Topic: Wii aspect ratio

I have a question about the best aspect ratio to use in the Wii settings. I have a 4K HD TV and mostly use my Wii for retro gaming (Virtual Console and GameCube). Most (all?) of those titles are 4:3 and I manually change the TV’s ratio to this when playing.

However I was thinking of permanently setting the Wii to 4:3 and play all games this way including Wii titles. So far the VC and GameCube games look a bit sharper this way (probably because they’re not being scaled) but will I come across any problems with Wii games? I assume most of those are made with widescreen TVs in mind. Will I experience games being squashed to fit a 4:3 or will they display undistorted? I can live with some doing 4:3 letterbox as long as games aren’t being stretched and squashed. What are your experiences with this?

@Memva
From my experience, Wii can Stretch all Wii games from 4:3 into 16:9, even the games doesn't support 16:9 ratio (The image will be stretched on Wii machine).
But, if you use Wii U to play Wii games, All Wii games that support 16:9 will be displayed Naturally in 16:9. Wii games without support 16:9 will be displayed in Original ratio 4:3 (There will be Black bars on both side).

For some Wii games, only few games doesn't support 16:9. For example, Harvest Moon Tree of Tranquility & Animal Parade. Actually, i prefer those games stretched on 16:9 because they look weird in 4:3 (I noticed the Circle shapes on 4:3 ratio looked like Ellips rather than proper Circles).

Gamecube games on Wii machine will do same things. Support 16:9 or not , they will be stretched on 16:9 ratio (They looked better on 16:9 ratio).

I’m kind of doing the opposite and setting both my Wii and TV’s Wii channel to 4:3 permanently. So black borders to the left and right permanently but hopefully no stretching or squashing on any games. So far everything I’ve tried works this way but wondering if will encounter any issues.

I have an original Wii and not a Wii U and when it’s set to widescreen it displays 16:9 Wii game correctly but stretches GameCube and VC games to fit the screen, which I’m not a fan of. I play those more than anything and have to manually change the TV settings each time.

@Memva : It is a nuisance, but yes, I too used to manually adjust the aspect ratio of my TV every time as well (death to stretchers!!! ). My belief is that 4:3 would look better and sharper overall because the pixel density will not be spread out so thinly at a narrower aspect ratio than at 16:9, where the same number of pixels (that is, the number of pixels being produced natively by the hardware, and not how they are processed by the TV itself) are spread out over a larger space, consequently giving the image an overall softer appearance. This is also the case with DVDs, as I find that 4:3 content generally looks sharper and more detailed relative to 16:9 content. Fortunately this is not an issue with HD content thanks to support for variable resolutions and aspect ratios (and HD content is 16:9 by default, as opposed to 4:3 feigning the appearance of 16:9 when the situation requires it with standard definition material).

The ball is in your court though. I personally prefer 16:9 for the Wii, at least in order to give me a broader field of vision that feels more natural to my eyes, especially with games such as Bully and Super Mario Galaxy. However, if the Wii U had given us the option to choose the aspect ratio separately for Wii mode, then I would have chosen 4:3 to allow for the games to look their best.

After about a week of doing this I think 4:3 is the way to go. I found some minor issues with games like New Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Country Returns as they run in 4:3 letterbox but this is to maintain its intended look and original gameplay.

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom took a bit of getting used to in 4:3 but plays and looks perfectly fine. It seems to me you just see more of the top and bottom of the view rather than reducing the width of the play area. A big plus is retro compilations though - no longer need to switch aspect ratios between menus and games.