4 ms·

Even in full size, the naive images look much better to me.

mschuster91 6y ago
Of course they look better, but the simulated CRT images show how the game was supposed to look like back at the time it was created.
- Narishma 6y ago
  I disagree that they look better. They certainly look sharper but that's not necessarily what you want.
wizzwizz4 6y ago
For some games, yes. The graphics in others were designed for CRTs, though – take Sonic.
derefr 6y ago
When people say that raw pixels look better, I point to this set of screenshots from Final Fantasy 6: https://www.resetera.com/threads/crt-shaders-scanlines-ot-because-1080p-is-all-the-ps-i-got.7235/#post-1250308 https://www.resetera.com/threads/crt-shaders-scanlines-ot-be... The raw pixels on the "bricks" look flat and kind of illegible. And it's very natural to read these "bricks" as bricks because their rectangular shape is so stark on an LCD pixel grid, and the discrete brightness-changes between the stark square pixels of each "brick" suggests roughness. But on a CRT (or an emulation of one—note how the illusion works with basically any of the CRT filters in the post), the "bricks" seem instead to have realistic bump-maps, jutting them out of the wall slightly; and the intensity-waveform nature of the CRT makes the edges of the bricks less uniform. And yes, while the "brick's" surface is blurrier, in this case that actually makes it much more legible that these "bricks" are actually weathered stone masonry (with randomly-angular smooth-ish faces), not rough "bricks" at all! Which makes a lot of sense: who builds a castle out of bricks? But you'd be forgiven for thinking Squaresoft were idiots who never saw a castle before, if you had never seen the game on a CRT.
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
I grew up playing Atari, Nintendo, and Commodore 64 connected to battered old 13" and 19" analog TVs via an RF modulator. Sometimes even a black and white TV. The CRT glow and pixel-adjacent color fringes and distortions were part of the experience and take one back in time. There's just something magical about it for those who grew up with that.
bitwize 6y ago
But CRTs give a much richer, warmer picture! Seriously, CRTs are the vinyl records of video games, with all the same confusion of aesthetics with fidelity due in part to nostalgia and in part to an entire industry calibrating itself to the flaws of the medium for decades.
- toast0 6y ago
  I mean, modern displays are better in a lot of ways, but most CRTs have at most a couple gate delays between the console output and the electron beam. Plus, the games were (generally) designed to run in an environment with all the warts of a CRT, sometimes the lack of pixel boundaries is important.
TomHa 6y ago
Original author here; just to note: all machines that have an RGB output in real life can be used with an emulated RGB screen connection in the emulator. The only thing that isn't going to undo is the proper aspect ratio — the emulator has no facility to force 1:1 pixel mapping. There is some filtering to help avoid too much ugliness with that, and I think that's entirely correct in a world where pixel density is once again on the rise, but it isn't a panacea. The 68000 Mac's default chequerboard desktop is the absolute worst case for this emulator, which is a shame because it's that machine's default. But in terms of detriment versus detriment — incorrectly proportioned output versus output that doesn't look good until you have a high-resolution display — I'm hopeful that I'm on the right side of history.

Of course they look better, but the simulated CRT images show how the game was supposed to look like back at the time it was created.

Narishma 6y ago
I disagree that they look better. They certainly look sharper but that's not necessarily what you want.

wizzwizz4 6y ago

For some games, yes. The graphics in others were designed for CRTs, though – take Sonic.

derefr 6y ago

When people say that raw pixels look better, I point to this set of screenshots from Final Fantasy 6: https://www.resetera.com/threads/crt-shaders-scanlines-ot-because-1080p-is-all-the-ps-i-got.7235/#post-1250308 https://www.resetera.com/threads/crt-shaders-scanlines-ot-be... The raw pixels on the "bricks" look flat and kind of illegible. And it's very natural to read these "bricks" as bricks because their rectangular shape is so stark on an LCD pixel grid, and the discrete brightness-changes between the stark square pixels of each "brick" suggests roughness. But on a CRT (or an emulation of one—note how the illusion works with basically any of the CRT filters in the post), the "bricks" seem instead to have realistic bump-maps, jutting them out of the wall slightly; and the intensity-waveform nature of the CRT makes the edges of the bricks less uniform. And yes, while the "brick's" surface is blurrier, in this case that actually makes it much more legible that these "bricks" are actually weathered stone masonry (with randomly-angular smooth-ish faces), not rough "bricks" at all! Which makes a lot of sense: who builds a castle out of bricks? But you'd be forgiven for thinking Squaresoft were idiots who never saw a castle before, if you had never seen the game on a CRT.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

I grew up playing Atari, Nintendo, and Commodore 64 connected to battered old 13" and 19" analog TVs via an RF modulator. Sometimes even a black and white TV. The CRT glow and pixel-adjacent color fringes and distortions were part of the experience and take one back in time. There's just something magical about it for those who grew up with that.

bitwize 6y ago

But CRTs give a much richer, warmer picture! Seriously, CRTs are the vinyl records of video games, with all the same confusion of aesthetics with fidelity due in part to nostalgia and in part to an entire industry calibrating itself to the flaws of the medium for decades.

toast0 6y ago
I mean, modern displays are better in a lot of ways, but most CRTs have at most a couple gate delays between the console output and the electron beam. Plus, the games were (generally) designed to run in an environment with all the warts of a CRT, sometimes the lack of pixel boundaries is important.

TomHa 6y ago

Original author here; just to note: all machines that have an RGB output in real life can be used with an emulated RGB screen connection in the emulator. The only thing that isn't going to undo is the proper aspect ratio — the emulator has no facility to force 1:1 pixel mapping. There is some filtering to help avoid too much ugliness with that, and I think that's entirely correct in a world where pixel density is once again on the rise, but it isn't a panacea. The 68000 Mac's default chequerboard desktop is the absolute worst case for this emulator, which is a shame because it's that machine's default. But in terms of detriment versus detriment — incorrectly proportioned output versus output that doesn't look good until you have a high-resolution display — I'm hopeful that I'm on the right side of history.