5 ms·

The proper way to scale pixel graphics is by using nearest-neighbor (integer scaling) + CRT shader. Some games implement these filters excellently (eg Black Jew

by _7acn 2y ago

The proper way to scale pixel graphics is by using nearest-neighbor (integer scaling) + CRT shader. Some games implement these filters excellently (eg Black Jewel, Hammerwatch (only the very first part), Animal Well), while others do it poorly (eg Skald). Old consoles can be connected to an LCD monitor using a device called RetroTINK, which can add this effect perfectly. For static images, software like Photoshop, Affinity Photo is sufficient, but the goal should always be a CRT effect rather than generic scaling or fancy blur. The point is that OBJECTIVELY pixel art looks incomparably better on CRT monitors, which is why this effect is emulated.

dmonitor 2y ago
There's a couple of effects that CRTs make that simply cannot be reproduced on LCD as well, even with advanced filters. The pixel glow and deep blacks are just locked behind the glowing phosphor technology. High resolution OLED can come close, but those displays are still pretty expensive.
- gsliepen 2y ago
  Do not forget though that not all CRTs were made the same. There was a huge variation in dot pitch, or even the "subpixel layout" (think Trinitron). Also, not all CRTs had nice black levels; either the screen still reflected/scattered a lot of ambient light, or some CRTs just had a black offset level that ensured even fully black pixels still emitted some light, or a combination of both. Phosphor decay times also varied. The graphics cards themselves also mattered, RAMDACs aren't perfect.
- theshackleford 2y ago
  > The pixel glow Can be decently emulated with more modern shaders that rely upon HDR, provided your HDR monitor is bright enough, which most are not. My display can do a reasoable job with 1600+ nit peaks, and 1200 nits sustained. OLED's are not really capable here due to a lack of ability to push and sustain decent brightness levels. You'll also want 4K, in an ideal world, 8K would be even better, but we are where we are. > deep blacks CRT blacks were really not that deep unless you're sitting in the dark and there is nothing else on the screen. It also depended upon model, coating etc. Even in perfect scenarios, contrast in mixed scenes was "meh" at best. > High resolution OLED can come close So far my experience is that it can not, as it's simply not capable of the brightness required, but it does offer nice blacks yes and better than LCD motion (though just barely due to sample and hold.) I'd say the biggest remaining issue honestly is the motion blur inherent to sample and hold. As close as the more advanced shaders are getting today, it all falls apart when the image starts to move. Retroarch supports BFI, but its not as useful as it sounds for various reasons sadly. For now, I retain my broadcast CRT's, but I do hope to get to a point eventually where I could get rid of them. Though I suspect by the time such a technology arrives and is useful, i'll be old enough that i'll probably have stopped caring. My GF would love me to give up CRT's as I have a room full of them which she tolerates, but hardly loves :|
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >The pixel glow and deep blacks are just locked behind the glowing phosphor technology. What deep blacks? CRTs didn't have them; "black" was really gray. You can see it yourself: go find an old CRT monitor, make sure it's powered off and you have a reasonable amount of ambient light for normal viewing conditions, and look at the screen. It's gray, not black. That's as black as the screen gets. Now try the same with any modern OLED screen; the off state is much darker.
  - dmonitor 2y ago
    In my room I have a Trinitron and a pair of 1440p OLED monitors. You're right in that in a lit room the OLEDs have deeper blacks, but in a dim room the glow of the Trinitron's lit phosphors create a unique effect contrasted with the unlit ones. I might have to experiment more with the various visual filtering softwares that exist, but I think the physical properties of a CRT mean what hits your eyes is just unreplicable.
- oneshtein 2y ago
  OLED cannot make my eyes red and burning even after 24 hours of looking at the screen. We need something better to emulate CRTs properly.
  - onli 2y ago
    Is that true? Was there something to the technology that was harder on the eyes?
    - pavlov 2y ago
      Low refresh rates. 50Hz for European TV (PAL), 60Hz for American (NTSC). On an LCD, each pixel lights up and illuminates constantly without flicker. On a CRT, an unrefreshed image immediately fades away. For desktop computing, the minimum ergonomic standard refresh rate was usually 70Hz. Even that was an eye strain over prolonged usage. I remember using 85Hz on my 1990s Eizo CRT.
      - onli 2y ago
        So the flickering. Okay :) Because I remember that, the bloodshot eyes after too long a night of gaming. Just hadn't realised it was because of the screen, partly at least, given that explanation.
      - rob74 2y ago
        The culmination of that was the Amiga's high resolution mode (640x400/480) which was interlaced, so only had 25/30 Hz!
- djmips 2y ago
  Side note that vector displays have yet to be emulated adequately but my mind could be changed by a high quality HDR OLED maybe...
  - rob74 2y ago
    Well yeah, that's probably even harder than scaling pixel art - at least both displays work with pixels, but an electron beam drawing a line on a display can't be really well emulated on a raster display - even with ultra-high resolution you will probably still see "jaggies"?
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  > deep blacks I have never agreed with the supposition that CRTs have deep blacks. The "black" is clearly gray and it was always very noticeable to me when watching CRTs in a lit room. This is one of the things that appealed to me about LCDs in the first place. In a pitch black room maybe CRTs have better blacks than LCDs (but even then there's CRT glow!), but LCDs have better blacks in a lit room, which is a far more likely scenario for me. Consequently since the beginning of LCD use I've always thought of them as being more vibrant with better contrast. One thing you can do on a CRT that is difficult/impossible to simulate on an LCD is proper vector graphics. Vectrex games have a really cool glow to the lines as do arcade cabinets (Star Wars / Asteroids / Battle Zone). I wonder how closely OLEDs can mimick that.
hnlmorg 2y ago
Retrotink isn’t a device. It’s a brand. There are several different scalers made by retrotink. They’re also not the only high quality scalers made for retro gamers. There’s quite a number of different options available these days.
recursive 2y ago
> OBJECTIVELY pixel art looks incomparably better on CRT monitors "Objectively" doesn't just mean a thing is a strongly held opinion or even widely held. This seems like a perfect example of a thing that is subjective, not objective. There is no objective metric for measuring the looks of pixel art. Or really any art in general. Probably most people who care prefer this, but that doesn't mean it's objective. This probably doesn't contribute to the discussion. But I have a personal peeve about people using the word "objectively" (and "demonstrably") when they really mean "significantly". Carry on.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  I think the objectivity here is that it is what the artist intended. Not true anymore for modern pixel art, which is often an art style intended for modern displays, and it is sometimes combined with high resolution images and transforms.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    That's an often repeated claim people make about pixel art and CRT monitors esp on social media, but I think it's just a trite bite that sounds good rather than something that's meaningful. Example: https://x.com/kitten_beloved/status/1849159022479577277 https://x.com/kitten_beloved/status/1849159022479577277 Plenty of people debunking it including the person she took the screenshots from.
    - crtasm 2y ago
      >including the person she took the screenshots from. who is that in the thread please? I can't find them
      - wtallis 2y ago
        See https://x.com/Ian_Fisch/status/1820897215432233186 https://x.com/Ian_Fisch/status/1820897215432233186
ranger_danger 2y ago
Your dogmatism is visible from space. Kindly knock it down a few notches please

by _7acn 2y ago

dmonitor 2y ago

There's a couple of effects that CRTs make that simply cannot be reproduced on LCD as well, even with advanced filters. The pixel glow and deep blacks are just locked behind the glowing phosphor technology. High resolution OLED can come close, but those displays are still pretty expensive.

gsliepen 2y ago
Do not forget though that not all CRTs were made the same. There was a huge variation in dot pitch, or even the "subpixel layout" (think Trinitron). Also, not all CRTs had nice black levels; either the screen still reflected/scattered a lot of ambient light, or some CRTs just had a black offset level that ensured even fully black pixels still emitted some light, or a combination of both. Phosphor decay times also varied. The graphics cards themselves also mattered, RAMDACs aren't perfect.
theshackleford 2y ago
> The pixel glow Can be decently emulated with more modern shaders that rely upon HDR, provided your HDR monitor is bright enough, which most are not. My display can do a reasoable job with 1600+ nit peaks, and 1200 nits sustained. OLED's are not really capable here due to a lack of ability to push and sustain decent brightness levels. You'll also want 4K, in an ideal world, 8K would be even better, but we are where we are. > deep blacks CRT blacks were really not that deep unless you're sitting in the dark and there is nothing else on the screen. It also depended upon model, coating etc. Even in perfect scenarios, contrast in mixed scenes was "meh" at best. > High resolution OLED can come close So far my experience is that it can not, as it's simply not capable of the brightness required, but it does offer nice blacks yes and better than LCD motion (though just barely due to sample and hold.) I'd say the biggest remaining issue honestly is the motion blur inherent to sample and hold. As close as the more advanced shaders are getting today, it all falls apart when the image starts to move. Retroarch supports BFI, but its not as useful as it sounds for various reasons sadly. For now, I retain my broadcast CRT's, but I do hope to get to a point eventually where I could get rid of them. Though I suspect by the time such a technology arrives and is useful, i'll be old enough that i'll probably have stopped caring. My GF would love me to give up CRT's as I have a room full of them which she tolerates, but hardly loves :|
shiroiushi 2y ago
>The pixel glow and deep blacks are just locked behind the glowing phosphor technology. What deep blacks? CRTs didn't have them; "black" was really gray. You can see it yourself: go find an old CRT monitor, make sure it's powered off and you have a reasonable amount of ambient light for normal viewing conditions, and look at the screen. It's gray, not black. That's as black as the screen gets. Now try the same with any modern OLED screen; the off state is much darker.
- dmonitor 2y ago
  In my room I have a Trinitron and a pair of 1440p OLED monitors. You're right in that in a lit room the OLEDs have deeper blacks, but in a dim room the glow of the Trinitron's lit phosphors create a unique effect contrasted with the unlit ones. I might have to experiment more with the various visual filtering softwares that exist, but I think the physical properties of a CRT mean what hits your eyes is just unreplicable.
oneshtein 2y ago
OLED cannot make my eyes red and burning even after 24 hours of looking at the screen. We need something better to emulate CRTs properly.
- onli 2y ago
  Is that true? Was there something to the technology that was harder on the eyes?
  - pavlov 2y ago
    Low refresh rates. 50Hz for European TV (PAL), 60Hz for American (NTSC). On an LCD, each pixel lights up and illuminates constantly without flicker. On a CRT, an unrefreshed image immediately fades away. For desktop computing, the minimum ergonomic standard refresh rate was usually 70Hz. Even that was an eye strain over prolonged usage. I remember using 85Hz on my 1990s Eizo CRT.
    - onli 2y ago
      So the flickering. Okay :) Because I remember that, the bloodshot eyes after too long a night of gaming. Just hadn't realised it was because of the screen, partly at least, given that explanation.
    - rob74 2y ago
      The culmination of that was the Amiga's high resolution mode (640x400/480) which was interlaced, so only had 25/30 Hz!
djmips 2y ago
Side note that vector displays have yet to be emulated adequately but my mind could be changed by a high quality HDR OLED maybe...
- rob74 2y ago
  Well yeah, that's probably even harder than scaling pixel art - at least both displays work with pixels, but an electron beam drawing a line on a display can't be really well emulated on a raster display - even with ultra-high resolution you will probably still see "jaggies"?
MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
> deep blacks I have never agreed with the supposition that CRTs have deep blacks. The "black" is clearly gray and it was always very noticeable to me when watching CRTs in a lit room. This is one of the things that appealed to me about LCDs in the first place. In a pitch black room maybe CRTs have better blacks than LCDs (but even then there's CRT glow!), but LCDs have better blacks in a lit room, which is a far more likely scenario for me. Consequently since the beginning of LCD use I've always thought of them as being more vibrant with better contrast. One thing you can do on a CRT that is difficult/impossible to simulate on an LCD is proper vector graphics. Vectrex games have a really cool glow to the lines as do arcade cabinets (Star Wars / Asteroids / Battle Zone). I wonder how closely OLEDs can mimick that.

hnlmorg 2y ago

Retrotink isn’t a device. It’s a brand. There are several different scalers made by retrotink. They’re also not the only high quality scalers made for retro gamers. There’s quite a number of different options available these days.

recursive 2y ago

> OBJECTIVELY pixel art looks incomparably better on CRT monitors "Objectively" doesn't just mean a thing is a strongly held opinion or even widely held. This seems like a perfect example of a thing that is subjective, not objective. There is no objective metric for measuring the looks of pixel art. Or really any art in general. Probably most people who care prefer this, but that doesn't mean it's objective. This probably doesn't contribute to the discussion. But I have a personal peeve about people using the word "objectively" (and "demonstrably") when they really mean "significantly". Carry on.

GuB-42 2y ago
I think the objectivity here is that it is what the artist intended. Not true anymore for modern pixel art, which is often an art style intended for modern displays, and it is sometimes combined with high resolution images and transforms.
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  That's an often repeated claim people make about pixel art and CRT monitors esp on social media, but I think it's just a trite bite that sounds good rather than something that's meaningful. Example: https://x.com/kitten_beloved/status/1849159022479577277 https://x.com/kitten_beloved/status/1849159022479577277 Plenty of people debunking it including the person she took the screenshots from.
  - crtasm 2y ago
    >including the person she took the screenshots from. who is that in the thread please? I can't find them
    - wtallis 2y ago
      See https://x.com/Ian_Fisch/status/1820897215432233186 https://x.com/Ian_Fisch/status/1820897215432233186

ranger_danger 2y ago

Your dogmatism is visible from space. Kindly knock it down a few notches please