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Nintendo Wii U Tablet Screen Resolution Revealed (854 x 480)

D

Dystify

Member
Apologies if this has been posted somewhere already or if it isn't thread worthy. In that case you may close this topic.

The resolution is 854 x 480 (WVGA) according to Golgotron.com:

Golgotron.com said:
What is the screen resolution of that fancy wireless LCD built into the Wii U tablet controller?

First off, we knew it wasn’t super high res. You could tell that just by looking at it, and no one expects a 6.2 inch screen to be 1080p. At least, not anyone who knows anything about present-day LCD technology. However, we were kind of hoping for what is commonly referred to as QHD – 960 x 540. That’s a quarter of the 1080p that we love so much, and if you didn’t already know, hi-def scales down better when it works out evenly like that. Unfortunately, it looks like the units at E3 were not quite that good. Now, they didn’t look bad. In fact, the screens looked quite good in practice, but technically speaking, QHD is a bit better than WVGA, especially when the source material is hi-def. Just think about all the NetFlix’ing that’ll happen on this thing.

So this is what we found after staring at some hi-res photos and manually counting individual pixels – by our estimation, the screen on the Wii U tablet is about 870 pixels wide. However, that doesn’t jive with any standard screen resolutions and it certainly doesn’t match any LCDs commonly in production. 854, though… now that’s a winner. 854 x 480 (WVGA) is a very common widescreen resolution, and it’s within 2% of our not-scientific-enough measurement. Unless Nintendo changes things for the final units, we’re confident the Nintendo U tablet resolution is WVGA.

If you’re up for it, you can use our images to count the pixels for yourself. Click on the thumbnails for the full resolution images.

Click to expand...

Source.
 
960 x 540 was what I was predicting. It just made so much sense, 1/4 of a 1080p image, you'd stream to 4 tablet controllers for the same res as a single 1080p image splitscreen'd....

Alas, it wasn't to be.
 
Lolwat @ their method.
Kyzer said:
Is that HD? or ... is it capable of?
Click to expand...
If you dont know the answer to that, don't worry it won't affect you at all whether it is or isn't.
Culex said:
Somewhere between 480P and 720P
Click to expand...
Technically it actually is 480p since the vertical number is still 480. Assuming these guys are correct.
Kyzer said:
...

Okay. Somebody without a deck of magic cards up their ass?


I ask because I know, as mentioned in the previous Cafe rumors, that there are non 720p resolutions that can be considered "HD" in the sense that its higher than ED, which is 480p. Such as certain GPS displays, if I remember correctly?

And btw. Even if I had no clue what I was talking about, what the fuck gives you the right to be so condescending?

You telling me that if I don't know if 854x480 isn't a pixel resolution high enough to output an image quality defined as "high-definition" that I won't be able to tell the difference?

Go to hell, good sir.
Click to expand...
Lmao. Don't cry. And as said already, it's perfectly clear it's 480p mr knowledgable dood.
 
Kyzer said:
Is that HD? or ... is it capable of?
Click to expand...

No, but neither is an iPad or iPhone, yet their screens are still sharp. The important thing isn't resolution, it's resolution relative to the size of the screen. It may indeed have the appearance of a HD display because it has sufficient pixel density, even though it's technically not HD because HD starts at 1280 x 720. Likewise, even a 1080p display will look like shit if you stand close enough to it.
 
By this resolution, I think Nintendo should be able to stream with 2 even 4 controllers without problem(technical wise). I hope them don't bind themselves by gaming design purpose.
 
The only reasonable possibilities seemed to be this and 960x540.

ThoseDeafMutes said:
No, but neither is an iPad or iPhone, yet their screens are still sharp. The important thing isn't resolution, it's resolution relative to the size of the screen. It may indeed have the appearance of a HD display because it has sufficient pixel density, even though it's technically not HD because HD starts at 1280 x 720.
Click to expand...
Yep.
 
wonderfuldays said:
By this resolution, I think Nintendo should be able to stream with 2 even 4 controllers without problem(technical wise). I hope them don't bind themselves by gaming design purpose.
Click to expand...

From what I heard from some game producers, this isn't really possible as of right now
 
Well, it would make streaming any VC/Wii content easier at 854x480. As for Wii U games, does it matter much if 720p or 1080p are scaled down to 480 vs 540, especially on a 6" screen?
 
Stabbie said:
Incorrect. There's no fixed amount of horizontal pixels for 480p and 720p. 480p stands for 480 vertical lines, so it's 480p.
Click to expand...
wiki said:
The ATSC digital television standards define 480p with either 704 × 480 (non-square sampling) or 640 × 480 (square sampling) pixel resolutions, at 24, 30, or 60 progressive frames per second.

Both 480p24 and 480p30 are more common in countries that use or have used the interlaced NTSC system like North America and Japan (these formats are somewhat compatible with that system, when used to broadcast progressive film content).
Click to expand...

you aren't wrong to say it's technically 480p, but it's very misleading to label it as such, when a TV specced as being 480p absolutely doesn't have that many pixels.

480p and 720p are a short hand for specific resolutions and not just a specific number of lines, unless you really really want to confuse things.

this resolution is WVGA, which is a higher resolution than a 480p TV displays or a 480p DVD player outputs. it isn't HD, but it is higher resolution than SD (or 480p as typically defined). it is ED.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
No, but neither is an iPad or iPhone, yet their screens are still sharp. The important thing isn't resolution, it's resolution relative to the size of the screen. It may indeed have the appearance of a HD display because it has sufficient pixel density, even though it's technically not HD because HD starts at 1280 x 720. Likewise, even a 1080p display will look like shit if you stand close enough to it.
Click to expand...
yeah but people will notice a big difference when they switch to playing their 1080p game on the 480 screen. stuff will be like squished.
 
That's fine for that size and distance of the Wii U controller, but 960 x 540 would have been better for future proofing so they wouldn't have to us filters/algorithms. As long as the Wii U system puts out 1080p via HDMI to the TV like they said.
 
plagiarize said:
you aren't wrong to say it's technically 480p, but it's very misleading to label it as such, when a TV specced as being 480p absolutely doesn't have that many pixels.

480p and 720p are a short hand for specific resolutions and not just a specific number of lines, unless you really really want to confuse things.

this resolution is WVGA, which is a higher resolution than a 480p TV displays or a 480p DVD player outputs. it isn't HD, but it is higher resolution than SD. it is ED.
Click to expand...
No. Its the number of lines. The number of horizontal lines have always been the constant, but the number of state changes per line is accpeted as variable within any accepted aspect ratio. You're thinking too digitally when this is a set of analog television shorthand terms.
 
btkadams said:
yeah but people will notice a big difference when they switch to playing their 1080p game on the 480 screen. stuff will be like squished.
Click to expand...
You're right in theory. In this case, though, developers know it'll be an option and will be able to prepare their stuff, especially anything HUD related, accordingly. Considering HUDs these days are typically vector based, it's not even a big deal.
 
The single best part about this news is that 854x480 is (sorta) the native widescreen resolution for Wii. This makes it much more likely that U will stream Wii games to the tablet.

Vic said:
So how many pixels per inch?
Click to expand...

158
 
Alextended said:
If you dont know the answer to that, don't worry it won't affect you at all whether it is or isn't.
Click to expand...


...

Okay. Somebody without a deck of magic cards up their ass?


I ask because I know, as mentioned in the previous Cafe rumors, that there are non 720p resolutions that can be considered "HD" in the sense that its higher than ED, which is 480p. Such as certain GPS displays, if I remember correctly?

And btw. Even if I had no clue what I was talking about, what the fuck gives you the right to be so condescending?

You telling me that if I don't know if 854x480 isn't a pixel resolution high enough to output an image quality defined as "high-definition" that I won't be able to tell the difference?

Go to hell, good sir.


ThoseDeafMutes said:
No, but neither is an iPad or iPhone, yet their screens are still sharp. The important thing isn't resolution, it's resolution relative to the size of the screen. It may indeed have the appearance of a HD display because it has sufficient pixel density, even though it's technically not HD because HD starts at 1280 x 720. Likewise, even a 1080p display will look like shit if you stand close enough to it.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the helpful response, dude. This is an answer more along the lines I was looking for.

So, is it something capable of doing justice to a 1080p image being used on a handheld screen>
 
TwinIonEngines said:
The single best part about this news is that 854x480 is the native widescreen resolution for Wii. This makes it much more likely that U will stream Wii games to the tablet.
Click to expand...
Technically, the Wii renders at 640x480 even when outputting in widescreen at 854x480, but besides this detail you are correct.
 
Grampa Simpson said:
No. Its the number of lines. The number of horizontal lines have always been the constant, but the number of state changes per line is accpeted as variable within any accepted aspect ratio. You're thinking too digitally when this is a set of analog television shorthand terms.
Click to expand...
it WAS a set of analog television terms.

now it is a set of DIGITAL television terms.

there is nothing analogue about the WiiU screen. like i said, *technically* it's correct to say that 480p refers to any resolution that is 480p lines high, but that isn't how it's used anymore, as there are two very specific resolutions that the ATSC standards define 480p to represent. 640 x 480 and 704 x 480 are what '480p' means when referring to a digital display...

and we're referring to a digital display. 480p to refer to any resolution you can imagine 480 lines high, isn't a remotely useful term anymore, even if it is as i admit correct if you want to be pedant.
 
btkadams said:
yeah but people will notice a big difference when they switch to playing their 1080p game on the 480 screen. stuff will be like squished.
Click to expand...

Why?

1280 / 720 = 1.7777777...
854 / 480 = 1.77691666...

The ratio is nearly exactly the same, so there's no need to "Squish" the image horizontally as long as they don't use a few pixel rows at the top and bottom. It's just smaller.
 
Seems like a huge sacrifice in resolution for utilizing the screen while streaming the game to the system just for one to watch live mlb live on the tv. I hope the screen is of retina display or OLED proportions.
 
Luigison said:
That's fine for that size and distance of the Wii U controller, but 960 x 540 would have been better for future proofing so they wouldn't have to us filters/algorithms. As long as the Wii U system puts out 1080p via HDMI to the TV like they said.
Click to expand...

From what I understand the system is always rendering out two different images, one full res to the screen, one at the controller res, not just downscaling a 1080p image for the controller.

I guess it's possible depending on how they write the software that when you put it into mirror mode it could just render once and scale down so devs could increase the graphics a bit because they don't have to render twice, but I don't know. I could also imagine that the software could put all the hardware into rendering just an 854x480 image when you put it into controller mode as well if a dev wanted to do something like that. I don't know if nintendo is going to have a TRC that says that devs have to send a display to both screens at all times or whether each has to be rendered independently at all times or what they will allow devs to get away with in that regard.
 
Dedication Through Light said:
Seems like a huge sacrifice in resolution for utilizing the screen while streaming the game to the system just for one to watch live mlb live on the tv. I hope the screen is of retina display or OLED proportions.
Click to expand...

No, but again, the iPad isn't either, and nobody gives a shit. P.S. "Retina Display" is the worst marketing bullshit ever, because I always imagine contact lenses with super high res images when they say that then get disappointed when I remember it's just an iPod screen.
 
So, based on the 6.2" screen size, the resolution is about 158 ppi. For a comparison, the iPhone prior to the iPhone 4 had 163 ppi. So it'll look good but pixels will still certainly be visible in text elements and images.

Edit. Psvita with 5" screen is 220 ppi
 
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