/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5289992]

Are scanlines legit or retarded?

[Anonymous No.5289996]

The fetishism around them is retarded.
CRTs had scanlines, yeah, but it's not something you actively noticed.

[Anonymous No.5290001]

>>5289996
Depends on the set and the color being displayed. You could always tell they were there, but they don't look like a filter because the bright colors on a tube bleed over the scanlines most of the time.

[Anonymous No.5290003]

>>5289992
Please fuck off with these /v/-friendly formatted OPs.

The biggest consideration for scanlines that isn't blind nostalgia is that the art designers were creating graphics with the presence of scanlines in mind because displaying at 240p/224p on a 480i consumer set was the norm. So by forgoing CRTs or a scanline filter, you're possibly not viewing the game in the way it was intended. This becomes shakier during late 5th gen and because households were starting to adopt flatscreens and many games were now displaying in interlaced mode anyways.

[Anonymous No.5290005]

>>5289996
>CRTs had scanlines, yeah, but it's not something you actively noticed.
You weren't seeing bold black lines necessarily but you were absolutely seeing a different picture than you would without them.

[Anonymous No.5290008]

>>5289992
they're legit retarded

[Anonymous No.5290012]

>>5290003
>you're possibly not viewing the game in the way it was intended.
Because I'm sure artists intended lines throughout everything? I get this argument for composite video but not scanlines. That was a technical limitation.

[Anonymous No.5290018]

>>5290012
>Because I'm sure artists intended lines throughout everything?
That's exactly what I'm saying.

[Anonymous No.5290023]

>>5290018
okay

[Anonymous No.5290028]

>>5290023
I don't know what that's hard to believe. Unlike composite video (and yes, I'm well aware of dithering techniques that relied on composite), EVERYONE was going to be playing their SNES games at 240p (unless they jury-rigged a connection to a PC monitor).

[Anonymous No.5290035]

>>5290023
People were actively trying to make shit look "right" on tvs when making art for games, it's why some things look janky as fuck on emulators.

[Anonymous No.5290036]

>>5290028
Yes, but is that something the artists wanted or it's just that every TV had scanlines and they had to deal with it?

[Anonymous No.5290043]

>>5290036
Your alternative was interlaced mode, which is blurry and harder on the eyes, even if it is effectively higher resolution. On PS2 era compilations that didn't bother displaying proper resolution, it is definitely noticeable.

[Anonymous No.5290049]

>>5290036
Every tv had it, artists wanted it to look right, so artists designed around the lines.

[Anonymous No.5290057]

>>5290036
There's not really anyways of knowing besides the occasional developer interview. It's plausible that some artists were future-proofing their art for displays that weren't mainstream yet but I'm more inclined to think they optimized their work for the then and now.

[Anonymous No.5290059]

>>5290036
>>5290049
This is misleading. Scanlines are a byproduct of the display method. They aren't some sort of downside a TV has, they are the unused lines of the normal display. 240p games are not using every line on the display like a television program is, so you can see the unused lines.

The benefit of this is that the games are lower resolution (better performance) and the image doesn't suffer from the flickering of interlacing.

[Anonymous No.5290060]

>>5290043
>Your alternative was interlaced mode
My alternative now is progressive mode.
I'm completely aware of the limitations of the past, but that's exactly what it was: a limitation.

[Anonymous No.5290064]

>>5290060
Well, in that context, no, I don't use scanline filters if I play a game on my computer monitor. They don't look like the real thing at all and are distracting.

[Anonymous No.5290065]

>>5290049
Explain, how would you design something for scanlines?
Again, I already understand composite artifacts/color blurring and such but not scanlines.

[Anonymous No.5290069]

>>5290060
I don't know what you're arguing exactly. Call it a limitation if you want but it's a "limitation" that applied to everyone buying their game and it's not a stretch to imagine that the artist were creating with that display mode in consideration.

[Anonymous No.5290070]

>>5290059
This doesn't alter the fact designers were putting things together based off scanlines so it would look closer to what they wanted to show.

[Anonymous No.5290084]

>>5290003
Are there any documented interviews where developers addressed scanlines in the design process?

[Anonymous No.5290093]

crt weirdos are the flat earthers of /vr/

[Anonymous No.5290095]

>>5290084
I don't really know. Probably not because scanlines were nearly ubiquitous with 3rd and 4th gen gaming. It'd be like explaining that you made your game with a color television in mind.

[Anonymous No.5290098]

>>5290065
Not a specific example but the presence of scanlines will make the overall image appear darker. Game assets and sprites may have been made brither or more colorful to balance it out. similar to what some devs did for GBA games. It's a more extreme version but you'll see many GBA games that look garrish and too colorful if you look at a raw image but they look fine on the dark as fuck, non backlit GBA screen.

[Anonymous No.5290102]

>>5290093

the earth doesn't lag like those fucking rectangles do

[Anonymous No.5290104]

>>5290095
Would be nice to have validation to a claim.

[Anonymous No.5290108]

Companies have a refinement / QA process they go through before releasing. During this process, they test their product on customer-owned devices. Old games had to account for the technology at the time. The art direction took into account the existence of scanlines, similar to how the level design accounted for the number of pixels on the screen. It's really silly to argue against this.

[Anonymous No.5290110]

>>5290005
Yes, but you weren't seeing the scanlines. Well, at least not on my TV. I made a comparison using the same game (PS2 and emulated on my PC) and the CRT image looked far nicer with no noticeable scanlines, whereas my LCD image looked worse with noticeable scanlines (because of shaders, obviously).

That doesn't mean there were no scanlines on my TV, I just had to get real close to see them.

[Anonymous No.5290113]

>>5290108
>The art direction took into account the existence of scanlines
How?

[Anonymous No.5290115]

>>5290104
Anon, it would be bizarre for someone to mention it in an interview.
>We intended for the player to play our game with a controller, with their hands
>We intended for the player to look at the television when they play our game
>We intended for the player to have electricity in order to play this game properly

[Anonymous No.5290116]

>>5290084
No there isn’t. That’s because scanlines AREN’T important and objectively add nothing to the image. There’s no added detail or increase in depth. NOTHING.

Every time some CRT memester perpetuates the scanline myth they use examples where improved color and contrast or shitty signals add said “detail” and depth to an image. Scanlines are a crock of shit and you didn’t see them on consumer sets through composite.

[Anonymous No.5290118]

>>5290115
Nice false equivalency.

[Anonymous No.5290121]

>>5290110
>>5290116
See>>5290005


Look I agree. The awful primitive filters that add big thicc black bars to the image are pointless but to act like the presnece of scanlines did nothing to the image, just because you couldn't see the actual lines, is silly and false.

[Anonymous No.5290123]

>>5290012
Not that anon, but there's a difference between designing with a limitation in mind and wanting said limitation to begin with. Scanlines were a limitation but at the same time they allowed the image to be seen in a way it can't be seen on an LCD. For instance, round letters actually look smooth on my CRT, whereas they look jaggy on my LCD.

[Anonymous No.5290124]

>>5290115
They've mentioned composite blur plenty of times, so it's not unreasonable to mention scanlines if they were important.

[Anonymous No.5290125]

>>5290118
It's isn't. Why would a designer tell an interviewer that their game was designed a display standard that everyone and their mother was utilizing? That's fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.5290129]

>>5289992
They are neither, they are a matter of taste. I like them on my 50" LCD HDTV, but not on my 5" phone. My old 32" Plasma TV, I didn't care at all.

As with all matters of taste, the vocal majority are autists.

[Anonymous No.5290135]

>>5290124
see>>5290028


People had the choice to use different video connection beyond composite at the time but there was really no getting around 240p scanlines.

[Anonymous No.5290138]

My old TV was fuzzy as shit.
My new TV is pixel-crisp.

I want the nostalgia of how games used to look. Scanlines improve that on my new TV, but it still isn't the same as my sorry old TV where everything fuzzed smooth

[Anonymous No.5290140]

>>5290121
Yes, that's what I said. CRT scanlines matter, but the ones from shaders really don't since they are a post-processing filter. It's like someone pasted black lines on the screen.

[Anonymous No.5290141]

>>5290123
>For instance, round letters actually look smooth on my CRT, whereas they look jaggy on my LCD.
Is that due to scanlines though? CRTs naturally display softer pixels.

[Anonymous No.5290143]

>>5289992
The latter

[Anonymous No.5290146]

>>5290141
To be frank, I really don't know.

[Anonymous No.5290147]

>>5290135
>but there was really no getting around 240p scanlines.
But there is now. They talk about composite like it's an experience that you can't get with an emulator, so why won't they do the same with scanlines?

[Anonymous No.5290149]

I use them on my big tv, because it's easier on my eyes a bit. On or off, either looks good.

[Anonymous No.5290150]

>>5290135
Not weaseling your way out of this that easily. Developers have come out and said -in interviews from this decade- that composite blur was necessary for certain visual tricks.

So why is it that, in an era of LCD displays, no developer has said why scanlines were a key factor when designing a game’s graphics? That seems a little odd, especially when there’s been a shift in display technology.

[Anonymous No.5290154]

>>5290147
Who is "they"? The only people I've seen talk about composite are gamers who have pointed out the admittedly more visually perceptible art decisions made for composite like waterfalls in Sonic. What retro dev has talked about composite?

[Anonymous No.5290157]

This thread feels like a religious debate, christ.

[Anonymous No.5290159]

>>5290141
>>5290146
Guarantee you it is the CRT display and has nothing to do with scanlines. You'll notice that soft image in interlaced games as well.

[Anonymous No.5290164]

>>5290154
I'm talking about the Lion King dev let's play. I don't have the exact time, but you can start here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILeyo1iv0A

[Anonymous No.5290170]

You anons talking about the softness of a CRT even though that's independent of scanlines are kind of souring the argument for scanlines, please stop.

[Anonymous No.5290183]

>>5290157
It essentially is...

"This is the truth!"
"Neat. Have any sort of proof?"
"Well it just makes sense to me. That's all the proof you should need."

[Anonymous No.5290185]

>>5290157
Don't complain this is a religious thread, and then bring out Lord and Saviour into it

Allah forgive me

[Anonymous No.5290217]

>>5290164
Just got to the 24 minute mark and he's only mentioned CRTs naturally smoothing out the image and they briefly discuss visible pixels. No mention of dithering or composite. I'll keep watching though.

[Anonymous No.5290218]

>>5290113
Because they test what they input and then adjust? Have you ever worked at a real job before?

[Anonymous No.5290234]

>>5290218
Another baseless assertion (the assertion being they were adjusting for scanlines, and not overscan, 4:3 stretching, etc) packed with a personal attack. Are you Christian? Catholic?

[Anonymous No.5290254]

>>5290234
Why are you willing to accept they'd adjust and design for 4:3 and over/underscan but not scanlines?

[Anonymous No.5290261]

>>5290254
>4:3
Characters and images will look fat or thin if you don't design it for 4:3
>over/underscan
You don't want your hud or other important data to be cut off.

Now tell me, what do they adjust for scanlines?

[Anonymous No.5290271]

>>5290261
see
>>5290098

[Anonymous No.5290278]

>>5290271
Console games aren't unusually bright without scanlines.

[Anonymous No.5290294]

>>5290278
Nope. In fact, on a crappy LCD, they are darker than on a tube. Though a decent modern LCD will have about the same brightness.

You can tell who is speaking based on experience with shitty scanline filters, which do darken the image.

[Anonymous No.5290296]

>>5290278
Games are objectively going to appear darker with scanlines

[Anonymous No.5290302]

>>5290296
They don't, because tube TVs are brighter than LCDs.

[Anonymous No.5290307]

>>5290294
Nah. Stop with the strawman.

[Anonymous No.5290310]

>>5290307
I'm not sure what your point is. That image is literally glowing. Tubes are brighter than LCDs.

[Anonymous No.5290312]

>>5290307
Get better at taking pictures, and a better camera while you’re at it.

Maybe while you do all that you can get a real argument too.

[Anonymous No.5290314]

>>5290310
My point is that I own a CRT and you're being a knob. That was the most recent photo of my set. The brightness difference between a CRT and LCD isnt relevant either. Quit trying to twist my argument. I'm asserting that someone an artist working at a PC workstation would ensure their assets appear as intended on a consumer set. An image with REAL scanlines on a CRT DOES look darker than the same image on a CRT pc monitor at 480p.

[Anonymous No.5290320]

>>5290312
It was a quick snap I took months ago. I'm not home right now. Your personal attacks are not arguments.

[Anonymous No.5290330]

>>5289992
Real scanlines:

You can adjust the brightness of a CRT, it doesn't have to look like a glowing christmas bulb. You see this when people don't know how to properly set up a crt and have it on "vivid" or the colors and brightness cranked up.

[Anonymous No.5290352]

[Anonymous No.5290358]

>>5290352
Well there you go.

[Anonymous No.5290376]

What about the scanline features themselves? Which emulators implemented it the best?

[Anonymous No.5290386]

>>5290352
I concede defeat.

[Anonymous No.5290387]

>>5290376
Retroarch

[Anonymous No.5290405]

>>5289992
Legit. Original game developers factored the display technology of the time their art.
>MT = Michitaka TSURUTA
>JS: Collectors like PCBs for an authentic experience.
Emulation isn't the same. Yesterday I noticed the
vertical screen and scanlines between pixels, and
the way the colours interacted on CRT.
MT: Right! <laughs - nodding> When you create
the pixel art, you would place the colours in such a
way, or you would be very mindful of the space
between the dots of the raster grid. In older
monitors, the colours are arranged R, G, B, R, G, B
and so on, and if you intentionally place the colours
in a particular way, then it would appear as though
additional pixels exist in-between, effectively
increasing the resolution. The pixel artists were
aware of this and used this technique intentionally.
But those kinds of techniques have been abandoned
now and probably aren't very useful now. <laughs>
>Source = The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol 2
If you want to properly 'see' the game the developers intended, you need to have an original or fully emulated display technology experience.

[Anonymous No.5290407]

>>5290036
>is that something the artists wanted
The Death of the author, faggot. What matters is not what the artists wanted, but what actually looks better. Scanlines add a lot of fake detail to the image, kind of like adding noise to an edited photo makes it less artificial. Pixels are ugly when they're large monochrome squares with colors from a very limited palette. For these reasons most pixel art looks better with scanlines regardless of the original intent.

[Anonymous No.5290408]

>>5290387
Maybe you're just memeing because of that Black Mirror movie but Retroarch isnt an emulator.

[Anonymous No.5290410]

>>5290405
Screwed up the formatting.

>>5289992 (OP)
Legit. Original game developers factored the display technology of the time their art.
>MT = Michitaka TSURUTA
>JS: Collectors like PCBs for an authentic experience. Emulation isn't the same. Yesterday I noticed the vertical screen and scanlines between pixels, and the way the colours interacted on CRT.
> MT: Right! <laughs - nodding> When you create the pixel art, you would place the colours in such a way, or you would be very mindful of the space between the dots of the raster grid. In older monitors, the colours are arranged R, G, B, R, G, B and so on, and if you intentionally place the colours in a particular way, then it would appear as though additional pixels exist in-between, effectively increasing the resolution. The pixel artists were aware of this and used this technique intentionally. But those kinds of techniques have been abandoned now and probably aren't very useful now. <laughs>
>Source = The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Vol 2
If you want to properly 'see' the game the developers intended, you need to have an original or fully emulated display technology experience.

[Anonymous No.5290443]

Read this old Microsoft memo about pixels. It shows how graphics professionals thought about pixels in the pre-LCD era.
http://alvyray.com/Memos/CG/Microsoft/6_pixel.pdf

[Anonymous No.5290447]

What are hybrid scanlines?

[Anonymous No.5290507]

>>5289992
I like mild scanlines on hdtvs to soften the image just a wee bit. Just don’t set them to max.

[Anonymous No.5290517]

>>5290507
How do you set 'em? I find pure pixels a little sharp, but max scanlines are too much.

[Anonymous No.5290536]

>>5290407
>add fake detail
This statement is self-defeating. It adds nothing? Great.

[Anonymous No.5290545]

>>5290536
It adds fake detail, which are something rather than nothing. They aren't there in the image, but have an effect on how you perceive the image.

[Anonymous No.5290549]

>>5290507
I guess it depends on what you’re using. I use a framemeister where the scanline strength is 0 to 120 and 0 is max, 120 is not visible. I set mine to 95 which I guess is roughly 20% strength.

[Anonymous No.5290551]

>>5290549
Meant to reply to >>5290517

[Anonymous No.5290558]

>>5290549
I actually have a Super NT which offers "normal" and "hybrid" scanlines. Maybe I'll just set it low and mess around until I like it.

[Anonymous No.5290646]

>>5290545
It either does or it doesn’t, faggot. Are you telling me bubble porn adds detail too? I see a bunch of ugly lines when I look st your Metal Slug image. Nothing more.

[Anonymous No.5290649]

>>5290646
Bubble porn is actually a pretty good comparison. It changes how your brain processes the image despite only covering portions of the image.

[Anonymous No.5290657]

>>5290649
You scanline faggots are deranged.

[Anonymous No.5290678]

>>5290407
A CRTfag arguing against the developer’s intent? That’s not something you see everyday.
I agree with you though...kinda. But only because retro games look so much better on my 4K OLED.

>>5290649
Bubble porn changes how you perceive the image because of that little prick between your legs. Scanlines are nothing like it, unless you’re looking at some low-res porn.

[Anonymous No.5291283]

Sorry, but it's gotta be blurry as well. It's just how it is.

[Anonymous No.5291323]

>>5291283
that looks more like a gba sp screen than a crt

[Anonymous No.5292786]

>>5290098
>>5290049
>>5290018
Do you faggots know anything about how games were designed? Have you ever even seen a real consumer CRT? These posts read like zoomers fetishizing an era they never even lived through.
Real scanlines don't make the picture darker on consumer TVs. Bloom takes care of that. Graphics weren't designed at 240p - they were designed on graph paper in the really early days, then on PCs that had progressive resolutions with no scanlines. That's why you can find dev interviews that mention composite blur or TV size or other things that actually mattered, but none that mention scanlines. It wasn't part of their workflow and the effect was so minor that it wasn't a consideration at all.
If you like the look, that's fine. I think it looks cool too, and you're not hurting anyone with your filters. But don't spout bullshit about how your taste is objectively correct or how graphics were designed around incredibly minor shit that did not matter at the time.
>>5290407
This makes perfect sense. If you think it looks better, go for it. Display tech and options are radically different now. Unless you want to use CRTs, you're going to be seeing something different than the devs and original players did. Just pick what you like, don't stress about it, and enjoy actually playing the games. That's what the devs intended.

[Anonymous No.5292810]

>>5292786
>but none that mention scanlines
reed da thred
>>5290410
>When you create the pixel art, you would place the colours in such a way, or you would be very mindful of the space between the dots of the raster grid.

[Anonymous No.5292817]

CRTs are comfy because of that high pitched sound they made that the jews put in the tvs to hypnotize kids into watching them.

[Anonymous No.5292818]

>>5292786
>you're going to be seeing something different than the devs and original players did
Absolutely true, but misleading. A good CRT filter does not look quite like a real CRT, but it looks a hell of a lot closer to what the original players saw than nearest neighbor upscaling does.

[Anonymous No.5292823]

Are we all gonna ignore that anyone talking about "scanlines" as if there's only one kind are full of shit? Aperture grill and shadow mask sets look radically different, as do different kinds of shadow mask sets. Scanlines vary wildly in shape, size, and visibility between sets.

People who were only recently bitten by the CRT meme tend to gravitate towards a few specific kinds of tech these days, but there was no standard look for scalines on CRTs as a whole.

>>5290138
>>5290124
>>5290121
>>5290110
>>5290407
>>5290028
>>5290003
>>5291283
>>5290545

Scanlines are just one of many factors (bloom, pixel bleed, phosphor glow/trails, shadow mask or aperture grill, etc) that all gave CRTs a unique look. They all distort the image in a way that a lot of us find pleasing, and they all work together in a way that can't be simulated by any one aspect in isolation, especially a very subtle effect like scanlines. Even the best professional sets glow and bleed a little, softening the image compared to a modern display. Standard sets do this to an extreme degree, which is why a lot of people never noticed scanlines and why they're so hard to simulate with a single filter.

If you like the look, that's great, I do too, but I'm not pretending they're some secret sauce that games MUST HAVE to look right. If I was chasing a perfect recreation of the "retro look" scanlines wouldn't be enough. They wouldn't even be my first choice. The natural bloom and bleed of phosphors had a much bigger effect on the look of old games than the scanlines ever did.

I don't get why people can't admit that they're chasing the look of CRTs, or just a softer look in general, instead of making up elaborate explanations for why this one specific element is THE KEY to making retro games look right.

[Anonymous No.5292829]

>>5290012
>Because I'm sure artists intended lines throughout everything?
What is doublestrike, and why was it an industry standard?

[Anonymous No.5292838]

>>5292810
>When you create the pixel art, you would place the colours in such a way, or you would be very mindful of the space between the dots of the raster grid.
He's talking about blending colors by using the natural bloom and bleed inherent in CRTs and shitty signals, not scanlines. This was a well-known and common technique at the time.
>>5292818
Absolutely. I love a good CRT filter. They come very close to the real thing, but they can also be somewhat demanding if they do anything to simulate the behavior of phosphors, and they can require some tweaking to make them look right.
I can see why people with more basic emulators or who don't want to learn how to use filters just stick with simple scanlines instead. Scanlines + blur/bilinear filter gets you at least 25% there with much less effort.

[Anonymous No.5292846]

>>5292823
>Scanlines are just one of many factors (bloom, pixel bleed, phosphor glow/trails, shadow mask or aperture grill, etc)...
Good summary.
>I don't get why people can't admit that they're chasing the look of CRTs, or just a softer look in general, instead of making up elaborate explanations for why this one specific element is THE KEY to making retro games look right.
I think /v*/ posters who talk about "scanlines" fall broadly into three categories: children who don't know shit about CRTs, emulatorfags who use "scanlines" as a shortcut to describe CRT effects in general because that's how CRT effects started, and trolls who know that this is THE word to use for a massive impact. The confluence of the three is what causes /vr/ to have recurring scanline threads. As an experiment, you can try to make a CRT filter thread and see if it ends up smarter and more civilized.

[Anonymous No.5292863]

>appreciating natural scanlines on a real CRT TV
Patrician.

>using a PVM for retro gaming
slightly autistic.

>emulating the scanline look on a modern display using filters and shaders
Retarded.

[Anonymous No.5292879]

>>5292863
>My opinion
Good

>Opinion I disagree with but doesn’t conflict with my personal beliefs
Not as good

>Opinion I disagree with that conflicts with my personal beliefs
BAD

[Anonymous No.5292885]

>>5292879
who said I can't give my opinion? I'm not even being that serious anyway. Do what you want

[Anonymous No.5292926]

They're fine but can be distracting if they're thick and they're not really that important.

[Anonymous No.5293076]

>>5289992
If you play with scanlines then you should play with the high pitched hiss of tv static.

[Anonymous No.5293101]

This looks ok. Blargg's s-video crt filter is as far as I go.