Topic: "Wii mode" upscales to 1080p (apparently)

Nintendo made it clear that the Wii U would not upscale or enhance Wii games in any way, yet my TV states that it's receiving a 1080p signal when in Wii mode. I can also enable just scan now to get 1:1 pixel mapping, which can only be done with 720p signals and up on my set. The Wii U definitely isn't outputting Wii games at 480p... Just wanted to pass that along.

I do notice a difference in the picture. It looks a bit more like what a DVD scaled to 1080p in a Blu Ray player looks like; obviously too fuzzy to be HD, but not as soft and weak looking as the Wii at 480p (I could compare them directly during the transfer). Good enough news to make all that SD card swapping worth it.

hmm gonna try this out tonight. I know mhtri was pretty bad on my HD tv... even with composite cables haha.

Interesting. I guess if you notice a difference then something must be going on.
My blu-ray player upscales dvds and they do look a bit better so it would be interesting to see this firsthand.

Wouldn't that be because you're still using an HDMI cable instead of composite cables?

HDMI supports SD resolutions. Also there's a difference between upscaling and rendering at the higher resolution.

So is it upscaling or rendering at a higher resolution?

I already established it's not outputting at SD, the TV lists the signal 1080p/60hz and just scan wouldn't work if the tv were receiving a 480p signal. I never said it was rendering to a different resolution, if it were up-rendering then it'd be a monumental difference.

I think you meant component, not composite, since composite can't do 480p. There are differences between component and HDMI, but when outputting at the same resolution to the same TV they're much smaller than most people would assume. The quality of the digital and analog processing in the TV itself probably has more of a bearing on quality than the cables do, assuming they're both well made. HDMI is still better just because it's cheaper, more convenient, and can technically do higher resolutions with uncompressed digital audio all at once.

As for your last question the games are probably being upscaled, which just means that the signal is scaled up to 1080p before being output. It has nothing to do with how the game itself runs or what resolution it renders to, the games are still rendered 480p. It's just that the game's finished 480p signal is scaled up to 1080p on its way out of the system. It doesn't necessarily improve the visuals so much as it prevents your HDTV from blurring them by doing the scaling itself.

I was disagreeing with DudeSean's "it's because it's HDMI" comment and predicting that someone would confuse upscaling with rendering.

Oh, and my guess would be that it's using the Wii U's hardware to scale the game upto whatever resolution you've set it to so the TV doesn't have to. Would guess that'd result in less latency on older sets.

I don't think it's upscaling

I would say it is basically doing what the 3DS does with DS games. It renders at its native resolution of 480p, and then upscales that to the resolution being used. I think when Nintendo said it didn't upscale to 1080p, they meant it wouldn't "render" Wii games at 1080p.

No, I meant composite. That was my point. If you use an HDMI cable then the tv will still receive an HD signal, even if the console isn't rendering it in HD. If you use composite cables, obviously, you're not going to get that.

My screen cuts off on both sides. Someone on GameFAQs said to enable Just Scan, but my TV does not have this option. Am I doing something wrong?

Sorry if this is a different topic. I am not a TV person don't know about this sort of stuff.

Some TVs don't have an option to deal with "overscanning". Mine doesn't seem to have that, and I'm getting the picture cut off on all sides.

HDMI supports SD resolutions

My TV is saying the same thing, that it's 1080p. I've only tried one game, but the game that I tried was SMG2 and it looked better than it did on Wii. I don't know if it's because it's hooked up through HDMI or what. But it does look noticeably better.

So... We are just screwed? Oh boy.

Well, I think the WiiU is very capable of adjusting screen alignment. I stumbled on an adjustment within the Internet Browser settings that could scale the image slightly, but it only affects that app. they should make an update that globally adjusts the image.

@Adam I'm pretty sure in the settings you can change the screen so it doesn't cut off te sides.

Ooo i can't wait to see what Dead Space Extraction looks like upscaled

i'm glad to see it's not just my set listing 1080p. i did switch to 480p to see what would happen and it was obviously worse, a lot blurrier and the colors were duller. i agree that Reggie probably misspoke and meant it wouldn't up-res like dolphin.

the option may be there but not be called just scan, it depends on your tv manufacturer. some sets call it 1:1 pixel mapping, screen fit, full pixel, i forget some of the other names used. almost every HDTV made in the past few years will have one. just look through any aspect ratio settings that aren't 16:9 or 4:3 and see if they give you extra margins on the edge of the screen (not always obvious to see). it's not the end of the world if you don't have it, since the original wii was always overscanned on an HDTV and couldn't use 1:1 pixel mapping on most sets either. you'll still get it upscaled to 1080p if that's your tv's resolution, and virtual console games can't use 1:1 pixel mode without being stretched to 16:9 anyway.

the problem with overscan is that it adds a little bit of upscaling even if your tv is receiving a 1080p signal and softens the image while losing a few mm of picture on the sides. the wii was designed for this, which is why it has black bars on every side of the picture, so even with overscan you can still see the edge of the frame.

here's an explanation: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/hd-101-overscan-and-why-al...