Wii emulator boosts visuals to 720p HD

by Griffin McElroy on Mar 29th 2009 9:30PM

Lamentably, in the current console generation, Nintendo decided to turn away from the popular strategy of juicing the visual capabilities of its hardware to eye-searing levels. YouTube user renebarahona recently gave us a taste of what HD Wii would have been like by cranking up the visuals of a few titles to 720p using the Dolphin emulator on PC. We've got two examples, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, posted after the break (be sure to turn on HD mode).

We're not advocating the shameless emularceny of Wii titles, though it is interesting to see how these games look with a bit extra graphical endowment. To use a standard rate of exchange, it's about the visual equivalent of three GameCubes duct-taped together -- maybe even three-and-a-half. We're not quite certain.

[Via IGN]

Source

Tags: 720p, dolphin, emulator, nintendo, Wii

Reader Comments (99)

want

Whoever's playing as Link sucks.

It was your mom, and boy does she suck. ;)

cool

I can has?

A DVD upconverted to 720 or 1080 does not make it HD. Basically, the same thing here. These are the same models and textures, that were created with SD in mind, being unconverted to display at a HD resolution. You can get the same effect with quite a few AV receivers on the market.

From an emulation standpoint though, it's pretty impressive (not quite UltraHLE Zelda impressive, but pretty close).

Bear in mind that he's also enabling AA to clean up the visuals, and it makes a completely noticeable difference.

Quite different than just merely scaling the visuals in a DVD sense.

When it comes to games though upscaling get's a bit weird.
Noby Noby boy is HD, but I could count it's poly's on my hand.
I'd say these are officially HD, you can do it with PS2 emulators. Sure it's SD textures but you can see a notacable difference between SD n HD.
Some games look like a pile of crap when upscaled though.

Uh, you're wrong, dude. 2D assets that are being displayed statically on screen may have to be upscaled but everything else is being rendered at a higher resolution. No upscale trickery.

This guy is all wrong. Yes the textures are made for 480p but 3D models aren't resolution dependent. They can be rendered at any resolution. Download an N64 emulator and run it at 640x480 and then at 1080P, there is a HUGE difference.

Oh n anything Procedurally generated(say text, particle effects, a fair few textures depending on the engine etc) it don't matter what resolution the games ran at, they just scale to size.
You know how like PC games play at various resolutions....

"You can get the same effect with quite a few AV receivers on the market."

Haha, I think you need to learn the difference between 3D rendering and bitmap resizing. I can see why you -think- you have a point with what you're saying, but you just come off looking silly. Just because a higher rendering resolution doesn't increase polycount or texture detail, doesn't mean it's even remotely the same thing as upscaling an image, either visually or technically.

I guess we would need to see comparison screen shots/grabs side by side to really see the difference. For some reason the motion looked off to me in the videos which is maybe an issue with the emulator itself.

I went to the dolphin-emu site and found a few more videos and both looked better to me than the actual games.

SSBB Intro/game
http://www.dolphin-emu.com/youtube.php?youtubecode=mDLpkG8YHuw

AC:CF
http://www.dolphin-emu.com/youtube.php?youtubecode=IfJa6sSpBsg

They both look better to me but it could be my eyes playing tricks.

When I said "better" I meant they look "sharper" and more "crisp" if that makes sense.

That's because they are.

Josh

It's just so strange that it looks like 100x better. It's kind of making my head explode right now. I'm really confused why Nintendo didn't build this capability into the console. Again, I'm no tech spec wizard but the difference is OMGWTFBBQ1111 good.

Jared: I'm glad to see you got flamed aplenty for that post. I almost face-palmed myself after reading it.

Ok, admittedly, a poor comparison.
Still a pretty damn impressive feat for the emulation team.

Oh, and just thought I'd add this:
Sorry for being dumb and talking.
/ahhh, the honesty of booze...

I cannot believe how many people who call themselves gamers don't understand the concept of resolution....it's quite shocking.

It's OK Jared, I think you may have just missed the point that this actually _is_ rendering at a higher res, rather than simply upscaling a 480 image to 720. It's like what happened with several Xbox games when they were emulated on the 360 (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Ghost Recon2) - higher res (720p) 3d geometry looking better even with the original 480p-optimized textures.

To which I must say: Nintendo, could this have been so difficult for you? Look how good that looks. HD Wii would garner a lot of "Upgrayedds."

i like games

@knighty
There actually is a difference between gamers and geeks these days. Gamers used to be synonymous with geek, but not anymore. Gaming is mainstream, now.

@illtrooper
Was that an Idocracy reference?

ill tropper

SHHH! Don't say that out loud. You'll reveal Nintendo's master plan to the masses!

All kidding aside my guess we won't see a new console from Nintendo, but an upgraded Wii. And then a re-release of all the Wii hits with better visuals that look crisper and everyone will purchase it all again. Maybe it will have DVD-playback this time around!

I'm not a Nintendo hater, I really do think they know what they are doing. I just think it's funny that the same games are the ones that sell on Nintendo systems year after year. I mean how much more could they milk the flagship franchises? Where could Mario go next?

The games playing at 720p, quite awesome actually, if only ps1 titles could go 720p without looking like abortions :P

Sure the textures are only sd but the text & other vector elements look great, but smooth cartoonish type games like the final fantasy example look quite good

Well yeah ff7 would, it's just 3d on top of 3d rendered images, squaresoft cheated :P lol

Pokemon stadium hd tbh.

I really wish Nintendo had put HD on this generation. I don't mind the jaggies, but it's /sooooo/ much nicer without them.

lmao samfish are you kidding me? you need to go watch planet earth on blu-ray on a 40"+ screen, then come back and tell me how many bricks you shat'

either that or any pixar movie

I wish I could just keep clicking "+" on this comment.

WHATEVER IT TAKES TO HAVE AN HD WII vs SD WII PITCHING CONTEST, SET THAT SHIT UP

"...mind you it got better as the stages went forward, I wonder why that is... O_o"

I can tell you exactly why that is, it's because HD is a fucking gimmick, the novelty of which wears off after about ten minutes. After that you just see the bare art (be it shitty or awesome). It's just like getting used to really bright light. It's the same shit you're looking at in the end.

this is my problem with this generation, I see no significant difference between HD and not HD, certainly not enough to warrant a "do want" type of reaction or the higher price tag

i think you forgot to click the HD button on youtube...

yeah, still not impressed

That is because the textures are not made for HD. Run a good 360 or PS3 game on a nice TV in 1080P and then in SD, you will notice a significant difference.

i understand that for not having a preference for HD over SD, but i can tell the difference between the two. are you sure you've seen true HD

Uhh... I dunno, it looks a lot better...

"Should have gone to Specsavers"

If your perception of HD is the stuff Youtube offers up (which their HQ stuff is barely SD) then your doing it wrong.
Get yourself a decent 1080p TV, strap it up to a PS3 or what not n play a game or watch a movie on it.

Of course those used to playing PC games are allowed to not get the whole HD buzz cos we've had it for years ( just not the movies on in our lounges)

While the OP might be wrong about there barely being a difference, it's not as godly and all-important as some people would like to make it out to be. I don't know about you guys, but I've been playing games in 1024x768 and higher ever since Quake 2 came out, yet the best looking console games still managed to look awesome and "next-gen" for the time, even running in something as low as 320x240. HD is a factor, but good ingame art assets are almost everything.

bm

But if you combine the two (good art + HD) it's super impressive. Resolution isn't everything but it is an important component to high graphical fidelity.

"While the OP might be wrong about there barely being a difference, it's not as godly and all-important as some people would like to make it out to be."

This is pretty much the absolute truth.
Is here a difference? Yes. But it's not THAT amazing. The leap in quality for VHS to DVD was more stark that the leap from 480 res to 720 or even 1080 res.

That said, one does appreciate HD stuff more with video games, if only because they're being built from the ground up to take advantage of those higher resolutions, generally...whereas TV and movies are less likely to.

You can't tell the difference between SD and HD? I almost shat myself the first time I saw 1080P. I actually sat down to watch golf because it was in HD. Well really I was watching a tree, but damn I was amazed.

lmao samfish are you kidding me? you need to go watch planet earth on blu-ray on a 40"+ screen, then come back and tell me how many bricks you shat'

either that or any pixar movie

... just play the first stages of Battalion Wars 2 for the Wii on a large screen TV...

.............................. TELL ME YOU DON'T NEED THOSE GRAPHICS UPDATED!!!

>_< AGGHHH!!! MY EYES!!!

...mind you it got better as the stages went forward, I wonder why that is... O_o

That's 1UP... not IGN.

haha nice catch

There is a decidedly noticeable difference in the graphics there. I mean, with 720p and AA, Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 could probably pass as "next-gen" titles. Really makes you think...

I agree with you completely. To be honest I didn't think HD would make much of a difference on Wii games because of the cartoony style of a lot of them but I was completely incorrect. These two videos really made my jaw drop because of how much better they look.

I'll bet Nintendo releases some sort of an HD Wii or Wii 2 with HD. I'm not talking an entire new console but something that gives a similar effect to these videos. Now, I'm not much for technical specs and knowledge so it might not be that simple. If it's not that simple please excuse my ignorance.

I wonder if it's possible to release a plugin for the wii that allows it to render in HD without changing any of the system specs... somehow I doubt it though considering how locked up everything seems to be on the Wii.

They won't release an HD Wii unless it's the Wii 2.

They could hypothetically do a software mod or firmware upgrade type thing that would enable up to 720p resolution, since the chip set in the Wii IS capable of displaying that...but most games would probably run like crap, since it takes a LOT of power to push those HD textures around. I remember reading that that's where a lot of the 360's(and presumably PS3's) processing power goes.

I remember Factor 5 said that they were trying to get a workaround to HD on the Wii. It'll be interesting to see what they've been up to since they started working on Wii projects (the rumor/speculation is that Nintendo are basically the only ones who are keeping them from sinking). It's especially interesting because Factor 5 actually had HD resolution running on the Gamecube with one of the Rogue Squadron games.

I'm impressed. To be honest, I think Twilight Princess in HD could compete with some PS3/360 launch titles. The visuals look great in 720p.

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Wii emulator boosts visuals to 720p HD

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