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Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!

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Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Peltz said:
Now, we have more variety in video games than ever before.
Click to expand...

More variety, but disproportionately more tepid, unpolished experiences. I mean, I know it's subjective, but I look at indie games these days, which is supposedly where all of the ideas are these days, and it's like they all conspired to come up with precisely one idea, and then build a game that shouts "hey, look at this one thing I came up with! Watch as the mechanics wear thin in 10 minutes!" Yeah, there's Shovel Knight, but that's always been the exception to the rule.


I blame the Framemeister.
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
Gotta agree with Pletz. XBLA alone was amazing for me. Any gen that gave us Pac-Man CE and Spelunky can NOT have sucked.

And no, I don't game on PC and never will.
 
R

Rich!

Member
RadarScope1 said:
And no, I don't game on PC and never will.
Click to expand...

Why not? If it's the keyboard mouse and desk situation, that doesn't have to be the case - my PC is small, hooked up to my 55" TV, boots immediately into steam big picture mode and syncs automatically to my Dualshock 4 and Wii U pro controller.

PC gaming has offered me consistently the best gaming experiences over the past few years for the best prices.
 
SOME-MIST

SOME-MIST

Member
Rich! said:
I stand by my opinion that this is the worst generation I've experienced since I started gaming in 1994.

The xbone and ps4 offer nothing new. The hardware, games, selling points are all so dull and utterly bland. At least with the last gen you had the jump to HD and the crazy shit Nintendo pulled off with the Wii. This generation is just...shit. What is there on the xbone and PS4 that my PC cannot offer, at a cheaper price? Where's the new and innovative experiences? Is there anything the two consoles offer that couldn't have been done before to an extent?

And besides that, AAA gaming of today is something I cannot stand. Fuck all these "cinematic" experiences that try to emulate big budget movies, but with shit tier writing and direction. And shit gameplay.

oldmanshoutsatcloud.jpg
Click to expand...
not exactly new, but PS4 is getting a port of dangun feveron which is huge since it's never been ported before... which also means that if it's a solid port (it should be since it's by m2) I would feel more comfortable with getting rid of my PCB. there's always mame, but it doesn't feel nearly as authentic.

I'm also really excited to nab a physical version of wild guns reloaded.
 
P

PumpkinSpice

Banned
Rich! said:
I stand by my opinion that this is the worst generation I've experienced since I started gaming in 1994.

The xbone and ps4 offer nothing new. The hardware, games, selling points are all so dull and utterly bland. At least with the last gen you had the jump to HD and the crazy shit Nintendo pulled off with the Wii. This generation is just...shit. What is there on the xbone and PS4 that my PC cannot offer, at a cheaper price? Where's the new and innovative experiences? Is there anything the two consoles offer that couldn't have been done before to an extent?

And besides that, AAA gaming of today is something I cannot stand. Fuck all these "cinematic" experiences that try to emulate big budget movies, but with shit tier writing and direction. And shit gameplay.

oldmanshoutsatcloud.jpg
Click to expand...

Mega said:
Nothing new. You look at how different physical media, audio chips and graphical capabilities were between Genesis, SNES, PC Engine and Neo Geo were... that's exciting. That ended with the PS3 and 360. People fight over 900p vs 1080p and 27fps vs 30fps. So boring. The consoles now, more than ever, are budget PC derivatives. They're literally lower-spec, walled computers. Their most exciting aspect is indie developer support, and that pales next to what you can get on a PC with Steam and GOG.

AAA gaming has bothered me for a long time for the exact reasons you cited. The plot, scripts and acting in "cinematic" video games are the equivalent of February movies with 15% Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% but maybe move it to RetroGAF Unite, the official topic for complaining about the current state of games.
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
Rich! said:
Why not? If it's the keyboard mouse and desk situation, that doesn't have to be the case - my PC is small, hooked up to my 55" TV, boots immediately into steam big picture mode and syncs automatically to my Dualshock 4 and Wii U pro controller.

PC gaming has offered me consistently the best gaming experiences over the past few years for the best prices.
Click to expand...

Don't have a space to set it up. I'm also quite cursed and very easily frustrated when it comes to technology. Even Macs (have a MPB right now) tend to piss me off.
 
P

Peltz

Member
Chacranajxy said:
More variety, but disproportionately more tepid, unpolished experiences. I mean, I know it's subjective, but I look at indie games these days, which is supposedly where all of the ideas are these days, and it's like they all conspired to come up with precisely one idea, and then build a game that shouts "hey, look at this one thing I came up with! Watch as the mechanics wear thin in 10 minutes!" Yeah, there's Shovel Knight, but that's always been the exception to the rule.


I blame the Framemeister.
Click to expand...

Rocket League? Towerfall? Skullgirls? The Witness?

Sir, some indie games are every bit as good as anything that came from any studio in previous generations. Yes there are tons of crappy indie games. But there are tons of crappy games on all platforms.

Great games of all types are the exception, not the rule. Most games suck on all platforms and we tend to disproportionately remember the classics as being representative.
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Peltz said:
Rocket League? Towerfall? Skullgirls? The Witness?

Sir, some indie games are every bit as good as anything that came from any studio in previous generations. Yes there are tons of crappy indie games. But there are tons of crappy games on all platforms.

Great games of all types are the exception, not the rule. Most games suck on all platforms and we tend to disproportionately remember the classics as being representative.
Click to expand...

(Should probably actually move this to the retrogaf thread after this, but yeah.)

That's kinda the hang-up for me. Rocket League is cool. Skullgirls looks hideous to me, and isn't terribly fun to play. Towerfall is alright-ish, but the aesthetics still feel Ouya-as-hell. The Witness is just pretentious. Dunno, I guess my standards might just be really high. I'm not willing to give indies the benefit of the doubt just for being small studios.
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
I am definitely on the "modern gaming sucks"-team, and dont even own a PS4 or Xbox One, simply because I think most AAA-games on those platform looks like they are more concerned by looking good/telling a crappy story than playing good. However, indie-games, Nintendo and the Souls-series are modern stuff that does appeal to me alot. So its not all doom and gloom. I will say that i probably ise 90% of my gaming time on retro games though.
 
T

Timu

Member
Rich! said:
Why not? If it's the keyboard mouse and desk situation, that doesn't have to be the case - my PC is small, hooked up to my 55" TV, boots immediately into steam big picture mode and syncs automatically to my Dualshock 4 and Wii U pro controller.

PC gaming has offered me consistently the best gaming experiences over the past few years for the best prices.
Click to expand...
Yes, PC gaming rules!!!
 
M

Madao

Member
i'm in the group that is torn between retro games and modern games.

i see myself into both kinds of games most of the time. one day i could be playing on N64, the next on Wii U, the next a GBA game on VC, the next a 3DS game, the next a GC game on Wii, etc.
that's one reason why i try to converge all consoles on the same setup. i use games from so many gens that it's more convenient to have all of them on one place.
also, i don't like the modern cinematic trends either. i still lean toward nintendo games mostly and a few key games that make me buy a specific console (got a PS3 for the Jojo game since there were no ports and again with the PS4 and the sequel to the Jojo game)

my backlog is big enough that i don't really need a ton of games and, since i play old ones often, having a massive library isn't much of a problem, that's why i don't mind the wii U's small library. sure, it'd have been better of the console didn't bomb so horribly but i've got enough games to be happy with owning one (plus, it seems like it will be the end of an era and the Wii U will be very useful for years with the NX not having BC and all if rumors pan out)

i think my only foray into PC gaming was playing AM2R the other day. basically, my PC is more like a work tool and i never used it for gaming.
 
Y

YesManKablam

Member
Woohoo. I found someone in my town selling a NTSC PS1 and I managed to get it for next to nothing. System is in great quality too. RGB cables have been ordered and I can't wait.
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Madao said:
i'm in the group that is torn between retro games and modern games.

i see myself into both kinds of games most of the time. one day i could be playing on N64, the next on Wii U, the next a GBA game on VC, the next a 3DS game, the next a GC game on Wii, etc.
that's one reason why i try to converge all consoles on the same setup. i use games from so many gens that it's more convenient to have all of them on one place.
also, i don't like the modern cinematic trends either. i still lean toward nintendo games mostly and a few key games that make me buy a specific console (got a PS3 for the Jojo game since there were no ports and again with the PS4 and the sequel to the Jojo game)

my backlog is big enough that i don't really need a ton of games and, since i play old ones often, having a massive library isn't much of a problem, that's why i don't mind the wii U's small library. sure, it'd have been better of the console didn't bomb so horribly but i've got enough games to be happy with owning one (plus, it seems like it will be the end of an era and the Wii U will be very useful for years with the NX not having BC and all if rumors pan out)

i think my only foray into PC gaming was playing AM2R the other day. basically, my PC is more like a work tool and i never used it for gaming.
Click to expand...

What is this Jojo-game?
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Rich! said:
Repost from the setup thread....


rWhLGLp.jpg
Click to expand...

A bit late, but I just wonder what settings you use on your tv and the framemeister in this picture. Super Mario World just looks so bright and colourful here, but when I try to gain a similar look, it ends up looking kinda less natural? I dont know, maybe its just my (admitedly cheap) TV that sucks, but would at least be interested in trying out your settings.
 
R

Rich!

Member
Morfeo said:
A bit late, but I just wonder what settings you use on your tv and the framemeister in this picture. Super Mario World just looks so bright and colourful here, but when I try to gain a similar look, it ends up looking kinda less natural? I dont know, maybe its just my (admitedly cheap) TV that sucks, but would at least be interested in trying out your settings.
Click to expand...

Well, I have to say I was disappointed when I set up my xrgb last week. Everything was muted and darker than it should be. And I don't remember it being that way when I last bought one

So I messed around in the menu. Turns out there's an HDMI setting in the framemeister menu that fixes it - but I can't remember which one it actually was. The display is bright, colourful and clear as day now though
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Rich! said:
Well, I have to say I was disappointed when I set up my xrgb last week. Everything was muted and darker than it should be. And I don't remember it being that way when I last bought one

So I messed around in the menu. Turns out there's an HDMI setting in the framemeister menu that fixes it - but I can't remember which one it actually was. The display is bright, colourful and clear as day now though
Click to expand...

This is probably what I am looking for. But I was actually able to get a picture that was quite similar by calibrating my tv itself. First, i turned off game-mode (which on my tv makes it darker), and made it possible to increase color depth. I also did something that i have no idea what means, but it is called "rgb gain" and it was set to a middle number on red, green and blue. When i increased them all to maximum, my tv got way brighter and it looked much better imo. But yeah, would definitely be preferable to find that HDMI-setting you found.

Edit: Here we go:
7kOh3TS.jpg
Click to expand...

Still nowhere near as bright as your picture. Especially noticable in those white mountains and clouds.
 
P

Peagles

Member
Morfeo said:
This is probably what I am looking for. But I was actually able to get a picture that was quite similar by calibrating my tv itself. First, i turned off game-mode (which on my tv makes it darker), and made it possible to increase color depth. I also did something that i have no idea what means, but it is called "rgb gain" and it was set to a middle number on red, green and blue. When i increased them all to maximum, my tv got way brighter and it looked much better imo. But yeah, would definitely be preferable to find that HDMI-setting you found.

Edit: Here we go:

Still nowhere near as bright as your picture. Especially noticable in those white mountains and clouds.
Click to expand...

You may find this helpful if you're on the latest firmware. I'm sure they also exist for older firmware versions too.
 
P

Peltz

Member
Morfeo said:
This is probably what I am looking for. But I was actually able to get a picture that was quite similar by calibrating my tv itself. First, i turned off game-mode (which on my tv makes it darker), and made it possible to increase color depth. I also did something that i have no idea what means, but it is called "rgb gain" and it was set to a middle number on red, green and blue. When i increased them all to maximum, my tv got way brighter and it looked much better imo. But yeah, would definitely be preferable to find that HDMI-setting you found.

Edit: Here we go:

Still nowhere near as bright as your picture. Especially noticable in those white mountains and clouds.
Click to expand...

Those scanlines are all fucked up. Your HDTV is scaling the image improperly.

What is the model of your TV?
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Peltz said:
Those scanlines are all fucked up. Your HDTV is scaling the image improperly.

What is the model of your TV?
Click to expand...

Indeed. Ive finally started experimenting with scanlines this evening, and the result is not pleasing to say the least. I have a Philips 50" tv in the 3000-line, so its not exactly top of the line, but it has worked fine until i started experimenting with scanlines. Would definitely love some advice on what settings to tweak if somebody else has a similar tv!

Edit: One of the worst things about this tv is that there are not that many tweaks possible, but here we go:

In the picture menu I have:
Mode - I normally use Game-mode, however, the weakness with game-mode is that when enabled it doesnt let me tweak a lot of the other settings, so right now i have it at "sports" so i can customise.
Contrast - this is at max which is 63
Brightness - this is slightly below middle (30)
Sharpness - slightly above middle (20)
Colour - i just turned this pretty high when i tried to emulate RIchs clean picture, so its now 50, which is about 4/5 of the way.
Power Save Mode - disabled
Backlight - high
Noise Reduction - off

Then Advanced Picture Settings:
Dynamic Contrast - off
Colour Temp - normal
Picture Zoom - full
Film Mode - off
Skin Tone - i have this at default which is in the middle
Colour Shift - same here
RGB Gain - i just upped this from middle to max on all three colours to get that brightness that Rich was having.
HDMI True Black - this is no on.

And thats the settings i can tweak on my tv proper.
 
P

Peagles

Member
Looks like the typical 1080p scanlines (uneven). I believe this can be remedied with certain settings/downloading a premade profile (from FBX for example) to get them working properly.
 
N

NormalFish

Banned
Pixed pixel displays need appropriate pixel counts to accommodate scanlines. Unfortunately, the mini doesn't scale scanlines appropriately at 1080p, so you get weird disproportionate scanlines even with proper scaling. if scalines are a focus for you, then use 720p.

Wait, you're getting those uneven scanlines at 720p? Your settings are fucked.
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Hmm ok, what I did was just follow this advice from this thread a few days ago:

SheepyGuy said:
If you run on 720 and use some of the auto settings you don't really need extreme profiles. Set SYNC_MODE to AUTO, AUTO_SCALER to GAME (VIDEO for 480), and IMAGE_MODE to PICTURE (MOVIE/NATURAL for interlaced) and you're good.
Click to expand...

But i guess there is something else I need to do?
 
M

Madao

Member
Morfeo said:
I dont think it does when Im using the "full picture" setting.
Click to expand...

have you compared with 16:9?

there was one TV in my house where the fuctions of "full picture" and "16:9" were swapped. meaning that 16:9 would actually give me 1:1 pixels and full picture would be zoomed. it was pretty weird.
 
M

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Madao said:
have you compared with 16:9?

there was one TV in my house where the fuctions of "full picture" and "16:9" were swapped. meaning that 16:9 would actually give me 1:1 pixels and full picture would be zoomed. it was pretty weird.
Click to expand...

I'll check this again tomorrow, but I am pretty certain that it is not swapped on my tv and that full picture i actually full. Really weird that there exists tvs that are different though, guess you can never know with these manufacturers.
 
S

SKINNER!

Banned
Curious to know if anyone had experienced this.

Was at a friend's place and he has been having an issue with getting to play NTSC N64 games on his toshiba LCD HDTV through a S-Video cable. His TV doesn't have an S-video port so he uses one of those S-Video Scart adaptors. Using a PAL console on the S-Video Scart source channel he can - obviously - play PAL games with no issues but when I tried my NTSC game the colours didn't look right at all. There was a lot of purple from what I recalled. Seemed stranged. We thought it was the scart adapter so we tried it on his old tiny CRT television in the garage and it was able to display the NTSC colours perfectly.

Anyone experienced this on their HDTV? If so, any idea why?
 
P

Peltz

Member
Sounds like that input is configured to only handle PAL sources.

Are you using the same s-video to SCART setup for the NTSC console?
 
B

Barrel Cannon

Member
Saw SF2 Hyper fighting on a custom arcade my friend owns this past saturday. The game looked so marvelous. I was surprised by how clean the game looked and I was marveling at the sprite work of E. Honda.
 
K

Khaz

Member
shorty_symd said:
Nah, I'm not using an NTSC console at all. Don't have one. We're using an NTSC game converter on a PAL console.
Click to expand...

Your TV must not like NTSC encoding then. Have you tried other inputs, like Composite, Component, with an NTSC source?
It's surprising for a modern TV not to accept both colour encoding. Maybe there is a hidden option in the service menu to change the region of the TV, but that's quite impractical to switch for every game change.
 
S

SKINNER!

Banned
Khaz said:
Your TV must not like NTSC encoding then. Have you tried other inputs, like Composite, Component, with an NTSC source?

It's surprising for a modern TV not to accept both colour encoding. Maybe there is a hidden option in the service menu to change the region of the TV, but that's quite impractical to switch for every game change.
Click to expand...

It does for RGB Scart. We played NTSC Sega Genesis games no problem at all. I have not tried composite but I figured it wouldn't be much different to S Video via Scart. The manual *claims* that S-Video via SCART is compatible with NTSC 60.

Yeah pretty surprising man. Perhaps there is a setting in the service menu but we didn't find the correct instructions to access it online. Oh well.
 
K

Khaz

Member
shorty_symd said:
It does for RGB Scart. We played NTSC Sega Genesis games no problem at all. I have not tried composite but I figured it wouldn't be much different to S Video via Scart. The manual *claims* that S-Video via SCART is compatible with NTSC 60.

Yeah pretty surprising man. Perhaps there is a setting in the service menu but we didn't find the correct instructions to access it online. Oh well.
Click to expand...

Nah, RGB works because it's not encoded, only the refresh rate changes. Composite, SVideo and Component are encoded so that everything can fit in a single wire. NTSC and PAL have different incompatible Chroma encoding. Often what happens when a TV made for a region receives a signal made for another is that it only displays the Luma (B&W) part of it, which isn't encoded and common to both standards. Sometimes a TV can display a foreign encoding only on a specific input, but that was mainly for older sets, or so I thought.

Lots of purple looks like on the PS2 whenever RGB or Component is selected in the menu but the other cable is used. Purple for one combo, green for the other iirc.

Keep looking in the menus, try to find the service menu, maybe something is deactivated somewhere. Call Toshiba directly or the place where you bought it (any number on your manual), maybe the whole range was misconfigured: the last TV I bought was configured for use in Eastern Europe with only Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and other weird alphabets were selectable, with no trace of English or any other western languages. The seller laughed at my incompetence when I explained my problem at the shop, but when I called customer service they had me go deep into the service menu to change stuff and get western languages. They had loads of complaints and they just fucked up at the factory.

[Edit] waitaminute I don't see PAL60 in the manual. Probably an oversight, but there is a possibility the decoding is based on the refresh rate, ie assumes that anything 50Hz is PAL and anything 60Hz is NTSC. The PAL console with an American game would still output PAL, but at a faster 60HZ? I don't know much about the N64 but that's how I'm assuming it should work. Call the helpdesk, but don't give them that info directly. PAL60 is a thing (in Brazil), so TVs should manage.
 
NOLA_Gaffer

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
That reminds me that I'll have to start up my thrift shop visits again. Looks like Pro-level CRTs just don't exist out here so I'll have to see what I can find secondhand on the consumer-level.
 
Y

YesManKablam

Member
Vespa said:
I think we have the same phono amp! Some tips from Mega on photographing a crt.

Are you getting scanlines? What do you think of the Scart cable compared to the composite?
Click to expand...

Oh thanks, those are some really good tips. I'll have to try them out later.

The amp is a godsend really. I've had it for like a year and a half and only realised that it takes RCA in, cause I was only ever using it as a USB DAC/AMP.

The RGB cable hasn't arrived yet but on the topic of scanlines, they're there and they're beautiful. PAL seems to have more lines, but they're thinner and more spread out while NTSC they're nice and chunky. That's why I couldn't really tell the difference before when I used FF6.
 
K

Khaz

Member
What's the amp?

I'm using a 2 x 100W from Sure Electronics, though I was quite clueless about audio amplification when I bought it. It just had the input and output I needed in a smaller size and big numbers like 100W, without being overly expensive. I had some trouble finding an amp this size that did both speakers and headphones for some reason. So far I've only used it with headphones though, and it sounds... cool? No interferences or suspect sounds. I'm no audiophile lol.
 
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