General Gaming Finally somebody wrote what I've been saying for years

[XxEvil AshxX]

Faux-retro games just don't understand what it was like to play on CRT's.

[Keyser_Soze]

Oh is that really what the pixel remaster turned out to be? Like a more pixel version of the blurry crap they put out previously, and they are going to sell it again?

 

[SaysWho?]

This is a REALLY fun read and I hope more people click the link.

[Ghost_MH]

Yeah, it's really hard to explain what playing on a CRT was like for someone that's never played on a CRT. Screenshots don't accurately represents the experience. Games weren't a blurry mess and scan lines weren't really so pronounced as they are in most emulators. Instead, there was a short amount of color bleed between lines. This is because TVs were designed in such a way because people didn't want huge and pronounced scan lines cutting across everything. This led to a sort of blur kind of anti-aliasing, but it wasn't over the entire image, instead it only really extended to adjacent scan lines.

[XxEvil AshxX]

Yeah they did a much better job explaining what i never could manage. Pixel art games didn't "look" like pixel art. It just looked like art.

 

That's why i dont like pixel art games now that say "16-bit" or "8-bit" graphics... Because we didn't see them that way back then. We didn't see a collection of pixels because the crt's blurred those lines.

 

And yeah, i don't like the scan lines either because i never noticed scan lines back then (until those flat-screen progressive scan tv's) but in my opinion those looked like shit.

 

It's also like whenever they show tv footage from 1995 or before, and people are like "wow was it really that blurry and ugly?" Well, no. You're looking at a 640x480 image blown up to 1080p or 4k. On that native 640x480 crt it looked just fine.

[GameDadGrant]

It’s the same problem (to a much lesser extent) when Game Boy or Game Gear games get ported to modern systems. Big, chunky pixels abound. But that’s not what it was like on the original hardware.

 

More on topic, I prefer playing Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/Gamecube and honestly even N64 and PSOne games on my old 19” CRT. Those games just look better that way.

[Paperclyp]

I don’t think we know the specific details on these FF games tho right? They haven’t said much. 

[TwinIon]

It's a good article, and why I would rather see games that go for a pixel look just go for a high def image rather than try to re-create the CRT experience. CRTs just had a different look, and while it does seem like some of those CRT filters are doing a decent job, it's still not the same.

[Ghost_MH]

16 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I don’t think we know the specific details on these FF games tho right? They haven’t said much. 

 

We've just seen the sprites that are in that article. SE has been going back and forth with how to port the older FF games. First they redid the sprites the way they think they would have done them had they had today's technology back then. Everyone hated it, so now it looks like they've created sprites that try to emulate what the original sprites would have looked like on CRTs.

 

I think SE's efforts would be better put to use in creating a good CRT filter and maybe some QoL updates.

[Paperclyp]

2 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

We've just seen the sprites that are in that article. SE has been going back and forth with how to port the older FF games. First they redid the sprites the way they think they would have done them had they had today's technology back then. Everyone hated it, so now it looks like they've created sprites that try to emulate what the original sprites would have looked like on CRTs.

 

I think SE's efforts would be better put to use in creating a good CRT filter and maybe some QoL updates.

I think the new sprites look good so I just wanna know details of added features. 
 

These could potentially be very big releases for me. 

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

Yeah they did a much better job explaining what i never could manage. Pixel art games didn't "look" like pixel art. It just looked like art.

 

That's why i dont like pixel art games now that say "16-bit" or "8-bit" graphics... Because we didn't see them that way back then. We didn't see a collection of pixels because the crt's blurred those lines.

 

And yeah, i don't like the scan lines either because i never noticed scan lines back then (until those flat-screen progressive scan tv's) but in my opinion those looked like shit.

 

It's also like whenever they show tv footage from 1995 or before, and people are like "wow was it really that blurry and ugly?" Well, no. You're looking at a 640x480 image blown up to 1080p or 4k. On that native 640x480 crt it looked just fine.

I've been trying to explain this shit to people for so long I gave up. Folks in gaming who act like they understand how video works really have no idea. Try to explain it to them and they just roll their eyes and dismiss it. 

 

Also I NEVER understood the fascination with pixel art but that's a personal preference.

[Ghost_MH]

3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I've been trying to explain this shit to people for so long I gave up. Folks in gaming who act like they understand how video works really have no idea. Try to explain it to them and they just roll their eyes and dismiss it. 

 

Also I NEVER understood the fascination with pixel art but that's a personal preference.

 

The artwork SNK did for their games was amazing, particularly on a CRT. I can take appreciate some good pixel art, it didn't even have to be wildly high fidelity. I think Celeste and Micro Mages did a great job with their sprite work, but their games don't look like what games did when I was l growing up and playing NES games in the 80s on a CRT.

 

There's a false memory at play here thanks to emulation, gaming on LCDs, and shitty YouTube captures.

 

CRTs didn't have bigger pixels the same way people think they must have when they're in a Retina Display mindset. It also wasn't just bleed between scan lines. There was also the ghosting that occurred when the beam came back around and hit the same point on the display.

 

It's like trying to explain how the Vectrex display looks to someone that's never seen a vector monitor in person. Like no, there are no pixels. There are just lines.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

The artwork SNK did for they're games was amazing, particularly on a CRT. I can take appreciate some good pixel art, it didn't even have to be wildly high fidelity. I think Celeste and Micro Mages did a great job with their sprite work, but their games don't look like what games did when I was l growing up and playing NES games in the 80s on a CRT.

 

There's a false memory at play here thanks to emulation, gaming on LCDs, and shitty YouTube captures.

 

CRTs didn't have bigger pixels the same way people think they must have when they're in a Retina Display mindset. It also wasn't just bleed between scan lines. There was also the ghosting that occurred when the rest came back around and hit the same point on the display.

 

It's like trying to explain how the Vectrex display looks to someone that's never seen a vector monitor in person. Like no, there are no pixels. There are just lines.

Agreed about SNK. They and Capcom especially did some great stuff with pixel art back in the day. Good point

[Kal-El814]

On 6/28/2021 at 3:50 PM, Ghost_MH said:

It's like trying to explain how the Vectrex display looks to someone that's never seen a vector monitor in person. Like no, there are no pixels. There are just lines.

 

This is a good comparison. Every now and again at the PAX retro arcade someone fires up a Vectrex and their head explodes.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[XxEvil AshxX]

Now I want to get my hands on a CRT. Are there any companies that still make them?

[best3444]

1 hour ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

Now I want to get my hands on a CRT. Are there any companies that still make them?

 

I used to have badass 35" CRT tv. Weighed 1K pounds.

[XxEvil AshxX]

7 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I used to have badass 35" CRT tv. Weighed 1K pounds.

 

I had a 27" Quasar that sat in my living room from around '82 till I graduated high school in '98. I left it at home when i moved and bought a Curtis Mathes that held out until it crapped out around 2005 or so when the 360 came out. Because of "HD" I upgraded to a 32" LCD but still cranked up that Quasar whenever i went back home. It saw Mario and Duck Hunt, Super Castlevania and Contra III. We played NBA Jam and Super Bomberman 2 tournaments, along with Street Fighter II. It beat Final Fantasy 3, then FFVII thru X. Resident Evil 1-4, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo 3, Ghost Recon Island Thunder, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Halo, and for a very brief time ESIV Oblivion and Call of Duty 2.

 

I needed an RF adapter for everything because Compsite cables weren't a thing when it was made. Just two screws for the UHF and two for the VHF. I had to put it on channel 3 because 4 was an actual tv station.

 

When it finally died i gave that thing a funeral. It wasn't a tv it was a family member.

[crispy4000]

For me it’s the question of if I’d rather use a crt filter or a good softening filter (usually some combination of things in Retroarch).  I almost always choose the latter, when I can.

 

Raw pixels aren’t good.  But some people are so dogmatic about scanlines that they don’t see the fault in them.

 

[Ghost_MH]

8 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

Now I want to get my hands on a CRT. Are there any companies that still make them?

 

You can almost always find a free CRT or two on like Craigslist.

 

2 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

For me it’s the question of if I’d rather use a crt filter or a good softening filter (usually some combination of things in Retroarch).  I almost always choose the latter, when I can.

 

Raw pixels aren’t good.  But some people are so dogmatic about scanlines that they don’t see the fault in them.

 

 

The best filter I've found on RetroArch is CRT Royale. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot closer than most other filters.

[XxEvil AshxX]

You would think with AI Upscaling and such we could get some kind of Anti-aliasing AI that ever so slightly blurs between pixels just enough to give the illusion.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

You can almost always find a free CRT or two on like Craigslist.

 

 

The best filter I've found on RetroArch is CRT Royale. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot closer than most other filters.

I’ve come up with a combo one I like better than any of the defaults.  Will share when I’m back from vacation.

[AbsolutSurgen]

 

[Kal-El814]

This is one of those topics where I feel like those people who can't tell the difference between SD and HD movies/TV.

 

In still shots like the ones posted here, I can of course see the difference. And if I was sitting next to a CRT and an OLED both running something like Final Fantasy Vi, I could absolutely tell the difference.

 

But when I'm playing a pixel art game on a modern display I just don't notice, even if it's a game like FF VI that I've played a million times and recognize very well.

[crispy4000]

On 7/2/2021 at 6:35 PM, Ghost_MH said:

The best filter I've found on RetroArch is CRT Royale. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot closer than most other filters.

Forgot to respond to this, but better late than never.  These are my settings.  It's convoluted, but does a nice job preserving the art & avoiding the pixelated look, without going too far with the smearing.

[Xbob42]

Funny thing is, I think the Pixel Remasters, which is what ignited this whole thing, turned out fantastic and look great. Certainly leagues better than the impressions I got from the bland trailers.

[Nokt]

I have no issues with something like FFVI pixel remaster not matching what it felt like to play on a CRT. I much like Kal-el wouldn't really notice a difference (or care) unless they were presented to me at the same time. I do get why people would want that CRT filter because it does look better.

 

As far as I can tell the pixels in those comparisons match up, my assumption is that developers don't care to replicate the CRT experience or its too costly.

 

 

[Littleronin]

I really wish these releases (while I respect the keeping with pixel art) were more done in the PSP FF I and 2 style. 

[Keyser_Soze]

@XxEvil AshxX

 

Looks like there is a twitter account that does nothing but post comparison shots of a CRT and raw pixel image

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]