CRT TV vs LCD Gaming PC Monitor

[slip81]

Figured I'd ask this question here since I'm having some trouble getting a clear answer with google. I recently got a mister and have been using it with a JVC i' Art CRT via the add on i/o board and VGA to component cable. While it looks great for 8 and 16 bit consoles, it won't display everything like the PC cores, and using the scrips is a hassle.

I also have a 1440p Asus tuf gaming monitor with 1ms response time and 165hz refresh rate. Does anyone know if I would experience a difference in input lag on the classic stuff if I use the monitor via HDMI over the CRT? I'd ideally like to just have a one display setup that I can use for all cores.

I should also note that I'm more concerned about input lag than getting the CRT look, which can be replicated with scanlines and the shadowmask filters which I am fine with. I'm also using SNAC adapters and OEM controllers for the console stuff.

[Ark]

Its a different setup so yes there will be a difference. Having said that, you can just connect it and see how it plays to you. If you find it feels just fine does it really matter what the theory says?

[H6rdc0re]

Why not connect both? CRT through the I/O board and the LCD through HDMI. Best solution would be a CRT monitor as it can do 31KHz and by forcing 320x240 120Hz can 240p with proper scanlines. Not to mention CRTs are vastly superior in motion to LCDs.

While the fake scanlines are fun and all, they're nothing like a real CRT.

[Hodor]

I´d stick to the CRT for almost all arcade, console and classic computers. Just not because that's the type of screen they were designed for but, at the same time, for perfect scrolling. If you want to use only one screen maybe you can get a cheap VGA CRT monitor nearby.

Of course try the Asus LCD first. Maybe you are comfortable enough with it.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Input lag is generally minimal for gaming monitors. CRTs still have the best motion clarity but its not that hard to find LCDs that get close enough in terms of input lag.

One potential problem is syncing odd refresh to your LCD. 70hz for DOS, 75 for Wonderswan, 50 hz for PAL, and arcade cores at weird stuff like 57hz. The problem is that Mister does not support any kind of adaptive sync, so even though the gaming monitor supports a wide range of refresh, it may not actually use them without an adaptive sync signal. Instead they may buffer the refresh and display it at 60 or 120, which introduces stutter/judder and a bit of variable input lag. This is what my MSI Optix monitor does. Meanwhile I have a few ancient LCDs and they directly display these odd refreshes fine, in fact I don't think they are even capable of buffering more than one frame at a time, so you either get perfect refresh or some really odd glitches.

The VGA 120hz route is somewhat self-defeating in terms of the advantages of CRTs. You have to set the Mister up in fully buffered mode (vsync_adjust=0) so you add a bit of lag there, and you impair motion clarity by displaying the same frame twice. The whole trick to smooth scrolling on CRTs is that your brain itself interpolates the motion between the black scans, and that effect is broken when every other scan is motionless. So you can do it but it doesn't really offer much over a gaming LCD. At least if you fake scanlines with the scaler or scandoubler at original refresh, you still get zero lag and motion clarity, if less genuine image quality.

[Sigismond0]

Lag is mostly going to depend on your display. Best bet is just to use it and see how it feels. If you don't perceive any lag, then it doesn't matter if it's technically a frame or two or three slower than a CRT. A lot of people get hung up on milliseconds and frames, rather than just playing games and enjoying themselves, and that's a big trap you can fall into. Just play what feels good, and don't worry about the numbers.

That said, you can always dual output to the CRT and LCD at the same time. Get the best of both worlds. And if you use 240p test suite, you can measure exactly how much lag your LCD adds by displaying on both, running the frame counter, and snapping a picture.

[slip81]

That's a good thought, to use the 240p test suite and see what I get.

[Retrorick]

Newbie here: One of the major benefits of mister over pi4 is the latency. So then does it not make any sense to hook up the mister to a modern tv?? Wont the latency increase on a lcd tv thru hdmi? Also I am switching over to mister for the closest possible look / feel from the original console, that being said what display should I get? Ty!

[FoxbatStargazer]

Its true any LCD is going to have more latency than a CRT, but that's additive with the device latency. A Mister is still going to perform better than a Pi on an LCD, and the Mister I/O board will beat a Pi connected via RGB hat to a CRT. Although, maybe a Pi on a CRT can be more responsive than a Mister on a slower LCD.

For many people it's more about hitting some acceptable minimum of latency rather than necessarily going all the way to zero with SNAC and a CRT. The option is there if you want it, but so is beautiful and versatile scaling to a flat-panel or USB controllers.

Personally I think 240p looks best on a component/RGB Standard Definition CRT, although the filters and masks we got are cool they can't quite replace the analog weirdness of the real thing. But when you bring in digital rotation, cores above 240p, vector systems, arcades going to the edge of overscan, or flickery 50 hz Pal, the versatility and simplicity of scaled output can be real nice. CRTs can also be mega inconvenient in terms of size and moving around, I've given up on the larger ones (27"+) for exactly this reason, even if I think they look pretty good. But I find them going up all the time on craigslist and facebook marketplace, so its often cheap to free to try them out yourself.