If We Bother Nintendo Enough, Maybe HD Support?

[3mpathy]

I believe you two are talking about two different consoles.
The original poster is saying the wii is more powerful then xbox1, not xbox360.
The xbox1 was not much more powerful then the gamecube, and the wii is about twice as powerful as the gc.

No im talking about the xbox 1, compare for instance carbon on wii to carbon on xbox 1, and the framerate and graphical differences are huge... and not in the wii's favour either, also the xbox's cpu is better than the wii's, so far the xbox is beating the **** ouit of the wii graphicly wich is a shame for previous gen console but oh well, maybe in the future we may see a game that looks decent

 

[GreenEnvy]

No im talking about the xbox 1, compare for instance carbon on wii to carbon on xbox 1, and the framerate and graphical differences are huge... and not in the wii's favour either, also the xbox's cpu is better than the wii's, so far the xbox is beating the **** ouit of the wii graphicly wich is a shame for previous gen console but oh well, maybe in the future we may see a game that looks decent

Comparing a release title to one for a several year old system will not give you a good comparison.
The xbox1 title will look better right now because programmers know how to take advantage of the xbox1's hardware, whereas the wii, while being similar to the gc programming wise, will still require a while to find how to get performance out of it.

games like carbon, call of duty, etc... were written for xbox/360/ps3, and just ported to wii. once you see some titles developed FOR the wii, you'll see the wii take off ahead of xbox1.

 

[ericlewis91]

you want hd..get a 360 or PS3...

Wii is all about the gameplay!

lol they all have 3 letters....360...PS3...Wii

 

[jspicoli]

I do not want an HD Wii... I want Nintendo to make a system easy for developers to make fun games. I also have a 360 and it seems like EA and other developers are cutting out aspects of the game to deal with the Next-Gen graphics... I could care less about the fans in tiger woods golf turning their heads after I hit the ball.. I would rather have the extra courses and fluid-non buggy gameplay.

 

[rwhit_2007]

I run mine (using component cables) on a new 46" 1080P Samsung LCD and it looks great. Can I see some jaggies every now and then if I really focus on it.... yes... do I tend to notice them while I am playing... no.

 

[trentdk]

Given the publicly know hardware specs, the Wii is probably capable of the resolutions any standard ATI chip can support, and that goes as high as 1600x1200 (I guess that would be 1200p in media-spun HD talk). This ATI chip however was specifically designed for the Wii, and to keep cost and heat (both can be separate and related) down ATI and Nintendo designed this chip to do more than just the processor part of graphics. So with a clock speed of only 243mhz and the responsibility of doing more than the average ATI graphics processor, it can be assumed that Nintendo chose 720x480 (480p) as the max resolution to keep frame rates at a playable pace.

For the sake of the argument, it is hard to say whether or not a firmware update is all that it would take to allow 1280x720 resolution, (disregarding that it would be difficult for the Wii to have playable framerates). We have no way of knowing (unless they strait out told us) whether or not the engineers, ATI and/or Nintendo, were even considering higher resolutions--if they knew 720x480 was the playable limit, then they may have been able to save money buy designing everything around that, though that is totally speculative and like I said... we would just need them to tell us.

Finally, lets say they did not physically limit the resolution. One need not worry about the games already made. The different resolutions on TVs are all the same aspect ratio, either 4:3 or 16:9(HDTV)... both of which are supported by all Wii games. An increase in resolution would still have the same ratio and the games would scale accordingly. I do not see any reason why the game developers would code anything that was directly related to the 720x480 resolution--everything on their end should be transparent to that.

Conclusion: If the resolution is not "physically" limited, then a firmware update could easily bump it up and all games (with the exception of some UI bugs or something) would scale up, however it is safe to say that framerates would be severely affected because of the clock speed and consolidation of common graphic card components into the single graphics chip. That was the trade off: the Wii is inexpensive, small, and relatively cool.

Question The other solution to jaggies-- anti-aliasing. I wonder why that was not implemented? It too probably slowed down the frame rate to unacceptable levels.

 

[jlspec]

I think 720p with the Wii is asking to much if we want great looking graphics and gameplay. 1080i seems more like what the Wii hardware can do and still give us good looking graphics and gameplay.

The old Ati 8500 card which is clock at 250mhz with less tech then the Wii ATI video card can do 3D resolutions (32-bit color) up to 2048x1536. DO remember the xbox 1 used an degraded Geforce 3 video card (geforce 3 was about 200mhz depending on which brand) and it produce 720p.

Either way with HD or not, I think the nintendo did a great job with the Wii, and developers just need to spend that extra 1-2 day and do less degrading textures.

 

[3mpathy]

I think 720p with the Wii is asking to much if we want great looking graphics and gameplay. 1080i seems more like what the Wii hardware can do and still give us good looking graphics and gameplay.

The old Ati 8500 card which is clock at 250mhz with less tech then the Wii ATI video card can do 3D resolutions (32-bit color) up to 2048x1536. DO remember the xbox 1 used an degraded Geforce 3 video card (geforce 3 was about 200mhz depending on which brand) and it produce 720p.

Either way with HD or not, I think the nintendo did a great job with the Wii, and developers just need to spend that extra 1-2 day and do less degrading textures.

Lol asking for great graphics and great gameplay is never asking for to much, we should be getting both as a default..

 

[trentdk]

jlspec: I was taking into consideration the games themselves when it came to resolution capability. The 1999 geforce 256 could do 1600x1200 or 2048x1536, but you wouldn't want to play today's games on that. That ATI 8500 could do 2048x1536, sure... but it'll be struggling big time at that resolution with any of today's games (bf2142, vanguard, bfme2, WoW, etc).

 

[vagrant]

dude.....its a FREE SOFTWARE UPGRADE THAT NINTENDOS SCAREDY LITTLE ASSES CAN GIVE US! sheesh.

No, the wii's hardware does not allow for 720p output. Period.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

dude.....its a FREE SOFTWARE UPGRADE THAT NINTENDOS SCAREDY LITTLE ASSES CAN GIVE US! sheesh.

You truly are clueless. Firmware updates will not allow the Wii to produce 720p or 1080i.

PERIOD.

 

[trentdk]

vagrant / dreamcastrocks: as I argued in my original post, it is completely possible. I don't see why you two are so sure it is not.

 

[Taero]

vagrant / dreamcastrocks: as I argued in my original post, it is completely possible. I don't see why you two are so sure it is not.

Go on then, explain how, and not some cop out answer like "Nintendo can release a firmware patch for the hardware" I want you to tell me how they'd go about allowing the current 480p to go to 720p. You know, without a drop in framerate, increase in temperature, decrease in game size/complexity etc. Don't worry, I can wait.

 

[dreamcastrocks]

vagrant / dreamcastrocks: as I argued in my original post, it is completely possible. I don't see why you two are so sure it is not.

The burden is not on me to prove that it can, it is on you. You are only speculating without knowing how the hardware/firmware communicate.

I believe that it is completely possible for Nintendo to release an upgraded model of the Wii that could produce better resolution, but not with their current hardware specs.

 

[trentdk]

Go on then, explain how, and not some cop out answer like "Nintendo can release a firmware patch for the hardware" I want you to tell me how they'd go about allowing the current 480p to go to 720p. You know, without a drop in framerate, increase in temperature, decrease in game size/complexity etc. Don't worry, I can wait.

ROFL, you can wait? No need, read 7 post above yours.

I'm not trying to argue that it is a good idea to increase the resolution, I'm just saying that it is entirely possible with the Wii's hardware. And as I stated in my first post, the only way a firmware update would not be able to allow higher resolutions is if they were able to save money somehow by designing the ATI chip to run only the 480i/p resolution at 4:3 and 16:9. However, that seems unlikely and more "going out of the way" to prevent higher resolutions physically.