The amazing difference between a 1084S and LCD screens...

[Foebane]

Benq is a GREAT brand, and natively supports 50Hz so Amiga demos look great on it!

[trixster]

Originally Posted by idrougge

256+ lines obviously isn't 240p.

Well done you. +1 internet points for being superior

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by iddqd

That was a very interesting video, here:
[ Show youtube player ]

I used a PS3 and Xbox 360 on my 100hz 36 inch Panasonic CRT TV via SCART RGB. The only thing a Panasonic LCD had the advantage over was being able to read stupidly small fonts.I used to watch HD TV transmissions output in HD (1080p) over SCART RGB of my original Cable TV receiver and that was great too, movies shown on channels with high bandwidth assigned on cable TV were fantastic, just as they were later when I connected my PC via S-video set to 768p

Problem is the graphics display of these rendered games are not designed with the CRT phosphor dot display characteristics/limitations and there are vertical AND horizontal scanlines on a CRT display limitations in mind, and used to their advantage. (hence dithering is not an advantage of CRT technology, it just makes use of the fact Commodore and Atari launched 16 bit computers with low-brow compo-shit video and even worse RF modulators as an option to connect them to CRTs).

It's pixel art you need to really test the difference between CRT vs LCD, the best pixel art in the best coded games. Otherwise all you are getting is the 'free upscaling' due to the oval phosphor dots and horizontal and vertical scan lines masking out some of the jagged areas of an image whilst lowering the resolution.

MAME games on a nice 60hz capable CRT vs LCD TV are really the best way to start this investigation and then down to things like ZX Spectrum and C64 with their limited palettes available and all the weird tricks you can use to make more colours/shades IMO

[Tyball]

I actually like scanlines of the Indivision ecs v2 on the Benq bl702. Also of the Chameleon V2. It doesn't look good to me without scanlines. They look a bit more artificial indeed than the shader effects of emulation and the colors look a bit more muted than on my 1084s and 1701. But I just can't stand the flickering of those old crts anymore. Probably my old eyes. Oled would probably be even better.

[nobody]

I still keep a 14" CRT trinitron RGB and A500 games look spectacularly wonderful there. I bet it beats the 1084S any day, and i had the 1084SP for years. But modern shaders do a good job too, only thing the shaders do wrong is the clarity of the image. On rgb crt there is no any blur at all or any pixelation.

PS also Gamecube games look stunning there

[Retro-Nerd]

On rgb crt there is no any blur at all or any pixelation.

Well, that's a thing you can edit in the most shader options. From very sharp to very blurry.

[roondar]

I read that as meaning motion blur, which is an inherent flaw of LCD/LED technology. It's the main reason that I still find scrolling nicer on my old CRT.

[Antiriad_UK]

I have a g sync monitor and although the pixels look great. It’s all just a motion blur nightmare to what I remember a 50hz scroller to be :/

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by roondar

I read that as meaning motion blur, which is an inherent flaw of LCD/LED technology. It's the main reason that I still find scrolling nicer on my old CRT.

It don't think so, nobody often mentioned that shaders look too blurry due to a set "soften" filter.

But for the physical monitor blurring issue due to a fast scrolling: just buy a 100/120 Hz capable Monitor and use "Black Frame insertion" in emulation. Blurring gone (mostly).

[Foebane]

What's the use in promoting CRTs like this (as good as they are, and I miss them) if the industry is no longer manufacturing them and the existing units are dying out one by one?

Put it this way: over ten years ago, a British charity opened a "furniture and electrical" charity shop in my local area, and at first there was a back wall section devoted to CRT TVs. I would come in and look at the lovely phosphor glow, the dot patterns and the interlace flicker and look back on those days when my DVDs looked perfect on them. There were a lot of them at first, but as the years went by, the wall space diminished as the units were sold off, and in the last year or two, I haven't seen any at all. Maybe the shop stopped selling them, or more likely there were no more donated because they all died off.

So CRTs are great, even if they are bulky, and I miss them. But if the industry is set on flat panels, what can we do when the last CRT dies? I would want them to be a mass-market item, not an expensive specialist item.

[donnie]

The same could be said about Amigas..

[Hewitson]

It'll be a long time before CRT's are rare (or non-existant). Millions of spare picture tubes available, replacement flybacks and even universal chassis are available to suit most tubes. Replacing a tube (without replacing the chassis) is actually fairly common practice in the arcade industry.

[commodorejohn]

I hate to break it to you, but in just a few billion years everything you've ever known right down to the planet that you're living on will be engulfed by the Sun and consumed utterly, so there isn't really much point in anything at all if that's your perspective on it.

[Daedalus]

A few billion? And here I was thinking I only had a few hundred million years left. I guess I can relax so

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

But for the physical monitor blurring issue due to a fast scrolling: just buy a 100/120 Hz capable Monitor and use "Black Frame insertion" in emulation. Blurring gone (mostly).

I happen to have monitor that can do this. Also seen it used by others. Now, I love my monitor - modern screens are great for all but retro games. That said...

IMHO black frame insertion does not do a particularly good job fixing this issue. It does tend to make the blurring slightly less pronounced (but only slightly), but it also halves the brightness/contrast* - all the while adding back perceivable 60Hz flicker. The end result looks rather 'meh'. A clear compromise that has the bad of both types of screen while not having the good of either.

I don't think it's a good trade-off, really.

*) which already was a weak point compared to CRT technology.

[Retro-Nerd]

You tried Black Frame Insertion with WinUAE (you have to enable it in the "Miscellaneous Tab", Vsync too)? I think it looks pretty good. Yes, a bit dark. But cleary less blurring (not only slighty), compared to normal 50Hz use.

You can always test your monitors here. The difference is quite visible.

https://www.testufo.com/blackframes

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

You tried Black Frame Insertion with WinUAE? I think it looks pretty good. Yes, a bit dark. But cleary less blurring (not only slighty), compared to normal 50Hz use.

Perhaps I expressed that too strongly. I mean to say that while it's an improvement, it's still blurring more than my CRT does. Still visible to me anyway. Personally, I also feel the difference in brightness/contrast using BFI is very visible and rather distracting as it already is one of the weaknesses of LCD/LED technology. The increase in flicker is less of an issue, but still adds back in eye strain, removing one of LCD's advantages.

Now, to each their own - it may be perfectly fine for you, in which case great . My point here is purely that LCD screens, like CRT ones, have their own set of strengths and weaknesses. They're great, but not perfect. In some areas, CRT's do better. In others, LCD's do.

And I happen to think that a smallish CRT screen is a much nicer fit to Amiga graphics than a big LCD one. For many reasons, one of which is indeed the scrolling.

Edit:

You can always test your monitors here. The difference is quite visible.

Yeah, like I said - less blur (but definitely not zero blur) and a lot less brightness. Don't get met wrong, it is a good improvement and it's nice to see the two side by side. But it's not perfect

[Retro-Nerd]

While i do like my Sony Trintron TV for real Amigas i would never go back to emulation via CRT monitor. There is simply no need for that anymore.

[spiff]

/Remind me in 6 months
Post comparison pics when project #3 is done.

I got a NOS 15hz CRT this summer..Should be fun matching that one to CRT royale shader on Oled My feeling is that gamma curve and "true" blacks are more important for the retro experience than scanlines and rounded pixels.

Originally Posted by roondar

And I happen to think that a smallish CRT screen is a much nicer fit to Amiga graphics than a big LCD one. For many reasons, one of which is indeed the scrolling.

I agree, mostly for nostalgic reasons. Even CRT pixels just get too damn big on 25"+ for old games. It's like my brain is hardwired to prefer Lemmings at 15"..

But I'd love to get my hands on a good large 2000ish PC monitor like DF retro for 3d gaming.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

It'll be a long time before CRT's are rare (or non-existant). Millions of spare picture tubes available, replacement flybacks and even universal chassis are available to suit most tubes. Replacing a tube (without replacing the chassis) is actually fairly common practice in the arcade industry.

OK then, but where do we get them from? And don't they cost more than they used to?