What Are the Reasons to Own a MiSTer Without a CRT?

[Longtime4321]

As someone who runs Linux and hates Retroarch, emulators can often be a pain to setup. The MiSTer being plug and play is really nice.
Also, being able to fit in my hoodie pocket is really nice. On days that I don't have anything going on I'll bring it around and hook it up at school. The teachers love it

[Retro-Nerd]

I also find it amusing that some here buy the Mister, bang on about accuracy, and low lag, then go and buy a stupid LCD monitor with it's own lag, and a tech that was never meant for these old games

Even the "stupiest" LCD monitors have Freensync support now (they are dirt cheap these days, get one i.e. from LG). With VRR enabled (which triggers low latency boost mode) in the mister.ini you get app. 2ms display lag, hardly bad (compared to CRTs).

[Hodor]

As someone who runs Linux and hates Retroarch, emulators can often be a pain to setup. The MiSTer being plug and play is really nice.
Also, being able to fit in my hoodie pocket is really nice. On days that I don't have anything going on I'll bring it around and hook it up at school. The teachers love it

Retroarch is a pain in the ass itself. Fortunately there are other fine options to choose from.

[PikWik]

I also find it amusing that some here buy the Mister, bang on about accuracy, and low lag, then go and buy a stupid LCD monitor with it's own lag, and a tech that was never meant for these old games.

well, i play on an LED monitor and i can beat kaizo super mario levels (games that even people with a CRT have trouble with) so i dont think the technology has any limitations with input lag these days. at least not to a degree where you cant be really good at playing retro games without a CRT.

i know what you mean tho about CRTs. the way the screen is glowing past the scanlines, the bloom, motion clarity, and that low hum of 60/50hz is very nostalgic and has a special place in a lot of peoples memories. no doubt

[Fuzzball]

I found a CRT in the loft at the weekend while looking for something else. We have lived in our house for so many years there is so much junk up there. It must have been up there for decades but is in really good condition. I got the chance to try the Mister out on it today for the first time and I now get it. Even on what I assume was a cheap 14 inch CRT the display is stunning.

There are definitely advantages to LCD though. Space being the big one. Even this 14 inch takes up so much space on my desk but the nostalgia is amazing. I haven't seen an Amiga on a CRT for at least 32 years.

Sitting here looking at the CRT with Mister running Vic-20 (my first ever computer) as I type. I've seen that running on my Mister with my LCD so many times and yet there is still something magically nostalgic seeing it running again on a CRT. 14 inch being the perfect size because that's all I would have had back then anyway. Priceless.

I take back what I said in my original post. If this CRT ever packs in I will be very tempted to buy one.

[Fuzzball]

I found my first massive issue with CRT. You can't rotate the screen for arcade games. There is no way I am risking putting this TV on its side. For starters it has vents on each side which are obviously there for a reason so I am not going to block one side of them. I am already starting to see little issues with the screen when I turn it off - it keeps a little colour pattern in the middle of the screen for quite some time after I switch it off. So I am wrapping this thing in cotton wool.

Also the MacPlus core doesn't work on this CRT - no signal and yet it works fine on HDMI. (I have different configs for the 2 displays)

Edit: Actually forget that - all computer cores now fail since I tried some arcade cores. The Mister menu works but starting a computer core gives a blue screen (which on this CRT means no signal). The sound still works. F12 also won't go back to the menu.

Arcade cores still work (albeit sideways) so its as if starting arcade as screwed everything else up - and yes I've tried turning it off and on again

Edit2: Forcing a cold boot in the menu fixed it but I am unsure how that differs to physically turning it off and on again.

[thorr]

I found my first massive issue with CRT. You can't rotate the screen for arcade games. (snip)
Also the MacPlus core doesn't work on this CRT - no signal and yet it works fine on HDMI. (I have different configs for the 2 displays)

You can rotate it, but you need to degauss it if you do. I built an arcade cabinet with a rotatable CRT in it, and when you rotate it, it messes the colors all up. You may have seen this when you rotated yours. I have a degaussing coil plugged in nearby that cleans it right up in a few seconds.

Higher resolution cores that didn't originally run on TV's or composite monitors are not going to be ideal. However, the scaler can be used in some cases to make it work. For example in ao486, I came up with a bunch of modelines that work for the various resolutions with pixel perfect results. The MacPlus core can work but some lines will be missing.

To put it simply, use the CRT for what it was intended and love it. If you want to use other things, hook up another monitor (I have a VGA CRT also that can handle anything lol).

[dickhardpill]

I found my first massive issue with CRT. You can't rotate the screen for arcade games. (snip)
Also the MacPlus core doesn't work on this CRT - no signal and yet it works fine on HDMI. (I have different configs for the 2 displays)

You can rotate it, but you need to degauss it if you do. I built an arcade cabinet with a rotatable CRT in it, and when you rotate it, it messes the colors all up. You may have seen this when you rotated yours. I have a degaussing coil plugged in nearby that cleans it right up in a few seconds.

Higher resolution cores that didn't originally run on TV's or composite monitors are not going to be ideal. However, the scaler can be used in some cases to make it work. For example in ao486, I came up with a bunch of modelines that work for the various resolutions with pixel perfect results. The MacPlus core can work but some lines will be missing.

To put it simply, use the CRT for what it was intended and love it. If you want to use other things, hook up another monitor (I have a VGA CRT also that can handle anything lol).

I assume they meant you can't rotate the screen via dips

[Fallon]

I'm enjoing Retroarch, recently made officially available on an iPad. You get a glass screen, easy portrait and vertical mode gaming, and a good CRT style shader called New Pixie. I don't notice any lag problems with a bluetooth controller, which I was surprised about.

[Fuzzball]

I assume they meant you can't rotate the screen via dips

Yes that is what I meant and hence stated I would not be prepared to rotate the actual CRT and have it lying on its side as there are vents there. To be fair, having looked more closely they may be speaker vents rather than for any sort of cooling. I am not using the TV for audio so that didn't occur to me before. However, I still would not lay an old CRT on its side.

This may be the reason that, as much as the CRT looks great, if I can't use it for everything on the Mister I may well go back to the LCD. It takes up a lot of the desk and if it isn't an all-in-one solution then I don't see the point.

It was still nice to experience it after all these years though.