MiSTer FPGA Forum

AtomicShroom wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 5:53 pm This makes me wonder if the way we think CRTs work, especially in relations to "scanlines", is even close to being right. What I observed looked more like a LCD grid, where black lines exist both horizontally AND vertically.

Something to keep in mind here is that you weren't looking at a consumer display running 240p content on a display capable of showing 480 lines. The reason we talk about "scanlines" as alternating black lines is because that's exactly how older consoles worked. Additionally, most older gaming consoles were run via composite or even RF on those TVs, creating a lot of artifacting, noise, and blur. You wouldn't have seen that sharp LCD-like grid if you played Wrecking Crew on your NES in 1987. And you wouldn't have seen alternating solid black bars either, scanlines were much more subtle.

I don't know the display specs for a VS cabinet, but I suspect it's got a pretty high TVL CRT, running on clean RGB video. The higher quality the CRT and the better quality the video, the sharper dots you'll get, with the vertical "pixels" being caused by the screen's mask and the horizontal "pixels" being caused by scanlines.

In reality, there are thousands of different expectations of what a CRT looks like, and they're all correct. Some are sharp, some are soft, some have thick scanlines, some have none that are visible at all, some have very pronounced shadow masks/grilles, some are more subtle. Plug the same console into five different CRTs, and it'll look five different ways. Connect the same console with RF, composite, and RGB to the same TV, and it'll look significantly different as well. Ultimately, these scanline and shadowmask filters are just a tool to help you get your LCD looking as close to your own idealized/nostalgic CRT look as you can.

For me, relatively thin adaptive scanlines with a PVM mask looks great from across the room--subtle enough as to not be distracting, but with enough presence to break up the pixels and soften everything nicely.

Duffygag wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2022 10:08 am Well those last Zelda screenshots look banded as hell, far from what they are on a crt, also if on screenshot some of these looks pretty decent (they really do), the difference in motion and real life usage is just staggering...

That mostly your web browser resizing the image creating the artifacts. Its why Streamers often avoid scanlines in the streams, Youtube and Twitch had algorithms that don't do well with fine detail.
Right Click and pick Open Image in new tab, and you see the image at it's actual size and there no banding.

I see! Anyway screenshot are a bit pointless we are not looking at paintings

I haven't touched a CRT since the 90s. Over the years, like many others, I've spent way to much time playing with filters to never be satisfied. Then one day, I said screw it, and picked up a CRT and I have been happy ever since and scratch my head sometimes wondering why I just didn't get one earlier. I mean people still give them away for free if you go pick it up! I guess my point is, enjoy what ever option makes you happy. I have to say though, the new adaptive scanlines look really good along with shadow masks.

More or less the same here don´t really like scanlines on fltpanels (or way/way/way did i say WAY? worse all the smear o vision filters).
But like the picture without scanlines a little bit worse then with scanlines.

Problem is even when you get the right settings you either get motion blur compared to a CRT or you get a much dimmer picture. On my LG CX OLED with High panel brightness and OLED motion Pro set to high I can get an almost 1:1 look with my Sony PVM L4. No blur, perfect motion. However enabling OLED motion Pro dims the picture so much it's a lot less bright than on the PVM even with high panel brightness.

People might wanna try these settings anyway:
Horz filter: Recommended/GS_Sharpness_100
Vert filter: Adaptive Scanlines - Brighter/125pct Brightness/Scan_Br_125 0_50
Scan filter: Interpolation (Sharp)

I got the adaptive scanlines pack from Mister FPGA Discord so not the standard adaptive scanlines. Leave every other filter and shadow mask setting off. I tried so many settings during the years and nothing looks this close. Still not perfect...