The Best Console to Play GameCube Games - GCN vs. Wii vs. Wii U 

Serious question, why *not* use Dolphin?

@@DarkNia64 I answered in another comment but personally it's simply that I can play my Wii on my TV and I can't play my PC/Emulator on my TV. My setup at home just does not work for that. And I also really do not want to play video games at my desk when my day job already consists of me being at that desk for 45-50 hours a week.

@@NoonDragoon That makes sense. Although I have a dedicated emulation machine for my TV, part of me misses the feeling of playing my favorite games on genuine hardware.

@@NoonDragoonSteam Deck moment

@@skydiamsteam6005 I think it’s pretty stupid to tell someone to buy another expensive device just to play games they already have access to.

Get an external HDD bro u can fit all GameCube games

@@Angel_Peg True, but I only need like 80gb for the ones I actually care about lol.

@@flameguy21 right

I do that too. I use Nintendont

Why not pick up an Xbox series console and put dolphin on it? You'd get to play all your backups and upscale them, use a modern display with HDMI, load mods and texture packs , and more. Also, it would function as an Xbox.. also, the price point can be beat. With the Series S recently dropping the MSRP, you can get a machine that plays every game from Atari up to games releasing tomorrow for less than half the cost of a steam deck(or the price of a working used GameCube with a single game)

My eyes have been sullied by OLED, and now I don't like playing pixel graphics games(ex. Sea of Stars, Golden Sun) on my TV regardless of how good it otherwise looks. Brown especially looks bleh on an LCD TV(I think that's what I got. It's a Samsung "Crystal" TV).

I think I have a TN because I remember getting the New 3DS XL after the original 3DS and the screen quality felt like a downgrade and I didn't know why. Wasn't until years later I learn about the 3DS having different displays.

​@Bombasaur101 I have an ips bottom Is t n top

I noticed this while playing the gamecube version of NFS Underground on Wii U. The frame rate was basically locked at 30 with no slow down.

Ah yes.... *My favorite anomalies*

There was an addon for the nes that used floopy disks, and an add-on for the N64 as well.

And believe it or not, the SNES was supposed to get a CD add on, only for Nintendo to stab Sony in the back by working on the same project with Philips, which caused the add on to get canceled, and we ended up getting the CD-i and eventually the PlayStation instead.

What about the Famicom Disc System?

@@ToonyTails True,but I think the mindset is strictly for the releases in the west

unfortunately on Wii U it has more input lag.

it just better to use the wii u on a crt, you solve all the issues

And the convenience of having all your favorite gamecube, wii and wii u games in one slick menu makes the wii u my one stop shop for my nintendo fix

@@Lobeezy_n_FriendsWii U is a beast for retro Nintendo stuff.

@@Lobeezy_n_Friends "in one slick menu", Wii U's menu is super slow and in order to access GameCube and Wii, you have to boot up Wii mode which requires you to point at the screen before getting an extra load time to book up Wii mode

And you can choose the accompanying sound too

you can make Nintendont do that

@@prodyg if you lack honor maybe

​@qianniuVT Yeah but getting the Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal Version is better though

@@qianniuVTwii is game gamecube pro basically 🤷‍♂️

Tmi bro

@@user-vi4xy1jw7e Everybody poops 💩 🙄 🤣

Nintendont even emulates a BBA over WiFi, though it's pretty unstable and I could barely get two Wiis talking to each other for eight player Double Dash. Even if I set everything inside the same room to airplane mode, so there's the least possible interference :D So you're better of using a USB-LAN Adapter on Wii, if you want to do anything that involves Gamecube games and Ethernet ports.

@@seseiSeki That being said, if it's only 2 player it seems to work fine. I was easily able to set up a Double Dash session between my Wii and Wii U no problem when I only wanted to play against one other person.

For me, it’s Wii U and PC.

Same here, but for Wii U. The Gamecube disc drives seem like they're very sensitive.

I agree. The GameCube reader breaks easily.

Do you use a CRT TV or a LCD by components?

GC discs are all bit-rotting. Time to mod your Wii and get a USB hard drive for it so you can join the rest of humanity by not using discs anymore.

​@@Great-DocumentariesAlso piracy, no more paying assured. Prices. that's a good thing

What has happened recently?

@@AG-kb7yb Official nintendo component cables for Gamecube became notoriously rare, Im assuming a third party solution has probably entered the market

@@chairforce0ne I assumed that too, but wanted him to confirm, hence the question

@@AG-kb7ybWell, not so much recently, but for the last number of years it has been possible to get HDMI adapters for GameCube that plug into the digital AV out port on the GameCube. These give you slightly better picture quality than component cable. Some of them have a second output that allow you to use Wii component cables. The official GameCube component cables, and to a lesser extent the official GameCube D-terminal cables, still go for insane prices. Until around 2017 they were the only way to get 480p from a GameCube.

Even in the video he uses some kind of adapter to use Wii's component cables. These weren't available until recently. Gamecube have some unique electronics in it's component cables and console won't work without it. A cheap third party solution didn't exist for Gamecube.@@AG-kb7yb

Ironically the Wii U is somewhat purse shaped so you could just stuff in in a bag and the curve on the back of the console’s shell would make it fit snugly in a case unlike the Wii which would pretty much feel like a brick since it has no curves in it’s shell design. Plush the back of the gamepad is basically its handle I mean I don’t think i’m the only one that treats the back of it like a handle… am I?

Amen to that brother! My Phillips flat screen CRT that I had been using since 2003 unfortunately died last year but I couldn't move on from it, I had to scour Craigslist non-stop until I found someone willing to part with a similar TV.

I’ve got a GC, Wii and Wii U but I’ve never been much into home brew or hacking but the more I read about the Wii U, the more I’m tempted. I’m sure I can Google it but is it fairly straightforward? And is there much danger of bricking the Wii U?

@@youtuber6193 I did it as a 14 year old with finding the correct guide. It is pretty easy, but you will need a Wii U gamepad and a big enough SD Card/ USB in order to back up games. I would recommend around 128 GB of space. But the Wii U is the ULTIMATE Nintendo machine, you can play literally every game in Nintendo history on this thing, so it is worth it. If you are going to attempt this, first check your Wii U version and then look up the guide with your version in mind. So, for example, version 5.5.6, and then look up the video covering the process in that version. If you need any more help, I will gladly help with anything!

@@youtuber6193 anyone feel free to correct me encase Im wrong but to the best of my ability no their is really no way to brick a wii u using homebrew their use to be a risk with Haxchi back in the old days but today we have tiramisu and aroma you should be fine

It's easy to not brick a WiiU, but where there's a will there's a way lol

@@youtuber6193 Damn, sorry, I though I reacted to your comment. Ok, but the short answer is: yeah, it is pretty straightforward, but follow the correct guide and what version of the Wii U you have and what Custom Firmware you wanna install.

When blown up yes, but not when sitting where you would from the screen. Once you sit down to game and compare all three that way the Wii U makes things look kind of smudgy. It is fine though whatever way you play them. Its not gonna change your life playing gamecube games on the gamecube instead of Wii U. The pixalation you see in the images is a good thing because you are viewing it as if you were right up on screen, which means when you sit the proper amount away all the definition and artist intended is there and you shouldn't be seeing the pixels. On Wii U when you do it and look close the pixels get blended together so when you are farther away the image is less clean. In any event, as I said, and just like he said whichever way you do it is fine. In fact, probably don't do the comparisons yourself as then life becomes hell. Ignorance is bliss. It truly is.

This is especially noticeable on any HDTV released within the past several years. The aliasing on Wii is horrible, makes many games unplayable- it was meant to be run with a CRT or 00's era HDTV. But Wii U essentially fixes that on newer (and larger) TV's. Reducing pixel sharpness reduces perception of "pixel graininess" on many older games.

Totally agree. I don't understand why sharper pixels are considered better when it comes to upscaling. The original experiences didn't look like that, nor were they meant to. And some games look outright bad overly sharpened. Not a GC game but a Wii game, Endless Ocean 2 looks really ugly over component, at least on Wii. I wonder if the softening will make it look nicer on the WiiU.

Because it looks like someone smeared vaseline on your shit when you hook this crap up to an OLED. Even worse if you plug in to an external video scaler.

@@dvsaleios I'll take "smeared vaseline" over "getting stabbed in the eyes with thousands of jaggies" any day.

LOL! So typical of a gamerboy to claim that the fuzzy picture is prettier. Sorry, the Wii U sucks in every meaningful way and anyone with a clue knows that Wii and GameCube games play AND LOOK better on a Wii than Wii U. I can't believe you actually argue that the worse image actually looks better. That's like say dropped frames gives a game a new art style, and thus is superior to running the game on a faster GPU. 🤣

it's due to running through Nintendont, makes Cube games use the Wii's cpu.

​​@@Phantron GameCube mode also uses the Wii CPU and GPU, the difference is that Wii mode clocks of both of them are higher than GameCube. Nintendont runs on Wii mode and so uses the higher clock speeds.

If you hold Start or select while booting up a GBA ambassador game on 3DS, you'll get the game running in pixel perfect mode. Also GBA games on 3DS don't support sleep mode.

@@lol-ih1tl Yeah, but it's smaller than an actual GBA screen as far as I know, because I believe the pixels on the 3DS screen are smaller.

It's more like the DS was a brand new thing with an entire GBA inside it. Then the 3DS was another brand new thing with an entire DS inside it (including the GBA inside the DS). The 3DS's main processors were actually a package mainly used in digital cameras at the time. Before that though, Nintendo was actually in talks with Nvidia to use a chip that was an ancestor of the chip now inside the Switch

One key difference is that GBA on the 3DS is designed to run every GBA game the same way they ran on a real GBA (it's a 3DS hardware feature.) While a Wii U would require patching a game upwards of 50 times before it will run correctly in Wii mode, and even then it will not be able to use the original GC timings. Quite a shame, the other method (devolution) suffers from similar limitations, and it's CPU intensive so certain games have additional framedrops, ugh.

That is a BIG if, it would be many years from now and expensive. The GC, PS2 and OG XBOX are way more complex to emulate in fpga.

@@GiSWiG Analogue systems- when using physical media isn't emulation which is what makes it special. Definitely worth looking into!

@@AbbieWillett Analogue uses FPGA. FPGA emulates hardware. In order to do that, it has to have all the hardware laid out like a map. This is what is put into the gate array. The more complex the hardware, the larger gate array you need. Of course, the larger the FPGA chip, the higher the price. Can you build a GameCube inn FPGA? Of course! Would you want to spend thousands of dollars for an FGPA GameCube? Of course not.

​@@GiSWiGI'm sure people would spend thousands. Gamers and Nintendo fans are crazy. Lol

Well, if you a big fan, get the best of both worlds and mod an original DOL-001. My GC Spice could probably sell for a few hundred. It has internal HDMI mod, PicoBoot, BlueRetro front panel from Laserbear (sync and use bluetooth controllers like 8bitdo and probably BrawlerGC) sideloading SD Card with 3D printed cover, matching spice GB Player. In hindsight, I don't recommend the internal mod. Hardware wise, you get nothing extra compared to using a Carby or MK-II or similar digital-out to HDMI and you loose the ability to use component cables and RetroTink 5X. My only upscaler options are mClassic (which works rather well) mCable (don't have but thinking the1080p only output should work well for better 4K scaling) the upcoming PixelFX Morph 4K or the RetroTink 4K. Of course, it does still have a working disc drive and removing the SD Card makes it act just like a standard GC. If Swiss can make loading from SDCards via SP2, that would be awesome but my next addon would be the SSD from webhdx. Been waiting a long time. @@user-vi4xy1jw7e

FINALLY, someone gets it! Why do people keep wanting sharp jaggy pixels when that absolutely is not how it's supposed to look on a CRT?

@@CarsandCats so the Wii U is actually the best option for you then :P

@@CarsandCatslike I get it for ppl who's only experience with older games is via PC emulation cos they mistakenly think raw pixels is how those games look, but it's kinda wild that ppl who played on a CRT (I think Jon might even still have one) would advocate the Lego block look. If he had said it didn't blur the way a CRT would I'd understand tho, cos some of that colour clumping didn't look right on the Wii U examples.

​@@sonicsean34I mean, it's not that crazy. If you go look at the game boxes and manuals for NES, Mega Drive games, even they went with the super pixelated look.

​@@CarsandCatsyou act like this is super uncommon. Plenty of people bring this up. Lol

"On WiiU the (Crazy Taxi) slowdown is gone." Yeah, it's gone on Wii too. No GC games have framerate issues on Wii. Sorry, not a Wii U benefit. "while WiiU can send 1080p through HDMI. It’s the same signal of 480p in a 1080p frame but now you don’t have to rely on your display to do the scaling for you and most do this badly." Most do it quite well these days, including my 2015 Samsung 32" TV, which I use for Wii U and Wii. Guess which has better image quality for GC games? Yep, Wii. Wii U absolutely cannot compete with a Wii and component cables, and it is NOT easier to force progressive mode on interlaced games! They either work via Nintendont on both Wii or Wii U, or they do not on Wii and Wii U! You are wrong about everything here.

Literally every benefit you listed can be done with nintendont on the Wii, and using a dedicated upscaler like the m classic will upscale to 1080p while looking significantly better than the wii U does, also if you care about image quality so much I'd play crazy taxi on the xbox

That definitely helps make Wii games look a little more "normal" in vWii mode, but its a pain to keep switching it back and forth from 480p to 1080p for Wii and Wii U gaming.

@@lordmaximus780 Using the "WiiVC Launch" plugin for Aroma Enviroment, you can configure the launch of vWii in 480p resolution, while the Wii U will remain at 1080p resolution

The Wii DAC isn't "cheap", it has a misconfiguration that Nintendo never cared to fix.

Try using the evwii plugin.

Thank you, I knew there something I was missing! Glad you shared this info, I thought I could maybe manually set the pixel count on Nintendont’s settings but it just scales in slight integers above 640p and nothing below that. Got a much better result with 480p and my upscalers now.

@@Deredesa Glad it helped you, this shoudl be more known because this makes the WiiU the ultimate Wii/gamecube console to be fair.

@@antoinepersonnel6509 I think for best image for native gba/gamecube, the GCN may be better and Wii scales pixels correctly for retro emulation better when hooked up to older televisions. But for convenience and if I have to choose one…the Wii U can technically do it all!

The Wii U is actually more like that analogy than the Wii, while the Wii is just a faster GameCube on most of the hardware regards. The Wii U CPU still isn't that different to the GC and Wii one, but instead of just using faster clock like the Wii, it has 3 cores and some slight acommodations for when using the three cores instead of 1 like the Wii and GameCube had. It goes back to one core, Wii speeds and behaviour in Wii mode.

@@Rulumi Oh yeah, you're right. According to Wikipedia I was going off of outdated and now disproved info. Thanks for the clarification!

Yeah I hate that. If I just want to play a GameCube game, I’ve got to set up my sensor bar, dig out my wiimote and find batteries…just to navigate that stupid menu. I remember the DS had an option to load straight into games on startup, bypassing the menu. If they somehow couldn’t figure out GC controller Wii menu navigation, I wish they at least had that same option.

Yo Pretzel! I really hope i get a gamecube for cheap so i can get a Flippydrive fitted

Hello hard pretzel

@@Frapskillar Fancy seeing you here! The flippydrive is that new ODE right? Looks real promising. Too bad I've invested so much in discs it's a sunk cost at this point I don't wanna mess with it! 🤣🤣 Let me know how it goes though! You can usually get cubes with broken disc readers still pretty cheap!

@@rapidloaf Hello rapidloaf

To make it work, you essentially need a modded Wii so you can backup your physical game discs as iso files, then transfer them to the Wii U. Definitely time-consuming and not as convenient if you already have the Gamecube hardware. But its a nice option if you tossed out any older TV's and only have an HDTV released within the past several years.

Why don’t you mod your Wii and use the game boy emulator?

@@U9DATE I have my Steam Deck for emulation.

Lo acabo de probar en wiiu y se ve horrible la calidad de imagen como algo borroso y de los colores de imagen ni hablar,en wii se ve mucho mejor el juego por componentes.

Si hubiera sabido antes, no gastaba en un Wii U 😢

Ive been looking to get a setup like this but how would you get audio out since VGA only supports video?

@@ph8808 So I use a cable which is multiconsole 6 IN 1 cable for Xbox 360 ps1 ps2 PS3 Wii U VGA Av TV PC. It wasnt very expensive. It also has audio cables built in which you can plug in to an amp or speakers. I did find though that initially I had to hook the cable to a modern tv/monitor that supports 480p. That then lets you change the wii resolution to 480p in the menu settings(for some resason it doesnt recognise my CRT monitor as supporting 480p intitially). Then the settings are saved so when I plug it in to my CRT monitor it displays in glorious 480p.

So youll need a wii to vga cable with audio out. Theres a multi console cables like the one i have which has this. Its not expensive

WRONG! Best image possible is a modchips that sends a digital out directly from the chip. CRT monitors are crap. I know. I have used them since the 80s. The image will always be third rate. LOL!

@@Great-Documentaries WRONG! Just because CRTs might be technically inferior doesnt mean the image is worse. It just looks different and when you consider the games made for these platforms where made for these specific displays in the first place it soldifies the subjective arguement even more. Is a painting that doesnt look photoreal less aesthetic than one that does?