4 ms·

They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. I think you could see such scanlines if you were hooking up your Atari 2600 to a TV that was already a decade

by jerf 4y ago

They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. I think you could see such scanlines if you were hooking up your Atari 2600 to a TV that was already a decade old, then sat right on top of it instead of across the living room because the cords were short and you wanted to see your games. I've seen it on some arcade games, for similar reasons. But in general, CRTs didn't have those plainly obvious lines, no, because... the engineers would have engineered them out! And did. They're plainly unsightly and it isn't that hard to remove them, after all. I imagine part of it is the need to have visible differences strongly emphasized so it looks like the filters are doing something. A true CRT filter would be much more subtle and people might not thing anything has happened when you turn it on.

orbital-decay 4y ago
>They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. ... I imagine part of it is the need to have visible differences strongly emphasized so it looks like the filters are doing something. The main reason for that is that games of the era were targeted at the most common hardware, using very cheap composite circuits and CRTs as medium for artistic expression. In many games, you could easily miss gradients, rainbow effects, transparency, or something else with a high-end CRT.
- Asooka 4y ago
  That seems pretty far-fetched. Do you have examples of such effects being shown wrong on CRTs without scanlines?
  - doubled112 4y ago
    I don't think they're referring to scanlines specifically. Something like the waterfalls in Sonic the Hedgehog come to mind. https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro-pixel-artists-design-with-crts-in-mind https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro... There's an image on this page. The waterfalls don't look very good with sharp pixels. A CRT would blur and blend, and you'd have to assume the game designers knew it would happen. It's probably not just a happy accident.
  - speeder 4y ago
    doubled112 comment is excellent. Another example that is harder to show, is that many games used intentional flickering or other tricks to create some funky effects only possible with CRT. For example: if you transmit the data correctly (one frame is only odd lines, next frame only even lines) and flicker sprites at certain speeds, you can achieve some fancy transparency and overlay effects. Another trick is toy with timings to screw with resolution, color range and pixel shape. A less reliable trick is sub-pixel anti-alias relying on the TV geometry, since each manufacturer had their own patented geometry this was more problematic (for example Sony's Trinitron was aperture grille, each pixel was composed of columns of each color. Many other manufacturers went for triangular pixels instead. With the 3 primary colors arranged as round dots in a triangular pattern).
- hulitu 4y ago
  I played spectrum games on the spectrum connected to PC . Spectrum had a graphics resolution of 256x192 px and no scan lines were visible on a 24" TV.
acuozzo 4y ago
> They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. I think it's quite the contrary. They seem obsessed with simulating high end CRT studio monitors like the Sony BVM line which were very sharp and had a highly pronounced negative scanline space. The image on the left is from a BVM: https://i.imgur.com/cu4PdgF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/cu4PdgF.jpg
dehrmann 4y ago
> They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. Good PC flat screen CRTs towards the end of the CRT era looked as good as you could ask for. By modern standards, all that was missing was 120 Hz and hidpi.
- hulitu 4y ago
  There were some who could do 120 Hz although for small resolutions. But hidpi was common. It took LCD monitors 10 years to catch up with hidpi and the colours are still problematic on the majority of LCDs.
  - gattilorenz 4y ago
    120Hz was not that uncommon in the last years of CRTs, they could actually go higher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQzXpYETXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQzXpYETXc I guess it all depends on what you define as "small resolutions". My stupid ADI monitor from 97 could do 1024x768@85Hz
- ogurechny 4y ago
  > 120 Hz It always irks me that everyone seem to have completely forgotten that CRT monitors were routinely used in 75 Hz and 85 Hz (and even higher rates) and with various resolutions instead of the one and only 60 Hz in native resolution as with most LCD monitors. 60 Hz meant “I can't configure Windows” or “my video card or monitor can't handle more than that with resolution that high”.
  - 323 4y ago
    Because it sacrificed pixel accuracy - the horizontal lines were a continuous signal and the pixels kind of blurred into each other. Looking at a CRT monitor side by side with a LCD one was quite revealing - even a last generation 2005 CRT monitor with digital controls and OSD was a blurry mess. If you want both fast refresh rates and pixel accuracy, well, you kind of need today's technology. Not possible back then.

by jerf 4y ago

orbital-decay 4y ago

>They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. ... I imagine part of it is the need to have visible differences strongly emphasized so it looks like the filters are doing something. The main reason for that is that games of the era were targeted at the most common hardware, using very cheap composite circuits and CRTs as medium for artistic expression. In many games, you could easily miss gradients, rainbow effects, transparency, or something else with a high-end CRT.

Asooka 4y ago
That seems pretty far-fetched. Do you have examples of such effects being shown wrong on CRTs without scanlines?
- doubled112 4y ago
  I don't think they're referring to scanlines specifically. Something like the waterfalls in Sonic the Hedgehog come to mind. https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro-pixel-artists-design-with-crts-in-mind https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/167804/did-retro... There's an image on this page. The waterfalls don't look very good with sharp pixels. A CRT would blur and blend, and you'd have to assume the game designers knew it would happen. It's probably not just a happy accident.
- speeder 4y ago
  doubled112 comment is excellent. Another example that is harder to show, is that many games used intentional flickering or other tricks to create some funky effects only possible with CRT. For example: if you transmit the data correctly (one frame is only odd lines, next frame only even lines) and flicker sprites at certain speeds, you can achieve some fancy transparency and overlay effects. Another trick is toy with timings to screw with resolution, color range and pixel shape. A less reliable trick is sub-pixel anti-alias relying on the TV geometry, since each manufacturer had their own patented geometry this was more problematic (for example Sony's Trinitron was aperture grille, each pixel was composed of columns of each color. Many other manufacturers went for triangular pixels instead. With the 3 primary colors arranged as round dots in a triangular pattern).
hulitu 4y ago
I played spectrum games on the spectrum connected to PC . Spectrum had a graphics resolution of 256x192 px and no scan lines were visible on a 24" TV.

acuozzo 4y ago

> They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. I think it's quite the contrary. They seem obsessed with simulating high end CRT studio monitors like the Sony BVM line which were very sharp and had a highly pronounced negative scanline space. The image on the left is from a BVM: https://i.imgur.com/cu4PdgF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/cu4PdgF.jpg

dehrmann 4y ago

> They seem obsessed with simulated really bad CRTs. Good PC flat screen CRTs towards the end of the CRT era looked as good as you could ask for. By modern standards, all that was missing was 120 Hz and hidpi.

hulitu 4y ago
There were some who could do 120 Hz although for small resolutions. But hidpi was common. It took LCD monitors 10 years to catch up with hidpi and the colours are still problematic on the majority of LCDs.
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  120Hz was not that uncommon in the last years of CRTs, they could actually go higher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQzXpYETXc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQzXpYETXc I guess it all depends on what you define as "small resolutions". My stupid ADI monitor from 97 could do 1024x768@85Hz
ogurechny 4y ago
> 120 Hz It always irks me that everyone seem to have completely forgotten that CRT monitors were routinely used in 75 Hz and 85 Hz (and even higher rates) and with various resolutions instead of the one and only 60 Hz in native resolution as with most LCD monitors. 60 Hz meant “I can't configure Windows” or “my video card or monitor can't handle more than that with resolution that high”.
- 323 4y ago
  Because it sacrificed pixel accuracy - the horizontal lines were a continuous signal and the pixels kind of blurred into each other. Looking at a CRT monitor side by side with a LCD one was quite revealing - even a last generation 2005 CRT monitor with digital controls and OSD was a blurry mess. If you want both fast refresh rates and pixel accuracy, well, you kind of need today's technology. Not possible back then.