I'd rather use the Wiimote to play first person games. I don't see myself ever playing one of those with dual analog again.
I just hope that it offers enough new stuff for core gamers. If all they like is graphics, then they might never move beyond their PS360 until the PS4π comes out. Maaaybe enough exclusives will make them jump in.
Edit: Aliens: Colonial Marines is going to be epic with the motion sensor on the touch screen!!
But even with that, I'd rather keep that thing lying on my lap and control the game with the Wiimote+chuck.
__________________
It may have other powers than just making you vanish when you wish to... The One Ring
The biggest thing I want to know is whether or not Gamecube and Wii games will be upconverted or if they're going to make us pay for HD remakes.
I haven't heard anything official that states the Wii U will be compatible with GCN games at all. Also, in an interview with GameTrailers, Reggie said Wii games would not be upconverted. He didn't state anything regarding any HD remakes/re-releases.
Also, they say the controller is really light and comfortable.
I wouldn't put it past the Nintendo engineers to run long tests...but I don't trust anyone who uses the controller for less than 30 minutes. I want to hear some testimony after gaming for 3+ hours or something, or a fairly normal serious gaming session.
Does anyone have a theory as to why the new console won't upscale? Is it a technically difficult task to perform?
I'm no expert, but I thought the process of upscaling was a simple algorithm of taking two pixels and averaging them out and putting another pixel in between.
The really cynical side of me wants to say that it's because they want to resell HD versions of old Wii games. >_>
__________________
3DS Friend Code: 2707-1776-3011
Nintendo ID: Valabrax
Location: Resident of Alfred.. Yes the town named after Batman's butler
Now Playing:
Posts: 10,317
Re: Nintendo at E3 2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr
I'm no expert, but I thought the process of upscaling was a simple algorithm of taking two pixels and averaging them out and putting another pixel in between.
The really cynical side of me wants to say that it's because they want to resell HD versions of old Wii games. >_>
Being BC didn't stop em from re-selling Pikmin and other games.
And sadly HD remakes seem to be the in-thing now. I think the movement is awful, but people get excited for it. Meh
I'm no expert, but I thought the process of upscaling was a simple algorithm of taking two pixels and averaging them out and putting another pixel in between.
The really cynical side of me wants to say that it's because they want to resell HD versions of old Wii games. >_>
That is the simplest algorithm (once extended to 2D), but the ones actually used are a bit more complicated. But most likely they would upscale in hardware, and not software.
But in all reality, if you're playing on a fixed-resolution display (any non-CRT basically), your TV will be upscaling the image anyway. Why it's not doing it is beyond me, but it's not like an upscaled Wii game is going to magically look better.
I am pretty impressed with everything overall. Just the fact that nintendo is finally going HD is great, although I guess they pretty much have to now. Zelda demo looks impressive. And I am liking how skyward sword seems to be shaping up also.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last edited by thatmariolover : 06-09-2011 at 02:07 PM.
Wow, so they are trying to hook the calls to the graphics API and render it to a larger viewport? That would be possible, similar to DLL hooking. However, even doing that would either warp the image or you would be restricted to a uniform scale. Not sure how you would adjust the aspect ratio unless you tried to decompose the projection matrix and adjust the aspect ratio.
Regardless, I think you're forgetting that rendering at a different resolution isn't that easy. Well, it is as easy as adjusting the viewport and projection matrices, but you can't just do it automatically to existing games and expect it to work. Changing the resolution can cause many rendering artifacts with shadow mapping and others, as well as completely break any code which may be processing a full-screen texture on the CPU side. Artifacts may be acceptable for an illegal emulator, but I would imagine Nintendo wants to get these games to run as close to the original as possible.
I'm by no means an expert on what's possible to do with emulation, but I can't see this being possible for all cases. I imagine it's a bit easier since the Wii is fixed-function, but it seems way too easy to break.
While I sort of like the idea of the whole....ipad-controller-thing, I think it says a lot when their stock immediately dropped to a 5 year low or something hilarious like that.
Anyways, I think this will be what ruins Nintendo. To oversimplify it, it's sort of just a tablet you use in conjunction with your 'Wii'.
And I'm pretty sure Sony/Microsoft have tablets (If they don't, they should?), so it wouldn't be hard, or needlessly expensive for them to easily phase Nintendo out on this, aswell - just like they slowly tried to do with motion-gaming.
It seems like Nintendo is struggling for fringe ideas to sell consoles, but is sort of totally backing themselves into a corner as they do it. Since the other systems are making super-powerful systems, and simply biting off the gimmicks Nintendo brings, they'll no doubt continue to do this until even a new Nintendo system is immediately obsolete and a generation behind.
__________________ Fingerbang:
1.) The sexual act where a finger is inserted into the vagina or anus. Headbang:
1.) To vigorously nod your head up and down.
Re: Nintendo at E3 2011
Hybrid Mode
