CRT vs. LCD "Disadvantage of CRT with Cores"

[Swainy]

On the topic of cost, wtf no. You do not need a PVM or even Trinitron to get "quality".

This is true. I’ve got 2 Sony Trinitrons and a Toshiba (can’t remember the model number) and the picture is just as good as the Trinitrons.

[green_onion]

I'll be honest. Being able to connect to and use it on CRTs with relative ease is pretty integral to my interest in the MiSTer.

I completely understand that prioritizing modern displays over analog video is key to future-proofing the MiSTer as a project, as these bulky tube TVs are going to continue giving up the ghost over time despite peoples' efforts to repair and preserve them.

But as far as practical benefits goes, being able to use my MiSTer on my CRTs is a huge part of what gives it an advantage over traditional software emulation. There's still benefits to using FPGA technology to play old games vis-a-vis software emulation, even on an LCD, but the distinction becomes a lot more subtle at that point.

And it's not like I think playing retro games on a modern display is inherently terrible; I've spent a lot of time doing so. But being able to use my MiSTer as a modern multisystem on a CRT is what really gave me the push to get interested in the project.

[retrodroid]

I have a 28" CRT multi-freq. arcade monitor (in an arcade cabinet, of course).

I can play 15.7Khz horizontal games at native freq..

I can rotate vertically orientated arcade games by enabling the scaler. I've found that using the following settings provides a fantastic authentic looking vertical-game presentation on the monitor:

video_mode=6 (640x480@60) this is interlaced on my monitor
vsync_adjust=1
vga_scaler=1
vfilter_default=Interpolation (Medium).txt

The Interpolation blurs things up just a smidge and evens out where there might be a missing pixel here or there.

Again, provides a really nice presentation for vertical games.

And console games, etc. also look great using video_mode=6, but without the vfilter as it's not necessary.

EDIT> I should mention that I've tried running my MiSTer on my 55" Panasonic Plasma a few times, but results were Meh.
I mean, it pops and the refresh rate is fine and there's no blur or anything, but nothing like an authentic presentation, can't make it look good, no pixel blurring, etc. However, I haven't tried it with the new easy to use filters for different simulated monitors.

[Grumpy-Old-Gamer]

When I first started with MiSTer I used CRT only and the member berries were great, but once I got a decent 1080p gaming panel, I haven't used a CRT since. It's nice just to have everything on one screen and on a rotating stand

It's like the MiSTer project was designed around HDMI....

[Chilli_Vibes]

The Mister project might have been designed around HDMI, the games you play on Mister definitely were NOT designed for HDMI displays, they were designed for CRT.
I tried my 1440p PC HDR Monitor, and was left cold, and feeling like the energy, and alive-feeling of CRTs had been stripped away, and all that was left was a cold lifeless display that didn't look any better than emulation on my main PC.

[Stinky]

I have both a CRT and LCD hooked up. Works great, just don't turn on the one you don't want to use at that time.

[Malor]

The Mister project might have been designed around HDMI, the games you play on Mister definitely were NOT designed for HDMI displays, they were designed for CRT.
I tried my 1440p PC HDR Monitor, and was left cold, and feeling like the energy, and alive-feeling of CRTs had been stripped away, and all that was left was a cold lifeless display that didn't look any better than emulation on my main PC.

If you're on the same display device, if it didn't look just the same as emulating on your main PC, then one of the two emulators would be doing something wrong. They're supposed to look exactly the same.

[Chilli_Vibes]

They're supposed to look exactly the same.

I know, I 100% agree.
My point was, if it looks the same as emulation on your PC then, in my opinion, you might well have just stuck with your PC. I don't see any benefit from using a display device that wasn't meant for these old games, they just look wrong. But, I also appreciate that CRT isn't for everyone, or that everyone has the space for one.

[adamchevy]

I recently picked up a 15K1F 15.6” Oled to play my mister. Once it finally arrives I’ll give it a comparison against my plasma and Sony CRT TV. I’m fairly certain the Oled will be great with ease of rotation because of its size/weight. I also think it’s 1ms response time should be good enough. I’ve never owned an Oled so I’m looking forward to its inky CRT like contrast ratio as well. I’m excited for Oleds to be finally coming down in price. Now I just need a 20.3” 4:3 60hz Oled and my setup will be complete. Come on Eizo, don’t let me down!

[Malor]

They're supposed to look exactly the same.

I know, I 100% agree.
My point was, if it looks the same as emulation on your PC then, in my opinion, you might well have just stuck with your PC. I don't see any benefit from using a display device that wasn't meant for these old games, they just look wrong. But, I also appreciate that CRT isn't for everyone, or that everyone has the space for one.

The Mister has much better latency than most PC setups; combined with a low-latency monitor, you can get much better results with fast-action games than you can with most software emulators. PCs are typically about throughput, not latency.

There's also some real appeal to having all those different computers and consoles under one roof, with a single emulator with a more or less unified UI, as opposed to installing eighteen different emulators to cover everything.

[FoxbatStargazer]

You can hook up a modern PC to a 15khz CRT anyway with an oldish AMD card, CRTemudriver, and Retroarch. Not to mention RGB hats for Raspberry Pi. If you're laying out the premium for Mister it should be for something more than just using old displays.

[Malor]

The PC often has a lot of latency in that kind of setup. Modern NVidia cards support a technique called 'beamracing', which at least WinUAE uses, but I'm not aware of anyone else using it. Without beamracing, emulating on the PC is at least +1 frame of lag, and often +2 frames.

With beamracing, on a modern NVidia card, it's basically emulating right in front of the raster beam; WinUAE splits its screen into chunks. If you're running at 8 chunks per frame, that means your latency averages 1/16th of a frame, worst case 1/8th of a frame.

But, AFAIK, modern NVidia cards can't drive CRTs directly anymore, so you're still stuck with flat panel latency.

[thisisamigaspeaking]

Here's the line of thinking I have gone through several times:

• Sony PVM monitors seem very overpriced (or very very small) to me compared to SVGA monitors given their age, particularly compared to true flat Trinitrons from the early 2000s.
• American televisions don't always have RGB or component input, and never support PAL, and PAL is very important for my purposes running Minimig.
• 15KHz multisync monitors are unicorns.
• MiSTer from my understanding (see viewtopic.php?p=52128) will not double interlaced video from 15KHz to 31KHz so that you could have a 480i60 or 576i50 that would run on an SVGA monitor.
• When I look for CRTs I keep wanting to get the best CRTs (true flat FD/WEGA Trinitrons) and all they do is approach the quality of an OLED and lose a lot of the retro feel I remember from curved shadow mask monitors like the Commodore 1080.
• I have an OLED in the living room, and 3 LCDs on my desk in my home office, and no place in either room that I could put a CRT comfortably (my office has other stuff like 3d printers that take up half of it).

So despite thinking a CRT would be a neat idea, there is no perfect solution that fits my needs. I look at them on eBay sometimes but I always run back through that line of thought and decide there is none that I want.

[PikWik]

The PC often has a lot of latency in that kind of setup. Modern NVidia cards support a technique called 'beamracing', which at least WinUAE uses, but I'm not aware of anyone else using it. Without beamracing, emulating on the PC is at least +1 frame of lag, and often +2 frames.

With beamracing, on a modern NVidia card, it's basically emulating right in front of the raster beam; WinUAE splits its screen into chunks. If you're running at 8 chunks per frame, that means your latency averages 1/16th of a frame, worst case 1/8th of a frame.

But, AFAIK, modern NVidia cards can't drive CRTs directly anymore, so you're still stuck with flat panel latency.

once beam racing becomes a thing for all software emulation applications running on an OS, we will be very close to the input latency of FPGA.
mind you, it will still fall on the hands of the developers to make software emulators accurate and output at original speeds/refresh rates, but at least the input lag will be greatly reduced to an imperceptible level

however, when i think about the advantages of the MiSTer and what it offers over software emulators, it comes down to these

-no input lag
-original refresh rates
-audio/video in sync with accurate sound chip reproduction
-analog and digital video output options
-cycle accurate cores that are open source (with each core's accuracy depending on the developer)
-small form factor and quiet operation

at the moment, software emulation can do original refresh rates, can get very close to getting audio/video in sync with each other.
you can also get old computer video cards to output to CRTs/monitors, and accessories to get RGB from a raspPI

but the time it takes to set all of that up is truly a chore, where the MiSTer makes quick work of getting as close to the real thing as possible

all of that said i prefer my MiSTer setup with a 1080p LED gaming monitor.
the versatility to flip/tate the screen in both rotations is my preferred way of enjoying this system

[thisisamigaspeaking]

Thanks for the reply, I actually use a Samsung Oled '55 TV and my biggest dissatisfaction is that I didn't get a fluid Vertical Scroll, I already tried and couldn't find a setting, did you get it?

I will give my Samsung '55 led tv one more chance using filters as a crt tv can't use all cores and can't use Arcade vertical, a vga' 20 monitor is rare these days so I don't have many choices, thanks friends for advice and opinions.

all of that said i prefer my MiSTer setup with a 1080p LED gaming monitor.

Hope it doesn't seem pedantic, but I wanted to clear this up here for anyone reading, because there may be meaningful differences for running MiSTer and other game systems. Please correct any mistakes (and I will edit this if necessary).

"LED" in displays can mean 6+ different things, sometimes not that it literally uses LEDs for pixels.

True LED:

• OLED, organic LED, where each pixel emits its own light like a plasma screen or CRT. Low response time which when coupled with a gaming mode and VRR can yield very low latency.
• QD-OLED, combines quantum dot with OLED. One of the best technologies right now.
• micro-LED, uses very small LEDs for the actual pixels, similar to OLED but without some of its drawbacks. Imagine one of those giant billboard size displays shrunk down to fit in your house.

LCD:

• QLED, quantum dot, an LCD screen which uses quantum dots as its backlight.
• LED, somewhat deceptive label sometimes used for LCD displays with LED backlights, which all have today. Originally LCDs used cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs) for backlights so it was a selling point, especially at a time when OLED was a technology on the horizon.
• mini-LED, LED backlight for an LCD display that uses small LEDs, usually to enable full-array local dimming (FALD) for HDR.

Of these it is OLED and QD-OLED that really stand out as well suited for retro gaming compared to LCDs and CRTs.

[thisisamigaspeaking]

once beam racing becomes a thing for all software emulation applications running on an OS, we will be very close to the input latency of FPGA.
mind you, it will still fall on the hands of the developers to make software emulators accurate and output at original speeds/refresh rates, but at least the input lag will be greatly reduced to an imperceptible level

however, when i think about the advantages of the MiSTer and what it offers over software emulators, it comes down to these

-no input lag
-original refresh rates
-audio/video in sync with accurate sound chip reproduction
-analog and digital video output options
-cycle accurate cores that are open source (with each core's accuracy depending on the developer)
-small form factor and quiet operation

at the moment, software emulation can do original refresh rates, can get very close to getting audio/video in sync with each other.
you can also get old computer video cards to output to CRTs/monitors, and accessories to get RGB from a raspPI

but the time it takes to set all of that up is truly a chore, where the MiSTer makes quick work of getting as close to the real thing as possible

I think the biggest selling point of MiSTer to me is the "cool factor". I love the idea of an open source FPGA implementation of a classic Amiga due to its multiple custom chips that operate in parallel. Putting it in a Checkmate A1500 Mini case really takes me back to the 80s/90s. I had mostly given up on the Amiga and sadly thought it was dead long ago, but now I have a brand new Amiga that can also do some other cool things as far as emulation. There's an intangible benefit to it being a piece of hardware rather than something running on my PC, no matter how good the PC emulation could be. The new case really makes it happen for me.

Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to MiSTer!!!

Now if only we could get the license holders of Kickstart/Workbench/AmigaOS to stop fighting. Maybe some billionaire who clues in will do the world a favor and buy out Hyperion and Cloanto and make it FOSS. Luckily I think the hardware patents Acer held have expired so we are in the clear on that.

[FoxbatStargazer]

[*]OLED, organic LED, where each pixel emits its own light like a plasma screen or CRT. Low response time which when coupled with a gaming mode and VRR can yield very low latency.

Let me be pedantic here, there's virtually no effective connection between input (processing) lag/latency and pixel response time. Plenty of VA LCD gaming monitors are rated for 1ms input lag and 8ms+ GTG. There might be some subjective connection but it will not show up in objective measurements.

It's more coincidence that LG decided to take input lag more seriously on their TVs than any of their competitors, there's not much inherent in the OLED tech that does this, and Sony uses the same panels to worse effect. FALD does add some amount of lag even in gaming monitors though (around 8ms right now), so its going to be tough for an LCD to approach OLED like contrast without sacrificing latency.

[mr-box]

the LCD color space is not the same as a crt most people dont care about something like that but i do you will need a high end lcd or oled where you can change the color space and theses type of tvs cost alot

[thisisamigaspeaking]

Let me be pedantic here, there's virtually no effective connection between input (processing) lag/latency and pixel response time. Plenty of VA LCD gaming monitors are rated for 1ms input lag and 8ms+ GTG. There might be some subjective connection but it will not show up in objective measurements.

Ok there is a difference (and perhaps I stated things wrongly), but isn't the meaningful time the combination of input lag + response time? If there is a long response time you effectively won't be able to respond as quickly so it doesn't matter if the monitor reacts to your input quickly. Or am I misunderstanding?

[thisisamigaspeaking]

[Malor]

It would be kind of cool if the Mister could read and use ICM monitor calibration files. The scaler may already have support for color correction in hardware, it might just be a matter of shoving the right bytes into the right places. Since the EDID is now being read, it should be possible to link an ICM with an EDID so that you never end up with the wrong calibration for a given monitor.

If there isn't already hardware support for color correction, though, I doubt it would be worth the effort.

I calibrate this monitor every six months or so; it definitely looks nicer corrected than raw.

[FoxbatStargazer]

Let me be pedantic here, there's virtually no effective connection between input (processing) lag/latency and pixel response time. Plenty of VA LCD gaming monitors are rated for 1ms input lag and 8ms+ GTG. There might be some subjective connection but it will not show up in objective measurements.

Ok there is a difference (and perhaps I stated things wrongly), but isn't the meaningful time the combination of input lag + response time? If there is a long response time you effectively won't be able to respond as quickly so it doesn't matter if the monitor reacts to your input quickly. Or am I misunderstanding?

There's probably some truth to this but it's difficult to measure. The question is when "enough" of the new frame is perceivable to a human so they can react to it, which could be less than the time it takes to fully transition. Alternatively it might take even longer than a full transition to identify moving objects when they are so blurry. I'm just pointing out that when you use a time sleuth type device or something to objectively measure input lag, it's not going to care much about the pixel response time.

I do agree that OLED tech makes a big difference though for subjectively enjoying retro, especially fast sidescrollers. I got a nice 12" Atari CRT hooked up, plenty sharp RGB with naturally perfect motion and lag and vibrant color, but a 48" LG OLED is kind of coming close enough that I'd rather lounge back in a chair playing on that more often than not.

[ElMariachi003]

I’ve been using my MiSTer mostly on CRT since getting it up and running about a month ago. I’ve used it on my HDTV a few times, so honestly here’s my take…

CRT:

+ For these old games, this is THE definitive experience. Over component, I would argue that arcade cores look as good as they did in their cabinets. The consoles look even better, of course.
+ No filter is going to match ACTUAL scanlines.
- Well, no scaling on a CRT is a bit of a bummer, unless you have a small enough PVM to rotate it for the vertical games.
- No vector games either.
- some cores just have a bit of underscan that just aren’t scalable yet.
- You really have to be careful with anything that doesn’t transmit a standard refresh rate.

HDTV:
+ over HDMI, the scaling let’s you play anything without having to rotate the screen if you don’t want to.
+ of course, you can play the vector games.
- Maybe I just need to mess around with filters more, but I just can’t get scanlines to look anywhere near as good (this is on 1080p though).

Perhaps a monitor is the best option, but I haven’t tried it yet. I do have an old 5:4 Dell monitor that I’m dying to try, so maybe that will resolve my scanline issues (yes, I prefer playing with scanlines when it comes to era-correct games).

[mister_fan]

Nah, nah, everyone is wrong, if you're not gaming on SED, then WTF are you even doing haha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-c ... er_display



NO WAIT- million color gsync e-paper with 1000+ Hz refresh! Can you imagine?

[holaplaneta]

I have a 65" LG C1 OLED HDTV and a 32" JVC AV-32D305 D-Series CRT. The first one was like $1700 and the other was free from the street. I play my MiSTer on the CRT 95% of the time and it looks gorgeous and plays beautifully. The only times I run it on the HDTV (with VRR enabled) is for cores with refresh rates that are odd for a consumer CRT (x68000, wonderswan, etc.)

I realized that on the HDTV I would have to enable HDR, BFI, VRR, shadow mask filters, interpolation, etc. to have something that gets close to the CRT and the lag (even when minimal) would probably always be there. It looks great, but the housekeeping to have everything up to date to try to emulate the CRT feel on every core takes some time you could use in just turning on the device and playing. Also... one more point for CRTs: light gun games!

CRT+MISTER+SNAC= the best analog gaming setup I ever had for classic consoles, and I have many many of them RGB modded and such.

Get a CRT if you can, any of them would do wonders with the MiSTer, and they will only get rarer and more expensive.

[16Bittt]

I've used Mister on various LCDs,OLED but now only use on CRT.
the advantage of CRT is that it looks better.
it just looks more natural,the way these old games supposed to look,whereas LCD/OLED makes them look unnatural and remind you that you're playing something old and dated.
to me CRT vs LCD for retro games is as important as FPGA vs emulator.
and the disadvantage of CRT? weight,bulk.that's it.

[thorr]

This ^ mirrors my thoughts exactly. I built an arcade cabinet with a rotatable 20" CRT and interchangeable control panels and I am in heaven, along with my 27" JVC for consoles and most computer cores, and 17" Dell VGA for ao486 and other cores that are not native to 15kHz.

[Koston]

LCD gives you a bigger screen area, doesn't require you to buy an extra display, doesn't cost you anything since you already have it, and looks great especially now that we have shadow mask filters. You never have convergence or geometry issues, and can play literally everything on the MiSTer without any compromise.

I have a 20" PVM that now just lives in basement storage because it just doesn't offer any tangible benefits. Like, it's cool to show off, but I never use it. It takes up so much real estate compared to my 50" plasma, and the screen's just tiny. It's got some convergence issues in one corner, and definitely has a "CRT whine". It's heavy as all hell to move around. I need to find an extra power outlet to run it, have to have special cables and adapters all over the place, plus speakers since the internal one is mono and sounds like trash. I'm glad I got it and enjoyed it when I did use it, but with all the video filtering functionality we have now, I just see no reason to use it in my setup.

This sums it up perfectly. CRT technology has a ton of disadvantages. Only reason I would still use my CRTs is competitive speedrunning, because attaching original hardware to a CRT is simpler and because 50/60Hz content on a flat screen still always has some latency, which can become noticeable when gaming performance depends on frame perfect inputs.