getting autentic video displays on retro games

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660

That was a pretty interesting read.

Every Emulator I have that support it I have Scanlines turned on as I am doing my best to make everything look like it should.

Like Fusion has an option to emulate the look of an RF switch
Mame I just found has a ton of scanline options
Final Burn has everything looking great
and I have scanlines turned on in Magic Engine

So far so good.

But out of curosity what does everyone here use for autenticity be it emulators or monitors or TVs.

 

I don't enjoy emulators. Original hardware, software & displays is my hobby. I don't even like official emulated collections because they're never perfect. There are a couple exceptions, when they're done right. The Treasure Box, Wonder Boy & Fantasy Zone collections are all genuine curiosities.

Anyway, depending on what I want to play, I own all of these (except the last one):
- old standard def TV w/coaxial & composite input (for Pitfall & NES)
- decent standard def TV w/S-Video (I prefer the 60-fields per second smoothness over the progressive 30 frames VGA for Dreamcast. Usually.)
- "Hi-Vision" Progressive Scan 4:3 CRT TV w/component (able to switch between 480P (Shadow of the Colossus, some GC games) & true 1080i (Gran Turismo 4)) [weighs too much - impossible to move :-(]
- VGA CRT monitor (with an XRGB-2 for older RGB consoles (SMS, MD, SS), or directly with Dreamcast sometimes)
- RGB monitor (still shopping for one)
- almost forgot - an HD display! still don't own one yet, apart from the HiVision, as I don't own a PS3 or 360 yet. I'll bite this year finally.

 

I have a Sony PVM RGB Monitor and play my consoles and JAMMA rig with that. Everything looks fantastic. When playing emulators I usually just have 50% scanlines on. When emulating it's a different beast than hooking up an original system to an LCD monitor, the image quality and aspect ratio are usually good. But mainly I just avoid emulating things if it's not necessary. Ofcourse, I never play old game consoles on my LCD TV. I just see no point as it looks awful.

So for emulated games I don't care, LCDs are fine. But if you have the original hardware you might as well get a nice CRT. It's really a shame CRTs seem obsolete as a CRT should be capable of all your needs. Afterall you can get a Multi Sync RGB monitor that can sync at 15khz, 24khz (I think), and 31khz allowing for tons of resolutions all to be supported on one display and look great. That should allow you to have everything from your NES to your Xbox 360 looking great. But for some reason, probably size, people don't care for the CRT anymore.

 

I despise emulators.

My gaming TV is a 1994 Trinitron and through RGB SCART images look amazing, for any generation of consoles.

I pretty much only emulate CPS3 now, and even then Third Strike has a decent port to Dreamcast and the japanese PS2 version. I'm just happy I have SCART, makes all my consoles look awesome.

 

I don't use emulators - problem solved.
MAME is nice to taste rare and/or expensive arcade games or maybe those which I'm not sure what do think about, but I'd never prefer to play on MAME w/emulated scanlines to the real RGB deal.

 

I did a search and YES CRTs are still being made

CRTs are like Vynal they'll fall out of favor but eventually everyone will realize how awesome it is and they'll be back in style.

 

It depends on people's needs really. 90% of people aren't really going to give a damn about RGB, or even know what it really is.

 

actually what is the difference between RGB and VGA/HD monitors?

 

You are truly clueless aren't you.. -.-

VGA and HD monitors are not interchangeable. It's like comparing coper wires to adidas shoes.

"HD", at this time, means any signal that is (1280*) 720p and above.

"VGA" is a type of RGB, using a DB15 connector. Although it's analogue it can very well do a range of legacy and HD resolutions.

Then there's the "european" RGB, found usually on a SCART connector, and the RGB that uses BNC/RCA connectors, often found in professional equipment.

Long story short, any system that outputs an analogue signal at best is best displayed on a CRT. The modulation used is better suited for scanlines instead of pixels, since scanning also follows analogue principals.

Digital connections, such as HDMI or DVI-D, are better suited for pixel-based displays, optimaly using the set's native resolution - in order to avoid the scaler and its subsequent quality degradation.

ProTip: CRTs do not have a native resolution. They have supported resolutions and the image quality is fully consistent within that supported range - something that digital displays lack, as they're optimised for their native resolution, by default.

 

Arcade VGA card
While it lacks some resolutions that some PCBs want, and even standard SFC/PC-Engine/etc resolutions, it's got nice work arounds. CRTs traditionally support a far faster refresh than flat screens as well. If you want accuracy across the board these days, you need something to display 15khz,24khz, and 31khz (a trisynch arcade monitor is the only thing I can think of that does them all). Note that there is literally, only about 10 24khz games worth playing these days.

This is very much like those people that come to Japan and spend 1000 yen on kaiten sushi and think it's awesome shit.

About 15.75 Khz

From the read (which is quite good) regarding CPS2's display

The compelling reason not too was, as far as I can tell, b/c it wasn't very standard. There's a handful of CPS2 ports (mainly to the DC) that flat out suck shit. Mars Matrix, Gigawing, and loads of fighters that I'm really not into. Anyways, the CPS2 uses an oblong pixel, which I'm assuming is the cause of this. As a result, none of the CPS2 ports to the DC support 15khz, and at least one of the fighters has crazy ass hit boxes. Maybe someone can comment on the ports to the PS2. There's a possibility that this is all coincidence, but I know at least one 3rd party CPS2 developer had problems w/ the weird pixel size.

 

Good shit and yes barcode I am clueless about this stuff.

My HDTV is a CRT and it displays everything I throw at it where as our LCD doesn't

 

I don't care if CRTs are being made though. I only care if they still make CRTs that support RGB input and are high quality monitors, not cheap chinese shitty TVs people buy to put in a Guest Room or something.

I would do the ArcadeVGA card for MAME if I had a spare PC that actually was decent enough to run MAME but I don't generally keep old PCs around and running.

I'm confused by the statement that none of the DC CPS2 ports support 15khz. Standard definition TVs are 15khz. The only thing I recall that was a bad point about DC was that it apparently always runs in 640x480i and that it can't do a resolution like 320x240 so those arcade games from CPS2 were scaled 2X and then displayed interlaced.

It sure would be nice if you could actually walk into a store and buy a high quality CRT with the whole range of analog inputs and even better if it supported 15khz to 31khz Horizontal rates and Vertical rates from about 50hz up to a bit over 60hz, and had controls for adjusting the picture size and position and all that. That would really kick ass.

GoH, just because your HDTV is a CRT doesn't mean it will make retro stuff look great. We have a HDTV that is a CRT and standard definition stuff like the Sega Genesis through Composite still looks terrible and washed out and all the shitty things you can think of. There is more involved than the display being a CRT. All that digital BS sure fucks things up.

 

It most likely does not display it in it's native format though. I'm not aware of any 15khz/31khz compatible, commercially available TV. Not saying it doesnt' exist, just likely doesn't.

Yeah , that was shitty wording. They don't support 240p (their native resolution I should've said). In fact, only a handful of games on the sytem do (Twinkle Star Sprites, Bangaioh, Gunbid 2, one of the Street Fighters, Black Matrix A/D, and I think one more).

 

Wait, aren't CRTs that support progressive scan both 15 and 31Khz?

 

I use emulators, mainly for trying things out, debugging, taking screenshots. I always try to use an integer-scaled, non-filtered (ie: "blocky") fullscreen mode, with scanlines off, for games.

And of course, if possible, I have my games hooked up via 21-pin RGB to a Japanese Sanyo 14" computer monitor. Otherwise, I'll try for S-Video on a TV.

 

The handful that do, yes, but GoH said, "our HDTV is CRT". Those, generally don't. Also, in the US, none of them support RGB. The Sony Wega in Japan has AV Multi which is RGB, so if you're handy w/ the soldering iron (or the bank account) you can always get a cable.

What are you space restrictions? I understand that they sometimes suck in this country, but you can get a big ass Wega really cheap off teh YJ. Was very happy with mine until I upgraded.

 

This may be hard to believe but you're better of with an older CRT (say late 90's). Current CRT's are nowhere near as good as the good old Trinitrons or equivalent Panasonic models.

The simple truth is that a good CRT monitor blows away almost any LCD or Plasma tv. People can say blablabla high definition and 1080p but the fact is that the human eye can't see the difference from normal viewing distance. And the contrast of CRT's is ALOT better. Anyone who has ever seen a good CRT next to a LCD tv knows this is true.

If you want to enjoy oldschool gaming at its best get a European CRT they have at least two scart inputs and accept all regions.

 

yeah

My TV does it literally displays everything I toss at it at the proper resolution.

 

Displaying it and displaying it at the native resolution are two different things. Your HDTV CRT probably has digital circuitry "enhancing" the picture for you. Thus it always won't look as good as a good standard definition CRT TV. Also what signals your HDTV supports is different than what resolutions and frequencies it supports. Part of the whole problem is the fact that new "HDTVs" are digital. Digital displays as you noticed are not flexible.

You just can't beat a good analog display for the games before this new generation of 360, PS3, and Bluray movies.

 

While yeah, it'd be cool to have an analog monitor that displays everything you throw at it, such a thing doesn't exist. The closest you can get is a HD broadcast monitor which is more or less a perfectly calibrated computer CRT with high performance DSP. Are they worth the cost? Probably not.

Eventually laser and possibly LED displays will surpass CRT, even for classic games. Through a filter you can even achieve "more CRT-like than CRT" results, every artifact you desire except for non-simulated screen curvature*.

* well it's possible with OLED and laser but no manufacturer would do it


Facts:

-The response times to analog signals on LCD have already fallen to 1/4 of a frame (4ms) so lag is no longer humanly noticeable.

-Contrast on fancy LCD are approaching what's humanly perceptible.

-Many LCD have even greater color accuracy than CRTs displaying like 95% of the NTSC colorspace.

-Many (most?) LCD already have greater brightness than a typical CRT.

-Many LCD can refresh at 120/240Hz, not that they need to.


If all that is possible with *LCD*, you can imagine how well future additive-color technologies will be able to compete with CRT. Once we're there, an ideal "retro" display will just be a matter of resolution and signal processing.