7 ms·

The effect of CRTs on pixel art

286 points by zdw 2y ago

egberts1 2y ago
Seems like it is long forgotten about the use of blending colors ONLY at the CRT pixel level as a form of "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY". Such visual sleigh of working "stegography" code whose name has eluded me to date. Its code is quite easily recreateable today but the diminishing supply of RGB-based CRT monitors has rendered this mode of stealthy delivery of info rather obsolete. This approach does not use least-bit of an element of RGB for hidden data stream but more about neighboring RGB pixels creating a separate color particularly on the CRT screen in which to "draw" a picture or set of words. The higher resolution of today's LCD monitor has now eluded our eye's perceptual resolution (although I could imagine someone getting up super close to a LCD screen to get such color-infused "messages". Would escape nearly all stego detectors today due to lack of deep matrix (RGB mixing), no?
bitwize 2y ago
CRTs just have a richer, warmer picture.
- 73kl4453dz 2y ago
  [flagged]
- naikrovek 2y ago
  The “warmth” is X-rays.
  - wiz21c 2y ago
    Really ? I mean we do see the XRays ? (genuine question)
    - qayxc 2y ago
      Kind of, yes. X-rays do interact with the visual system and cause perceivable effects especially with dark-adapted eyes. It's not like seeing actual colours, though and more of an added effect. Here's a fascinating article about the history of x-ray perception in humans and animals: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426237/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426237/ UV and EMF radiation are further causes of these "warmth" effects. UV in particular is pretty bad and yes, you could actually get a tan from sitting in front of a (cheap) colour CRT monitor all day :)
Dwedit 2y ago
Let's not discount the years since 1997 when people actually did play retro games on high resolution computer monitors, with big chunky pixels.
- blargey 2y ago
  Notably, pixel art has been developed for and played on LCD screens since 1989 with the Gameboy. Including the entire Pokémon series until its move to 3D, as well as many ports and continuations of older “pixel art” series originating on the NES/SNES. The blockiness wasn’t exaggerated, of course, but there wasn’t any CRT magic obfuscating it either, so that would change later generations’ experience of the medium.
  - scheeseman486 2y ago
    For Gameboy, Game Gear, GBC and GBA in particular there's pixel art and graphical effects that are often designed in mind for the characteristics of the LCDs in those handhelds. The slow pixel response is used to fake more shades of grey/colour and fonts in games for the GBC/GBA often lean heavily on the subpixel arrangement that ends up making them look much worse if you simply scale the pixels up. As a result most modern emulators have features that emulate the LCD panels as well.
    - dmnmnm 2y ago
      The original gameboy had so much ghosting you could do this to achieve effects like transparency of water : https://youtu.be/MytSySMUwv8?t=2892 https://youtu.be/MytSySMUwv8?t=2892 It looks absolutely godawful on an emulator since without the ghosting what remains is a high amount of flickering. People taking the gameboy as an example of crisp pixels have either 1/ never had a real gameboy in their hands 2/ putting on nostalgia goggles, hard The original gameboy LCDs were nothing like what people have today. They had so many limitations and quirks and they were all used in game development, or at the very least, taken into account while designing the games so that things like animations would look decent. Pixels could never look crisp when in motion on an LCD of that era. Not even the early PC monitors. When people are comparing CRTs vs LCDs, they're thinking of today's LCDs which show a very sharp, high resolution, high contrast image. That's definitely not what a GB had.
nyanpasu64 2y ago
I'm guessing the blur in the SMRPG Peach screenshot comes from a combination of an out-of-focus camera shot of phosphors, and possibly an older 2-PPU SNES's slow color transitions due to flawed silicon design. I don't see any composite artifacts but don't know if the image is RGB or S-Video. > When it comes to computer screens, there are always two resolutions involved: the one produced by the computer, such as 320x200, and the dot pitch, or "dots per inch", of the screen proper. The fun thing about CRTs is that there's always more things affecting resolution, like spot size (PVMs/BVMs and their narrow spots made interlacing more obvious) and amplifier bandwidth (if you run at a high enough hsync rate, you can get horizontal blur because the electron gun changes brightness slower than once per phosphor). As I understand, 320x200/240 on a VGA monitor is actually line-doubled because VGA cards and displays can't take hsync rates below 30 kHz. This can be seen in your Duke Nukem 3D screenshot if you watch the source video, switch to 4K resolution, and zoom into the HUD or main screen. Line-doubling affects the appearance of pixel art in complex ways (taking it partway to how a LCD would look with blocky pixels, you've said later in the article it looks "basically as crisp and blocky"). Even among VGA monitors, the same resolution can look different; my newer VX720 has sharper focus (a smaller spot size) with visible gaps at 640x480 (and even faint gaps up to 1024x768), while I didn't see any scanline gaps in the Scandisk section of the video, even when I could make out phosphors.
evaneykelen 2y ago
Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35115703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35115703
jbverschoor 2y ago
This guy records games on a CRT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWv-rnSAzVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWv-rnSAzVw
- aidenn0 2y ago
  Here's a good comparison from roughly what TFA calls the golden age of pixel art on the SFC. Note particularly the messed up aspect ratio of the latter. Also Look at Guinevere's dress in the opening movie, particularly while she is running; there is no AA used in it, but the CRT gives is a more organic look. CRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QhG2KU6A4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QhG2KU6A4 Not CRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2IG0makoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2IG0makoo
- vardump 2y ago
  That's a VERY high-end CRT monitor, not really representing what 99.9% of people had to use.
titusjohnson 2y ago
One piece of hardware I periodically search the internet for, is a CRT emulation box. I want a piece of physical hardware I can place between my 4-port RCA switcher, and an HDMI connected modern TV, that emulates the display properties of a CRT. I know that a real CRT would be the best for my nostalgia vibes, but honestly they take up so much space. This theoretical product doesn't need to be perfect, just give me a few knobs to turn to adjust whatever settings are available, and inject vertical bars to fix the aspect ratio. I'd pay good money for such a device.
- scheeseman486 2y ago
  https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-4k https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-4k It does all of what you ask, plus a lot more. CRT filters that emulate CRT shadow masks from different manufacturers, HDR to boost the max brightness to emulate the phosphor glow, VRR to allow for arbitrary refresh rates (useful for arcade superguns).
  - titusjohnson 2y ago
    Oh excellent, that's exactly what I'm looking for! Not quite impulse-buy territory but now I know what it'll take.
    - nyanpasu64 2y ago
      As I understand, the OSSC Pro is significantly cheaper for most of the feature set, while the RT5x and OSSC provide varying feature sets (the OSSC only has a line buffer, not framebuffer, which affects the resolutions it can output).
      - scheeseman486 2y ago
        You're not wrong that's the OSSC Pro has most of the same feature set, but that deeply undersells the headline feature the RT4K has, particularly given the OP wants something that properly emulates the visual characteristics of a CRT. For that, it's impossible to beat the RetroTINK 4K. Matched with a 4K OLED it's CRT shaders are uncannily real looking.
wodenokoto 2y ago
When I see pictures and video from 8 and 16 bit era Nintendo development, they draw their sketches on checked paper and transfer to work stations with professional monitors. This doesn’t square with the idea that they optimized for cheap TVs, with rectangular pixels.
- RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
  In some cases, developers used grid paper with rectangular cells sized to match the aspect ratio of rectangular pixels on the intended display.
- 6SixTy 2y ago
  Be careful mentioning pixels next to the word 'CRT', as you'll get people parroting that CRTs have no real pixels even though it's more complicated than that which would be disingenuous being condensed.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  Yeah but you’re talking about primary source documents from real developers, aka knowledge. Can you somehow turn this into a 5 page long intellectually self edifying blog post about your personal brilliance?
  - throwup238 2y ago
    How self-edifying would you prefer, on a scale of 1 to Wolfram?
    - a1369209993 2y ago
      You're thinking of "self-aggrandizing" (and I think doctorpangloss is too, although I'm less certain since they didn't mention Wolfram).
- xcv123 2y ago
  It does square with it. The analogy is in music production. Professional music studios use high end expensive studio monitors with flat frequency response. It's a reference point. From this reference point they can optimize the mix to sound good on other speakers that don't accurately represent the frequency range.
mdp2021 2y ago
CRTs enrich their content through their qualities as a medium; the article notes some level of the content definition - but not in depth with regard to the design qualities of the content. To indicate remarkable cases of the latter, I suggest you consider (after the article wanted to oppose Maniac Mansion and Mayhem in Monsterland) Monstro Giganto (C64, year 2022, uses the original character set in the C64 ROM). https://pirates-of-zanzibar.itch.io/monstro-giganto https://pirates-of-zanzibar.itch.io/monstro-giganto
raldi 2y ago
Last year I was playing Super Mario Bros on an NES on a CRT for the first time since my childhood, and was blown away at how cool the shining coins and question-mark blocks were. They look like polished brass in bright sunshine. Somehow this effect is completely lost on a modern display.
causality0 2y ago
Not all developers are/were equal. Some of the comparison shots between the raw bitmap and the CRT image can be absolutely shocking with talented artists. https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587?lang=en https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587?lang=en
paol 2y ago
An article to the same effect, but with more example images: https://wackoid.com/game/10-pictures-that-show-why-crt-tvs-are-better-for-gaming/ https://wackoid.com/game/10-pictures-that-show-why-crt-tvs-a... There are several instances where you can clearly see the artists not merely "living with" the CRT rendering but actually using it to their advantage: the eyes resulting from a single red pixel in the Castlevania picture, the smooth gradients in the Streets of Rage picture arising out of just 3 or 4 colors...
- mlok 2y ago
  This video has a lot of excellent examples as well : https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q Especially transparency at 0:39 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=39 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=39 and 9:46 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=9m46s https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=9m46s Also the fan animation at 2:15 : https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=2m15s https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=2m15s
  - ASalazarMX 2y ago
    Having lived that era, I believe people these days romanticize too much the limitations of CRT. Simply adding a scan line / CRT grid filter isn't even how consumer-grade CRT TVs looked like: distortion, blurriness, color bleeding, static, cheap selector interference... it was fine when you looked at your TV from several feet, but even arcades preferred to use high-quality CRTs instead of exploiting its side effects because you would look at them up close, like we use monitors now. Right now is a great time to appreciate the exquisiteness involved in pixel art, its perfect pixels and perfect colors, scaled to high resolution with sharpness. I agree some of the genius of working with CRT limitations is lost, but the overall majority of it became a pleasure to see. Now, vector arcade games, those really are a sin to play on anything but a vector CRT :P
    - jeroenhd 2y ago
      > Simply adding a scan line / CRT grid filter isn't even how consumer-grade CRT TVs looked like: distortion, blurriness, color bleeding, static, cheap selector interference... This is why I find many "scanline filters" so jarring. My CRT experiences may have come from the last decade of CRTs, but I've never actually seen the dark, black grid hovering above the PS2 graphics from my youth. Yet, when I enable CRT emulation in many emulators, it looks like someone put a plastic grate in front of my screen. The scanlines were there, but they didn't have the contrast a black overlay has on a modern flat screen. I have seen some (GPU intensive) filters that do mimick CRTs more accurately, but to display them well, you need a 4K monitor or better, simply because the effects applied to the individual pixels involves multiple pixels of blend/distortion, often in a non-linear fashion to mimick the bulging screen. ShaderGlass was the first tool that actually allowed me to see some old games as I remembered them (after a bit of tweaking). I think most people agree that the clarity of modern displays are a huge benefit, but when playing older games, a lot of nuance is lost. When (much younger) developers start emulating older pixel art styles without having ever seen the blurry, distorted CRT graphics, you get this weird anachronistic super-crisp pixel art that's supposed to be retro. Still looks good, but they're graphically off even if they copy directly off of old sprite sheets.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
It seems like the blur of the CRT allows the mind to fill in details more, like an upscaler built into the human brain. Possibly accidentally triggering a built in compensation layer for vision degradation? Which would have been very common prior to glasses. Especially with the human forms, the eye sees details that just aren’t possibly really there.
lotusZZZ 2y ago
It’s not just 8bit and 16bit games though. Everything up to the GameCube can benefit from a CRT. Resident Evil 4 looks insanely better on a CRT to the point that if you are not playing on a CRT, you are playing it wrong.
- FMecha 2y ago
  There's also the issue of latency, which is why Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments were primarily played on CRT TVs.
  - nyanpasu64 2y ago
    I find that LCD monitors can display incoming image data on the panel as it's being received (taking slow-motion video captures of a LCD next to a CRT both fed with a VGA distribution amp), but HDTVs generally add one or more frames of latency from image processing (for the TVs I've used, even in game mode). It's possible speedrunners still like CRT TVs because they don't suffer from pixel transition time (possibly lower on gaming and especially OLED monitors), don't require (often laggy) transcoding/scaling 480i/p video to VGA or HDMI, or because they generally don't have the off-chance that a particular monitor has image processing lag. Also the game famous for competitive CRT tournaments is Melee rather than Brawl.
    - chemora 2y ago
      [dead]
    - FMecha 2y ago
      Stood corrected, only to notice that the editing period has ended.
wizardforhire 2y ago
Somewhat related, the resale market for crts has skyrocketed. Consider this a public service announcement: if you find a crt on the side of the road and you want an extra few hundred bucks you should definitely pick it up.
deaddodo 2y ago
> The latter was never available in the US of A (an apparently poor and technologically backwards nation), which means Americans will simply have to take my word when I say that RGB SCART on a good TV is nearly as sharp as an actual RGB computer monitor - but just nearly. No, the US didn't have SCART (well, they did, it just wasn't common). Instead, they had VGA (by far superior to SCART for RGB signals) and component (better for native YPbPr/YCbCr, such as most consoles used). This "SCART is superior" BS is just a weird anachronism from retroheads and europhiles. PS2, GameCube, Xbox, etc all benefit more from component due to 480p support, everything before that generation benefits equally from SCART or Component (it just comes down to what you can get out of your console, SCART tends to be easiest), and everything after benefits best from HDMI (or DisplayPort, if it's supported).
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >Instead, they had VGA (by far superior to SCART for RGB signals) and component (better for native YPbPr/YCbCr, such as most consoles used). Couple of issue with your ranty statement from an European: 1) Vast majority of CRT TVs(not monitors) didn't have VGA input, neither component, the cheaper ones at least. The more premium and higher end CRT TVs did have component but almost nobody had them here where I grew up in the 90's and early 2000s. 2) Even in the EU SCART, while being present on most devices, was rarely used, and by far the most used video connector on TVs here and worldwide was the famous yellow RCA Composite video connector which was crap and SCART was definitely way better than that. But Americans shouldn't feel bad they missed out on SCART since there they mostly used the S-Video alternative which was relatively similar to SCART in quality.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    > Vast majority of CRT TVs(not monitors) didn't have VGA input, neither component, the cheaper ones at least. Correct, because most devices going into a television didn't operate on RGB (outside of game consoles). Thus the preference for Component. It was certainly available, but exceedingly rare. And the rare people who did have them and a Dreamcast got the absolute best quality. > The more premium and higher end CRT TVs did have component but almost nobody had them here where I grew up in the 90's and early 2000s. I'm assuming you grew up in Europe, which is kind of the whole point, isn't it? Component was widely available on non-budget television brands/lines in the US. You could grab a component cable for anything from PS2/GameCube/Xbox on, and S-Video for the majority before that (common with PSX and Saturn). Obviously the majority of Americans ran it through RF or composite, since that was just simpler and cheaper. But if you wanted high quality configurations, the options were all there for you outside of "superior" SCART.
arkh 2y ago
> My main gripe is with sloppy technique. A lot - not all, but a lot - of modern pixel art is purposely made to look overly blocky. Dithering and anti-aliasing just isn't utilized, which makes it look even chunkier than actual old game art does on a modern screen. Or lot of pixel art games come from people who are coders first and not artists. So they may not really know of or how to apply those techniques.
sgt 2y ago
Some of his pixel art. Absolutely lovely, and it really gives off 90s vibes. Wish he built an adventure game. https://www.datagubbe.se/pix/pixman.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pix/pixman.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-Frog.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-Frog.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-ShroomWithAView.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-ShroomWithAView.png
surfingdino 2y ago
Similar lack of understanding the old medium can be seen amongst photographers shooting digital and then applying "film" LUTs. There is more to the film look than just grain.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
_the_inflator 2y ago
There is a reason why raster demos were so extremely popular on Commodore 64. CRT's resolution was so blurred and totally dependent on the user, not the programmer. I started with a black-white TV out on my VC 20 and many of my friends had to use family's old b-w TVs for their computers. Colors blended a lot and what really made an impression was color cycling. Later on many graphical artists made use of the color blending or blurring effect by mixing colors (dithering so to say). Everything was multi-color, hardly anything low res/hi res. Later on, when sharper monitors specialized for computers were available, a shift towards hi-res appeared, blending was abandoned just to be revived with the bulky 4*4 FLI modes etc. Hardware and artistry went hand in hand just to impress the audience. That's why some demos from the 80th nowadays look awful to some, but were the latest and coolest thing around, in regards to color action on screen. Remember, action movies were not really CGI, no fast paced stuff - that came with the computers.
- PROMISE_237 2y ago
  [dead]
manfreed 2y ago
I don't mind modern games not having the CRT effect. It certainly does look cool, but I can also enjoy graphics with sharp pixels, if it's good. I'm more annoyed by games where the developer ignores constraints of pixelated graphics. When objects are restricted to be placed on the same pixel grid, or when they don't have a uniform pixel size. The worst is when objects are being rotated by rotating the sprite directly. Meaning you get rotated pixels.
Pikamander2 2y ago
> I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. Articles like this (and /r/CRTgaming over on reddit) always seem to forget that devices like the Game Boy existed. I put hundreds of hours into Pokemon Sapphire, so I can pretty safely say that my nostalgia for crisp pixel art isn't "misdirected". The fact that some old games were designed with CRTs in mind doesn't mean that others weren't, or that one rendering is inherently better than the other. I like the article's illustration of the variable CRT aspect ratios, though. It's easy to forget that "pixels" weren't always perfect squares like they more or less are today.
- grumbel 2y ago
  When it comes to CRT vs modern displays there is also a much simpler issue at play: Modern screens are twice the size of the CRTs we used to have. If a game looks too pixelated on a modern display, simply try shrinking the screen size. That fixes the majority of issue, all without going through the trouble of trying to emulate esoteric CRT artifacts. A SNES game running in 256x224 was never meant to be run on a 70" TV.
latexr 2y ago
This argument of CRT purism and nostalgia is getting old. It assumes to know why people like something based on one limited idea. My favourite consoles were always the different Game Boys, which used LCDs, not CRTs¹. Furthermore, I enjoy modern pixel art² more than I ever liked it in old games (that were new when I played them). Even comparing the examples of old games I still prefer the non-CRT look because I enjoy the clarity of how the sprite is made, it’s easy to learn from it. So that’s your arguments out the window. Neither CRTs nor nostalgia shaped my appreciation for the medium, and I’m not alone. Pixel art is an interesting aesthetic, and it’s great to see games both adhering to its limitations and “cheating” to do effects that were impossible at the time. ¹ https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color/Product-information/Technical-data/Technical-data-619585.html https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color... ² https://cross-code.com https://cross-code.com
- IggleSniggle 2y ago
  I read the article, but assumed a different intent, and didn't read any "argument" whatsoever. Rather just that the author was sharing some neat things about things they liked, clearly delineated from opinions that were present throughout. I didn't get the impression the author was arguing about what you should and should not like, just sharing their own passion.
  - latexr 2y ago
    > and didn't read any "argument" whatsoever. The very first sentence in the article is: > There's a recurring argument (…) Which the author then explains and links to a TikTok video which expands on it. The article continues: > This is correct. I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. So yes, the article (and video) is arguing for the connection between pixel art and nostalgia, and that what we remember with fondness is something different that what was really there.
constantcrying 2y ago
>I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. I think everything here (the author and his sources) misses the point. Modern pixel art is not trying to create a faithful reproduction of how some arcade or home console might have looked. Pixel art, certainly now, is just an art style like many others. If you need some demonstration look at actual pixel art games, they often freely use totally anachronistic methods, such as very complex shaders. Many don't even align different objects to the same pixel grid. Clearly the artists do not want their games to look like faithful recreations. Criticizing modern pixel art not for its merits or lack thereof, but for not accomplishing a goal, it never set out to accomplish is ridiculous to be frank.

286 points by zdw 2y ago

Seems like it is long forgotten about the use of blending colors ONLY at the CRT pixel level as a form of "FOR YOUR EYES ONLY". Such visual sleigh of working "stegography" code whose name has eluded me to date. Its code is quite easily recreateable today but the diminishing supply of RGB-based CRT monitors has rendered this mode of stealthy delivery of info rather obsolete. This approach does not use least-bit of an element of RGB for hidden data stream but more about neighboring RGB pixels creating a separate color particularly on the CRT screen in which to "draw" a picture or set of words. The higher resolution of today's LCD monitor has now eluded our eye's perceptual resolution (although I could imagine someone getting up super close to a LCD screen to get such color-infused "messages". Would escape nearly all stego detectors today due to lack of deep matrix (RGB mixing), no?

bitwize 2y ago

CRTs just have a richer, warmer picture.

73kl4453dz 2y ago
[flagged]
naikrovek 2y ago
The “warmth” is X-rays.
- wiz21c 2y ago
  Really ? I mean we do see the XRays ? (genuine question)
  - qayxc 2y ago
    Kind of, yes. X-rays do interact with the visual system and cause perceivable effects especially with dark-adapted eyes. It's not like seeing actual colours, though and more of an added effect. Here's a fascinating article about the history of x-ray perception in humans and animals: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426237/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426237/ UV and EMF radiation are further causes of these "warmth" effects. UV in particular is pretty bad and yes, you could actually get a tan from sitting in front of a (cheap) colour CRT monitor all day :)

Dwedit 2y ago

Let's not discount the years since 1997 when people actually did play retro games on high resolution computer monitors, with big chunky pixels.

blargey 2y ago
Notably, pixel art has been developed for and played on LCD screens since 1989 with the Gameboy. Including the entire Pokémon series until its move to 3D, as well as many ports and continuations of older “pixel art” series originating on the NES/SNES. The blockiness wasn’t exaggerated, of course, but there wasn’t any CRT magic obfuscating it either, so that would change later generations’ experience of the medium.
- scheeseman486 2y ago
  For Gameboy, Game Gear, GBC and GBA in particular there's pixel art and graphical effects that are often designed in mind for the characteristics of the LCDs in those handhelds. The slow pixel response is used to fake more shades of grey/colour and fonts in games for the GBC/GBA often lean heavily on the subpixel arrangement that ends up making them look much worse if you simply scale the pixels up. As a result most modern emulators have features that emulate the LCD panels as well.
  - dmnmnm 2y ago
    The original gameboy had so much ghosting you could do this to achieve effects like transparency of water : https://youtu.be/MytSySMUwv8?t=2892 https://youtu.be/MytSySMUwv8?t=2892 It looks absolutely godawful on an emulator since without the ghosting what remains is a high amount of flickering. People taking the gameboy as an example of crisp pixels have either 1/ never had a real gameboy in their hands 2/ putting on nostalgia goggles, hard The original gameboy LCDs were nothing like what people have today. They had so many limitations and quirks and they were all used in game development, or at the very least, taken into account while designing the games so that things like animations would look decent. Pixels could never look crisp when in motion on an LCD of that era. Not even the early PC monitors. When people are comparing CRTs vs LCDs, they're thinking of today's LCDs which show a very sharp, high resolution, high contrast image. That's definitely not what a GB had.

nyanpasu64 2y ago

I'm guessing the blur in the SMRPG Peach screenshot comes from a combination of an out-of-focus camera shot of phosphors, and possibly an older 2-PPU SNES's slow color transitions due to flawed silicon design. I don't see any composite artifacts but don't know if the image is RGB or S-Video. > When it comes to computer screens, there are always two resolutions involved: the one produced by the computer, such as 320x200, and the dot pitch, or "dots per inch", of the screen proper. The fun thing about CRTs is that there's always more things affecting resolution, like spot size (PVMs/BVMs and their narrow spots made interlacing more obvious) and amplifier bandwidth (if you run at a high enough hsync rate, you can get horizontal blur because the electron gun changes brightness slower than once per phosphor). As I understand, 320x200/240 on a VGA monitor is actually line-doubled because VGA cards and displays can't take hsync rates below 30 kHz. This can be seen in your Duke Nukem 3D screenshot if you watch the source video, switch to 4K resolution, and zoom into the HUD or main screen. Line-doubling affects the appearance of pixel art in complex ways (taking it partway to how a LCD would look with blocky pixels, you've said later in the article it looks "basically as crisp and blocky"). Even among VGA monitors, the same resolution can look different; my newer VX720 has sharper focus (a smaller spot size) with visible gaps at 640x480 (and even faint gaps up to 1024x768), while I didn't see any scanline gaps in the Scandisk section of the video, even when I could make out phosphors.

evaneykelen 2y ago

Previous related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35115703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35115703

jbverschoor 2y ago

This guy records games on a CRT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWv-rnSAzVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWv-rnSAzVw

aidenn0 2y ago
Here's a good comparison from roughly what TFA calls the golden age of pixel art on the SFC. Note particularly the messed up aspect ratio of the latter. Also Look at Guinevere's dress in the opening movie, particularly while she is running; there is no AA used in it, but the CRT gives is a more organic look. CRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QhG2KU6A4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9QhG2KU6A4 Not CRT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2IG0makoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2IG0makoo
vardump 2y ago
That's a VERY high-end CRT monitor, not really representing what 99.9% of people had to use.

titusjohnson 2y ago

One piece of hardware I periodically search the internet for, is a CRT emulation box. I want a piece of physical hardware I can place between my 4-port RCA switcher, and an HDMI connected modern TV, that emulates the display properties of a CRT. I know that a real CRT would be the best for my nostalgia vibes, but honestly they take up so much space. This theoretical product doesn't need to be perfect, just give me a few knobs to turn to adjust whatever settings are available, and inject vertical bars to fix the aspect ratio. I'd pay good money for such a device.

scheeseman486 2y ago
https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-4k https://www.retrotink.com/product-page/retrotink-4k It does all of what you ask, plus a lot more. CRT filters that emulate CRT shadow masks from different manufacturers, HDR to boost the max brightness to emulate the phosphor glow, VRR to allow for arbitrary refresh rates (useful for arcade superguns).
- titusjohnson 2y ago
  Oh excellent, that's exactly what I'm looking for! Not quite impulse-buy territory but now I know what it'll take.
  - nyanpasu64 2y ago
    As I understand, the OSSC Pro is significantly cheaper for most of the feature set, while the RT5x and OSSC provide varying feature sets (the OSSC only has a line buffer, not framebuffer, which affects the resolutions it can output).
    - scheeseman486 2y ago
      You're not wrong that's the OSSC Pro has most of the same feature set, but that deeply undersells the headline feature the RT4K has, particularly given the OP wants something that properly emulates the visual characteristics of a CRT. For that, it's impossible to beat the RetroTINK 4K. Matched with a 4K OLED it's CRT shaders are uncannily real looking.

wodenokoto 2y ago

When I see pictures and video from 8 and 16 bit era Nintendo development, they draw their sketches on checked paper and transfer to work stations with professional monitors. This doesn’t square with the idea that they optimized for cheap TVs, with rectangular pixels.

RodgerTheGreat 2y ago
In some cases, developers used grid paper with rectangular cells sized to match the aspect ratio of rectangular pixels on the intended display.
6SixTy 2y ago
Be careful mentioning pixels next to the word 'CRT', as you'll get people parroting that CRTs have no real pixels even though it's more complicated than that which would be disingenuous being condensed.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Yeah but you’re talking about primary source documents from real developers, aka knowledge. Can you somehow turn this into a 5 page long intellectually self edifying blog post about your personal brilliance?
- throwup238 2y ago
  How self-edifying would you prefer, on a scale of 1 to Wolfram?
  - a1369209993 2y ago
    You're thinking of "self-aggrandizing" (and I think doctorpangloss is too, although I'm less certain since they didn't mention Wolfram).
xcv123 2y ago
It does square with it. The analogy is in music production. Professional music studios use high end expensive studio monitors with flat frequency response. It's a reference point. From this reference point they can optimize the mix to sound good on other speakers that don't accurately represent the frequency range.

mdp2021 2y ago

CRTs enrich their content through their qualities as a medium; the article notes some level of the content definition - but not in depth with regard to the design qualities of the content. To indicate remarkable cases of the latter, I suggest you consider (after the article wanted to oppose Maniac Mansion and Mayhem in Monsterland) Monstro Giganto (C64, year 2022, uses the original character set in the C64 ROM). https://pirates-of-zanzibar.itch.io/monstro-giganto https://pirates-of-zanzibar.itch.io/monstro-giganto

raldi 2y ago

Last year I was playing Super Mario Bros on an NES on a CRT for the first time since my childhood, and was blown away at how cool the shining coins and question-mark blocks were. They look like polished brass in bright sunshine. Somehow this effect is completely lost on a modern display.

causality0 2y ago

Not all developers are/were equal. Some of the comparison shots between the raw bitmap and the CRT image can be absolutely shocking with talented artists. https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587?lang=en https://x.com/CRTpixels/status/1408451743214616587?lang=en

paol 2y ago

An article to the same effect, but with more example images: https://wackoid.com/game/10-pictures-that-show-why-crt-tvs-are-better-for-gaming/ https://wackoid.com/game/10-pictures-that-show-why-crt-tvs-a... There are several instances where you can clearly see the artists not merely "living with" the CRT rendering but actually using it to their advantage: the eyes resulting from a single red pixel in the Castlevania picture, the smooth gradients in the Streets of Rage picture arising out of just 3 or 4 colors...

mlok 2y ago
This video has a lot of excellent examples as well : https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q Especially transparency at 0:39 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=39 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=39 and 9:46 https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=9m46s https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=9m46s Also the fan animation at 2:15 : https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=2m15s https://youtu.be/nw2QfPREu-Q?t=2m15s
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  Having lived that era, I believe people these days romanticize too much the limitations of CRT. Simply adding a scan line / CRT grid filter isn't even how consumer-grade CRT TVs looked like: distortion, blurriness, color bleeding, static, cheap selector interference... it was fine when you looked at your TV from several feet, but even arcades preferred to use high-quality CRTs instead of exploiting its side effects because you would look at them up close, like we use monitors now. Right now is a great time to appreciate the exquisiteness involved in pixel art, its perfect pixels and perfect colors, scaled to high resolution with sharpness. I agree some of the genius of working with CRT limitations is lost, but the overall majority of it became a pleasure to see. Now, vector arcade games, those really are a sin to play on anything but a vector CRT :P
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    > Simply adding a scan line / CRT grid filter isn't even how consumer-grade CRT TVs looked like: distortion, blurriness, color bleeding, static, cheap selector interference... This is why I find many "scanline filters" so jarring. My CRT experiences may have come from the last decade of CRTs, but I've never actually seen the dark, black grid hovering above the PS2 graphics from my youth. Yet, when I enable CRT emulation in many emulators, it looks like someone put a plastic grate in front of my screen. The scanlines were there, but they didn't have the contrast a black overlay has on a modern flat screen. I have seen some (GPU intensive) filters that do mimick CRTs more accurately, but to display them well, you need a 4K monitor or better, simply because the effects applied to the individual pixels involves multiple pixels of blend/distortion, often in a non-linear fashion to mimick the bulging screen. ShaderGlass was the first tool that actually allowed me to see some old games as I remembered them (after a bit of tweaking). I think most people agree that the clarity of modern displays are a huge benefit, but when playing older games, a lot of nuance is lost. When (much younger) developers start emulating older pixel art styles without having ever seen the blurry, distorted CRT graphics, you get this weird anachronistic super-crisp pixel art that's supposed to be retro. Still looks good, but they're graphically off even if they copy directly off of old sprite sheets.

pfannkuchen 2y ago

It seems like the blur of the CRT allows the mind to fill in details more, like an upscaler built into the human brain. Possibly accidentally triggering a built in compensation layer for vision degradation? Which would have been very common prior to glasses. Especially with the human forms, the eye sees details that just aren’t possibly really there.

lotusZZZ 2y ago

It’s not just 8bit and 16bit games though. Everything up to the GameCube can benefit from a CRT. Resident Evil 4 looks insanely better on a CRT to the point that if you are not playing on a CRT, you are playing it wrong.

FMecha 2y ago
There's also the issue of latency, which is why Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments were primarily played on CRT TVs.
- nyanpasu64 2y ago
  I find that LCD monitors can display incoming image data on the panel as it's being received (taking slow-motion video captures of a LCD next to a CRT both fed with a VGA distribution amp), but HDTVs generally add one or more frames of latency from image processing (for the TVs I've used, even in game mode). It's possible speedrunners still like CRT TVs because they don't suffer from pixel transition time (possibly lower on gaming and especially OLED monitors), don't require (often laggy) transcoding/scaling 480i/p video to VGA or HDMI, or because they generally don't have the off-chance that a particular monitor has image processing lag. Also the game famous for competitive CRT tournaments is Melee rather than Brawl.
  - chemora 2y ago
    [dead]
  - FMecha 2y ago
    Stood corrected, only to notice that the editing period has ended.

wizardforhire 2y ago

Somewhat related, the resale market for crts has skyrocketed. Consider this a public service announcement: if you find a crt on the side of the road and you want an extra few hundred bucks you should definitely pick it up.

deaddodo 2y ago

> The latter was never available in the US of A (an apparently poor and technologically backwards nation), which means Americans will simply have to take my word when I say that RGB SCART on a good TV is nearly as sharp as an actual RGB computer monitor - but just nearly. No, the US didn't have SCART (well, they did, it just wasn't common). Instead, they had VGA (by far superior to SCART for RGB signals) and component (better for native YPbPr/YCbCr, such as most consoles used). This "SCART is superior" BS is just a weird anachronism from retroheads and europhiles. PS2, GameCube, Xbox, etc all benefit more from component due to 480p support, everything before that generation benefits equally from SCART or Component (it just comes down to what you can get out of your console, SCART tends to be easiest), and everything after benefits best from HDMI (or DisplayPort, if it's supported).

Rinzler89 2y ago
>Instead, they had VGA (by far superior to SCART for RGB signals) and component (better for native YPbPr/YCbCr, such as most consoles used). Couple of issue with your ranty statement from an European: 1) Vast majority of CRT TVs(not monitors) didn't have VGA input, neither component, the cheaper ones at least. The more premium and higher end CRT TVs did have component but almost nobody had them here where I grew up in the 90's and early 2000s. 2) Even in the EU SCART, while being present on most devices, was rarely used, and by far the most used video connector on TVs here and worldwide was the famous yellow RCA Composite video connector which was crap and SCART was definitely way better than that. But Americans shouldn't feel bad they missed out on SCART since there they mostly used the S-Video alternative which was relatively similar to SCART in quality.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  > Vast majority of CRT TVs(not monitors) didn't have VGA input, neither component, the cheaper ones at least. Correct, because most devices going into a television didn't operate on RGB (outside of game consoles). Thus the preference for Component. It was certainly available, but exceedingly rare. And the rare people who did have them and a Dreamcast got the absolute best quality. > The more premium and higher end CRT TVs did have component but almost nobody had them here where I grew up in the 90's and early 2000s. I'm assuming you grew up in Europe, which is kind of the whole point, isn't it? Component was widely available on non-budget television brands/lines in the US. You could grab a component cable for anything from PS2/GameCube/Xbox on, and S-Video for the majority before that (common with PSX and Saturn). Obviously the majority of Americans ran it through RF or composite, since that was just simpler and cheaper. But if you wanted high quality configurations, the options were all there for you outside of "superior" SCART.

arkh 2y ago

> My main gripe is with sloppy technique. A lot - not all, but a lot - of modern pixel art is purposely made to look overly blocky. Dithering and anti-aliasing just isn't utilized, which makes it look even chunkier than actual old game art does on a modern screen. Or lot of pixel art games come from people who are coders first and not artists. So they may not really know of or how to apply those techniques.

sgt 2y ago

Some of his pixel art. Absolutely lovely, and it really gives off 90s vibes. Wish he built an adventure game. https://www.datagubbe.se/pix/pixman.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pix/pixman.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-Frog.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-Frog.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-ShroomWithAView.png https://www.datagubbe.se/pixels/Grip-ShroomWithAView.png

surfingdino 2y ago

Similar lack of understanding the old medium can be seen amongst photographers shooting digital and then applying "film" LUTs. There is more to the film look than just grain.

deleted 2y ago

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_the_inflator 2y ago

There is a reason why raster demos were so extremely popular on Commodore 64. CRT's resolution was so blurred and totally dependent on the user, not the programmer. I started with a black-white TV out on my VC 20 and many of my friends had to use family's old b-w TVs for their computers. Colors blended a lot and what really made an impression was color cycling. Later on many graphical artists made use of the color blending or blurring effect by mixing colors (dithering so to say). Everything was multi-color, hardly anything low res/hi res. Later on, when sharper monitors specialized for computers were available, a shift towards hi-res appeared, blending was abandoned just to be revived with the bulky 4*4 FLI modes etc. Hardware and artistry went hand in hand just to impress the audience. That's why some demos from the 80th nowadays look awful to some, but were the latest and coolest thing around, in regards to color action on screen. Remember, action movies were not really CGI, no fast paced stuff - that came with the computers.

PROMISE_237 2y ago
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manfreed 2y ago

I don't mind modern games not having the CRT effect. It certainly does look cool, but I can also enjoy graphics with sharp pixels, if it's good. I'm more annoyed by games where the developer ignores constraints of pixelated graphics. When objects are restricted to be placed on the same pixel grid, or when they don't have a uniform pixel size. The worst is when objects are being rotated by rotating the sprite directly. Meaning you get rotated pixels.

Pikamander2 2y ago

> I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. Articles like this (and /r/CRTgaming over on reddit) always seem to forget that devices like the Game Boy existed. I put hundreds of hours into Pokemon Sapphire, so I can pretty safely say that my nostalgia for crisp pixel art isn't "misdirected". The fact that some old games were designed with CRTs in mind doesn't mean that others weren't, or that one rendering is inherently better than the other. I like the article's illustration of the variable CRT aspect ratios, though. It's easy to forget that "pixels" weren't always perfect squares like they more or less are today.

grumbel 2y ago
When it comes to CRT vs modern displays there is also a much simpler issue at play: Modern screens are twice the size of the CRTs we used to have. If a game looks too pixelated on a modern display, simply try shrinking the screen size. That fixes the majority of issue, all without going through the trouble of trying to emulate esoteric CRT artifacts. A SNES game running in 256x224 was never meant to be run on a 70" TV.

latexr 2y ago

This argument of CRT purism and nostalgia is getting old. It assumes to know why people like something based on one limited idea. My favourite consoles were always the different Game Boys, which used LCDs, not CRTs¹. Furthermore, I enjoy modern pixel art² more than I ever liked it in old games (that were new when I played them). Even comparing the examples of old games I still prefer the non-CRT look because I enjoy the clarity of how the sprite is made, it’s easy to learn from it. So that’s your arguments out the window. Neither CRTs nor nostalgia shaped my appreciation for the medium, and I’m not alone. Pixel art is an interesting aesthetic, and it’s great to see games both adhering to its limitations and “cheating” to do effects that were impossible at the time. ¹ https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color/Product-information/Technical-data/Technical-data-619585.html https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Game-Boy-Pocket-Color... ² https://cross-code.com https://cross-code.com

IggleSniggle 2y ago
I read the article, but assumed a different intent, and didn't read any "argument" whatsoever. Rather just that the author was sharing some neat things about things they liked, clearly delineated from opinions that were present throughout. I didn't get the impression the author was arguing about what you should and should not like, just sharing their own passion.
- latexr 2y ago
  > and didn't read any "argument" whatsoever. The very first sentence in the article is: > There's a recurring argument (…) Which the author then explains and links to a TikTok video which expands on it. The article continues: > This is correct. I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. So yes, the article (and video) is arguing for the connection between pixel art and nostalgia, and that what we remember with fondness is something different that what was really there.

constantcrying 2y ago

>I also agree that modern, blocky pixel art often is a kind of misdirected, anachronistic nostalgia. I think everything here (the author and his sources) misses the point. Modern pixel art is not trying to create a faithful reproduction of how some arcade or home console might have looked. Pixel art, certainly now, is just an art style like many others. If you need some demonstration look at actual pixel art games, they often freely use totally anachronistic methods, such as very complex shaders. Many don't even align different objects to the same pixel grid. Clearly the artists do not want their games to look like faithful recreations. Criticizing modern pixel art not for its merits or lack thereof, but for not accomplishing a goal, it never set out to accomplish is ridiculous to be frank.