Scan lines on an LCD?

[Weasel Fierce]

I was watching an old video from the "10 minute amiga retrocast" and he joked about being a monster if you put scan lines on LCD displays for retro software.

So.. .scanlines? Yay or nay?

[TCD]

Personally: Nay. But I know that people love to put bezels and scanlines on displays to make them feel more authentic. Whatever floats your boat is fine in my book

[Retro-Nerd]

Not only simple scanlines. A complex shader with CRT masks too. I can't stand this razor sharp pixel look on LCDs. The lores graphics were never meant to be displayed on this (on todays monitor/tv sizes). Check this and you now why:



https://twitter.com/5Xpixels

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Not only simple scanlines. A complex shader with CRT masks too. I can't stand this razor sharp pixel look on LCDs. The lores graphics were never meant to be displayed on this (on todays monitor/tv sizes). Check this and you now why:



https://twitter.com/5Xpixels

That looks great, I must say!

[RuySan]

Simple scanlines are silly, but a good shader can do wonders.

[lesta_smsc]

You all probably seen my messages about CRT and 240p, so for me true scanlines are wonderful. It's how I currently play despite having 15kHz compatible LCD/LEDs to my disposal, they just do not cut it, as per the images sent by Retro-Nerd. There is a secondary effect when having this viewed on a CRT which is difficult to capture on photos so I guess that would be difficult to emulate on a shader?

I have yet to find a shader that will sway me from my CRT setup, however, I am told, some newer shaders have a way to make this look very authentic!

[van_dammesque]

I like scanlines for the above reason but really subtle types and lots of transparency.

[phx]

Same here. The original Amiga feeling needs scan lines. I always enable them, when I don't use a real hardware.

[Retro-Nerd]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

I have yet to find a shader that will sway me from my CRT setup, however, I am told, some newer shaders have a way to make this look very authentic!

CRT-Guest for emulation (e.g in Retroarch). You can't ask for more. But what the MiSTer or Retrotink 5x Pro offers in CRT simulation is awesome too. Especially when you use it in combination with HDR.

[jizmo]

Sounds like a sorry case of CRT elitism.

There's use and need for both. In retro games CRT wins over LCD, but only a portion of very good CRTs with very good panel, parts and quality connectors.

Most people are better off with LCD/Oled with quality shaders. Also, I'm one of the few people who love to switch the shader on and off to check how the original crisp artwork was put together in pixels, and for any desktop use I would consider crisp flat panel better over unnecessary scan lines.

[Weasel Fierce]

Interestingly, back in the day when my friends (with a tv for a monitor) saw games on my Commodore monitor they had the same complaint that you could see every pixel

[Ian]

I'm weened off it now, and am currently favour something that just smooths the overall image, but for a while I would use e-UAE exclusively in Retroarch si I could use the crt-royale shader.

Some examples here:

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/i.../CRT-Royale#4K

e-UAE is running the WinUAE 4.9.1 codebase so is pretty good.

[Karlos]

I think we should acknowledge that pixel art of the day was created on and for CRT displays. It shouldn't surprise anyone that it doesn't look as good on LCD/LED any more than you'd expect the reverse to look.

[mcbpete]

Originally Posted by Karlos

any more than you'd expect the reverse to look.

This brought up an old memory: Digital Foundry tried exactly this a few years ago .... It made me want to grab a decent CRT !

[ Show youtube player ]

Anyways .... For more good examples of pixel art MADE for the CRT 'shortcomings' follow this great channel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CRTpixels

[fxgogo]

Scanlines are needed for certain resolutions, eg 240p. As much as I love real CRT’s, they are not in my home due to lack of space.

We should also possibly not just refer to CRT, rather analog video as there was so much more contributing to your final output image than just the display.

[jbenam]

I spent a lot of time during the last few weeks comparing CRT vs LCD (both 15KHz capable LCDs + OSSC / GBS-C) and honestly I much prefer a good IPS screen to a CRT (1084S included) 100% of the times - I am using one currently only because my CRT is connected to a quantity of different retro computers which use wildly different resolutions and I can’t get arsed to switch config every now and then on my scandoubler.

But higher image quality + less space = LCD > CRTs.

One of these days I should see if I can get a RetroTink 5x for cheap… maybe that will fix my issues with having to swap configs.

[Calabazam]

What do you think of this device? https://www.amazon.fr/Mcbazel-G%C3%A...ps%2C69&sr=8-2

I would also like to have my old CRTs back but space contraint makes me use LCD. So i am using this device at least on the VGA out of the video card of my bridgeboard on Ilyama 4/3 19' LCD. It makes rather thick scanlines, but i prefer with than without for classic msdos games such as Monkey and Dune.
Unfortunately, for the Amiga part, the ZZ9000 scandoubler does not offer scanlines or anything at the moment.

[Retro-Nerd]

Seems like a rather simple device to create basic scanlines. Nothing sophisticated as simulated in recent emulator shaders or the Retrotink 5x Pro/Mister. More like what we've got in the beginning of Emulation or in all the Classic Mini gadgets from the last years. If it's enough for you, why not.But it's really only useful for 4:3 VGA monitors (CRT or very old LCDs i guess) since it only supports 640x480 or 1024x768 resolutions. The scanlines would look off/unaligned on todays native LCD TV/monitor resolutions.

[Adropac2]

For me these games of old were never so clean like we can now see with say point filtering so they tend to look off to me personally. With interpolation it also doesn't do the original clean image justice. I find that with a high enough resolution and a good scanline then then the effect is much closer when on an lcd if wanting something more like an original CRT monitor which is what I gamed on. If the pixels are just too clean though then it's not at all how they used to look anyway. And of course it depends on what size display you're running

[Retro-Nerd]

MiSTer with HLG-HDR on my LG C9 OLED, a Retrotink 5x Pro shadowmask (consumer Sony TV) with decent Scanlines. A crappy smartphone pic but you get the idea.