Scanlines or NO scanlines?

[fxgogo]

I will forgive the young ones who never experienced a CRT display, but those of you who are old enough should be ashamed of yourselves....I am shocked and disappointed.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by fxgogo

I will forgive the young ones who never experienced a CRT display, but those of you who are old enough should be ashamed of yourselves....I am shocked and disappointed.

I grew up in the era of CRTs and they were acceptable technologies, despite the many shortcomings they had, and I've seen YouTube videos of close-ups of LCD TVs showing Amiga graphics that look terrible, but that's only because of the connection used, which was composite or s-video at best, which is always terrible. But digital displays like HDMI work best, because the Amiga is digital, and so does Amiga on WinUAE with an HDMI connection from PC.

[Amigajay]

If they are subtle enough then i use them for my LCD TV, as i hate the clean crisp graphics look that weren’t anything like that originally, it also helps round and smooth pixels as sometimes devs designed around.

But as i say the scanlines have to be subtle enough to work, to strong and they look crap and will give a headache after 30 mins!

[Konrad]

Often the devs took actively(!) advantage of the CRT shortcomings. Dithering not - or just barely - visible on a CRT is clearly to see on LCDs. Same as gradients where you can't see obvious lines on the CRT, but the LCD.

For workbench and productivity apps thats shit . But I don't do this anymore on Amiga, just gaming.
Thus a clear, crisp display for playing is not an option for me, neither emulation nor real hardware.


That said the only real retro machine I have today is my Arcade cabinet with CRT. This delivers the best picture (not just, but also because of afore mentioned reasons).

The rest is played via emulation, and there I in fact use a filter to "decrease" the quality of the picture to nearly CRT standard. And I played around alot till I had a satisfying result compared to my Arcade cabinet.
Of course the standard scanline-filter is far from authentic and not used by me.

I feel no shame

[Foebane]

I remember on my PC at around 2004, migrating from a CRT monitor to an LCD display (at least a decent one) and my viewpoint went from scanlines (albeit very fine ones) to basically a MESH of pixels on the LCD, not unlike a screen door, it was quite jarring and it took me a while to get used to, and one of the things I learned early on was to ALWAYS, ALWAYS use the NATIVE resolution of the display, no exceptions.

After a year or so, I clean forgot what CRT monitors looked like, and since they were being phased out and rendered obsolete or expensive, I didn't miss them. I learned to live without them.

My point is, if CRT computer displays are so compelling, how come you don't see PC enthusiasts trying to recreate CRT scanlines on their LCD monitors? Huh? You DON'T, cos they moved on, that's why.

[dreadnought]

Scanlines are better than nothing, but they weren't the only important CRT intrinsic: these also have shadow masks, glow, etc..

Most "quick" scanline implementations aren't very good, because they only dim the empty field, and if you increase the intensity then your image will darken, and also it will have the silly "window blinds" effect.

If I had to emulate I would use shaders for the proper CRT-look: either these for FS-UAE or the Rertoarch ones.

[Foebane]

I will say that if CRTs remained the main display technology, I would still have kept my DVDs and they would look brilliant on them, especially in RGB, as DVDs were DESIGNED for those displays.

And I will definitely say that DVDs SUCK on LCD displays. ALWAYS.

[DamienD]

Scanlines are essential!!!

I grew up in the arcades so this is how arcade monitors looked. Also the Commodore monitor my A500 was connected to had scanlines.

I can't handle blocky images without then

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Foebane

My point is, if CRT computer displays are so compelling, how come you don't see PC enthusiasts trying to recreate CRT scanlines on their LCD monitors? Huh? You DON'T, cos they moved on, that's why.

They don't in general because VGA monitors had very subtle scanlines/shadow masks, completely different from consumer tubes, so everything looked super sharp. That's just how it was.

In cases of early 2D games this was quite ugly - just like the raw output from emulators nowadays (but at least VGA monitors had the glow and some scanlines, TFTs don't). And I remember distinctly feeling superior to my friend who had a 386 for that very reason, the same games just looked better on a TV. Of course this has changed once SVGA and 256 colours kicked in, the high res doesn't benefit from scanlines and soft pixels as much as low res games (ditto 3D). And later on antialiasing has become a thing.

Anyway, there are Dosbox builds with scanlines, and they are quite popular.

[Konrad]

@Foebane: Perhaps there is a misunderstanding, because PC and Amiga comparison is apples and oranges here.

Amiga, Consoles and Televisons, Arcade machines used 15kHz CRTs, and this is what everyone talks about in those discussions.
Those deliver a completely(!) different picture compared to 30kHz CRTs used on a PC, which were very crisp. The 15kHz and 30kHz difference in picture is MASSIVE.

PC was regulartly 30kHz and was always crisp, so of course I embraced the switch to flat panels. I can't imagine anyone having a retro feelings for 30kHz CRTs.
The picture of a 15kHz CRT, which was exploited as explained, is a completely different story.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Anyway, there are Dosbox builds with scanlines, and they are quite popular.

Do they consist of two "CRT" scanlines for every row of pixels on a VGA screen? Cos that's how VGA operated on CRT back then.

Originally Posted by Konrad

Amiga, Consoles and Televisons, Arcade machines used 15kHz CRTs, and this is what everyone talks about in those discussions.
Those deliver a completely(!) different picture compared to 30kHz CRTs used on a PC, which were very crisp. The 15kHz and 30kHz difference in picture is MASSIVE.

The only difference is the use of two scanlines on the CRT monitor on PC for every row of pixels, as opposed to the Amiga's one scanline per row of pixels. Hardly "massive".

[darkwave]

Well, if we've discovered anything it's that it's certainly down to individual preference!

For me, a lot of it comes down to how things used to look, and scanlines are a part of the way there. I used to like scanlines in games but not on Workbench, but more recently I also favour scanlines in Workbench. It would be different if I had RTG and higher resolutions available.

As a kid I played on a small 14" TV through RF. I imagine it looked terrible, although probably not as bad as you'd expect. Games looked beautiful. Colours would bleed into one another making 32 colours look like far more. I remember going round to a friend's house and playing Lemmings on his PC and I couldn't believe how blocky everything looked. It had lost so much character, and this was on a CRT!

Back when I had an Indivision Mk1, I tried the scanlines on that but in the end opted to go without. I can't remember why, but I just didn't seem to like the scanlines on the Indivision.

I now have an A600 hooked up to a 14" Sony Trinitron via RGB scart and an A1200 on a 24" Dell monitor through RGB scart and an OSSC with scanlines. The scanlines aren't perfect, and if I could have the effect of a proper CRT shader like RetroArch or Sonic Mania has I would choose that in a flash. Although it would have to be lag-free

[Konrad]

Originally Posted by Foebane

The only difference is the use of two scanlines on the CRT monitor on PC for every row of pixels, as opposed to the Amiga's one scanline per row of pixels. Hardly "massive".

It is. But I see that you dont seem to have the experience or the memories of how 15kHz screens looked back then. So this discussion is fruitless to me.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Konrad

It is. But I see that you dont seem to have the experience or the memories of how 15kHz screens looked back then. So this discussion is fruitless to me.

I remember how they looked, but that was a long time ago.

It wasn't just the kHz aspect that made the difference, it was the smaller size of the phosphor dots and finer shadow masks on PC as well that added to the sharpness.

But I definitely also remember seeing PCs on display in shops in the early 1990s with flickering interlace on Windows. Good job THEY didn't last long, eh? People here complain enough about interlace flicker on Workbench, so the business elites would certainly tolerate it less than we did!

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Do they consist of two "CRT" scanlines for every row of pixels on a VGA screen? Cos that's how VGA operated on CRT back then.
[...]
The only difference is the use of two scanlines on the CRT monitor on PC for every row of pixels, as opposed to the Amiga's one scanline per row of pixels. Hardly "massive".

Sorry mate, but it's just like Konrad says...this is a pointless discussion. I'm sitting next to a desk with PC VGA monitor and two Trinitrons, and not making this up.

Here's a sample:





Can you guess which is which?

Please note that the scanlines are actually quite visible on the PC in this pic because I have a 17" monitor (and obviously it's a heavy close up, in reality I have to look for them to see). In the early 90s the standard was 14" and they would be even harder to see.

Plus, this shows the huge difference shadow mask/aperture makes. It's NOT just about scanlines, which are a modern buzzword/fixation.

[Daedalus]

Scanlines are an inherent part of CRT technology, and it's not really to do with the 15kHz / 30kHz thing as such. The difference is the resolution - if you have a higher vertical resolution, the pixels are smaller, and the scanlines between pixels are smaller too. Run a VGA CRT monitor with a vertical resolution of 200 lines and you'll get the same sort of scanlines. Pixels will still likely be sharper of course because of the finer dot pitch of the VGA monitor, but again, nothing to do with the horizontal sync frequency. Increasing the horizontal frequency just allows a higher vertical resolution without resorting to interlace.

For many years I had a 21" Trinitron as my main display, showing Workbench at 1600x1200, rock solid and crystal clear. If I opened a screen at 800x600, I got quite visible scanlines - not that it was a problem, it was just the nature of it. They were finer and more numerous than the 1084S I also had (so I can easily compare them), but drop the Trinitron down to a similar resolution and it gave a similar effect.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

For many years I had a 21" Trinitron as my main display, showing Workbench at 1600x1200, rock solid and crystal clear. If I opened a screen at 800x600, I got quite visible scanlines - not that it was a problem, it was just the nature of it. They were finer and more numerous than the 1084S I also had

That's because of the screen size of your monitor. I run 800x600 on my 15" PC VGA monitor and scanlines are hardly visible.

Back in the day nobody had 21" PC monitors, but most people had 21" TVs. Hence the difference in scanline/shadowmask visibilty being huge, which is what this argument is about.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Sorry mate, but it's just like Konrad says...this is a pointless discussion. I'm sitting next to a desk with PC VGA monitor and two Trinitrons, and not making this up.

Here's a sample:





Can you guess which is which?

Please note that the scanlines are actually quite visible on the PC in this pic because I have a 17" monitor (and obviously it's a heavy close up, in reality I have to look for them to see). In the early 90s the standard was 14" and they would be even harder to see.

Plus, this shows the huge difference shadow mask/aperture makes. It's NOT just about scanlines, which are a modern buzzword/fixation.

Don't tell me: the same game, but the top is the Amiga version and the bottom is the MS-DOS version?

I mean, I knew there was a difference between them visually, but this is the first time I've ever seen them both compared at the same time, and I forgot how harsh it could be.

But which one do I prefer? I would say the bottom one, as I can discern the pixels and more subtle colours much more easily, and there is less bloom-like glare than on the top.

Sorry, but I guess I prefer PC monitor displays these days. Once you've had PC, you don't go back, especially concerning CRT displays!

[Konrad]

The bloom in the picture above is a bit much, but I assume this is from taking a photo. But otherwise I prefer the top picture.
Especially on roof and floor you see how nicely the colors blend together, as it was intended, so this is my target for authentic picture. The picture below is too "noisy" for my taste.

This taste just applies for old computers and consoles, not for newer ones or PC in general.

To each their own, every one has a different taste .

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by Foebane

But which one do I prefer? I would say the bottom one, as I can discern the pixels and more subtle colours much more easily, and there is less bloom-like glare than on the top.

This is unfortunately the main problem with posting pics of CRTs. It's nigh on impossible to capture a consumer TV set properly, they play havoc with cameras. This is why there's extreme bloom in Amiga one and so on. PC is bit more stable, so it's easier, but also tricky.

Anyway, these are just some old pics I had on hand, not taken for accuracy and not post processed. I posted these two only for the scanline comparison, not the IQ. When vieved in person, in case of this game (BAT) Amiga on a CRT TV looks much superior than the PC VGA: colours are livelier, there's more dithering and so less pixelosis (it was the natural antialiasing), and it all just looks more organic and fun.