Quote:
Originally Posted by gekko
I didn't even know there was a Wii emulator. But it doesn't really matter. It's impossible, now, and forever in the future, to upscale an image and make it "better".
Take the example of a 4x4 square, make it a black and white checkerboard. To reduce that down to a single pixel you would all expect the colors to average out to some shade of gray. Now let's go the other way, start with a single gray pixel and upscale it to 4x4. What does it look like? Is it four gray pixels? Our black and white checkerboard? Any other of the many combinations of 4 pixels which average to the exact same color? It's impossible to tell.
Now, I won't say there aren't some really good ways to guess. Photoshop CS5 has a fantastic tool which can do just that, but it's still a complete guess. Those tend to take a much larger area and assume things. For example, if the entire bottom of the image is covered in this green stuff, then maybe the big hole you are trying to fill should contain similar shades and patterns, etc. The problem is these all break down in certain cases, and there is no generic algorithm that works perfectly.
The problem is when you go up in resolution you should increase the detail, and while you can guess at the missing colors, you can never add the detail which would be missing. If there was a human arm, you may be able to guess at the proper skin tone in the missing pixels, but you will never get the pores, or the hairs. Or think about all the small detail which would be seen in a 1080p picture of concrete, you maybe can match color, but going from 640x480 to 1920x1080 is never going to get you that detail, no matter how hard you try.
Now, my best guess as to why the Wii emulator looks better is post-processing of the scene. I would assume they perform some form of aliasing to reduce the jaggies on the image and make everything look smoother. Besides, your eyes can play tricks on you. It's the reason why screens in retail are so bright, because people think they look better and it sells TVs. It's the same reason why volume is used to sell speakers, because if they are the loudest in the store, they must be the best. Look at the images closely and you will most likely they are the exact same, if not a bit smoother (AA as I said before). But no matter how hard you try, you can't add detail.
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Your first sentence is the problem. Games don't just consist of a series of images any more. They're a composite of rendered structures (polygonal models) with images applied to them (textures).
It's only the textures that need scaling. The Wii Emulator actually renders the scene in HD (Anti-Aliasing is also offered) and scales the textures. There's no reason the WiiU couldn't do the same thing, unless it's just got a Wii SoC and it's doing hardware emulation. Regardless, somebody's going to break this thing for homebrew and then somebody's going to port Dolphin over and that will be the end of it.
Semi-Related: Depixelizing Pixel Art - A new way to scale sprites really well.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...kopf/pixelart/
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In the end, though, it just comes down to money. Nintendo wants to continue selling Wii's through the WiiU's life cycle. It's the same reason they aren't doing Gamecube emulation. It has nothing to do with what the system can do, and everything to do with them wanting you to either buy the games for Wii, or buy an HD remake.