/vr/ - Retro Games

Don't fall prey to peer pressure or elitism. There isn't a "best" answer.

Advantages over LCD:
* very low motion blur
* very low input lag from analog output game systems
* awesome contrast
* usually matches aspect ratio of 4:3 games better

Disadvantages:
* low or high frequency humming can get annoying
* bulky
* prone to failure and hard to replace

There is no quantifiable "better" or "worse". Generally, the older the game system, the slightly less troublesome a CRT will be fore it. Also, the faster the button-mashing you have to do on the other systems, the more playable they will be on a CRT. Usually.

What games/systems do you have that you want to try on LCD?

>>350926
Well I currently am using an LCD as of now, but I keep seeing all these threads on CRT televisions... So I was wondering if I was missing out on something an old TV could do for my snes and 64.

>>350932
I've seen TVs take up to a second to register a keypress as an in-game action (video/sound wise anyways) due to the delay caused by converting analog signal to digital. If you don't actually have a problem with that, you might be disappointed in a CRT.

You might try geting a cheap CRT from goodwill or something just to see what it would be like. Obviously the quality would be reduced from a better CRT, but you might find the other aspects appealing, such as contrast and lack of lag.

>>350932
oh for an SNES you really need a CRT because of the fast action. good CRTs tend to have extremely high display frequencies

>>350926
>* prone to failure

>>350942
Its not that as much as the absence of input lag.
LCD's have to scale up and de-interlace the image, which takes time. CRT's just display it as is, no need for scaling.
Most good LCD's have a game mode that reduces input lag but none that I've used get rid of it entirely. In tournaments for retro games (like fighting games and such) CRT's are played on exclusively for this very reason.

>>350926
>* prone to failure and hard to replace
That's not a disadvantage. That's a common point.
But yes, clearly having no significant motion blue, no significant input lag, proper contrast and proper colors, and being able to scale properly is definitely subjective to having lots of motion blur, laggy controls, muddied contrast, poor colors and generally awful scaling.

i've switched from high end crts to an lcd only a few months back. here's what i can say:
>>351386
>lots of motion blur
the motion blur is only a minor inconvenience to me and i believe that the large picture size more than makes upf or that issue.
>laggy controls
my lcd has an average input lag of 4ms. that's so low it's pretty much unnoticable, even if i add 6-20ms from my scaler (depending on source resolution).
>muddied contrast
the contrast on good, recent flatscreens is just as good as the one you've got on a crt. if not better. this is also often a calibration issue.
>poor colors
poor colors on an lcd means they don't have the full range of the NTSC standard color spectrum (~75%). now i dunno about recent games, but old games were made with the sRGB standard anyways, and even lcds cover enough of that spectrum to make the difference almost unnoticable in comparison to a crt.
>generally awful scaling
that's true, but you can get external scalers that make everything look just as good as you'd see it on a crt

it's basically a screen size and budget issue. if you don't care for screen size, get a 20" crt. if you care about screen size and have no money, you can try to get an crt in the size range of 29" to 40" for cheap. if you care about screen size and have the money you get a good, large flatscreen and add some external scalers for the low res handling

I've used NES and SNES games on a 42" Bravia and all things said, it works rather well, the biggest problem being a large amount of smearing (this is particularly noticeable on SMB). I didn't notice any input lag.

No, they aren't worth it. This obsessive fandom around them only popped up in the past few years. I had trinitron screens in the 90s. Before that, I had c64 monitors. You couldn't pay me to own a fucking non-flat panel display in this day and age.

A lot of the people who are into CRT fandom never have to move them and have unlimited space, as well as not paying their own energy bills. Ie they live at home.

>>351448
> a minor inconvenience to me and i believe that the large picture size more than makes upf or that issue.
Maybe to you. Larger sizes just make it worse. Personally they're a major inconvenience to me because it gives me a headache because my eyes are strained from rapidly adjusting focus between blurring and non blurred.

>my lcd has an average input lag of 4ms. that's so low it's pretty much unnoticable, even if i add 6-20ms from my scaler (depending on source resolution).
Most of them, no... it's closer to being 16-30ms when actually benchmarked. If you have one of the rare specimens that actually gets low enough, congrats.

>the contrast on good, recent flatscreens is just as good as the one you've got on a crt. if not better. this is also often a calibration issue.
This is an outright fabrication. Contrast is fucking terrible still in 2013.

>but old games were made with the sRGB standard anyways, and even lcds cover enough of that spectrum to make the difference almost unnoticable in comparison to a crt.
Depends on the age of the game and what colors they do use.

>that's true, but you can get external scalers that make everything look just as good as you'd see it on a crt
That's.... true, and the one thing that's closest to being decent on an LCD is that they CAN scale things appropriately when they fucking give a shit about picture quality, which most manufacturers don't. So long as the green rolls in. Many of them still have scaling problems though.

If I have all the money in the world, I still wouldn't bother with modern LCDs. Though if I had all the money in the world, I wouldn't need to since I would be just shy a few dollars of an off market OLED.

>>351472
>This obsessive fandom around them only popped up in the past few years.
Agreed, really only around the last twenty three-thirty years when they were first released as consumer display technologies and have been getting their asses kicked for quality.

>>351530
>Most of them, no... it's closer to being 16-30ms when actually benchmarked. If you have one of the rare specimens that actually gets low enough, congrats.

Stop pushing this disinformation. There is no noticable input lag on the vast majority of LCD displays. For good monitors, it is sub 10 ms in basically every single instance.

This shit about "I can't play my video games on an LCD because of input lag" is IN YOUR HEAD.

>>351472
>as well as not paying their own energy bills. Ie they live at home.
Confirmed for living at home and never paying the electricity bill, otherwise he wouldn't be soooo mad at 1.50-3.00 dollars a month for 8 hours a day.
Also confirmed for reddshit.

Sharp SF-1. It has better graphics and is licensed.

>>351581
You're banned for life for being a lying sack of fraudulent shit. Get lost faggot. Go back to your reddshit.

>>351598

>>>/v/ is over here babby.

>>351602
>spouting retarded bullshit
>tells other people to go to /v/
Return your dialup modem and go back to the Brazilian slum you come from.

Generally speaking, games made in SD look better on SD TVs. These pre-HD games were made with CRTs in mind and therefore tend to look a little shit on modern HD TVs. Having a CRT, however, is not something you should stress over; especially considering that a top tier CRT is easily attainable these days because people are virtually giving/throwing them away. Just pick up a good Trinitron if/when you can but don't lose sleep over it. Getting a Trin won't change your life.

>>350926
>very low motion blur
Use a LCD monitor, not one branded as a "TV". If you stick with good brand LCDs, they usually have the same panels in the TVs that they have in the monitors
>very low input lag from analog output game systems
Pls. Nobody should be using these LCD "TVs" for anything.
>awesome contrast
You're never going to see any difference
>usually matches aspect ratio of 4:3 games better
Any LCD monitor is going to have a screen space large enough to fit a "large" CRT screen in. You just crop the sides of the picture

>>351576
>>351581
>>351589
>>351598
>>351602
>>351610

This is exactly why we will end up no better than /v/.

>>351615

If you stick with good brand LCDs, the ones in the TVs are never as high quality as the ones in the monitors. That's why TVs are TVs and monitors are monitors.

>>351615
You're misinformation has already been discredited, no point in really posting it more than once.

Where did the thread about Great Giana Sisters go? I was having some good discussion there and it vanished.

>>351624
No, that's why cheap LCD TVs from the grocery store are cheap, and why Samsungs will have ~$150 price differnce between a TV and a monitor.

>>351632

Not the point I was making, which is that "monitor" panels are innately higher quality than "tv" panels and they are never the same panels.

>>351623
People from /v/ haven't been banned from posting here, so when clueless fuck comes in with his delusional casual bullshit and all he has is ad homs and evasiveness to work with, you're gonna end up with shitty threads.
But that doesn't mean all threads have to be shit up by retards like him. But these LCD supports you have to understand are completely delusional fucktards, pretty much religious fanatics.

>>351627
If anything, it's a clarification. He was representing all LCD monitors as one entity. If that was the case, he should have used terrible CRT monitors in his argument.

>>351631
Early in the thread, some butthurt anon reported it for trolling and it presumably got axed by a janitor

>>351640
Yep, cheap monitors will usually have a better standard than cheap TVs.

People have a misguided view of the superiority of CRTs by looking at stuff like high-end Trinitrons. In truth, the vast majority of all CRT displays made were never that good.

>>351641
>But these LCD supports you have to understand are completely delusional fucktards, pretty much religious fanatics.

You mean CRT fanaticists, right?

480p/240p games are best on CRT.
HDTVs does a bunch of digital bullshit to the signal that makes it look blurry and undefined as fuck.

Try playing a PS2 game on a CRT, then an HDTV and you'll quickly see the difference.

>>351641
I would view the CRT more like a primitive tribe. They have deep beliefs in the soothing warm glow of a CRT raster scan. Where your LCD folk are more like an oppressive scientific regime, shoving their immoral factoids down your throat.

I JUST got my RGB cables in the mail, so finally my recent purchases of a PVM + Scart Adapter + cables for my systems have all come together.
The difference is staggering. Everything is so clear and so beautiful. It's like going from SD to HD, but this time with the most beautiful looking pixel art I've ever seen.
I recommend this.

I have a 2005 Samsung 21" 4:3 "flat" screen CRT and it's fucking glorious for retro gaming, it really puts my bravia LCD to shame.

Scanlines and a lower native res really matter when you're dealing with really old games with low res sprites, the natural anti-aliasing and reduced color bleeding make a huge difference.

Still, given the absurd shipping costs and general difficulty of finding a good quality CRT it's not that big of a deal unless you're a real purist and have the cash to blow.

Picked up a Sony Trinitron recently. It's got some issues with red hue on blank screens and diagonal lines showing up for awhile after start up (also takes awhile to start up).

Anyone know what might be causing those issues?

>>351685
Decade-old cathodes?

CRT monitors are great for retro-games, but they can be very awkward and/or heavy to lift. They are usually bulky. Don't buy online. Shipping costs can be a nightmare if you buy anything heavy.

>>351675
>natural anti-aliasing

If you really believe that the "anti-aliasing" is going to not make you notice you're playing at like 160x120..whatever man.

>>351685

Electron gun is going. It will get worse over time and there is nothing you can do

sure was worth it though, right. dem scanlines.

>>351734
Nice display of ignorance there, almost rustled.

>>351723
Another problem you'll have on older televisions is color splotches. That also applies to when you have a CRT monitor near something magnetic. If you take care of your monitors, you shouldn't really have any problems.

>>351736
>It will get worse over time and there is nothing you can do

There used to be (way the fuck back in the 60s) an entire cottage industry of CRT tube rebuilders, but they're all gone now.

>>351753

There used to be carrier pigeons and dodo birds, too.

>>351736
At least I got it with store credit at my work. Sucks I can't take it back though, no warranty.

Oh well, guess I'll use it until I can find a better one.

>>351764
Your point being...?

>>351769

It doesn't matter if something used to exist, it ain't helpin you these days.

>>351662
>scientific regime
misrepresenting absolutely unrepeatable data to the world under the guise of progress while sending shit years behind.
I've got a perpetual motion machine that puts out a billion times more energy than you put in and it can power the globe, my data sheet demonstrates it clearly.

okay, okay, CRT TV are good.
But, what's better ?
CRT Amiga monitor or CRT TV ?

We just need to lobby Congress to subsidize manufacturing of new CRTs

>>351783

amiga monitor in most cases. those things have to be dying by the boatload by now, though. I played my genesis, tg-16 and snes through one DURING that era. Here we are twenty years later.

>>351785
maximum neckbeard.

>>351764
Your analogy is fallacious.
It's more like telegraphs going out of business because someone discovered 'after telegraphs (hypothetically here)' carrier pigeons work. Sure there's some delay, sure if you've got a bad one the message can get fucked up, sure it uses less energy than putting electric lines all over the place and power them. But they're still not really up to par in comparison are they?

>>351802

no, just go away okay?

>>351807
Why do you keep posting when you clearly have no argument?

>>351813

So I can watch the spaghetti keep spilling out of your pocket, bro.

>>351790
Can it be fixed ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SZkjF1RDI

>>351685
>>351736
Oh I forgot to mention, it only has the problems with the red screen and lines when a signal is going in the TV. It's fine otherwise and only has the long power on.

>>351561
you're mixing up input lag and pixel response time. tftcentral.co.uk has some graphics that compares the input lags of various lcd monitors. pic related
>>351783
broadcast/video production crt monitors. see sony's pvm and bvm models and nec's 29"multisync xm and xp models. there are many more but those are the most popular models and some of the sony bvm models are simply the best crts taht have ever been made.
>>351530
>This is an outright fabrication. Contrast is fucking terrible still in 2013.
i wouldn't be using the lcd if its contrast was shit. basically, you get what you pay for. if you have a cheap-ass crt tv you won't get a good picture either

>>351842
Have you popped the fucker open and checked the caps?

>>351857
No, kinda worried about shocking myself.

>>351685
show us a picture of that

>>351860
Don't be dumb enough to shove your hands all over it and you'll be fine.

>>351865
Can't really, all I have is a shitty camera phone and it's only noticeable on blank screens when an active signal is being displayed on the screen.

>>351873
where are the lines on the screen? are they straight? vertical? what colour are they?
what exactly do you mean by red hue? is the whole screen reddish? sounds like you should be recalibrating the red cut-off then.

>>351887
Red diagonal lines, and yes but only on screens that should be completely black.

>>351896
is it just a few lines? a lot of them?
are you sure the lines aren't somewhat visible even if you have a picture shown?

you might have to adjust the "screen" knob on the flyback trafo. that is if this is the same thing as what other monitors have when they show green lines and a green hue.

>>351852
Average response time is also pretty shit, hence the blurriness that about 99% of them show.

>>351923
It is across the entire screen and it fluctuates between a few and more. They are only noticeable for awhile after first turning on the TV with a signal in. After having something on for awhile they go away (the red hue stays though).

>>351928
are you absolute sure that you do not always have the red hue show? i suggest you compare the picture of a single same game with a different monitor. sounds like you have to adjust the rgb gain or cut-off setting.

i wouldn't worry about the diagonal lines when they disappear after a warmup period anyways

>>351852
>i wouldn't be using the lcd if its contrast was shit. basically,
Uh... no.
>basically, you get what you pay for.
Pretty much everything in existence disagrees with you, but for extreme examples of why you shouldn't be throwing around the most retarded idioms look at anjou cables and hdmi cables. The former goes for upwards of 4K for effectively 2 dollars worth of speaker cable and hdmi retails at most stores for generally between 25-50 dollars, you can get perfectly working cables online shipped for 4.
Also another great example is LCDs, which also when they had their first taste of market share in the 90s were more expensive than CRTs and were complete and utter dogshit. LCDs are far better and still worse than CRTs except for strictly TVs where LCDs do have a resolution increase. Ironically SED/FED still would kick the ever living shit out of them.
So no, you don't get what you pay for. Most of the time, almost all of the time actually you get far less than what you pay for because that's how our system works.

>>351936
Positive, I'm playing Grandia right now and the red hue is only visible on completely black screens.

I've tried everything I possibly can with the settings on the TV menu, even setting the color to 0 doesn't get rid of it.

>>351947
well i don't have that much experience with flatscreens, but i used to own a somewhat cheap entry level panasonic plasma that had awful contrast.
i know about the cable thing though. but that's another story.

>Positive, I'm playing Grandia right now and the red hue is only visible on completely black screens.
does it cover the whole screen or is it more like a reddish stain ?

>>351968
Entire screen but looking closely at the screen it's inbetween the scanlines.

>>351852

I wasn't mixing up anything. Average input lag on LCD monitors is nil these days. There is no reason there would be any more than on a TV.

>>352000
No it isn't. The only LCD monitor i can think of with near 0 input lag is the U2312HM. The vast majority are still mid teens +

>>351974
well, that's all pretty weird then.

i wouldn't worry too much though. i've had issues like that (patterns or discolorations appearing on supposedly blank trinitron screens), and none of my monitors have ever failed me. and i've spent hundreds of hours on them

>>352003

mid teens is not differentiable to you, even if you were a thousand times better at video games than you are. It just. doesn't. matter.

>>352016
Go try play an old rhythm game like parappa on an average LCD and tell me you can't notice it.

>>352018

played GH2 for years on LCD, you can't notice it. You calibrate the input and then you're done.

>>352029
>You calibrate the input

The biggest advantage of CRTs is the flicker. Flicker is the only way to get blur-free motion for fixed framerate games (almost everything relevant to /vr/) without adding unacceptable control latency and image artifacts.

The only way to get near CRT-quality motion from another type of display is to simulate CRT-style flicker, with scanning backlight or black frame insertion. Black frame insertion will increase latency unless you're using an emulator running at double speed to compensate.

See http://www.blurbusters.com/ for details.

I use double speed emulation and software black frame insertion on a 120Hz LCD.

>>352065

You get "blur free motion" on any good modern LCD, but the newest 120hz LCDs with lightboost actually fully blank the screen between each refresh. So now you can have LCDs with zero blur.

>>351465
It's barely noticeable, the only people who really give a shit about this are tournament level fightan players and people who speedrun older games.

>>352091
If there's no flicker it's not blur-free, and lightboost is low blur not zero blur.

I picked up a standard Wega Trinitron for $5 at an estate sale in my old neighborhood and moved it into my apartment. Heavy motherfucker. Since I don't watch TV, it's my gamestation and DVD-player. It has really nice picture quality, and that's all I need.

Basically, I don't think it's worth spending more than $10-15 on a CRT, since it's basically junk technology (though I have a soft-spot for it). New plasma TVs can be nice modern alternatives, from what I understand, but input lag might be a problem - though there might be a way around that.

For LCD you have to choose between an IPS panel with good image quality but worse input lag, or a TN panel with terrible image quality but lower input lag and higher refresh rates.

>>352358
Old games already have terrible image quality so it doesn't matter.

But if you go for LCD you won't be able to play Duck Hunt, so there's that

>>352387

That's flat out incorrect, there's plenty of good looking older games, especially in the 16-bit era.

>>352387
Why are you here if you think that?

>>350926
>Prone to failure

What the fuck CRTs are you using?

I'm 20 and I have a TV older than me that still works just fine.

The only issues I've ever had with CRTs is that their face buttons can occasionally fuck up, but that's it.

>>351615
>>awesome contrast
>You're never going to see any difference

As someone who is primarily a PC gamer and plays his retro games on a Trinitron, this is the most boldfaced lie I have ever come across regarding CRTs.

It's entirely noticeable, thanks to the LCD's backlight.

Retro games need retro screens

>not playing your old consoles on a wood-cabinet TV as god intended

Enjoy never being able to brag about sanding and refinishing your TV

>>352505

>a TV that can double as a bar

fuck. yes.

>>352412
Because I don't think image quality is important.

>>352505
I hate how everything has to be sleek and paper thin with TVs these days. I would literally kill to own a tv set like that. My grandparents had this one that they owned practically since Color TV was the hot new thing that had panel on the side that you could open that would have buttons for the individual channels

Eventually it bricked and they replaced it with a flatscreen because no one repairs CRTs anymore

>>352538
I'd agree for 8bit games, since even the good ones just sort of look meh compared to the 16bit generation.

>>352505
What are they called?
Just wooden case crt tvs?

>>350942
>SNES
>fast action

Pick one.

I Currently have a NES, SNES, PS1, N64 and a MegaDrive/Genesis.
Should I invest in a CRT?

>>350942
Good PC monitor CRTs support high refresh rates, but for console gaming the only refresh rate that matters is 60Hz.

CRTs (or simulated CRT flicker) are essential for fast action because of the lack of sample-and-hold blur.

I got my sweet 32" goldstar from a thrift store for $8
I don't have enough money to afford a "fancy" TV, I don't own, and probably never will own a flatscreen (because the only interaction I have with TV's is playing old vidya). Just get a shitty cheap one, they're all the same.

The only CRT I've ever had fail on me was the monitor in my 2003 snow imac, but that was a common problem, and had to do with the cooling system.

>>352505
I have a big one like that in my basement... if I had room for it in my room, I'd totally use it
but I have a "wood-box" TV anyway, it's just not as ornate, and is made of particle board with a veneer on the outside.

>>352565
Console TVs.

>>352550
That's one beautiful RCA roundie. There is still a thriving enthusiast/collector community full of people who repair and fully restore vintage TVs. They often travel for and pay good money for nicer TVs like those.

>reflections in screen
>size
>adjusting your monitors fucking settings
>the fucking high-pitch noise that would drive me insane

I'm only speaking for myself here, but I do not miss CRT. I'll rather have these size-efficient, quiet screens, with crystal clear pixel graphics.

>>352616
>tfw can't find any for sale in the UK

>>352635

The high pitched noise is easily fixed when you go first line on few concerts.

The other things aren't that annoying.

My Trinitron (that I found near the garbage) is fucking awesome. However, the screen curves inwards at the bottom left corner, but it's not really noticeable. Is it fixable, or should I just find another Trinitron?

>>352550

>21 inch color RCA tv for $895 in 1955

well let's just run that through an inflation calculator

>In today's money it's $7568.87

Roughly what you'd be paying for a tip-top of the line 75" Samsung 240hz 3D smartTV now

Funny how the price for a top-end TV is essentially the same now as it was then if you adjust for time and technology

>>352635
>with crystal clear pixel graphics.
Where can I buy a 256x224 LCD panel?

>>352808
Looks like a landing problem. Does yours have a service menu, or is it all analog?

>>352065
>Flicker is the only way to get blur-free motion for fixed framerate games
No it's not. You just need faster switching.

>>352594
>Just get a shitty cheap one, they're all the same.
This is definitely not true.

The reason that Sony, Panasonic, etc, can't compete these days is that CRTs took a ton of engineering to look good, while LCD panels are just a matter of spending money. LCD TVs are made from dirt-cheap panels stamped out by the dozen, and the "expensive" ones are just saving you from the manufacturing lottery. When you're buying a Trinitron (or a Tau, or a TheaterWide), it's a lot higher quality than a no-name set; this is because of actual engineering and quality, not just "come get the ones that have no dead pixels".

>>352925
Faster switching won't make the game run faster.

Fundamentally, the game wants to show you a single point in time, every 1/60th of a second. Holding that instantaneous image on-screen screws with the way your eyes track objects, and makes it appear blurry.

>>352908
It has four buttons on the front; up and down arrows, a menu button, and a button that appears to look like a cross with a dot in the middle. I tried fiddling around with the screen, and the only option that shows up is rotating the whole screen. Here's a better shot of the issue, notice how the rocks get wider towards the bottom.

What about overscan? Are those a problem?

>>350926
>* very low input lag from analog output game systems
There is still no citation to this to date, at least nothing believable. There are so many speedrunners using LCD right now that just brush it off, it's probably just preference at this point.

I own this Sylvania.
Not this exact one, but the same model.
I've had it for 7 years, and its picture is as good as the day it came out of the box.
For non-HD games, I prefer using a CRT TV.
I think the picture on it is better, and you don't get the half second response lag of an HDTV.
Playing non-HD games on my HDTV feels bad.
The game always looks darker than it should look, and playing feels sluggish.
Games like Mega Man X become unplayble when trying to play on an HDTV.
That's why I like having a CRT in addition to my HDTV.
They both have advantages over the other, but these reasons pertaining to video games, specifically.