3 ms·

Upscaling retro content should NOT be sharp for, quoting the link, "achieve optimum image quality". These old games were designed on CRTs were they looked compl

Upscaling retro content should NOT be sharp for, quoting the link, "achieve optimum image quality". These old games were designed on CRTs were they looked completely different than what they do if displayed on an LCD, except for handheld games. And even those often look better on CRTs due to the fact that the graphic artist didn't work on the device directly, for obvious reasons. If you're not convinced, this twitter account makes great comparisons : https://twitter.com/CRTpixels https://twitter.com/CRTpixels In my opinion, even the most basic scanline shader is worth it. Oh, also, pixels were often NOT square at the time. angry look at capcom

rideontime 4y ago
> except for handheld games A distinction I didn't appreciate until the Analogue Pocket's impressive Game Boy screen emulation drew my attention to it. I'm not aware of any GB emulators that do the same thing but I'd love to be mistaken.
dspillett 4y ago
https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d... is an interesting article that covers this amongst quite a list of other things. Search down the article for the “The preview function” section which includes an image perfectly illustrating the point¹, showing how much better things designed with CRTs in mind look on CRTs, and discusses the way many designers worked: a high def screen for working on and a more bog-standard CRT to preview the results on as that is what the players would be viewing the game on. A gamer friend of mine who has recently had a retro period has a converter that sits between his emulator box and TV and does a good job of adding back in CRT artefacts. No doubt some emulation solutions do this in software out of the box. ---- [1] https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2/tumblr_inline_phiwexvGTu1w169t0_500.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2... for a direct link to that image, assuming it isn't referrer protected

rideontime 4y ago

> except for handheld games A distinction I didn't appreciate until the Analogue Pocket's impressive Game Boy screen emulation drew my attention to it. I'm not aware of any GB emulators that do the same thing but I'd love to be mistaken.

dspillett 4y ago

https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d... is an interesting article that covers this amongst quite a list of other things. Search down the article for the “The preview function” section which includes an image perfectly illustrating the point¹, showing how much better things designed with CRTs in mind look on CRTs, and discusses the way many designers worked: a high def screen for working on and a more bog-standard CRT to preview the results on as that is what the players would be viewing the game on. A gamer friend of mine who has recently had a retro period has a converter that sits between his emulator box and TV and does a good job of adding back in CRT artefacts. No doubt some emulation solutions do this in software out of the box. ---- [1] https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2/tumblr_inline_phiwexvGTu1w169t0_500.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/8d2cf7adae94fde97d1a8c9cf78a46a2... for a direct link to that image, assuming it isn't referrer protected