Wow, Sonic and the Secret Rings really sucks...

[PimpUigi]

Oh... I just assumed it did, I didn't know about the Z80 conflict with GEMS in sega CD mode. It could just be another crappy sound engine, I assumed it was GEMS as that was the standard, generic engine included with US dev kits. (that and the way it sounds)


What woud you call "true widescreen" then? Yes, it's anamorphic, which is th eonly way to get good widescreen in Standard Def (otherwise you just get lower resolution and letterboxing, ie fewer lines being used -which most/all DVD players offer for output on older TVs). Of course, SD rarely uses square pixels anyway (and that varies even more with varying calibration on overscan tv to tv), but I don't think that's what you meant. Switching to compressed 16:9 makes th escanlines much tighter though, much nicer to look at on larger sets.

With 480p, there can be genuine square pixel (or as close as possible) widescreen with 852x480p as well as full 60 Hz framerate. I don't know if the Wii supports that though, or just renders in the same resolution as in standard definition mode. I'm also not sure if it supports 576p. (which seems to be uncommon in general, but I can't speak from personal experience as I don't live in a PAL region)


That reminds me: pimpuigi, for the HD versions, does "widescreen" mode actually increase the resolution (ie 720p would be 1280x720 opposed to 960x720), or does it just crop the screen to have letterboxing? (which you suould be able to elliminate by using the zoom option of the TV)
If the latter, at least you're getting a higher horizontal resolution, if reduced visible screen area.

In the HD versions, it's the latter.
I do use 480p widescreen on the Wii, when I borrow it from my friend.

Seems like most Wii games have the true widescreen, and most ps3/360 games use clipped widescreen.
Sad.

[j_factor]

What do you mean by "clipped" widescreen? If you have a 4:3 image at 720p and clip it to make it 16:9, then it won't be 720p anymore. Now that I think of it, I do know that some games are actually less than 720p, like Halo 3. I suppose clipping could somehow be the reason for that. But I was under the impression that it was a small minority of games. Or are you saying that it's actually X resolution, that when clipped, becomes 720p?

[PimpUigi]

It's rendering a clipped 4:3 image, at 1280 x 720

The regular 4:3 image would have been 1280x960, but they took the top and bottom sections away, to create an illusion of widescreen.

Bioshock originally did this, and it required a patch.
Bioshock 2 does this as well, it's getting a patch.

No one ever seems to notice, except with Bioshock.

My definition of true widescreen = enhanced left/right viewing area. (Sonic Unleashed Wii)
My definition of clipped widescreen = reduced up/down viewing area. (Sonic Unleashed 360/PS3)

Also, Sonic Unleashed 360/PS3 clips the top and bottom of the already widescreen intro video, to make it letterboxed in widescreen mode.
Sonic Unleashed Wii therefore again gets the better viewing area, on the intro video as well as gameplay.

[kool kitty89]

It's rendering a clipped 4:3 image, at 1280 x 720

The regular 4:3 image would have been 1280x960, but they took the top and bottom sections away, to create an illusion of widescreen.

In the actual 4:3 mode it's 960x720 though, right? So it is lower resolution, but larger viewing area. (of course SD is 720/704/640x480, I'm not sure, but I think most 480i modes on modern consoles use 720x480, I know that's the only option my PC has and is the standard resolution for digital video anamorphic or 4:3 -neither using square pixels, of course) I think soem DVDs use 704x480, but 720x480 seems to be the general standard for digital video (including standard definition broadcast). Not that it much matters as the beam and dot pitch on SDTVs aren't accurate enough to allow much difference in detal between 640 and 720 pixels wide. (and practically none at all above 720)

1280x960 wouldn't be a standard resolution for DTV, it would be on PCs, and indeed many HD sets would work at that resolution by scaling the video, but maybe not via HDMI as that seems rather picky. (VGA give far more options for a PC connected to our HDTV anyway) Actually, it's best to display in the monitor's native resolution if possible (or scale to it if the console's video scaler is superior to the TV/monitor's), so 1280x720 on any LCD/plasma set is not optimum, 1360x768 usually is and will give the sharpest possible immage. (1080p sets usually have a native 1920x1080 res, so that's not an issue)

Of course, scaling will also add blurring, which may be desirable for low-res stuff to look less pixelated. (for those with LCD monitors, try running kega fusion -or other emulator- in 320x240 "normal" mode in full screen, unfiltered to see what I mean)

[PimpUigi]

960x720 would be nice, but you do not have the option of running the game in 4:3 mode in 720, or 1080 modes.

You're stuck with 480p being the best 4:3 option in the 360/PS3 versions.
The system can switch between widescreen and fullscreen in 480p though.

[kool kitty89]

Is there proper widescreen in 480p or is it also clipped?

Also, do you notive any improvement in framerate at the lower resolution? (if it actually renderd in the lower res, it could have some speed improvement)

Too bad console games aren't nearly as flexible as PC games in this respect. (same thing fro customizable control schemes...)

[PimpUigi]

When you enable widescreen in 480p, it is also clipped.

No framerate improvement oddly enough, in any mode.

Though, 1080i is extremely laggy.