I bought my GF a Wii for Xmas and we set it up using the included composite cables. It looks pretty terrible on my HD plasma. I was wondering if it’s worth ponying up for the component cables that are available. I know the max resolution from the Wii is 480p, but I think the composites should be pumping out 480i and getting me most of the way there. Long story short, are the components worth the $25 upcharge?
It definitely looks better. I ordered mine from Monoprice for under $10.
Concur - it’s noticeably improved at 480p, and I also got the Monoprice cable for something ridiculously low - under $4 IIRC.
Looks like it’s currently selling for $2.72, though they’re out of stock right now.
It’ll look better, but overall it’ll still be pretty terrible.
Yeah, I can’t for the life of my understand why Nintendo made the decision to forgo HD. But the GF couldn’t give a shit and she loves her some Mario.
The multisystem one is a little more expensive (though still much less than $25) and in stock
That’s the set I bought a few weeks ago. That plus a couple of 6 ft HDMI cords only set me back 20 bucks including shipping, got to me very quickly, works great.
Of course, even with component Wii doesn’t look “good” but that’s the limitation of the system.
If you’re really interested in improving things, if your PC will run it fast enough there’s a Wii/Gamecube emulator called Dolphin that lets you run games at higher resolutions, up to 1080p. Sadly, my computer is too weak for it, but vids on youtube make it look like it would be great.
You will also get a widescreen picture.
My Wii gives a widescreen picture on a composite cable.
Never tried that. It didn’t on the GameCube, so I assumed it wouldn’t on the Wii.
It’s pretty understandable, really - in 2006, only one-in-six households had a hi-def set - and with the Wii being such a radical departure from convention, it didn’t really make sense to try to simultaneously compete with the other 7th gen consoles in the specs arms race. The console very likely would not have performed anywhere near as well as it did, without the benefit of its very low price point.
That said, I grabbed a component cable within a couple of days of getting our HDTV. The resolution isn’t any better of course, but the image is a lot easier on the eyes when frames are rendered progressively. Less of that fuzzy/blurry business around the edges.
Gamecube doesn’t support widescreen in general.
On the Wii, you can get widescreen over composite, but unless you have a widescreen TV that doesn’t support component, it’s kinda pointless. It doesn’t letterbox it for old 4:3 sets or anything.
Gamecube games on Wii still come out 4:3 when the Wii is set to widescreen, btw. I have to adjust my TV accordingly.
Component cables for the Wii are kind of like trying to polish a turd.
The nice thing about Wii is your kids can learn to count all of the polygons while you get to go to the Mushroom kingdom or hyrule again.
Mario Galaxy games are pretty great though.
You’ve confused the Wii with the PSX, but thanks for playing!