/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5545246
I have owned about 50 CRTs over the years running the gamut from early consumer color TVs to the highest grade reference monitors.

I have also been involved in the creation of CRT shaders years ago, and I have dived deeply into what is currently available through RetroArch.

I can say, IMHO, that what is possible with shaders at this point is nothing short of miraculous, and under good conditions what you can achieve with them is VERY close to what you can see with a RGB video monitor. Note that issues such as lag, response time, and brightness are related to the type of display used, not the shader itself. CRT Shaders are not just for LCD. They can be used with other CRTs, and OLED is now available.

Generally, the older and messier CRT image you want to simulate the harder it's going to be. However, emulation of NTSC artifacts like dot crawl and ghosting is quite advanced now and it is possible to play games which were designed to take advantage of these effects the "right" way, even if it isn't going to look precisely identical to the original analog signal. You're still getting the extra colors and textures. It's like a 5% difference compared to a 50% difference of years ago. That Ninja Gaiden comparison image needs updating to show what it looks like through RetroArch and the right shaders.

If what you're after is a PVM or BVM and those perfect razor sharp pixels and scanlines then you should probably take a long, hard look at one somewhere before you buy and then compare it to what is possible with RetroArch. Because it is very, very, very close. And a lot easier to work with.