Why the LCD TV hate?

[honkey]

I have found one thing I do not like about the LCD since I posted this topic. Games with a lot of flashiness are REALLY bright when the lights are flashing. Street Fighter 3 has what I am talking about in the intro. It doesn't happen with any games I have tested during the game itself, but flashy intros can be hard to look at.

[Corbo]

My last full sized cabinet had an original Hantarex CRT.  It cost me £15 to get a TV engineer to fit a new cap kit and it was as good as new.  As others have said the combination of the correct aspect ratio, the natural aliasing, the authentic pixel size, the smell of the old girl working away and even the static that made your chest hair stand on end just added to the authentic arcade feeling.

Eventually that gave up the ghost and I decased and replaced it with a regular 4:3 CRT TV with a modified scart adapter and an arcadeVGA card.  It was just as good, and there are hundred of thousands of good CRT TV's out there for peanuts.  If I was making a full size cab again I'd use a CRT TV.

I am however going to have to go and investigate these CRT emulation features mentioned in this thread, they sound great and I really hope they can provide an authentic feel.

[Gray_Area]

...the smell of the old girl working away and even the static that made your chest hair stand on end just added to the authentic arcade feeling.

Down boy.

Not sure what version of mame added it - buy check the mame devs logs, should be easy to find.  HLSL would not really be useful, or desirable, on a CRT, as the purpose is to simulate CRT effects.

HLSL looks good on any hi-res (I mean 1024x768 and up) monitor, LCD or CRT. I use it on my PC CRT. I use it on my 1024x768 presentation monitor. Both look great. The presentation monitor looks better.

I've found that messing with the settings screws up rendering, desktop resolution relative to game resolution. That is, you have to create inis for each resolution. So I only add scanlines (scanline_alpha 1.0), and 1:1 aspect is maintained for (nearly) all games. (The exception, depending on desktop resolution/aspect ration, is 224x256 or 224x288 run on a horizontal oriented monitor.)

As for LCDs in themselves (and even plasmas, though they're better), is the backlighting. As they say: 'once you go black.....'.....um, well, you know.

[D_Harris]

My last full sized cabinet had an original Hantarex CRT.  It cost me £15 to get a TV engineer to fit a new cap kit and it was as good as new.  As others have said the combination of the correct aspect ratio, the natural aliasing, the authentic pixel size, the smell of the old girl working away and even the static that made your chest hair stand on end just added to the authentic arcade feeling.

Eventually that gave up the ghost and I decased and replaced it with a regular 4:3 CRT TV with a modified scart adapter and an arcadeVGA card.  It was just as good, and there are hundred of thousands of good CRT TV's out there for peanuts.  If I was making a full size cab again I'd use a CRT TV.

I am however going to have to go and investigate these CRT emulation features mentioned in this thread, they sound great and I really hope they can provide an authentic feel.

I guess that the "authentic feel" is what it's about.

Overall the only advantage I see in LCDs is that the are lighter and have a smaller foot print.

If you've seen an HD LCD and HD CRT side by side you'd know that the LCD is not "better".

The biggest advantage of having a CRT over an LCD is that the CRTs last longer. the two CRT sets I've gotten rid of were just too small for me. (13"). But outside of an audio problem, which could have easily been repaired, they gave me no problems and lasted over 20 years. I'd have to buy at least 1/2 dozen LCDs in that time period.(And that's a conservative estimate). Of course I will have to put up with the scratches(in those extremely fragile screens) and other issues which will undoubtedly arise.

I actually just cannibalized a couple of TV CRTs for use with a couple of my arcade game monitors that have tubes with too much burn-in.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[VanillaGorilla]

HLSL has been in MAME for 2 release cycles thus far, since .143. The latest MAME .144 has a stable and dependable implementation of the HLSL additions. Avoid the .143b release, its buggy. If you compile, you want .143u8 or higher.

Re: resource consumption - Your pre-scale values are going to affect this the most. I pr-escale 5x-6x on older 320x240 games such as Pac Man, Donkey Kong etc, but a game like Venture will totally choke with that much pre scaling. Pre scaling has an appearance effect, so higher values will give you a nice crisp image with good 'pixel jaggies' at high resolution, in certain situations that may not be desirable, and the more blurred or smudged look that lower pre scaling values cause may be preferred (also in the case of Venture, not only is it waaay faster, but looks better with lower pre-scale values(3-4) than higher values(5+). I am also using a 1920x1200 display so upscaling from 320x240 requires a higher value if I want 'square, sharp' pixels. (320x6 = 1920, 240x5 = 1200). if you match the scaling factor with your displays native resolution, it looks very much like running the old directDraw implementation without any effects, not the D3D implementation which is very 'smudgy' looking. Instead, you get Big Chunky Pixels (TM) with D3D now using the pre-scaling option.

[boardjunkie]

CRT *monitors* should all be within a small margin of each other. Maybe the uber giant home theatre type TVs with big audio amps/spkrs would draw considerably more, but that would be due to the audio mostly. Larger tubes really don't differ too much in pwr requirements. The only real difference being the HV second anode supply needs to be of a higher voltage, but there's no current there.

[danny_galaga]

LCD all the way for me.  I'm praying for all my remaining CRTs to die so I can get rid of them.

[danny_galaga]

My main reservation with LCD is the viewing angle for cocktail cabs. Also, with cocktail cabs, 16:9 just looks pretty crap to me.

In regards CRT's, dunno about elsewhere, but in Australia, people are still putting out their old CRT tellies on the nature strip for hard rubbish collection. Many of them work fine, and are instantly the perfect thing for old consoles. Also, there is a guy here who makes custom arcade chassis for CRT TV's. You tell him what make and model, and for something like $130 he'll send you a chassis. Even in most of the broken TV's, the tube is still fine. So for $130 or so (don't know what the current price is) you have a perfectly fine alternative to a commercial arcade CRT.

Having said all that, if I build another mame cab, it'll be an upright and I'll relent and get an LCD. All the mucking around with graphics cards and settings for an arcade monitor is just a tad too technical for me. I'll just make a bezel that hides the superfluous edges so and run the games in 4:3...

[opt2not]

...I kinda like seeing what the sprites actually looked like when designed.

imho, when designed, they would have been designed by an "artist" staring at a CRT.... so the blur, colour bleeding, and all that went into the original design.  In another thread I recall reading that some sprites were designed with pink pixels and such.  The end result does not show the pink as neighbouring pixels bleed colours together.  So, if this is true, to see the way it was designed, you would need a CRT (perhaps even a real arcade crt, not just a tv or other type).

otoh, looking at these games on a high res LCD without HLSL effects does give a very crisp look at things.  I was set up that way for a while and didn't mind it at all, but some guests complained

^^ This.

Also, CRTs last longer.

[Jack Burton]

I suppose I should just outright answer the OP.  Why I "hate" LCD's:


-They have input delay

-They are not available in 4:3 ratio.

-The graphics don't look right on them.

Of course, each of these points may be easily refuted to one degree or another.  But in a nutshell, that's it. 

[Paul Olson]

Having said all that, if I build another mame cab, it'll be an upright and I'll relent and get an LCD. All the mucking around with graphics cards and settings for an arcade monitor is just a tad too technical for me. I'll just make a bezel that hides the superfluous edges so and run the games in 4:3...

You should be able to put those edges to good use. The lay files for the artwork should be able to edited to make better use of that space. I say should because I haven't had time to try it, but it should be fairly easy to do. I hope to start playing with it a bit before the end of the year, but I need to build a new cab first. Well, if it stays cold out, maybe I will work on the lay files instead.

[nitz]

All I gotta say is, the HLSL feature thats been added to MAME/MESS is blowing me away. I just sit there and look at Pac Man on my LCD now, and mutter to myself 'that looks so f'ing awesome', this is what I have been waiting for in MAME for 15 years. CRT's will become superfluous as this filter tech advances.

+1 This pretty much sums things up for me. I got an LCD for my (still unfinished ) project almost 3 years ago. I went LCD because I wanted a light monitor for rotation and an easy plug and play solution. But it always bugged me a little that I didn't go with something more authentic. Until the HLSL feature was added to Mame. Now I simply see no reason to use a CRT - tweak HLSL just right and put it behind some smoked plexi, and I think it's gonna look damn near perfect. Nothing wrong with wanting to go absolutely authentic and get a real CRT, but honestly, it just doesn't seem necessary anymore unless you're someone who absolutely MUST have 100% authenticity. I'm willing to trade what is now a teensy bit of authenticity for a super easy solution.

I suppose I should just outright answer the OP.  Why I "hate" LCD's:


-They have input delay

-They are not available in 4:3 ratio.

-The graphics don't look right on them.

Of course, each of these points may be easily refuted to one degree or another.  But in a nutshell, that's it. 

I do hear ya on the no 4:3 ratio though. This is the only thing that really bugs me about LCDs, especially for a cab. To get about the equivalent of a 25" 4:3 you've gotta go 32" 16:9 which means your cab is gonna be in the neighborhood of 28"-29" wide even if you decase. That sucks. That's why I'm going rotating monitor in my cab.

I will refute your other 2 points to some degree though!

I think it's only TVs that have lag, not computer monitors, though someone please correct me if I'm wrong, because I only fairly recently learned about the lag problem on TVs. And I believe you can get TVs where the lag isn't a problem, but you've gotta do your homework before you buy.

As far as the graphics not looking right, well, that's what HLSL fixes. But this comes from someone who was too young to be there during the classics era, so if you grew up on the CRTs, I could understand why you would want to replicate that as much as humanly possible. I want to replicate that as much as possible too - only I'd like to use an LCD to do it.

You should be able to put those edges to good use. The lay files for the artwork should be able to edited to make better use of that space.

Actually, I think you need a special Mame compile, see here: http://mrdo.mameworld.info/mame_artwork_generic.html

Unfortunately, you need to use something older than 0.140, so no HLSL then.

[jekbrown]

In not a single moment of my 32 years of gaming in arcades and at home, have I once gave a crap that a games graphics were blurry CRT crap OR the crisp display of a modern HDTV.  It's ALL about the game play, that's all that matters.  Blury color-bleed-laden low res wouldn't help HALO.....nor would ultra-crispness "hurt" black and white space invaders.  Not for me anyway.  I realize other people disagree, and that's just fine.  My next cab will have an LCD, because it's lighter, more flexible with respect to cabinet design and simple-as-all-get-out to connect to a modern PC that will be the brain of the system.  I might fiddle with filters at some point, but I doubt I'll ever put much time in it.  The priority is reproducing the game play, after that everything else is just backround noise.

[danny_galaga]

You should be able to put those edges to good use. The lay files for the artwork should be able to edited to make better use of that space.

Actually, I think you need a special Mame compile, see here: http://mrdo.mameworld.info/mame_artwork_generic.html

Unfortunately, you need to use something older than 0.140, so no HLSL then.

Now see, that gets (to me) more complicated again. If I have to compile anything, or use something that doesn't just work 'out of the box' then I might as well get a TV and arcade chassis kit . If it's going to be a hassle, might as well make it a bit more genuine (",)

[Paul Olson]

It doesn't require a compile, but it would definitely require a lot of work. Ideally, it would turn into a project to modify the lay files that are included in the artwork files. It just requires that a new view is added to the lay file, and of course new images if needed. It would be great if they could be added to the official artwork files, but I don't know how that team would feel about it. It is a lot of work since this is per game, but I imagine the popular games would be the ones that are most likely to get done.

The views we have now were all made for us by the artwork team. It would take a dedicated effort to make the views for widescreen, but those who want to do it could share their work with everyone else.


All it would add is one view in the list in the tab menu, so it is just an additional option for those with widescreens. Below is a really quick view I did just to show the concept. All I did was move the game screen and bezel over, and add in a cocktail instruction card that was used in another view. It is just adding a view (or views if you want to have different style options) to an XML file.

That generic artwork one was modifying a built in lay file, so it needed to be recompiled since those lay files are located in the source. The lay files in the artwork zips are outside of mame, so no compile is needed.

[Paul Olson]

It is easy to add new images as well. Of course I would prefer the game be centered, but this is OK for an example I think.


Edit at 12:30: Still playing.

[Jack Burton]

I do hear ya on the no 4:3 ratio though. This is the only thing that really bugs me about LCDs, especially for a cab. To get about the equivalent of a 25" 4:3 you've gotta go 32" 16:9 which means your cab is gonna be in the neighborhood of 28"-29" wide even if you decase. That sucks. That's why I'm going rotating monitor in my cab.

I will refute your other 2 points to some degree though!

I think it's only TVs that have lag, not computer monitors, though someone please correct me if I'm wrong, because I only fairly recently learned about the lag problem on TVs. And I believe you can get TVs where the lag isn't a problem, but you've gotta do your homework before you buy.

As far as the graphics not looking right, well, that's what HLSL fixes. But this comes from someone who was too young to be there during the classics era, so if you grew up on the CRTs, I could understand why you would want to replicate that as much as humanly possible. I want to replicate that as much as possible too - only I'd like to use an LCD to do it.

HLSL is still just another kind of filter and does reproduce the image from a CRT.  It is nice though.  Not sure I'd use it.  I think I would be more inclined to just let the image from an LCD be what it is and play in blocky mode.  

LCD monitors can have input delay.  The older ones especially.  Additionally, even the best ones still have miniscule amounts.  Enough to alter gameplay?  Unlikely, but enough to cause me to steer clear of them.

[Jack Burton]

In not a single moment of my 32 years of gaming in arcades and at home, have I once gave a crap that a games graphics were blurry CRT crap OR the crisp display of a modern HDTV.  It's ALL about the game play, that's all that matters.  Blury color-bleed-laden low res wouldn't help HALO.....nor would ultra-crispness "hurt" black and white space invaders.  Not for me anyway.  I realize other people disagree, and that's just fine.  My next cab will have an LCD, because it's lighter, more flexible with respect to cabinet design and simple-as-all-get-out to connect to a modern PC that will be the brain of the system.  I might fiddle with filters at some point, but I doubt I'll ever put much time in it.  The priority is reproducing the game play, after that everything else is just backround noise.

If all that matters to you is the gameplay then you're going to want to pay attention to your monitors and your video modes.

You used space invaders as an example.  That's a shmup.  Those types of games are notorious for requiring pixel perfect spacing at the highest levels of play. 

Well, let's say you fired up MAME in whatever random resolution your desktop is configured for and switched to full screen. 

Now your screen has been scaled, and then probably blurred.  It's likely the scaling was not an exact duplicate, and now extra pixels have been added to the image that were not previously there.  Those extra pixels don't really exist. They're just part of the image you see, but aren't being considered by the game's programming.

So that single pixel move you have to make to squeeze through the bullet pattern on the final boss of a game like Do Don Pachi is now actually divided between the real pixel and the new "fake" one and blurred, making completion of the level nearly impossible.   

Sure, you can 2x, 3x, 4x etc scaling, but those may not fit the screen right either.  The game's resolution might not be a multiple of 4:3.  Some old games like SFII did this.  In this case you will have to squeeze it or stretch it anamorphically via software or your LCD monitor controls, and that adds scaling. 

Unless you have a CRT.  A CRT monitor can "automagically" stretch a non 4:3 res into full screen without scaling the image.  It can also sync to multiple refresh rates, something even more important than pixel spacing. 

Anybody who uses an LCD monitor is going to be locked into a single refresh rate among a variety of arcade games that used different ones.  The solution to that is to use V-sync and triple buffering, or simply play your games at the wrong speed.  But if you use V-sync then you get that damn input delay again.

So, yeah, gameplay can't be so easily divorced from video software or hardware. 

[lettuce]

Speaking of HLSL, anyone got a good setup for Vertical games? Whilst im happy with my settings for horizontal games when im playing vertical game it just doesnt look right, unless i got into video options (tab) and rotate the display 90 degress

[MonMotha]

The vast majority of the "problems" people cite with LCDs (unsuitable aspect ratio, input delay or "lag", viewing angles, fixed refresh rate, bad colors, and probably some others I'm not remembering right now) can be solved by buying a good (not just overall quality but also suitable for this particular purpose) LCD.  We're already starting to see dedicated arcade LCDs hit the market, and as these see more development, it's possible we'll see the support electronics develop to cater to the peculiar needs of this market.  There's nothing inherent in the LCD technology itself that causes these problems; it's simply the nature of the available panels as well as the support electronics that are generally made for television and PC monitor applications.

Unfortunately, "good" LCDs are hard to find since the specs you care about in this application are rarely published in any accurate or detailed form, and when you finally find one, it's bound to be fairly expensive (think $500+ for a ~20").  Given that you can buy an honest to god arcade monitor for about this price, that kinda puts a damper on the enthusiasm for going LCD, aside from the fact that they're smaller.  As CRTs become harder to find new and LCDs continue to be refined, this tradeoff may shift.  I'm not sure any manufacturer is still making the actual CRTs (bare tubes); all that's left are new old stock that are being put into the arcade monitors still on the market.

One thing you can't get around is the need to scale, since no panels are made at the sizes desired in the low resolutions the old games used, and, even if they were, you'd need a separate panel for each game, or you'd have to put up with small bars surrounding the game on the lower res stuff.  Fortunately, the relatively high resolution allows you to scale with some neat effects like the HLSL effects already mentioned.  A naieve bilinear or similar scale will indeed look pretty ugly in this application.  Hopefully, the MAME HLSL effects may eventually get tweaked enough to provide a good experience on a "good" LCD (see above).   They already look pretty impressive.

Now, none of this is to say I'm an LCD fan.  I'm not, at least when it comes to gaming.  Every arcade game I own has a CRT on it except for my beatmaniaIIDX which has a plasma as CRTs at 40-42" 16:9 were never made (the original monitor was an LCD projection set that died long before I acquired the cabinet and was problematic in other ways, anyway).  I even "stock" several new-in-box arcade monitors for the inevitable death of some of the ones in my games, and I repair whenever I can.  My PC gaming setup uses 3x24" widescreen CRTs.  I love the look of a good CRT, but I'm not going to be oblivious to the fact that they're going to be essentially impossible to get new within a few years.

[nitz]

It doesn't require a compile, but it would definitely require a lot of work. Ideally, it would turn into a project to modify the lay files that are included in the artwork files. It just requires that a new view is added to the lay file, and of course new images if needed. It would be great if they could be added to the official artwork files, but I don't know how that team would feel about it. It is a lot of work since this is per game, but I imagine the popular games would be the ones that are most likely to get done.

Good to know. I found that page when I was looking for info on it and then assumed you needed to compile.

HLSL is still just another kind of filter and does reproduce the image from a CRT.

I'm assuming from the context you meant "does not reproduce the image from a CRT". I know that of course, my point isn't that LCDs are as good as CRTs for old arcade games - they're not and never will be. My point is that I can get close enough (IMO) with an LCD now that seeking out and then messing with an arcade monitor isn't worth it to me. I can't bring myself to pay to get a heavy piece of old equipment shipped to me, not really knowing what shape it's in or long it'll last when there is a reasonable alternative. And I feel I would have to go arcade monitor instead of TV. A TV is not really the same as an arcade monitor anyway, so heck, I can get something that's not quite the same as an arcade monitor with an LCD, and at least I can use HLSL to tweak it to how I want it to look.

If all that matters to you is the gameplay then you're going to want to pay attention to your monitors and your video modes.

You used space invaders as an example.  That's a shmup.  Those types of games are notorious for requiring pixel perfect spacing at the highest levels of play. 

Well, let's say you fired up MAME in whatever random resolution your desktop is configured for and switched to full screen. 

Now your screen has been scaled, and then probably blurred.  It's likely the scaling was not an exact duplicate, and now extra pixels have been added to the image that were not previously there.  Those extra pixels don't really exist. They're just part of the image you see, but aren't being considered by the game's programming.

So that single pixel move you have to make to squeeze through the bullet pattern on the final boss of a game like Do Don Pachi is now actually divided between the real pixel and the new "fake" one and blurred, making completion of the level nearly impossible.   

Sure, you can 2x, 3x, 4x etc scaling, but those may not fit the screen right either.  The game's resolution might not be a multiple of 4:3.  Some old games like SFII did this.  In this case you will have to squeeze it or stretch it anamorphically via software or your LCD monitor controls, and that adds scaling. 

Unless you have a CRT.  A CRT monitor can "automagically" stretch a non 4:3 res into full screen without scaling the image.  It can also sync to multiple refresh rates, something even more important than pixel spacing. 

Anybody who uses an LCD monitor is going to be locked into a single refresh rate among a variety of arcade games that used different ones.  The solution to that is to use V-sync and triple buffering, or simply play your games at the wrong speed.  But if you use V-sync then you get that damn input delay again.

So, yeah, gameplay can't be so easily divorced from video software or hardware. 

I'm know all of that is absolutely true. And those things bug me a bit to some degree, but they can be mitigated somewhat by messing around in software. And I'm the kind of guy who would rather mess around in the software side of things than mess around with trying to interface to, maintain, and repair old pieces of tech.

I totally understand people's need for the CRTs. It just seems like too much trouble for too little benefit to me.

 

[ed12]

welp as i first posted
we all know crt's are going the way of the dodo bird..that's a given
happ has 27-29" on for $365.00 pentrec chassic
trimode
that aside i went to our local rehab and philip's 27-29" flat screen crt
$55.00..so my point was is if your into it
sure there is a ton of way's to keep the GOOD_OL_FEEL..
but how much is your time effort worth ?
if it is your's and this is a side line then i totaly get it
if it is to go back in the feild then no way .. <lcd-olny>..
in home crt if u can stock em,in field no way
do the math 25 game's of any age
=25 crt's of dif size's..thats alot of real state just to keep the feel


ed

[ahofle]

I'm know all of that is absolutely true. And those things bug me a bit to some degree, but they can be mitigated somewhat by messing around in software. And I'm the kind of guy who would rather mess around in the software side of things than mess around with trying to interface to, maintain, and repair old pieces of tech.

I totally understand people's need for the CRTs. It just seems like too much trouble for too little benefit to me.

 

sure there is a ton of way's to keep the GOOD_OL_FEEL..
but how much is your time effort worth ?

I think people overestimate the difficulty of using an arcade monitor.  I'll bet people spend more time fiddling with software effects than it takes to get an arcade monitor running.  With software like Groovymame and CRT_EmuDriver, I would argue it's now less work to use an arcade monitor (it chooses the correct and exact resolution AND refresh for you).  I can't stand screen tearing and running games at the correct resolution completely eliminates this.  That's a pretty big benefit. 

[Jack Burton]

HLSL is still just another kind of filter and does reproduce the image from a CRT.

I'm assuming from the context you meant "does not reproduce the image from a CRT".

right.

I think people overestimate the difficulty of using an arcade monitor.  I'll bet people spend more time fiddling with software effects than it takes to get an arcade monitor running.  With software like Groovymame and CRT_EmuDriver, I would argue it's now less work to use an arcade monitor (it chooses the correct and exact resolution AND refresh for you).  I can't stand screen tearing and running games at the correct resolution completely eliminates this.  That's a pretty big benefit. 

Indeed.  Really, if you can track down a professional video monitor like a Sony PVM or some such all you really need is a pc with a video card capable of outputting 15khz and a VGA cable.  Sometimes you might need to find a VGA>BNC cable.  No decasing, no breakout cables, no scary voltages, no spending hundreds of dollars.  Sure, they're not -really- arcade monitors, but they're miles and miles closer to a true arcade-purposed CGA monitor than any LCD. 

[ZeroPoint]

Speaking of HLSL, anyone got a good setup for Vertical games? Whilst im happy with my settings for horizontal games when im playing vertical game it just doesnt look right, unless i got into video options (tab) and rotate the display 90 degress

Like this ? : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=113151.0

[Gray_Area]

In not a single moment of my 32 years of gaming in arcades and at home, have I once gave a crap that a games graphics were blurry CRT crap OR the crisp display of a modern HDTV.  It's ALL about the game play, that's all that matters...The priority is reproducing the game play, after that everything else is just backround noise.

Some people are more into the feeling than the quality of the feeling. I definitely am not one of these people.

[BrentRadio]

About to start building my mame setup. I have a Star Wars Cockpit sized cab. Would this be a good monitor for mame?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-25inch-CGA-EGA-arcade-monitor-299-00-/200668087924?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb8c00674

[lettuce]

Speaking of HLSL, anyone got a good setup for Vertical games? Whilst im happy with my settings for horizontal games when im playing vertical game it just doesnt look right, unless i got into video options (tab) and rotate the display 90 degress

Like this ? : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=113151.0

Have u used HLSL settings then to achieve that? If so can u post ?

[ZeroPoint]

Have u used HLSL settings then to achieve that? If so can u post ?

Just posted my mame.ini settings for HLSL in the original topic:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=113151.0

[Gray_Area]

Makes me wonder if there are any LCD filters that can intentionally make the image a little crappy....

At first, it was coming that way out of the box. But, yes, it is featured much like a monitor chassis and neck board - you can increase the color gains, etc.

I always leave a couple of rough edges on my machines.  For example, the pinballs will intentionally have a few mismatched rubbers, or I'll leave a couple of overstretched old ones in there.  When I use a CRT, I generally overdrive the red a little.  It's not a question of laziness, it takes just as much time to do it that way as it would to make it 'better than new.'  However, it simulates the visual experience I had growing up playing the games.

 

These are the kinds of things UNICEF was created for. So that bright young children would grow up in a bright world.

[ed12]

most rca jug's like to lean a tad red..ever note that 1 ?...

ed

[Jack Burton]

Makes me wonder if there are any LCD filters that can intentionally make the image a little crappy....

I always leave a couple of rough edges on my machines.  For example, the pinballs will intentionally have a few mismatched rubbers, or I'll leave a couple of overstretched old ones in there.  When I use a CRT, I generally overdrive the red a little.  It's not a question of laziness, it takes just as much time to do it that way as it would to make it 'better than new.'  However, it simulates the visual experience I had growing up playing the games.

 

I kind of agree with you there.  Having a "perfect" image kind of takes away from the magic a little bit.  For games like black backgrounds and white text I'll usually crank the contrast up just a little bit high so that the whites bloom a bit and it gets that nice arcade glow around the high score with the lights off.  

most rca jug's like to lean a tad red..ever note that 1 ?...

ed

Not really sure what a "jug" is, but I do know that most tv's push red.   They're set that way at the factory because apparently people think an overly red image looks better.  I always go into the service menu and turn it back down if I can.

Who knows, maybe in the past some arcade ops or companies would dial up the red a little bit like pinballjim said in order to make the games seem to have some more "pop" (hate that word).

[Paul Olson]

This one has HLSL enabled. Not sure if you can tell the difference in the snapshot, but the game screen looks a lot more arcade authentic. This is the result I wanted when I decided to go with an LCD - scanlines on the game screen and hi res artwork around it. I never would have guessed it was already this far along.
Ignore the ugly layout on the DK; it is a work in progress that needs a lot of work (and different artwork). I think you can see the HLSL difference a little better in this one though.

[wizkid32]

I might add that some arcade machines used LCD monitors...  I plan on using one simply for availability.  Please no hate comments about MY choice.  Besides, M.A.M.E. has the option to mimic scanlines if I really want an lower quality picture...

[Jack Burton]

Please no hate comments about MY choice. Besides, M.A.M.E. has the option to mimic scanlines if I really want an lower quality picture...

No hate, just astonishment at the ignorance displayed if you think just turning on regular old scanlines in MAME in any way approximates the look of a CRT after reading this entire thread. 

[Gray_Area]

Who knows, maybe in the past some arcade ops or companies would dial up the red a little bit like pinballjim said in order to make the games seem to have some more "pop" (hate that word).

Not brighter. Richer. Like using amber/copper/etc lensed glasses. I think that aesthetic has passed, largely. The new stuff, particularly aimed at those under twenty-five, is *bright*.

I might add that some arcade machines used LCD monitors...  I plan on using one simply for availability.  Please no hate comments about MY choice.  Besides, M.A.M.E. has the option to mimic scanlines if I really want an lower quality picture...

Most still do. Those aren't arcade games. Where's Cheffo......

No hate, just astonishment at the ignorance displayed if you think just turning on regular old scanlines in MAME in any way approximates the look of a CRT after reading this entire thread. 

You might be surprised, though of course the hardware needs to catch up.

[wizkid32]

Point taken.  I am NOT saying that LCD picture is as accurate at replicating scan-lines as an arcade monitor.  I do, however, feel that the slight divergence from the arcades is an acceptable trade-off for being available, cheap, and easy to mount.  Also, more modern arcade games (which run at higher resolutions) look often better on an LCD than a CRT, due to the better picture quality.  Don't get me wrong, authenticity is good, but I personally prefer LCDs.

Just my three cents (adjusted for inflation).

[boardjunkie]

I might add that some arcade machines used LCD monitors...  I plan on using one simply for availability.  Please no hate comments about MY choice.  Besides, M.A.M.E. has the option to mimic scanlines if I really want an lower quality picture...

Its not about a "lower quality" picture, its about displaying games in the correct resolution. So I guess lower quality ends up be'n higher quality....to yer eyes. Believe me...nobody would go thru all the hassle it takes to do this via a PC unless the results were worth it....

[wizkid32]

Remind me to stay out of these heated conversations from now on.  
I really don't mean to insult anyone!  I was just expressing my opinion, and I am sorry if I came across as rude or sarcastic.  Let me rephrase my original post:

I believe some of the games in my local arcade use LCD/Flatpanel screens.  I plan on using one simply because I can go down to my local electronics store, buy one, and get a warranty.  This is my choice, so please don't comment rudely or hatefully if our opinions differ!  One day (likely soon). there will be a software alternative for getting a more authentic look.  Until then, I feel that an LCD monitor is an acceptable substitute for a CRT model.

This was what I was intending to express in my first post, and I apologize that it didn't come off as I meant for it to.

[boardjunkie]

LCD (or whatever computer monitor) is surely the easiest way to get things up and running fast. Up until fairly recently, that was the only way to use MAME. But it was always a comprimise  as far as pix quality/integrity....especially for "vintage" games.  Now that those clever people have come up with ways to trick a computer into "talking" to a std res monitor, there is the option to have all those "vintage" games look just like they did when you played them in the arcade 30 years ago. Just like the newest PC game would look bad on a std res monitor, older games look bad on a high res monitor. Thats all I'm saying....