a) There's no such thing as 'hardware locking' for resolutions. It can be changed via firmware as long as the GPU has the needed fillrate and bandwidth with the memory. And while there's 720x480, the Wii's actual resolution for widescreen is 854x480.

b) The 3MB embedded RAM figure is an assumption, not a fact. That's what the GC had, and now the design of the GPU is different, because in the Flipper (GC), it WAS all on a single chip (embedded RAM, sound, I/O and GPU). With the Hollywood (Wii) it has been split into TWO chips. And you are not remembering correctly, because, while the Xbox lacked a dedicated frame/texture buffer, the PS2 used embedded RAM too. The Xbox 360 uses embedded RAM too for frames/textures (and in the 360 it is physically part of the GPU) and it can access the main system RAM for GPU usage as well.

Thanks.

Hm... If I assume what you say is true, I guess I read some bad info.

I still gotta say though it would be a VERY bad idea to even try.

 Edit : Sorry about being off on the wide-screen numbers, I have a hard time remembering a lot of technical information, especially for stuff I never use.

the xbox could do it, the Wii can do it.

Wii has a very efficient hardware design like the gamecube. gamecube had half the power of the xbox but most of it's games looked as good or even better than games on the xbox.

the Wii, number wise, is a bit more powerful than the xbox, with the efficiency of the gamecube design. I think we can see a game looking as good as say, metroid or galaxy, running in 720p if the developers created a good engine.

If you showed someone RE4 in 2001 and say it's on the gamecube, they would probably say you were lying. It's only 1 year after launch, overtime developers get more creative with the hardware and can do impressive things with it, i'm sure we will see tthis sort of thing occur for Wii.

Nobody answered my question. Could this also support old games if they make an update for the games.

@sc94597: Probably not. In the case of the Xbox 360, it can because it has an upscaler. The Wii lacks an upscaler AFAIK.

@vangaurdian1: Yeah, me being a PC gamer got me to learn a lot of that stuff and I remember it in easily. I think it would be a good idea. Consider that Galaxy is a rather shader intensive, with OK textures, models and 60 frames per second ALWAYS.

^ Whats an upscaler?

720p games:

Amped® 2 (Xbox Live™-enabled)
Crash Nitro Kart™
Delta Force®—Black Hawk Down™ (Xbox Live-enabled)
ESPN Major League Baseball (Xbox Live-enabled)
ESPN NBA Basketball 2005 (Xbox Live-enabled)
Freedom Fighters™
MVP Baseball™ 2004
NBA® 2K3 (Xbox Live-enabled)
NBA® Ballers™
Sega Sports™ World Series® Baseball 2K3
SoulCalibur® II
Steel Battalion™—Line of Contact (Xbox Live-enabled)
Street Hoops
Terminator® 3: The Redemption
The Sims™ Bustin’ Out
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
Tony Hawk’s Underground
True Crime: Streets of L.A.

1080i games:
Dragons Lair 3D: Return to the Lair
Enter the Matrix™
MX Unleashed™
Syberia

Just for reference, xbox games that displayed high definition

Wait the original xbox displayed 1080i

@sc94597: It's a chip, processor, device, etc., that makes a given resolution 'bigger' than it's original signal. Most HDTVs have upscalers in them. But don't expect that an upscaled signal looks better than a native HD one. The detail is not increased or anything.

Yup Dragons Lair 3D: Return to the Lair was the first one