shmups.system11.org

Most Framemeister discussion centers around older consoles, but, seeing as I have both, I was curious to see if Wii games look better sending a Wii through the Framemeister or through the Wii U's emulation. Both output at 1080p60, but the Wii goes through an analog component connection to the Framemeister whereas the Wii U stays digital the entire way. Theoretically, this should result in a better picture from the Wii U, but that, of course, depends on how well it scales.

First, some screenshots. This are taken from Resident Wiivil 4: http://imgur.com/a/6jhO2. I chose these screenshots because they contain text, so they should be better for comparing sharpness.

For the sake of purity, I am using the pixel purist GameCube profile for progressive scan content on the Framemeister. The only change is that I switched it to 16:9. The first and probably most obvious difference between the two is that the Framemeister, using the profile above, scales at a perfect 2x integer whereas the Wii U does not appear to do so (even though it still doesn't fill the entire screen). Of course it is nicer to have a fuller screen, but at the same time, it seems to me that the Framemeister is giving us the sharper picture. Note that I do not have any sharpening on from the Framemeister. However, the colors are pretty distinctly different, the Framemeister having a redder tone to it.

Now in motion: https://youtu.be/df3raVmGefc.

Might be worthwhile to do another one of these tests using a more colorful game. Can give it a shot if there's any interest.

Since the Framemeister is known to have poor 480p handling (and poor component handling), and most TVs handle 480p quiet well, you may want to compare this to plugging the Wii directly into your TV via component cables. It could very well produce a better quality and lower latency image than the Framemeister.

Early screenshots showed the Wii U's upscaling adding a slight green push- has this been fixed with an update?

That may be, but it would be very difficult to get a picture or video of it and it would also be inconsistent from one TV to another. The goal here is to compare two absolutes rather than dealing with every possible variable.



I am using the latest update for the Wii U, so it seems maybe not.

I'm not that invested in it, and I couldn't find the original post I was thinking about that showed off the discoloration, but this link may be useful: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=155432008&postcount=7489

Of course test patterns would be the really useful thing to see, you never really know the conditions of another person's setup (is it their capture card's fault, what are their Framemeister settings, etc.)

Oh, that looks more like a shifting of the green, not so much an actual tinting. I didn't notice any of that, so that may be fixed.

I don't know if I have the latest Wii U firmware (I'm using whatever shipped with bayonetta 2) but the scaling seems to have a few quirks.

GameCube games should probably appear sharper on the Wii U HDMI vs the Wii's component output. (similar to the GameCube's original component output which has usually been considered fairly clean)

original Wii titles however might only see marginal improvement, but would still probably look better through HDMI rather than component, digital foundry seems to suggest that you should always set the Wii U to the native output of the game you're playing. so for instance if you're playing a Wii U game, you should probably set video output to 720p as that's the internal resolution of most titles made for Wii U.

if you're playing original Wii or GameCube titles you should probably set the output to 480p, unless your display does a bad job processing 480p, then you might as well just output 1080p. the only problem you might run into when upscaling 480p games to 1080p is that the Wii U doesn't do integer scaling, so you might get a few resolution scaling artifacts ( but I haven't done in-depth testing on this). and then there's the color corrective issues 480p titles are output in RGB 4:2:2, for some reason setting the Wii U to anything higher (720p/1080p) outputs them in ycbcr 4:2:0. so you might get some loss of color resolution and see chroma up sampling errors ( depending on how your display handles that stuff)

I would say, compare how your Wii U output looks in all three resolutions on your television

and then test your Wii through the frame Meister with the sharpness setting of 0 and 1 (switch them back and forth to see which one you like), and then see which one you like best.

That's an interesting idea, though potentially more trouble than it's worth. Having to change settings on the Wii U every time I want to play a Wii game... Not fun. The TV wouldn't do integer scaling, either, so I'm not sure how much of an improvement that would be. But it would be interesting to set the Wii U to 480p and run it through the Framemeister for integer upscaling.

Side note, the Wii U does not play GameCube games.

It does with Nintendon't. That's largely a software restriction, since the Wii U has all the hardware that it needs to play Gamecube games, except that IIRC its optical drive can't physically handle the smaller discs.

I think the conclusion that the guys in the Neogaf thread came to was that Wii titles played on the original Wii hardware are better than WiiU's vWii mode. 480p on WiiU had some sort of filtering going on and 720p/1080p upscale wasn't too hot either but better than 480p.

I had that green push/Chroma shift on my WiiU and only came across a handful of others who had the same issue. Strangely enough my WiiU had to be repaired because of a failed firmware update and when I got my machine back I retested vWii games and noticed the green push/chroma shift had gone. Whilst I thought it would be a case of the Nintendo engineers re-flashing my console the receipt said hardware was changed. I asked Madao who was also seeing the problem and it seem despite being on latest firmware he still sees that problem.

Of course, now the issue is that all my Wii saves and VC purchases were transferred to the Wii U years ago, so I have no way to get them back to the Wii. Thanks, Nintendo.

I believe vWii Mode is also affected by the Limited RGB (16-235) present on the Wii U, so Wii/WiiWare/Wii VC games won't have as much contrast or vibrant colors as on original Wii hardware, which uses Full RGB (0-255).

There should not be a visible difference between full and limited if the display device setting is matching the source device setting.

Wii U Wii Mode is a disaster.

1. 16 pixels is cut on each sides, in destination space. This result in 480p having the most overscan and 1080p the least. There is no 1:1 mapping.
2. There's a disagreement between left and center chroma sampling location. This result in a slight chroma shift.
3. There's no conversion between Rec. 601 and Rec. 709 Y'CbCr. This can result in wrong colors in HD and on the Wii U GamePad. This is further exacerbated by the smaller color gamut on the Wii U GamePad.

GC/Wii natively output Rec. 601 Y'CbCr.

I have the green shift problem I think. I was just comparing my Wii and Wii U and there was so much green shift after F-Zero's UI fonts I thought "no way that is signal degradation of any kind, has to be an intentional effect"... Well it isn't. Also noted a lot of other chroma issues, guess I'm finding a way to integrate my old Wii into my setup...

Might it be possible to fix the vWii mode video output by modifying the firmware for DMCU/Cafe2Wii? (Once the IOSU exploit is released)

From fail0verflow:-
https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/cons ... omake.html

I swear it feels like there's chroma sub-sampling going on too. Bright colours look like they have really blocky edges, as if they were encoded in a 4:2:0 space or something.

Well, thanks to the quarantine, I started to play Wii Fit Plus and Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 on the Wii U. Oh my god it looks hideous on my 4K Samsung 50" TV. Its preferable to use an original Wii with HD Retrovision cables and an OSSC than the Wii U. Its sad that no fix is available.

Oddly enough, I can swear that Wii games look sharper on my Wii U than from Wii component on my 720p plasma.

Best image quality for Wii and Gamecube games is to install the Wii Dual HDMI mod and play games in 480p line 2x through the OSSC. This can be through the VGA port with a good HDMI to VGA dongle. Be sure to use upsample 2x for the best results.

Best image quality for Wii and Gamecube games is to use component or RGB cables and play games at 480i on a professional CRT

Well, at least after trying everything else that's what I found to be the best. Oh, the analogue output from a WiiDual or GCDual would also do it.

480p*

That was not a typo

I swear so many are unbelievers until they see with their own eyes the true potential of interlacing on a display meant for it!

480i on a high TVL monitor, like a 20L5, is a flickery mess.

Maybe it's something weird about the 20L5s. On a D24, which has an even higher TVL count, 480i looks heavenly, no flicker. I can totally see why these monitors were used for broadcast standards.

Agreed. It's pretty bad even on a high-end consumer Trinitron. I'm not sure why anyone would ever choose it over 480p given the option.

I did have an L5 a while ago and it is true that interlaced SD is flickery on it, but on consumer TV... we grew up on those and everything we got over the air was interlaced, and I don't think any of us thought it was flickery. We probably just didn't sit that close to the screen as we do now.

But as I said, I don't think it's related to TVL, must be other factors at play.

Using a wii and a $2 hdmi converter on a half decent current tv is a hugely better experience than using the wii on the bvm2010p in every possible respect except for 240p vc stuff for which there are tons of different and better ways to play.

I have no idea why someone would want to play Wii games in 480i when they are all native 480p. You're forcing progressive content into an interlaced resolution. Ditto for 480p Gamecube games. There are some non-progressive GC games that look great in 480i on a CRT.

Well people using SD CRTs wouldn't have a choice. The thing is that it's actually rare to be able to compare the same source in 480i and 480p on the same monitor. EDTVs that don't process one or both are rare. HDTVs process both. Multisync monitors like the L5s happen to misrepresent SD interlaced content with too much flicker. So 480i just can't get a fair trial!

Without being able to show examples in person, it's hard to explain why I prefer 480i to 480p from systems that support both from the DC to the Wii, but I do. Same for video content like DVD quality video. I suspect part of it is that the monitor I use was simply optimized for SD interlaced broadcast content, since it's a broadcast monitor after all. I also feel that the alternating blank lines of the alternating fields produce a similar effects to the static blank lines/"scanlines" that we enjoy in 240p, providing an illusion of greater resolution and depth to the picture. I've said this before in other posts evangelizing for 480i, so sorry for the repetition and for derailing the topic a bit with a controversial opinion! I still invite people to make comparisons with their own eyes and not just take conventional wisdom for granted