Topic: Do 3ds' Graphics stand up to the wii?

I think that the Nintendo 3DS is on the same level with both the Nintendo Game Cube and Wii. In regards to a game like Kid Icarus Uprising I'd say that the graphics on the Nintendo 3DS are even better than the Wii.

It can't be all three at the same time! That's 3 different levels!

Well that was a nice read, but neither games are graphical beasts for their consoles or system whatever.
Capcom said they had Resident Evil 5 running on the 3DS and the current Resident Evil games while only a little lower poly then most Wii Games (And if compared to better looking but not on rail games like Conduit, Conduit 2 etc., it is really lower) the games have shaders and other effects while using a level of detail system, while The Quantam 3 Engine, probably the only engine capable of bump mapping and shaders on the Wii, does not have physics yet and can't have LOD. The best 3DS graphics would at least be better then most xbox games.

I figure, given specs and the like, that the two will be comparable--slightly nicer graphics on Wii overall but the 3D effect will help 3DS. Why Streetfighter IV never came out on Wii is anyone's guess

Just a small comment.... The Wii doesn't do 854 x 480, it does 480p in Anamorphic widescreen i.e. 480p stored in 4:3 stretched to 16:9. So it's 640x480 not 854x480. When you put the Wii in 4:3 in 480p it displays 640x480 and when you put it in 16:9 it displays 640x480 but stretched.

Thank you. I'd have to disagree a bit though. Sure you might find that Wii Sports Resort isn't one of the nicest looking Wii games overall, but as I said, it seems to have very little adaptive detail and it runs in 60 fps without ever stuttering. Both great accomplishments for the size of the island. Since the island is mostly pure polygon work, I was interested to see what Nintendo could pull off with a 3DS launch period title in terms of polygon count, as compared to the Wii. Definitely not an attempt to compare the most technically impressive Wii game against the most technically impressive 3DS game.

Hm.....I must admit I doubt there is no change in output resolution because when I move my Wii from my 4:3 SD t.v. to my 16:9 HD t.v., the Wii is still set to 4:3 and the image stretches to fill the screen, but when I change the settings to 16:9 the image becomes markedly sharper. I was making an assumption, that's true, but it doesn't sound like your explanation is fully accurate.

After playing Dead or Alive, Resident Evil and Kid Icarus today I can confidently say that the 3DS can match the Wii for general visual quality, the games look fantastic when being played on the system. As I said though the Wii has a better fillrate, it can render more on screen but the shaders aren't just a small difference. The ease of implementing normal maps on the 3DS compared to Wii alone adds a lot of detail to the games.

It's a trick of the eyes. Widescreen on a standard set will look squished, while 4:3 will look stretched out on a widescreen set - but the number of pixels rendered are still the same. The number of pixels piped through the cable to your TV cannot be changed by the Wii since it uses a standard resolution which your TV can interpret correctly (either NTSC or PAL depending on your region). It's just that the image is calculated differently depending on the Wii's widescreen setting to be more natural to the viewer. That's why they have widescreen and letterbox DVDs for the same film - they're reformatted to look correct on different TV shapes.

I would say it can match the Wii or even go beyond it. Super Street Fighter IV: 3D looks almost as good on the Nintendo 3DS as it does on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and instead of stripping out contents like what usually happens when a PS3/360 game gets ported to the Nintendo consoles, it actually adds to it with new features. If a console can port a PS3/360 game with slightly reduced visuals, then surely it should be able to port a Wii game, whom is less powerful then a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

My first impression was that it was slightly better then the Gamecube, but it amazes me that you can hold a handheld in your hand that has the power to make a quality Wii game (The Wii is over twice as strong as the Gamecube, remember that).

Well, Hideo Kojima said that the polygons and textures to MGS3 Naked Sample were as close to the PS3's MGS4- further saying that if his team had more time, it could have potentially look 'better'.

Of course, as previously mentioned, the resolutions are different but the fact that developers are saying the tools for making 3DS games are pretty much like making X360 video games plus the familiarity of Wii and Gamecube really says something. Guess we may need to have official 'specs' and insight on that from developers themselves which we'll probably hear within the next year when someone is asked how making a 3DS title go about.

I believe you are right here. But I had always thought the widescreen setting on the Wii used 720x480 (or 720 × 576) as DVD's do. Sure that is not the case?

Either way, I'm still surprised no developer has gone beyond that. If I remember right, the Wii resolution is a software limit, so it should theoretically be possible to let it output a higher resolution, if it fits in the frame buffer. The first developer who tried would certainly get quite a lot of publicity: "The first true HD Wii game!" Nintendo might not agree with something like that though...

You know the Wii doesn't have a slot for an HD cable anyway, so it would be a waste

Wii does have support for component, I use one myself. And since the Xbox 360 can output full HD using the same type of cable that shouldn't be a problem. If there is a problem it would be that the frame buffer is to small. A double-buffered image in twice the resolution that was intended might simply not fit. Since there is no data about this though, I can't be certain.

Also, found this on Wikipedia, regarding what resolution the GameCube outputs :
720 × 480 interlaced (480i) or progressive scan (480p) - 60 Hz, 720 × 576 interlaced (576i) - 50 Hz
Surely it must be the same with the Wii?

Warning: Long post incoming.

Uh. 480i = NTSC. 480p = EDTV, basically progressive NTSC. 576i = PAL. None are high-definition. All have already been mentioned in this thread.

Let's clear this up. _{Source: http://www.videotechnology.com/0904/formats.html}

Digital Television formats 4:3
480i - 640x480 pixels interlaced
480p - 640x480 pixels progressive
EDTV NTSC - 704x480 480p/60
DV NTSC - 720x480 _{(Used by the Wii)}
D1 NTSC (ITU-R 601) - 720x486

Digital Television formats 16:9
DV NTSC Wide-screen - 720x480 _{(Used by the Wii)}
D1 NTSC Wide-screen - 720x486

480i/480p means 480 pixel rows and is independent of the resolution width. The site lists 480i/480p as 640x480 because that's the standard digital resolution for a screen with a height of 480 pixels. You'll notice there are slight variations amongst different NTSC standards but they are negligible.

Now, notice how the resolutions of 4:3 NTSC and 16:9 NTSC are the same? That's because the number of pixels transmitted is the same for both aspect ratios. It's just that the image is formatted to be displayed in the most natural shape when its finally rendered. This is why you have to choose on your Wii whether your TV is 4:3 or 16:9 - the Wii can't check the connection and figure it out for itself.

It's a hardware limit. As I said, the display cables will not allow more (or less) pixels to be pushed per frame. The Wii would need built-in HDMI or DVI to actually show those "true HD" graphics, whether the game software can do it or not. That's not even considering if the Wii has the graphical power and memory to output in HD. And why do you care so much about HD anyway? Go play your Xbox 360 or PS3 if you care so much about screen resolutions. O_o That's never what the Wii has been about.

Component is not HDTV, it's EDTV. I and many others on this forum use component cables for our Wiis. The Xbox 360 outputs HD graphics using an HDMI cable, not RCA. It's the rectangular port to the left. The red and white RCA ports are for audio, same as the Wii.

And Nintendo is never going to encourage people to use unofficial hardware like those dubious HD upscalers which don't seem to work at all anyway.

Also rendering doesn't work that way. The Wii already uses double buffering. Single buffered display output looks horrible and you'd notice the screen being a mess a lot of the time.

Everything clear now?

I see! Thanks for the informative post! When it comes to hardware I really am in the dark.
I knew about 480 pixel rows and I know how interlaced and progressive differs. It was just the width I was curious about.
As for the component cable, I guess I simply saw wrong. My friend used one for his Xbox 360, but perhaps he simply used 480p and it looked like a higher resolution due to anti-aliasing and such. Sorry for the confusion.

You're getting me wrong here. I'm perfectly happy with my Wii as it is and despite the low resolutions it looks great on my 42" LCD. I just thought it would be cool to see if the limits could be pushed. Like how some game engines use shader-ish effects and other things the Wii wasn't really meant to do. The idea came to me a while back when I read that Gran Turismo 4 had a 1080i mode. I thought that if it could be done on a PS2 it might work on the Wii and it would be interesting to see if a developer would try it. You don't happen to know how they did that by the way? Would be interesting to know.

Ah, that's pretty impressive. GT4 probably rearranges the data somehow so the 1080i input can be piped to the TV through the three component video cables. There is triple the bandwidth there after all. But apparently it looks pretty bad, with jaggies and a reduced colour palette. Not surprising they had to make some compromises to get it to work. Also it won't look very nice in motion since it's interlaced.

Ooh, apparently Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria supports 1080i too, but only the NTSC-J version. An opportunity missed.

http://hdwarriors.com/?p=1392

Seems it's easier to get the 3DS working than the Wii so that's definitely good.

ONM and N-Gamer say the graphics are very close, if not bang on, Wii level.

So it seems like you're saying the Wii displays in 720x480 in this post, but in response to me you said it only does 640x480.
Could you clear that up for me?

not to sidetrack from the 3DS too much, but will the wii look better in 4:3 if the same amount of pixels is being stretched in 16:9? the vertical resolution is the same, but the horizontal resolution sounds like it'd be worse... unless the black bars on the sides of the screen in 4:3 are actually being output by the wii as part of it's signal. then it wouldn't make any difference.

that's not true, unless you're talking specifically about the wii. component can easily do 720p and even 1080p on certain devices. i used component to watch blu rays in 720p before getting an HDMI, no picture difference between the two.