Some people say there's no point playing PS2 games without CRT, so I have decided to make this comparison and share my impressions.
Component 480i (on 32inch sony W705)
Component 480p
scart RGB - 21'inch SD CRT
CRT s-video
C 480i
C 480p
CRT RGB
CRT Svideo
Component 480i
Component 480p
CRT RGB
CRT Svideo
I think these photos shows very well the difference in sharpness, however colors are innacurate (cold and washed out compared to what my eyes can see in real life), so keep this in mind guys.
My observations in regards to CRT:
Pros
+Picture is very bright and contrast is extremely impressive (bright objects next to dark areas look almost three-dimensional). I had to tweak these CRT pictures in lightroom (lower exposure and highlights settings) because otherwise you guys would see just blown out pictues.
+Picture on CRT is very clean and it's almost like playing with AA.
+Picture sharpness look the same during motion.
+Perfectly saturated colors in RGB scart input and very natural white balance (picture isnt to cold or warm). Black color is pitch black even in dark room.
+Zero additional lag
Cons
-Very noticeable blur. Objects in the distance blend together making certain games (especially racing games like NFS Underground 1) much harder to play, because you just cant see incoming trafic and react just in time.
-flickering (it's noticeable at first, however after a while my eyes adjust and I cant see flickering anymore)
On my particular CRT there are additional cons because I cant use advanced picture settings (including sharpness settings) on scart RGB input, so picture is way more blurry than S-video. On s-video colors arnt as impressive, however picture is reasonably sharp because sharpening settings works as it should.
My observations in regards to my LCD:
Pros
+ PS2 games are clearly sharper even at 480i, and at 480p the difference in clarity is just MASSIVE. On my LCD PS2 games that supports 480p look really sharp from normal viewing distance (even sharper than some sub 720p games on my PS3!). I was blown away when I saw games like Gran Turismo 4, Black, Ghosthunter, Tekken 4-5, burnout 2-4 at 480p!!
+ colors arnt perfect however I still like what I'm seeing. Saturation is very good and not that far from RGB scart on my CRT. Before I bought my sony 32W705 in 2016 I was using samsung LCD (26R41B from 2007, I bought it with PS3), but colors on this LCD were just washed out compared to CRT. On 32W705 I dont need to complain.
+there's no flickering
+shadow details in dark scenes are even better than on my CRT TV, although not perfect compared to my old panasonic 42GT60 (it's broken now, so that's why I'm playing on sony for now).
Cons
-motion blur, but I can live with that
-contrast isnt as impressive compared to my CRT and also black is not pitch black in dark room (although MUCH better than on my old samsung r41b and sharp quatron).
-16ms input lag is acceptable, but I can still feel very slight difference compared to CRT
-480i on my sony LCD looks clearly sharper compared to CRT, however there are some "stairs" on diagonal lines (I'm guessing it's from deinterlacing). These stairs arnt noticeable to me from normal viewing distance, but I'm playing on small LCD.
There are some TV's with AI upscaling and I'm wondering if such upscaling can fix these "stairs"?
Overall I must say I'm really happy with how PS2 games looks on my current LCD. Yes, on CRT there's no motion blur and colors are just perfect, but only on scart cable, and I dont want to use it (lack of sharpness just ruins everything for me, picture is way too blurry). S-video on my CRT look somewhat sharp thanks to sharpening filters, but s-video colors are washed out.
What's interesting God Of War 2 on PS2 runs at 512x440, so not even 480p. PS2 use linear upscaling and because of that this game is much more pixelated than native 480p. Ghosthunter runs at true 480p and there's no pixelation (there's aliasing, but that's normal considering low resolution and no AA).
Also some games on PS2 look even worse than others. I have tested Haunting Ground and this game is blurry even at 480p. I'm guessing this game is running at sub 480p but also with some blur filter on top of that. I have even tested this game on PCSX2 emu, and even here picture is extremely blurry.
And the last thing... I dont want to start console war
, but I must say PS2 component output is supperior than xbox classic. Picture from PS2 component output is sharper than xbox and I dont know why, because xbox games supposed to run at 480p as well (and BTW. I'm using original component cables on my xbox classic that works very well even at 1080i unlike cheaper ones that I was uaing before). Pixels edges are literally perfectly sharp on PS2, while on xbox pixel edges are somewhat soft, and it looks like too strong edge contrast sharpening (I'm using the same settings on my tv, and only xbox has this ringing around the edges).
PS2 480p
xbox 480p
Dont pay attention to exposure difference, because colors and contrast looks the same in real life. Even on this photo it's possible to see difference in sharpness. From normal viewing distance it's not a problem, but picture from PS2 component output is simply sharper (and BTW. I have xbox 1.6 version, so it supposed to have better video converter compared to previous revisions).
480p from PS2 is not perfect either, but unlike xbox component video output is not to blame. The thing is developers were extremely VRAM limited on PS2, and most of the time they were lowering (trading) color depth in order to run their game at higher resolution (progressive scan). As a result there's a color banding in PS2 480p games that's masked with dithering, so you can see square and dot artifacts if you look for it (for example on skybox texture in my outrun 2 photo). Xbox has worse sharpness but picture has no artifacts unlike PS2. In some 480p PS2 games dithering is noticeable that much, but in "Black"(this game has many grey textures) I can see dithering artifacts everywhere.
