Is it just me or do Gamecube games played on the Wii look much better than Wii games? It seems like many Wii games are either running in low resolution or have AA turned off or something. Gamecube games seem clearer and crisper.
I just recently noticed this difference when playing the GC Fire Emblem vs the Wii Fire Emblem. The GC version definitely has smoother text and character portraits, whereas the Wii version has more jaggies and messier text. I’m not sure if it’s a hardware issue, or if the two versions have entirely different rendering code or something. I tried switching the Wii between 480p and 576i, but both looked worse than the GC Fire Emblem.
I’d be curious to know more about this too.
I haven’t played any Gamecube games on my (very new) Wii yet, but I don’t think I’m surprised. The Wii isn’t intended to be overly graphics-intensive…it’s not about high-res graphics and kickass looking FPSs…It’s about group-style party games.
That said…it’s a shame. There’s no reason they couldn’t have done both.
Hmm, I’ll have to do some closer GC to Wii comparisons sometime. I hadn’t heard anything about the Wii upconverting GC graphics. I’m curious about this too.
Well, that’s true, but it still shouldn’t be a step backwards from the previous console, especially since the hardware in the Wii is more powerful than the GC. I can also buy that less effort might be put into party games, but I was specifically comparing two games in the same series.
There’s absolutely a reason they couldn’t have done both. Have you checked the price of an Xbox 360 or a PS3 right now? Have you looked at the price of a Wii, and more specifically the controllers? Put two and two together and you have at least a $500 console.
Nintendo has always made their console affordable right from the start. Adding the Wii Remotes was where their R&D and expense went, not into the unit itself… though I’ll bet shrinking everything in the Gamecube to the size of the Wii, adding Wi-Fi, extra card slots, etc. costs money too.
With all that said, regarding the original post, I have both Fire Emblem games so I’ll try to check it out this weekend. It might just be a different renderer or something like that.
Yeah, price is of course a good point – and I’m VERY happy that the Wii is a nice little $250 console with kick-ass party games. It’s definitely filling its niche nicely, and I’m very pleased with mine.
It might be the difference between having progressive-scan support and not. IIRC, Metroid Prime for the GC looked sharper than MP3 on the Wii.
Doesn’t sound like that’s the reason here- I believe both Fire Emblems supported 480p though the Wii version also supports widescreen.
Since the Wii can’t (or at least doesn’t) render things natively in a widescreen aspect ratio, instead it compresses the image down so it looks correct when stretched out to widescreen (assuming you have it set to display that way.) Since the GC didn’t have much in the way of widescreen games, the effect you’re noticing might be a result of that. GC games tend to look cleaner because you’re viewing them in their natively rendered 4:3 aspect ratio.
The Wii’s graphics chip and CPU are both basically just upgraded versions of the Gamecube chips, so there is absolutely zero reason for a game to look worse on the Wii’s hardware. It is, categorically speaking, superior.
Haven’t noticed it. The new games (Mario Kart Wii, Brawl) look mildly better than their GC counterparts. Galaxy looks a good bit better than Sunshine, imo.