll test it for myself!
@“deadbeat”#p96243 You can really see how scrunched everything is in 16:9. The UI is especially narrow since the bar on the bottom does not even reach the TVs embossed logo. Just makes everything look strange.
I wonder if the 4:3 black bars may have the bonus benefit of reducing the amount of rendered pixels which could improve performance or loading times (probably super minor if so). One a known thing with the New Super Mario Bros. Wii speed running where the game loads faster in 4:3 in one spot, but that's mostly due to the camera pan.
[Source](https://youtu.be/TdT48yTycfg?t=2331)
I think there are a lot of games that probably have the black bars, but at least they are scaled and framed properly - unlike some VHS or DVD movies "formatted to fit this picture" are either scrunched or have some the movie lopped off
@“captain”#p96260 The 4:3 setting is preferable when on a 4:3 display for sure! I’d take the bars over cutting the image off any day. Just figured I’d test it out since you mentioned doing that back in the day, thought you might be interested to see what the result was.
@“copySave”#p96265 as I understand it the number of pixels is always the same, hence the ugly distortion at 16:9.
Slowdown is possible though, as more content needs to be rendered inside those pixels since the field of view is often wider. Not always though! Some games just cropped the top and bottom of the visible area, meaning performance could actually _increase._
@“copySave”#p96265 Since apparently this is what I’m doing before work today, I decided to test an area in Arc Rise Fantasia that I knew had some slowdown when I was playing on my 16:9 LCD TV.
First I verified the area while playing on the LCD. I don’t have any way to tell exactly how much the framerate dips, but the area in question was certainly bad enough to be noticeable. Since I already had it running, I figured I’d take some pics of what it looks like on a 16:9 LCD since I showed what it looked like running on CRT.
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/mOv4udv.jpeg]!<
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/0CT78zt.jpeg]!<
I think it looks pretty good here and negates the issues I have with it running on either aspect ratio on a 4:3 display!
Then I moved the Wii back to the 4:3 CRT I was using earlier for sample pictures, and went back to that same area. Still chugged noticeably. Then just for the heck of it I swapped to the 16:9 setting while still on the CRT and yeah, same issue.
So at least in the case of this one specific area in this one specific game, performance was the same across the board unfortunately. I was going to stop there, but I realized when I took pictures earlier today @"deadbeat"#p96243 I didn’t recreate both shots in both aspect ratios, so I set it up *AGAIN* on the 4:3 CRT in 4:3 mode to recreate the picture of the menu from my previous post. Guess what I found…
>![upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/yt65zd6.jpeg]!<
It’s still getting cut off!!!!!!
@“deadbeat”#p96275 Yeah good old consumer CRT picture positioning¯</s>(ツ)/¯
Not really worth adjusting it in the TV (or in service mode) since some games might be just fine.
There might a safe zone adjustment in the game's options since many LCD sets can have overscan issues (most new games still have this feature). At least with a PC CRT monitor you can manually change the positioning no matter what
It's been a superb day for Wii-related posts on my social media:
https://cohost.org/dasharez0ne/post/571433-what-da-fuck-htt
@“antillese”#p96293 heck yeah, also it's a very good question
This is something I‘ve thought about a bunch and looked into as well. Like some others have said, the Wii’s 16:9 mode is anamorphic widescreen, where the system renders a horizontally squashed image into the same number of pixels, and the TV‘s display mode stretching it to 16:9 corrects it back to the right aspect ratio. This means the picture is technically lower fidelity, but I’ve never thought it looks bad, per se. But if the question is what looks “best”, it‘s got to be 480p 4:3. Since the Wii shipped with composite cables in the box, it seems super unlikely the games were designed artistically to be first-class 16:9 unless they’re ones that render letterboxed and then 16:9 mode un-letterboxes them (which it sounds like a few games do, based on the replies here).
The underrated real upgrade to make is getting the audio into an AV receiver old enough to support Dolby Pro Logic II. Games had been supporting Dolby Surround/Pro Logic without any indication on the box for quite a while by this time, so way more games than you would think have surround sound.
I think what I‘ve decided is: the wii is hooked up to the crt. The wii u is hooked up to the HDTV, and if I really see that a game should be 16:9 I’ll bring the sensor bar over there. My sense is I will never ever do this but WHO KNOWS
Having rendered the wii sensor bar nearly invisible, I'm pretty sure it should live near the crt
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/4iyetVE.jpeg]
I discovered something shocking today. I recently got a TV that tells me when the resolution changes, and with the Wii set to 480p 4:3, booting up MadWorld sets it back to 480i. That’s revelation #1, I didn’t know any games overrode the system settings. MW is one of the games that renders letterboxed, and setting the Wii to 16:9 just undoes that. I wondered if maybe it’s in 480p only in 16:9 mode, so I tested, but no, it’s always 480i. So… it’s a 480i game designed to be played in 16:9.
Reminds me of Squeeze LaserDiscs, feels like the only other thing conceptually that is anamorphic and sub-480p.