Using 4:3 or 16:9

[omega_rugal]

Get ready for another weird question

in the video settings there`s an option to between aspect ratios 4:3 and 16:9

lets say we run a wii game that natively runs at 16:9 and we enforce it to run at 4:3

my question is: changing the aspect ratio has some impact in performance? or it is only cosmetic?

[ExtremeDude2]

Cosmetic

[pauldacheez]

The control you're talking about (Graphics > General > Aspect Ratio) applies to all games, and naturally can stretch or squash the output if it's set incorrectly.

There's another setting (Config > Wii > Aspect Ratio) that Wii games natively pay attention to. Games that natively run only in 16:9 will be letterboxed (y'know, black bars on the top and bottom) when it's set to 4:3, while games that are natively 4:3 are probably usually stretched on 16:9 – I dunno, I only know of one retail Wii game that doesn't support 16:9 (plus the billions of VC titles and homebrew). (These rules apply both to Dolphin and to real hardware.)

[NaturalViolence]

If you change the FoV of the game (which probably requires widescreen hack) then it could have a small performance hit if you have a severe GPU bottleneck. Other than that no.

[Brandondorf9999]

(09-17-2013, 12:25 PM)pauldacheez Wrote: The control you're talking about (Graphics > General > Aspect Ratio) applies to all games, and naturally can stretch or squash the output if it's set incorrectly.

There's another setting (Config > Wii > Aspect Ratio) that Wii games natively pay attention to. Games that natively run only in 16:9 will be letterboxed (y'know, black bars on the top and bottom) when it's set to 4:3, while games that are natively 4:3 are probably usually stretched on 16:9 – I dunno, I only know of one retail Wii game that doesn't support 16:9 (plus the billions of VC titles and homebrew). (These rules apply both to Dolphin and to real hardware.)

Another way of using 4:3 while keeping the aspect ratio on 16:9 for wii is using "widescreen hack" through (Graphics > Enhancements > Widescreen hack) and set the aspect ratio to force 4:3 in (Graphics > General > Aspect Ratio). With that configuration, you may get more top and bottom lines and fills up to fit original tvs and of course for some 4:3 monitors. Like mine over here, the huds in Brawl are in the safe zones and far away from the screen ends:



I mostly use 4:3 with widescreen hack on 16:9 wii games because widescreen crops the extra top and bottom lines away from the screen used for Brawl and many other games like those. Some games may stretch huds while in another format or another aspect ratio besides full and wide.

[xemnas]

Thanks for the tip, Brandondorf9999. Do you have any issue using 4:3 with 16:9 games?

[MayImilae]

Or you could just set the emulated Wii to 4:3...

[xemnas]

Do you mean set Wii Aspect Ratio to 4:3 for 16:9 games? The aspect ratio of the game elements will not change?

[MayImilae]

Wrong. 99% of Wii games support 4:3 natively. It's an SD console after all, it had better. All you have to do is set the Wii to 4:3 in Config > Wii. Boom, 4:3. And it's not using a hack so it doesn't have GUI elements in the middle of the screen or weird glitches that the widescreen hack produces.

[Brandondorf9999]

(09-21-2013, 12:13 AM)xemnas Wrote: Thanks for the tip, Brandondorf9999. Do you have any issue using 4:3 with 16:9 games?

No, I don't have issues using 16:9 games in non-matted fullscreen on a standard aspect ratio at all.

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(09-21-2013, 07:22 AM)xemnas Wrote: Do you mean set Wii Aspect Ratio to 4:3 for 16:9 games? The aspect ratio of the game elements will not change?

Actually I mean use widescreen hack along with using force 4:3 option for 16:9 games while preserving the wii aspect ratio on 16:9.

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(09-21-2013, 08:19 AM)MaJoR Wrote: Wrong. 99% of Wii games support 4:3 natively. It's an SD console after all, it had better. All you have to do is set the Wii to 4:3 in Config > Wii. Boom, 4:3. And it's not using a hack so it doesn't have GUI elements in the middle of the screen or weird glitches that the widescreen hack produces.

I prefer to see more top and bottom on 16:9 wii games with widescreen hack enabled and of course aspect ratio via graphics menu set to 4:3. That's much better that way although the huds stretch and the models aren't but with more vertical on the visual display.