Why the LCD TV hate?

[honkey]

I got my computer that I am going to be using for my build and I got MAME .144 all configured. Right now it is hooked up to my TV via HDMI and I think it looks great! If I had known how good it would look on an LCD, I may have considered just building a showcase cab with my TV and saved a lot of money that could have gone towards a visual pinball machine... Not that I am too disappointed as my MKII cabinet is awesome with a working monitor, but it seems to me that people have this idea that LCD tv's are just horrible for arcade games, and I disagree now that I have seen it myself. I think the only game that looks sub-par is Pac-man, and even that is not bad, just not great.

[codefenix]

LCDs are very sharp, and therefore present a less "authentic" arcade picture.  People tend to prefer the gritty picture and scanlines on a CRT TV or monitor.

[RandyT]

LCD's are only "horrible" for lightgun games    But nowadays, the options are getting slimmer for CRTs, so like it or not, LCD (or Plasma) is going to have to do until something better comes along.

Higher powered systems, couple with a high resolution LCD and some anti-aliasing code will still look very nice.  But it takes a lot more effort and money to try to replicate the look of a CRT on the newer technologies than it it does to use them directly.

RandyT

[leapinlew]

LCDs are very sharp, and therefore present a less "authentic" arcade picture.  People tend to prefer the gritty picture and scanlines on a CRT TV or monitor.

Ding ding ding...

I mean, think about it. You are building an entire cabinet to simulate the arcade experience. A monitor is crucial to that. If we are talking about saving money, why not just use gamepads? That's definitely cheaper. Some people feel a stretched widescreen LCD is fine, and some don't. I use authentic arcade monitors in 2 of my 3 cabinets and I prefer them, but as soon as they die I'll probably have to do LCD's and try to get the correct look with software.

[honkey]

I do like the aspect ratio to be correct, but black bars around the sides don't bother me. I didn't change any settings at all and I think most games look fine. For the classics, I use scanline effects and I think it looks better. Don't get me wrong, arcade monitor is definitely the better option, but LCD isn't anywhere near as bad as I think people make it out to be.

[leapinlew]

I do like the aspect ratio to be correct, but black bars around the sides don't bother me. I didn't change any settings at all and I think most games look fine. For the classics, I use scanline effects and I think it looks better. Don't get me wrong, arcade monitor is definitely the better option, but LCD isn't anywhere near as bad as I think people make it out to be.

You'll find that to be the case with nearly everything (arcade or not).

Wait till you ask people what the best joystick is.

[VanillaGorilla]

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. I have a 1920x1200 27" LCD in my cab. If I increase the pre-scaling on 320x240 games to 6X

• , and 5x[y], and then apply scanlines and shadow mask, .01 pincushion, a touch of scanline jitter and some de-focus, wow does it look good. The sprites in berzerk actually have a little 'glow' to them now (using the red/ble/green power adjustment). I really couldn't be much happier with it at this point, outside of speed optimization...Much love, mamedev's.

[honkey]

I do like the aspect ratio to be correct, but black bars around the sides don't bother me. I didn't change any settings at all and I think most games look fine. For the classics, I use scanline effects and I think it looks better. Don't get me wrong, arcade monitor is definitely the better option, but LCD isn't anywhere near as bad as I think people make it out to be.

You'll find that to be the case with nearly everything (arcade or not).

Wait till you ask people what the best joystick is.

I suppose that is true. If I had tried it out for myself sooner, I probably would have sacrificed the little bit of quality and made a showcase cabinet and then would have used my savings to start working on a visual pinball. I may still be able to make one in a few months though... There have been a lot of deals on TV's on craigslist lately.

[JODY]

My major issue is I can't get some games to use more of the screen.  E.g. Williams games like Joust and Robotron wind up taking up a small box in the middle of the screen.  I realize this is due to scaling the resolution up but I would think it should be able to be done so that it uses the full height of the screen.  Anyone know how to work around this?

[leapinlew]

My major issue is I can't get some games to use more of the screen.  E.g. Williams games like Joust and Robotron wind up taking up a small box in the middle of the screen.  I realize this is due to scaling the resolution up but I would think it should be able to be done so that it uses the full height of the screen.  Anyone know how to work around this?

There are a bazillion things you can try, but I always swapped out the video card and that would fix it. Onboard Intel on older boards used to give me the biggest trouble.

[honkey]

My major issue is I can't get some games to use more of the screen.  E.g. Williams games like Joust and Robotron wind up taking up a small box in the middle of the screen.  I realize this is due to scaling the resolution up but I would think it should be able to be done so that it uses the full height of the screen.  Anyone know how to work around this?

That is weird... I didn't change any settings at all and Joust takes up the full height of the screen.

[Paul Olson]

I used an arcade monitor for 8 years, then finally decided I was tired of fighting with it. Now that I have an LCD TV, I am really happy with it. I haven't even started messing with the shader settings yet, but that should allow me to make it look even better. Not sure though, I kinda like seeing what the sprites actually looked like when designed.

[Jack Burton]

Do you know how music fans sometimes say that records are better than cd's?  Or film enthusiasts stress that actual film is better than digital video?

Well, that's sort of how I am with classic video games and CRT's.  

[lettuce]

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. I have a 1920x1200 27" LCD in my cab. If I increase the pre-scaling on 320x240 games to 6X

• , and 5x[y], and then apply scanlines and shadow mask, .01 pincushion, a touch of scanline jitter and some de-focus, wow does it look good. The sprites in berzerk actually have a little 'glow' to them now (using the red/ble/green power adjustment). I really couldn't be much happier with it at this point, outside of speed optimization...Much love, mamedev's.

Yeah Defo agree with this. HLSL rules!! This is what i have been messing about with which im fairly happy with soo far........

hlsl_enable 1
hlslpath hlsl
hlsl_prescale_size 2
hlsl_preset -1
hlsl_write
hlsl_snap_width 1920
hlsl_snap_height 1080
shadow_mask_alpha 0.15
shadow_mask_texture aperture.png
shadow_mask_x_count 512
shadow_mask_y_count 384
shadow_mask_usize 0.09375
shadow_mask_vsize 0.09375
curvature 0.05
screen_scale_top 1.0
screen_scale_bottom 1.0
pincushion 0.0
scanline_alpha 0.80
scanline_size 0.90
scanline_height 1.00
scanline_bright_scale 1.50
scanline_bright_offset 0.60
scanline_jitter 0.05
defocus_x 1.5
defocus_y 1.5
red_converge_x -0.4
red_converge_y -0.6
green_converge_x 0.0
green_converge_y 0.0
blue_converge_x 0.0
blue_converge_y 0.0
red_radial_converge_x 0.0
red_radial_converge_y 0.0
green_radial_converge_x 0.0
green_radial_converge_y 0.0
blue_radial_converge_x 0.0
blue_radial_converge_y 0.0
red_from_r 1
red_from_g 0.0
red_from_b 0.0
green_from_r 0.0
green_from_g 1
green_from_b 0.0
blue_from_r 0.0
blue_from_g 0.0
blue_from_b 1
saturation 1.20
red_offset 0.0
green_offset 0.0
blue_offset 0.0
red_scale 1.20
green_scale 1.20
blue_scale 1.20
red_power 1.70
green_power 1.70
blue_power 1.70
red_floor 0.06
green_floor 0.06
blue_floor 0.06
red_phosphor_life 0.10
green_phosphor_life 0.10
blue_phosphor_life 0.10
yiq_enable 0
yiq_cc 3.59754545
yiq_a 0.5
yiq_b 0.5
yiq_o 0.0
yiq_p 1.0
yiq_y 3.0
yiq_i 1.2
yiq_q 0.6
yiq_scan_time 52.6
yiq_phase_count 2

Can u share your setting VanillaGorilla? Sound like you have a much great understanding about HLSL than i do

[VanillaGorilla]

Can u share your setting VanillaGorilla? Sound like you have a much great understanding about HLSL than i do

I will post some settings when I get home tonight. I am adjusting them on a game by game basis, but I do have a general configuration that I at least start with. I am just throwing punches in the dark, trial and error. I dont claim to have a great understanding of all of the settings, but once you start breaking things, you'll learn real fast what works and why

[RandyT]

I really need to check this HLSL out.  Amazing number of options.  From the looks of it, full blown CRT emulation is already well underway!

What kind of performance hit does it cause?

[ids]

...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

[RandyT]

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).

I smell another 14 page thread.

Agreed 100%, as I was one of those artists doing exactly that at the time.

[LeedsFan]

I need to read up on this HLSL option. But two very quick questions to begin with....

1)  Which version of mame did this get added?
2)  Is it only useful for people with LCD monitors? I mean... if I have an old CRT PC monitor is HLSL of any use?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

I probably would have ended up with an LCD if I could get one big enough.. It's really the aspect ratio that killed it for me. I wanted it to fit in a given footprint.

[RandyT]

I probably would have ended up with an LCD if I could get one big enough.. It's really the aspect ratio that killed it for me. I wanted it to fit in a given footprint.

While it's true that the more common and less costly LCD's are 16:9, there are still plenty of 4:3's out there to be had.  This is especially true for the "commercial" models.

Here's one example (but get your wallet ready  )

[ed12]

ok soooo why so high on crt ?
give me a break...where are u going to get a fresh crt when your's crap's out??
un-less u have been asleep at the switch crt is a dying breed...
lcd took over,given the 4-3 ratio,better white blance control
there making better in-road's
olny down side i do not like is the avg life span of 5 year's
beside's the odd bar fight smashed display
there easy enough to fix,i mean give me a break a few cap's in the inveter supply,and maybe a new cft..here and there..they are perty much rock soild
gone are the tweak's :foucs/screen:
yes there a tad higher in price
but at 345+ for a crt...400.00+ for a lcd that drop's right in
give it up
just 2% worth

ed

[leapinlew]

ok soooo why so high on crt ?
give me a break...where are u going to get a fresh crt when your's crap's out??
un-less u have been asleep at the switch crt is a dying breed...
lcd took over,given the 4-3 ratio,better white blance control
there making better in-road's
olny down side i do not like is the avg life span of 5 year's
beside's the odd bar fight smashed display
there easy enough to fix,i mean give me a break a few cap's in the inveter supply,and maybe a new cft..here and there..they are perty much rock soild
gone are the tweak's :foucs/screen:
yes there a tad higher in price
but at 345+ for a crt...400.00+ for a lcd that drop's right in
give it up
just 2% worth

ed

English please.


From what I could tell, you're saying CRT's are done and we should abandon them. Maybe you haven't noticed but arcades are dead too.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, CRTs look more authentic.

Get over that and your cab got a whole lot cheaper and monitor a whole lot easier to get and manage.

[RandyT]

ok soooo why so high on crt ?

If you have seen the difference where it matters, you wouldn't be asking   If you like playing old consoles, something like a 2600 looks terrible on anything but a real CRT.

give me a break...where are u going to get a fresh crt when your's crap's out??
un-less u have been asleep at the switch crt is a dying breed...

Well, some folks have a few in reserve (guilty), and with a 15 to 30+ year lifespan (depending on conditions) that's enough to keep things going until your kids inherit it.  The service you describe to keep an LCD going isn't much different to keep a CRT alive.  The major difference in that regard is phosphor burn, or guns wearing out, which is not easily fixable.  Then again, that usually takes a very long time to happen, and CRT's aren't as susceptible to incidental breakage either.

If you want to talk weight, size, power consumption and new availability, CRT's will lose every time.  But folks who like them don't care about any of those things.  All of my TV's are new technology, but I have a 37" RGB CRT I play lightgun games on very often, because so far, that can't be done better in any reasonable way.  So as long as it's there, it's also my DDR machine, and it makes my older console games look great.  I'll give that one up when they pry it from my cold...(etc)

[Bootay]

Agreed. I have LCD TVs for watching TV and playing modern consoles (360, PS3, etc.) and a 27' CRT for my classic consoles (Atari 2600, NES, etc.). The arcade monitor in my cab hasn't died yet so I am still sticking with that (even though the damned thing weighs as much as my car). If my arcade monitor ever dies, I will look into trying an LCD with Vanilla's described settings, but until then I will stick with my CRT. If I ever went LCD I would definitely shoot for a 4:3 though.

[ahofle]

If you want to talk weight, size, power consumption and new availability, CRT's will lose every time.  But folks who like them don't care about any of those things. 

Exactly I never understand why those are listed as such huge drawbacks of CRTs.  I mean how often are people moving their CRTs around?  And power consumption -- I'll bet 90% of the people touting that as a huge deal breaker drive gas guzzling cars and leave their computers running 24x7. 

[JODY]

My major issue is I can't get some games to use more of the screen.  E.g. Williams games like Joust and Robotron wind up taking up a small box in the middle of the screen.  I realize this is due to scaling the resolution up but I would think it should be able to be done so that it uses the full height of the screen.  Anyone know how to work around this?

That is weird... I didn't change any settings at all and Joust takes up the full height of the screen.

I'm using the onboard ATI graphics hooked up to a Samsung 52" 1080p TV.  I don't plan on using this for arcade games.  It is my HTPC but use it for playing around with MAME, etc.  I have the same issue on another PC wih a 22" 1080p monitor.  It also has onboard ATI graphics. 

[Jack Burton]

RE: increasing scarcity of CRT's

Right now there are millions upon millions of CRT's just sitting around unused.  Most of them are in excellent condition.

Now, many of those are televisions and pc monitors, so perhaps they aren't quite what people are referring to when they say CRT's are becoming rare.  What they really mean is arcade monitors are becoming rare.

And perhaps they are.  However, the demand for them is also much less than it used to be.  Operators are content to use LCD replacements, and the only real market for arcade monitors now is in the hands of the amateurs like us. 

If you look on ebay right now and use the search term "CGA monitor" you'll find a variety of CRT's for sale that are suitable for use in an arcade machine and will produce a very nice image. 

Going back to the notion of televisions and PC monitors; there are probably 1000x  as many of these as there are CGA "arcade" monitors in existence.  These have some big drawbacks, notably the tv's only supporting coaxial input, or the pc monitors not accepting 15khz resolutions. 

For the time being, the coaxial-only tv's are not going to be a popular option.  The image quality just doesn't cut it.  I'd rather have an LCD.  We shouldn't throw them all out though.  They can potentially still be used by hacking their circuitry to add RGB inputs, or using their tubes for tube swaps to replace ones with burn-in.   They can also have their chassis replaced relatively easily and be converted to arcade use. 

PC monitors are usually very nice.  They have solid construction, and have RGB video over the VGA cable.  The only downside is that they usually have a very fine dot pitch and will not sync to 15khz.  They can be run at 120hz in MAME for native resolution.  I personally believe this mode is vastly superior to using some manner of scaling.  This can't currently be done easily with a real arcade pcb. 

There is one more kind of CRT out there.  The "pro" monitor.  Things like the Sony PVM, or NEC XM series.  These are actually rather plentiful on ebay, and other places like medical surplus warehouses.  For all nearly all intents and purposes, they are the equal of any arcade monitor.  And best of all, they're still being made.  I believe the future of arcade CRT's may lie with these as time goes by. 

[DCsegaDH]

I just got an 28" 16x10 LCD monitor, I'm using filters so it looks pretty good. I don't have enough money for a arcade monitor or the room to fit one in, I'm building a Japanese style sit down cabinet. If I did have the room I would probably got a CRT arcade monitor in a normal cabinet, but right now I'm sticking with the LCD monitor. I like both, its just preference anyway. 

[Paul Olson]

...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

We had to make some (crappy) sprites for some of the older systems for some of my game dev classes at school. I guess I see them a little different as I had to make them with the same constraints looking at an LCD screen. It didn't take me long to start just making blocks for everything. It was way easier to get the games working right with that than trying to spend all of my time making sprites that were never going to be good. Trying to do games without an artist sucks. lol

[Xiaou2]

I think a little documented issue with Arcade CRT's is "Dot Pitch".  For example, the original monitors on a Pac Man, is probably using a much lower dot pitch than anything that replaced it years later...  and the resulting look, is quite different.

 The shadowmasks have gotten smaller and smaller over the years, and so the black lines of the masks being thinner do not obscure or blur the image as much.  Phosphor glow also does not bleed as much, maybe due to the guns being more accurate..   or merely the shadowmask lined being thinner.

 The argument is easily seen on typical tube tvs to a larger degree.  Even at low resolution, my sony 34" widescreen CRT hdtv is way too clean looking.  No bleed, color blending, blur..etc.  Even the old 27" panasonic with 480i capability looks different than the old arcade monitors.    Certainly looks more authentic than the sony, but still not arcade accurate by any means.


 The HLSL feature is a very welcome feature.  However, its labels and settings are hard to really figure out.  Theres no real standard set of semi-accurate presets included... yet.  And the people working on their own filters, seem to be just making something that looks good to them, rather than trying to compare an actual arcade monitor on the spot, and match that result closely as possible. (nor using monitor spec data, such as dot pitch... color output ranges, etc)

 Hopefully in time that will change.   The other thing about the filter... Im not sure it calculates things like color bleeding and staggered pixel effects.  An example, is that some games used a diagonally staggered pattern of black lines.  When viewed in mame, you can see the pattern...  however, when viewed on a real arcade monitor... you see what appears to be a darker transparent (see-through) graphic.  (such as a floating power bar,  a characters shadow, etc)

 I believe there were also games that used crt refresh timing to create certain effects as well. I think I read something about a trick where they would draw between a scanline.

[shateredsoul1979]

I love my lcd tv. No one, including me, cares that it doesn't look authentic. Works great for newer arcade games like taito type x and super street fighter 4. I have vertical games take up all the vertical space and keep aspect ratio, and the horizontal game are stretched to fit the entire screen (blasphemy! I know!).

[ids]

BLASPHEMY

actually, whatever works for you is the best


Are we at page 2 yet?  I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for...

I smell another 14 page thread.

Xiaou...as for scanline effects, to my knowledge there are things done, such as switching colour palettes, flipping sprites, etc

[Unstupid]

Has anyone tried a SLG3000?  I'd like to try adding scan lines but I'm not doing Mame so no HLSL...

http://wp1114205.wp150.webpack.hosteurope.de/xtcmodified/index.php?cPath=3

[brad808]

 The HLSL feature is a very welcome feature.  However, its labels and settings are hard to really figure out.  Theres no real standard set of semi-accurate presets included... yet.  And the people working on their own filters, seem to be just making something that looks good to them, rather than trying to compare an actual arcade monitor on the spot, and match that result closely as possible. (nor using monitor spec data, such as dot pitch... color output ranges,

I think it would be cool if people started to do that, basically match the effect to the original game.

[D_Harris]

I need to read up on this HLSL option. But two very quick questions to begin with....

1)  Which version of mame did this get added?
2)  Is it only useful for people with LCD monitors? I mean... if I have an old CRT PC monitor is HLSL of any use?

Anyone?

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[boardjunkie]

As far as pwr consumption goes....anyone ever look at the info tag on the back of a large plasma tv? a 58" plasma draws over 560w (!). The newer LED backlit LCDs are far more efficient than CCFL lit types. CRTs draw on average around 125w.

[ids]

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.

Comparing 560w from a 58" plasma to a 125w CRT of ...which size (or are they all about the same ballpark, whether 10", 20", 36")?

[BadMouth]

Has anyone tried a SLG3000?  I'd like to try adding scan lines but I'm not doing Mame so no HLSL...

http://wp1114205.wp150.webpack.hosteurope.de/xtcmodified/index.php?cPath=3

Just when I had given up on the 27" LCD I bought for my "NON-MAME" cab.

Is there anywhere else to buy from?