Rumour: Nintendo Wii Graphics On Par With Xbox 360

[Smoke]

http://mozlapunk.web-log.nl/log/5701492

[lazyfatbum]

old OLD rumor but still fighting its way around, I mean we've seen pics from third party developers and devs like Retro and Square are going to push the graphics envelope even more so it's a pretty safe bet that Wii is on par with 360 and maybe capable of exceeding it but we'll know for sure come E3.

[Paco]

the fact that Wii is incapable of HD resolution games means that it isn't on par with the 360 from a technical perspective. If the Wii can make games look as good as Too Human, The Darkness, Gears of War, etc then I'll be impressed. The thing is with those games is that the textures really REALLY make a difference.

whatever. we'll see soon enough.

[A Black Falcon]

'Perhaps on par with SD first-generation X360 games' is perhaps the more persuasive rumor...

[Dark Jaguar]

Incapable of high def... I wonder. I know that it won't have such capabilities built into the hardware, but will it be possible to make it high res via software? That'll take some CPU power sure, but is it doable? I'm imagining high def games showing up a year into the Rev's lifespan basically.

[lazyfatbum]

Well there's nothing stopping a dev from making a 720 or 1080 upconverted game on Wii which we know is using progressive scan and component hookups (which you need a proper HDTV to see). it would be the same as how the first XBox did it. And waaaay back Nintendo said Wii hooks up to a PC monitor, which furthers the evidence that upconverted games are very doable (they were doable on GC as well).

the difference with 360 is that the textures are actually built on high resolutions, not upconverted, which is why the 360 needs the extra horsepower to push and display those textures. the thing is, an uncompressed texture with real time lighting, bumpmapping, etc, really does look as good as a 360 texture set. the difference being is that on the 360, you can make much smaller details on your textures since the pixels are litteraly smaller. That means a rock on 360 and a rock on Wii using the same effects will look nearly identicle but the 360 rock will retain most of its detail no matter how close you are to it, while the Wii rock will start to show its pixels sooner as you get closer to it and no amount of upconverting the resolution will fix that.

When everything is said and done, the 360 games will look better imo because those textures are built on high resolutions, but it's a subtle difference and you need an HDTV and proper calibration to see it. if Wii can output a similar number of polys and effects as 360 can which i'm pretty sure is the case looking at the screenshots released so far, then games like Alliance or other multi-platform games will look nearly identicle on Wii and 360 and maybe PS3 too, based on those videos from GDC. We'll know for sure in 3 days :D