MiSTer FPGA Community Survey Results

[Lemonici]

Survey results are up!
https://rpubs.com/Lemonici/MiSTerSurvey2021

[akeley]

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

[pbsk8]

nice graphs!

[Blitzwing]

Definitely unsurprised by the age results, it's the group that grew up in the 8,16 & 32 bit era and most likely have some disposable income to put into the hobby, sadly we are probably the ones with least amount of time to indulge

[aberu]

This is the first gaming related survey where my age is UNDER the median lol. I'm 36 though, so only by a hair (or rather whatever is left of my hair).

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

Gonna be an "ackchyually" guy right now since I'm married to a scientist and read papers regularly for fun, etc... There is no way to realistically post-stratify these results to adjust for things like sampling bias. I mention sampling bias because the kind of person that responds to this survey may be a more enthusiastic and engaged MiSTer user which might oversample for CRT users. So we'll never really know how to fully interpret the results. So it's a fun survey and take it with a little grain of salt. I would expect a full picture of them to be like 35% of users or so.

I have a CRT and I use mine with a CRT about 10% of the time. If I answered this survey I would be lumped into that almost 50% estimate, despite CRT use for me primarily being so I can recreate behavior of issues people have so I can help them out or recreate their bugs and report them. (I mainly have a CRT just for a retro gaming setup in a guest room, that's all)

So I wouldn't be a "CRT user" per se. I wonder how many of the CRT users are similar

Awesome survey though for sure, I especially was also surprised that about 25% of people bought a pre-configured, but the 75% might be another effect of the sampling bias of the pool (more engaged active users which participate in this poll might be more likely to be technically inclined, and therefore more likely to build it themselves).

[akeley]

There is no way to realistically post-stratify these results to adjust for things like sampling bias. I mention sampling bias because the kind of person that responds to this survey may be a more enthusiastic and engaged MiSTer user which might oversample for CRT users. So we'll never really know how to fully interpret the results. So it's a fun survey and take it with a little grain of salt.

Right. But it's the same with most surveys and studies, even those really, really "scientific" ones which try. Since this one is obviously for fun, there's no need to split hair about it, and we might as well pretend that the results are somewhat accurate, otherwise the whole exercise becomes completely meaningless.

In any case, even your thoroughly scientific "35%" is still not a bad result, which was kinda my original point

[Lemonici]

This is the first gaming related survey where my age is UNDER the median lol. I'm 36 though, so only by a hair (or rather whatever is left of my hair).

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

Gonna be an "ackchyually" guy right now since I'm married to a scientist and read papers regularly for fun, etc... There is no way to realistically post-stratify these results to adjust for things like sampling bias. I mention sampling bias because the kind of person that responds to this survey may be a more enthusiastic and engaged MiSTer user which might oversample for CRT users. So we'll never really know how to fully interpret the results. So it's a fun survey and take it with a little grain of salt. I would expect a full picture of them to be like 35% of users or so.

I have a CRT and I use mine with a CRT about 10% of the time. If I answered this survey I would be lumped into that almost 50% estimate, despite CRT use for me primarily being so I can recreate behavior of issues people have so I can help them out or recreate their bugs and report them. (I mainly have a CRT just for a retro gaming setup in a guest room, that's all)

So I wouldn't be a "CRT user" per se. I wonder how many of the CRT users are similar

Awesome survey though for sure, I especially was also surprised that about 25% of people bought a pre-configured, but the 75% might be another effect of the sampling bias of the pool (more engaged active users which participate in this poll might be more likely to be technically inclined, and therefore more likely to build it themselves).

You're 100% right. I tried to use appropriate language throughout the analysis, but I let it slip there. I've updated the report to reflect this.

[aberu]

Oh you didn't have to update it! We talked in discord

There is no way to realistically post-stratify these results to adjust for things like sampling bias. I mention sampling bias because the kind of person that responds to this survey may be a more enthusiastic and engaged MiSTer user which might oversample for CRT users. So we'll never really know how to fully interpret the results. So it's a fun survey and take it with a little grain of salt.

Right. But it's the same with most surveys and studies, even those really, really "scientific" ones which try. Since this one is obviously for fun, there's no need to split hair about it, and we might as well pretend that the results are somewhat accurate, otherwise the whole exercise becomes completely meaningless.

In any case, even your thoroughly scientific "35%" is still not a bad result, which was kinda my original point

I'm pretty familiar with Ioannnidis' work, he's the father of Meta-Science. He also fell victim to the exact things he was criticizing in his 2020 paper on the Coronavirus in a totally embarrassing way. But yeah, it's an important meta-analysis that's very relevant to this discussion . I'm definitely not meaning to split hairs in a non-fun way hehe. The "ackchually" meme was an attempt to convey that in a self-deprecating way, but I think it got lost in translation.

I definitely was not suggesting my 35% was scientific in any way lmao

[thorr]

Totally missed this survey and bummed about it. Oh well. FYI - I am strictly a CRT TV user and only hook up a flat panel when necessary. Everything looks 1000% better on a CRT and has zero lag. I am in the minority apparently with my most important features being full SNAC support for native controllers and greatly wanting an Apple IIgs core and a color Mac (don't think that was even listed). I am 46. There should be a survey about arcade games we want that actually could be created. I would vote for Star Wars, Elevator Action, Out Run. I don't know if Sega Model 3 is achievable but would love that too. Of course N64 would be amazing as well.

[retrodroid]

There is no way to realistically post-stratify these results to adjust for things like sampling bias. I mention sampling bias because the kind of person that responds to this survey may be a more enthusiastic and engaged MiSTer user which might oversample for CRT users. So we'll never really know how to fully interpret the results. So it's a fun survey and take it with a little grain of salt.

Right. But it's the same with most surveys and studies, even those really, really "scientific" ones which try. Since this one is obviously for fun, there's no need to split hair about it, and we might as well pretend that the results are somewhat accurate, otherwise the whole exercise becomes completely meaningless.

In any case, even your thoroughly scientific "35%" is still not a bad result, which was kinda my original point

Screw that. My gut feeling is CRT users make up 2/3rds of the population, and is just as valid as what you just said.

But seriously, now that we know CRT users are the dominant user-base for MiSTer, perhaps we can get some acknowledgement form the "brass" that CRT is the future, and some love and attention, etc. For example, where's the 5X mode support for 15kHz arcade monitor users?!

[darksakul]

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

LCD use is about 77.5%

Also CRT use is a dead end, as there no more CRTs being made, really.
Sure there that one guy who makes CRT Tubes for special case scenarios, but that not for us.
He hand makes a few a year for thousands of dollars for excusive customers and isn't interested in video games or micro computers at all.

And no one wants to fund the tooling it take to make a small batch of CRT tubes.
And that assuming we find a factory that willing to put up with making antiquated technology like that.

[aberu]

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

LCD use is about 77.5%

Also CRT use is a dead end, as there no more CRTs being made, really.
Sure there that one guy who makes CRT Tubes for special case scenarios, but that not for us.
He hand makes a few a year for thousands of dollars for excusive customers and isn't interested in video games or micro computers at all.

And no one wants to fund the tooling it take to make a small batch of CRT tubes.
And that assuming we find a factory that willing to put up with making antiquated technology like that.

And that guy is only making them with old parts that aren't manufactured anymore, and he's running out anyways.

Personally, the future I think is getting something like the OSSC pro to introduce a CRT shader pipeline in the FPGA that's on it, simulating an openGL system. There is university research from 2020 where someone designed a GPU on the Cyclone V in the DE10-nano using about 25% of it's logic that beat the performance of an Nvidia Tegra K1's GPU at a tiny fraction of the power usage. I bet someone could far improve upon the CRT shaders used in software emulation, and it could be done with only 1 frame of lag if it's highly parallelized all the way up to a framebuffer. Essentially, FPGA-based simulation of a CRT.

This would not fit on the MiSTer project currently in the framework, it's too huge, but I bet it could be done as an external project.

[retrodroid]

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

LCD use is about 77.5%

Also CRT use is a dead end, as there no more CRTs being made, really.
Sure there that one guy who makes CRT Tubes for special case scenarios, but that not for us.
He hand makes a few a year for thousands of dollars for excusive customers and isn't interested in video games or micro computers at all.

And no one wants to fund the tooling it take to make a small batch of CRT tubes.
And that assuming we find a factory that willing to put up with making antiquated technology like that.

And that guy is only making them with old parts that aren't manufactured anymore, and he's running out anyways.

Personally, the future I think is getting something like the OSSC pro to introduce a CRT shader pipeline in the FPGA that's on it, simulating an openGL system. There is university research from 2020 where someone designed a GPU on the Cyclone V in the DE10-nano using about 25% of it's logic that beat the performance of an Nvidia Tegra K1's GPU at a tiny fraction of the power usage. I bet someone could far improve upon the CRT shaders used in software emulation, and it could be done with only 1 frame of lag if it's highly parallelized all the way up to a framebuffer. Essentially, FPGA-based simulation of a CRT.

This would not fit on the MiSTer project currently in the framework, it's too huge, but I bet it could be done as an external project.

I agree and am hopeful that long-term CRT-simulation can be improved.

There are likely millions of old CRTs lying around in dumps around the world that could conceivably be restored. The 8-bit Guy on YouTube just did that for an old Apple monitor that had been lying around outside for decades in Houston TX, where the rain and humidity, plus heat are substantial. If prices get high enough people will find a way.

[thorr]

The day I can play Duck Hunt natively without any tricks on a flat panel along with native resolutions and refresh rates is the day I will consider dumping my CRT's. Until then, long live CRT's!

[MiSTer_Kirk]

The day I can play Duck Hunt natively without any tricks on a flat panel along with native resolutions and refresh rates is the day I will consider dumping my CRT's. Until then, long live CRT's!

Well said. I would never swap any of my 14 CRTs with any of my LCD/PC Monitors.
And, I have yet to see a shader, anywhere on planet earth, that can simulate a vector monitor, not even close. There is a reason I keep a real Vextrex. Emulation, simulation, and FPGA are just pure crap, and look nothing like the real thing.

[darksakul]

"According to some crude string matching, just barely over half of users use some kind of CRT"

That's actually a a fairly big result, for what is usually portrayed as tiny minority.

LCD use is about 77.5%

Also CRT use is a dead end, as there no more CRTs being made, really.
Sure there that one guy who makes CRT Tubes for special case scenarios, but that not for us.
He hand makes a few a year for thousands of dollars for excusive customers and isn't interested in video games or micro computers at all.

And no one wants to fund the tooling it take to make a small batch of CRT tubes.
And that assuming we find a factory that willing to put up with making antiquated technology like that.

And that guy is only making them with old parts that aren't manufactured anymore, and he's running out anyways.

Good Point, I forgot about that part.
The knowledge of glass welding to make the tubes is a lost art. I am sure there other components that are also no longer made
Ether everyone who knew how to do this died, or not interested teaching in their retirement/twilight years.

The 8-bit Guy on YouTube just did that for an old Apple monitor that had been lying around outside for decades in Houston TX, where the rain and humidity, plus heat are substantial.

David Murry (the 8Bit Guy) got lucky, he also had a network of enthusiasts that can help him crows source for knowledge and possible repair parts.
Remember the 8bit guy did had to pick up a 2nd Display.

There are likely millions of old CRTs lying around in dumps around the world that could conceivably be restored.

I doubt that diving in landfills for CRTs are as viable as David Murry made it seem. There alot of hurdles and issues with doing so.
There also the legal issue of trespassing on a dump to retrieve a possibly dead CRT. My experiences are most people rather throw out their CRTs and trash them then to give them to someone who wants one.

[bazza_12]

This is the first gaming related survey where my age is UNDER the median lol. I'm 36 though, so only by a hair (or rather whatever is left of my hair).

this was the first one I where I am OVER the median.. lol i'm 48 (and also have very little hair)

I have a CRT and I use mine with a CRT about 10% of the time. If I answered this survey I would be lumped into that almost 50% estimate...

...So I wouldn't be a "CRT user" per se. I wonder how many of the CRT users are similar

I'm the same I have CRT however, spend most of the time using a modern hdmi monitor.

I especially was also surprised that about 25% of people bought a pre-configured, but the 75% might be another effect of the sampling bias of the pool

I think this reflects that the pre-configured units haven't been around as long as the project itself, most people would have bought their boards separate, it's only over the last year or so I've noticed people selling pre-configured setups... and the hype has grown around the project, I suspect if this question was asked again in 2 years time the % will have shifted.

[Blitzwing]

The day I can play Duck Hunt natively without any tricks on a flat panel along with native resolutions and refresh rates is the day I will consider dumping my CRT's. Until then, long live CRT's!

Well said. I would never swap any of my 14 CRTs with any of my LCD/PC Monitors.
And, I have yet to see a shader, anywhere on planet earth, that can simulate a vector monitor, not even close. There is a reason I keep a real Vextrex. Emulation, simulation, and FPGA are just pure crap, and look nothing like the real thing.

14 and there was I thinking that I was strange with having four and not being a YouTuber like shango066 et al. In all honesty it's great that there are people keeping these old beasts alive.

It's a shame that we can keep most of the electronics going forever, but flybacks being difficult to replace and the tubes themselves being a useable commodity are going to die eventually and we just can't replace them.

[Blitzwing]

I'm the same I have CRT however, spend most of the time using a modern hdmi monitor.

Yea, especially when so many of the computer cores don't play nicely with consumer TVs so you either need a BVM or a VGA monitor which adds to the expense. So if it's a console game that I really enjoy I'll turn on the TV but for everything else I just use a monitor.

I think if we start to see OLED monitors with extremely fast response times and a future iteration of MiSTer with a larger FPGA or ARM side with a GPU we could make it pretty close to indistinguishable from a CRT using good shaders and fake scan lines.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

I think if we start to see OLED monitors with extremely fast response times and a future iteration of MiSTer with a larger FPGA or ARM side with a GPU we could make it pretty close to indistinguishable from a CRT using good shaders and fake scan lines.

Will never happen. Fake scanlines are utter shite, excuse the language, but I really hate putting lines on the screen and calling them scanlines - they look NOTHING like a CRT.
The same can be said for the latest advanced shaders in Retroarch - which we will never see on Mister because it doesn't have a modern GPU, these modern shaders look similar, but side-by-side they still look a little flat and lifeless, lack the glow and brightness you get from a CRT. CRT's are alive, there is something organic about the image, the glow in a dark room, the screen is alive. Whereas, on my modern 4k HDR 144hz PC Monitor, even using hDR, it still seems flat and boring. Old games were not meant for modern displays, they just don't look right, especially if the artists of the time used CRT artefacts for tricks to better the image - you won't see them on an LCD.

Digital Foundry, a year ago, connected a Sony CRT to a modern gaming PC, and came to the conclusion that it was better than modern displays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8BVTHxc4LM&t=4s

And yes, flybacks will die, tubes will stop working, my VGA PC CRT is arching - and those sounds it makes scare me, as does discharging a CRT. But when we get to that stage I will not bother with retro gaming anymore, I will probably be too old anyway.

[thorr]

Totally agree. The "alive" description is a great way to describe it. Your VGA CRT arcing is a very bad sign. Mine was doing that for about 2 weeks and then it died completely. Enjoy it in its final days!

[MiSTer_Kirk]

Totally agree. The "alive" description is a great way to describe it. Your VGA CRT arcing is a very bad sign. Mine was doing that for about 2 weeks and then it died completely. Enjoy it in its final days!

I suspect it's also the flyback that is it's issue. I don't use it now, those arching sounds are quite unnerving, those clicks, and then the extremely brief loss of picture gives me chills. I did once know someone locally who repaired CRTs, and he would always show unflinching courage - one time I was there he had a CRT Monitor in pieces, all connected to the mains, and switched on He said to me, so casually, don't touch anything around this area of the circuit board, because I did and was thrown across the room. Mad, but he's long gone now, and sadly they don't make people like that anymore.

I also get sad when I go to my local Recycle Centre, and in the TV section there are often loads of perfectly good-looking CRTs of all shapes, sizes, and markets (consumer, pro, monitor). But you can't take any because of health and safety issues.

[thorr]

Yep, mine did the exact same things. I took it apart and blew the dust off the flyback and I think that is what finally killed it. Leave the dust on yours and it may live longer. It is sad they don't let you have CRT's at the recycle center. Craigslist offers them all the time so look there if you want to add to your collection. There was a VGA monitor for $100 a few weeks ago that I was so tempted to get it to replace my broken one, but I don't have the room for it since I already replaced it with a 36" CRT TV. The TV is a bit too big for my liking, but what's done is done.

[Blitzwing]

I think if we start to see OLED monitors with extremely fast response times and a future iteration of MiSTer with a larger FPGA or ARM side with a GPU we could make it pretty close to indistinguishable from a CRT using good shaders and fake scan lines.

Will never happen. Fake scanlines are utter shite, excuse the language, but I really hate putting lines on the screen and calling them scanlines - they look NOTHING like a CRT.
The same can be said for the latest advanced shaders in Retroarch - which we will never see on Mister because it doesn't have a modern GPU, these modern shaders look similar, but side-by-side they still look a little flat and lifeless, lack the glow and brightness you get from a CRT. CRT's are alive, there is something organic about the image, the glow in a dark room, the screen is alive. Whereas, on my modern 4k HDR 144hz PC Monitor, even using hDR, it still seems flat and boring. Old games were not meant for modern displays, they just don't look right, especially if the artists of the time used CRT artefacts for tricks to better the image - you won't see them on an LCD.

Digital Foundry, a year ago, connected a Sony CRT to a modern gaming PC, and came to the conclusion that it was better than modern displays.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8BVTHxc4LM&t=4s

And yes, flybacks will die, tubes will stop working, my VGA PC CRT is arching - and those sounds it makes scare me, as does discharging a CRT. But when we get to that stage I will not bother with retro gaming anymore, I will probably be too old anyway.

I feel like a good shader in Retroarch like CRT-Royale properly set up with integer scaling on a decent 1440p monitor can look quite close, my desktop PC and monitor sits to the left of my MiSTer and a Trinitron 14in and they can be strikingly similar in the look, but I agree with you and the other poster that it doesn’t have the warmth a glow that I get from the CRT... kinda hate myself for saying warmth because I give the vinyl guys a hard time for saying “warmth” when what they really mean is liking idiosyncrasies of an inferior medium, but definitely different with a CRT.

With the arcing is it the fly back or the yoke? With the yoke if you can inspect it and find where the arcing is coming from you can probably pull some turns out of it or better yet use a high voltage coating/varnish to try and stop it from happening.

[MiSTer_Kirk]

Yeah, the arching is just several clicks, then a loss of the picture - literally a split second, and timed with the clicks. It's unnerving, because not only is it random, it is quite sudden and quite loud, certainly loud enough to make you jump.

kinda hate myself for saying warmth

The warmth might come from the fact that CRTs do get quite toasty, certainly my Philips monitor gets very warm, it's as if you can then smell the 80s, as there is a smell of 80s electronics warming up, drifting around my room (Might be an idea for those Glade plugins ). So that warm glow might have come from those times when some of us were sat in a cold room, with only the warm glow of the CRT for heat.