Original graphics Vs. Improved graphics.

[brpadington]

I know there are a lot of purists out there that want the mame cabinet to be as close to the original as possible but there are others who want to make the games look as sharp and clear as possible. I have an old crt monitor in my cab that has the ability to run low interlaced resolutions as well as the higher resolutions.  i seem to prefer running the games at higher resolution. I am starting this post to find out what you guys prefer and find some arguments on both sides. To me there is something magical (as well as evil) about running super mario bros. in 1080i on a 55" TV.

[Ginsu Victim]

I did have my 19" CRT PC monitor set at a higher resolution with scanline effects turned on, but I got tired of how the scanlines darkened it, plus the performance hit the system took from the higher rez.

Now I'm running at 640x480 without effects and it looks great. I'd love to have an authentic arcade monitor one day (or at least a decent television), but at the same time, I'd like a good 4:3 LCD with rotation. The one thing that bugs me most is playing vertical games on a horizontal monitor.

[FrizzleFried]

I have 2 cabs running arcade monitors and 1 cab running a PC monitor.  I prefer the authenticity of the real arcade monitors.  They seem less "pixelated" when run on their native display...

[CheffoJeffo]

Here now, there is no need for labels !  

I want the experience to feel as authentic as possible -- I don't want to know that there is a PC or emulation involved at all.

I will always choose original controls over digital restriction or other approximations. I will always choose original cabinets and hardware, even when changes could enhance gameplay. I feel strange playing Robotron on a 25" monitor. I have two cabs that can run the same games, but I segregate the games lists based on 4-way vs 8-way controls. I am not a purist per-se, but I want to feel like I am playing in a real arcade.

Same deal with Mrs. Cheffo's Intellivision -- it runs on a nice 20" TV, not on the big screen.

Having said that, the arguments arising from this question have a tendency to become tempests in teacups (akin to the CRT vs LCD question). If I had to choose the 3 most important defining aspects of Galaga, video resolution would not be among my answers. For Asteroids (or any other vector game), perhaps, but if you don't see that off-the-bat, then you most likely won't get it.

If you don't have a problem with how the games look or play, then you don't have a problem with the way the games look or play.

 

[javeryh]

I'm with Cheffo for the most part.  I prefer to run the games so they look as they did originally in the arcade.  I want it to feel just like it did 20 years ago when I'm playing Pac-man or whatever.

Now, for something like Super Street Fighter II Turbo vs. the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, I prefer the new graphics since the game plays (pretty much) exactly the same except prettier... but I'd prefer the original Super Street Fighter II Turbo on an original monitor instead of playing it in high-res or 1080i or whatever.  I'm not sure I'm making sense...

[TelcoLou]

I'm poor. I got a nice 19" CRT PC monitor for $20, and my MAME games look fine to me. As for the vertical-games-on-a-horizontal-monitor 'issue', I just use a custom art bezel, filling in the blank sides 

[Ginsu Victim]

As for the vertical-games-on-a-horizontal-monitor 'issue', I just use a custom art bezel, filling in the blank sides 

Same here, but it's still too small of an image, especially when you rotate the image and see how nice it could look.

[StarControl]

Since you have to allow extra clearance in your cab for the monitor to rotate, you don't really gain much image area with a rotating monitor.  For example, the image area of my fixed 27" diagonal TV is nominally 21.6" wide by 16.2" tall.  If I were to put in a rotating monitor the image area would have to fit within the turning diameter of 21.6" which means I would have to use a 21" diagonal screen with a nominal viewing width of 16.8" and a viewing height of 12.6".  So with the added complexity of a rotating monitor, my vertical games would be 16.8" tall instead of 16.2" tall giving me a whopping 0.6" (4%) of extra vertical display area.  This would be accompanied by a loss of image area for horizontal games -- horizontal image area would go from 21.6" wide down to 16.8" wide  -- a loss of 4.8" or 22%.  I'll take the bezel artwork.  If I was going to get serious about playing vertical games on a big screen I'd build a dedicated vertical cab.

[ahofle]

"Original graphics" were never really a priority for me until I actually saw the difference with MAME running on an arcade monitor.  Now I'll never go back to "improved" (stretching, filtering, processing, etc).

[drventure]

Personally, running on a Widescreen 24" lcd using a relatively hot graphics card (Mine's an ATI Radeon x1900, not even the newest thing out there), and turning on the processing in MAME and, ok, I'm no purist, but all the standard games look pretty dang good to me.

On a lark once, I ran mame on a laptop with low end graphics. Eww!

But with high end graphics and and processing/filters/etc, it works for me.

[Ginsu Victim]

Since you have to allow extra clearance in your cab for the monitor to rotate, you don't really gain much image area with a rotating monitor.

I've measured my 19" cab versus the 20" 4:3 LCD I use at work and there is room for the rotation, so I would totally benefit from this setup.

[Blanka]

void

[Blanka]

void

[Ginsu Victim]

19 inchers are 5:4, not 4:3 and thus almost square. No need to rotate them.

Sorry, I meant to say 20". My monitor at work is 20".

[RandyT]

Funny observation is that none of the maybe 500 kids from 4-15 that played my machine at an expo asked questions about blockyness or bad graphics.

No offense, but if you asked those same kids if anything was wrong with the canned tuna fish they get fed nowadays that mostly resembles cat food, you'd probably get a similar response. 

What it boils down to is "if you don't know the difference, then you won't miss it".  Honestly, most kids today don't take these types of games very seriously in the first place, and pretty much expect cell-phone style LCD pixelization from them. 

Personally, I spent too much time pixel pushing "in the day" to take the fullest advantage of the display technology and know that perfect, sharp cornered pixels weren't "part of the plan".  So I prefer viewing them on the types of displays they were created on, because it allows you to see what the designers, and arcade goers, were seeing.  I'm also interested in the advances allowing for emulation of these characteristics.

Using the word "Improved" is probably a misnomer in this regard, as all those viewing the graphics on modern displays probably would not consider them as such.

RandyT

[NoOne=NBA=]

I prefer the graphics smoothed, but not overlayed with any scanlines, or effects.

The problem I have with Robotron, etc... on a 25" monitor is that you can't take in the entire monitor at once.
With a 19" monitor you don't have to pan with your eyes, to see what's ahead in the direction you are travelling.

[xtravbx]

Does mame support graphics card acceleration?

Or does it only run off the CPU?

[Xiaou2]

 Here is a good example of what the intended object is supposed to look like...vs
what happens when viewed by the wrong type of display:



 
 Notice the strange choices of colors on the car on the PC monitor.  It looks horrible.
That is because it was never intended to be displayed on such a high res - no distortion
display.

 The arcade monitors make-up creates a much more smoothed picture.  It blends
the colors together.. so they are more subtle highlights that match perfectly. This is
how the designer intended it to look.   It was never meant to have hot pink
on the red car.

 Things like the road do not seem as "Flat",  as seem on the pc display, because
the tvs shadowmask's lines create a nice texture pattern.  Much like an artistic
painting on canvas.

 Edges such on sides of buildings and the road lines are much smoother instead
of artificially jagged.  They look much more real and artistic.  Not so Harsh on the eyes.
Not so fake and generic.

 Also, the general overall color palette changes a little due to the differences in
phosphors, brightness/contrast differnces, the masks thickness and light interplay,
and more.

[AcidArmitage]

that picture explained so much to me just now 

[Ginsu Victim]

I wondered how long this thread would go on before Xiaou2 showed up with his usual response.

Question: The PC monitor....was that vertical or horizontal, and at what resolution? And is it just me, or does the original car have hot pink as well?

[Minwah]

Low res every time. Games intended to run on a standard resolution arcade monitor look absolutely terrible on a PC monitor. Granted they can look slightly less terrible with video effects but still poor, not to mention the extra horsepower required.

And on LCD screens....thats a new level of terrible, but then LCD screens are bad at just about everything except having a small footprint and using relatively little power...

[ViciousXUSMC]

I would prefer the authentic arcade experience but no room or budget for it so I am quite happy turning my computer into a dual purpose arcade machine and computer.  I wonder why Mame does not have a "blur" function though because that would on its own bring a LCD screen much closer to that of a CRT monitor as far as looks.

Emulators like ZSNES have that function.

Even if I built an arcade cabinet it would not house a CRT due to size/heat/energy/weight but I think a nice projector will give a good medium too so thats what I plan to use. 

[TOK]

I wondered how long this thread would go on before Xiaou2 showed up with his usual response.

Question: The PC monitor....was that vertical or horizontal, and at what resolution? And is it just me, or does the original car have hot pink as well?

When you look at it from a normal distance on an arcade monitor the pink looks like red with sunlight hitting it, creating a highlight effect. I think that was his whole point, that the blurring of a standard res CRT makes the simple image greater than the sum of its parts.

I have cabs with each monitor type at this point, LCD, arcade monitor and TV via component. There is some difference between them if you focus on it, but I always enjoyed them for the gameplay and precise appearance wasn't a huge issue. The TV does a surprisingly respectable job of making the games look good while still producing vivid color. I'm home working on the house today. If I can get a break, I'll put Turbo on each one and recreate Xaiou's experiment for myself.

[Xiaou2]

Its a standard 4/3 Horizontal PC monitor.  It does not matter which way you orient
the PC monitor... The car will still look the exact same, because the shadowmask
on a pc monitor is way too small to see unless you use some high power magnify glass
at very close range.

 Fire up a game on your pc monitor, and you can see right away that it in no way looks
like the original arcade monitor... and looks Exactly as pictured in my post.

 
 What you may be thinking... is that  Mame is not color accurate.  That is NOT the case.
Both the PC Monitor and the Arcade Monitor are getting the exact same picture
signal.

 The cars pixels were designed to be hot pink on one side, with yellow on the other...
because when you see it on an arcade monitor as intended... the hot pink simply
becomes a lighter shade of red... and the yellow blends in with the nearby red... making
a fire-orange color....

 UNLESS - they use two yellow pixels next to each other... which
can be seen on the tail... where there is no mixing.  A single pixel width tends to mix
with nearby color... where as two pixel thick will be twice as vibrant and not mix much if
at all.

 Also, you will see the Lines from the shadowmask on the car seem crooked...

 Why is that???

 The mask is Not actually crooked.  Its an optical illusion actually. (Ive used high power
magnify glass to make sure)

 The phosphors (Red, Green, and Blue dots) are physically located at different positions.
This does have an impact in how they display, because these are much bigger than
your typical pc pixels.  

 ALSO, because each color has a different color spectrum intensity... some colors like
blue wont spread out much... where as red is 'thicker'  and will tend to BLEED over the
top of the shadowmasks surface.   The bleeding light makes the lines seem distorted.

 And interesting enough, Ive seen that the phosphors do not always light completely
up.  They can be lit only a little on the left, for example... rather than the entire
phosphor being completely lit.

 Which leads me to believe that a monitors resolution was not purely pixel accurate
to the shadowmasks...   at least, not back then.


 Anyone with any brains can clearly tell that drawing a car in colors that seen from
the PC pic simply does Not make any sense at all.   It was NEVER meant to be seen
like that.  It was Meant to be viewed on an arcade monitor that blended colors
just like what is seen on my pics.

[CheffoJeffo]

It was NEVER meant to be seen like that.  It was Meant to be viewed on an arcade monitor that blended colors just like what is seen on my pics.

Completely agree and wish that I had remembered your comparison pics when Genesim tilted at this windmill last year.

[Xiaou2]

Thanks Cheffo.

 
 I want to add,  Tok,  that even if you do the same experiment, you may get a vastly different result.

 Reason?   Todays arcade monitors have very different Dot Pitch size.  The size of the
phosphors, and the shadomasks.   And the Shadow Masks themselves may be of different technologies... such as different mounting methods.   A different like that could allow more or less light to leak over the top of the mask...

 The older shadowmasks line thickness will surely create a very different viewing experience.  Just like how looking at a display will look very different on a
low res tv, hdtv..ect.  The effect is a lot more dramatic however.


 While I know that my old monitor may be a little out of adjustment... we can see that
the colors are basically on key.  (No purple instead of red car... no yellow instead of
green grass)   

  There is another example you can find...  but I do not recall which games use it...
On some games... they pop up a seemingly translucent window above the games
background.  That is... when you see it on an arcade monitor with low enough
dot pitch.   However, when you see it on an actual pc monitor... what you see is
dark color dots that are 1 pixel thick, and are staggered in a diamond pattern.  Its not
translucent at all... because you actually See the dots... where as the arcade monitor
blends them so you cant see them.

[Ginsu Victim]

Anyone with any brains can clearly tell that drawing a car in colors that seen from
the PC pic simply does Not make any sense at all.

That sentence didn't make any sense.

The reason I even asked about the hot pink color was that I could see it in the original image, and reading what you said made it sound like you didn't see it. I understand what you were getting at now, which is why I asked whether I was the only one seeing it. I think most of us understand the difference between how PC monitors and arcade monitors display images and the blending that is involved. Those of us who grew up on these things would be crazy not to see it.

[cmoses]

I'm home working on the house today. If I can get a break, I'll put Turbo on each one and recreate Xaiou's experiment for myself.

Please share you pictures if you can.

I would enjoy seeing any comparisons like this from people that have multiple displays and can take pictures showing arcade monitor vs TV vs computer monitor.  I agree the arcade monitor is the way to go if only because it was the way it was intended to be viewed.  I also think that it looks the best that way.

[sean-o-mac]

If you have a MAME cab that play many games, hi-res.  If you have a dedicated cab, low-res.  Keep it as close as you can to the real thing with dedicated.  Personally, I think the MAME sharpness & non-pixel options used on a LCD looks good, but it takes away from the technology for which the older games were based on.

I seen a dedicated Ms. Pac-Man/MAME cab up close.  It looked exactly like a brand new machine, except the graphics were all sharp and clear with no pixels.  It looked terrible to me because I expected pixels.  So it could be personal opinion.

[Jack Burton]

SMB in 1080i on a 55" screen?  Unthinkable for me.  Bigger is not always better.  I think for NES games a 25" is biggest I can comfortably play on. 

I always go with the native resolution of whatever game I am playing and play it on hardware that is as close to an arcade monitor as possible.  That is the sharpest and clearest image. 

For me the order of preference is:

1.  An Arcade monitor the same size as the original dedicated cab.  Preferably the OEM hardware or at least a monitor with identical dot pitch and tube curvature.

2.  A native res capable PC or Studio monitor the same size as the monitor in the dedicated cab.  Think Sony PVM series and their equivalents here.

3.  An arcade monitor that is a different size from the original.

4.  A studio monitor that is 15khz capable and of a different size than the original.

5.  A CRT television, BUT it must be set up very carefully or it falls to the bottom of this list. 

6.  A CRT PC monitor

7.  An LCD TV or monitor

8.  A plasma TV

9.  A projector

10.  DLP TV

11.  Rear Projection TV

#7 through 11 are completely unacceptable if they have even the slightest hint of input delay. 

Keep in mind this list is only in reference to games that run at 15khz.    31khz and above games or widescreen games  are a whole other story.

I never ever turn on any kind of smoothing functions in my games like 2xsai or HQ filters.  I'm told these can actually look pretty good though at very high resolutions, but since I have the old hardware to display the games in their native res's I haven't bothered with it. 

I actually like the razor sharp pixel look.  It's how NES games look when they are played on a studio monitor in 256x240 RGB.  It's like you're playing MS Paint. 

Here's a few good examples of what I'm talking about with the NES:








But I definitely prefer the softer image that a real NES puts out.  That's why my NES emulator of choice is Imbnes, a psx nes emulator.  I can hook it up to my RCA lyceum tv through composite out and it looks 99% as "good" as a real NES.






I know, I know, I'm kind of a nut about this. 

[ahofle]

I would enjoy seeing any comparisons like this from people that have multiple displays and can take pictures showing arcade monitor vs TV vs computer monitor.  I agree the arcade monitor is the way to go if only because it was the way it was intended to be viewed.  I also think that it looks the best that way.

I haven't taken many of PC/LCD monitors, but here are some TV vs Arcade monitor pics I took a while ago:

[TOK]

I did a couple pics of Turbo, but the images look pretty much like Xaiou2's. I did one on a TV, one on a 19" computer monitor. The first is on a 27" TV oriented vertically (correct for Turbo). The second is on a PC monitor oriented horizontally.

[Xiaou2]

Yup, as expected... not much blending on the tv pic.  As can be seen, the dot pitch of
both of those monitors is much much higher than the ancient turbo arcade monitor.

 You can see the shadowmask pattern has very fine lines,  vs the huge lines seen
on the pic i posted. 

 From what Ive seen posted... the more modern arcade low res monitors use a higher dot
pitch shadow mask than the originals.. and they seem to use spacing and or doubling
to put things on screen properly.  Less light bleeds, less line effect, less color blending...

 All I can say, is while they look better than a PC monitor by far.. .its a bit sad that
they are not quite the same as the original look.

[Xiaou2]

Another set Id took a while back:

 *notice: Pixel blobs  -vs-  Bushes ! 

 PC monitor



 Svideo TV



 The svideo was before ATI made a specialized method of interlacing which they
use now.   Todays svideo has a lot less blending - and looks much more pixely.

 The TV is also 480i  ,so the dot pitch is pretty high actually.


 With my new nvidia video card, using their special tactics... it can output the
display over 1024x768.   Text is blurry as heck.. but its quite amazing that they
can make methods to output like that on a tv that shouldnt be able to do that.

 Sadly, its just bad news for mame cab builders who wanted to use svideo tvs...
unless you can still find an old or generic card maybe...

[Ummon]

I did a couple pics of Turbo, but the images look pretty much like Xaiou2's. I did one on a TV, one on a 19" computer monitor. The first is on a 27" TV oriented vertically (correct for Turbo). The second is on a PC monitor oriented horizontally.

First one looks way better. There actually appears to be depth, giving the car the look of an object rather than a paper cut-out.

I did have my 19" CRT PC monitor set at a higher resolution with scanline effects turned on, but I got tired of how the scanlines darkened it, plus the performance hit the system took from the higher rez.

Now I'm running at 640x480 without effects and it looks great. I'd love to have an authentic arcade monitor one day (or at least a decent television), but at the same time, I'd like a good 4:3 LCD with rotation. The one thing that bugs me most is playing vertical games on a horizontal monitor.

Hey, you came round. Don't you just love me.

I definitely dig what Randy said. I recently saw an original MsPac at a bar close by and was thinking specifically about this...although I still think the monitor needed focus adjustment. So, yeah, native for me. But I'm currently going with arcade multi-syncs.

[Ginsu Victim]

Hey, you came round.

A while ago, actually. We'd had a conversation where I said that I saw what you meant this whole time. So after running 640x480 for a while, I switched to 1024x768 with scanlines turned on, but got tired of the dim image. I went back to 640x480 and like the look of it much better. I'm hoping my monitor will die soon, though, so I can buy a TV instead

[Blanka]

void

[Blanka]

void

[TOK]

Regardless of the discussion, I just kind of like looking at real screenshots (not captures) for some reason. I took more last night, but haven't cropped and resized them all. I did them at 10 megapixel, so the images are huge. Here's a little hunk out of one of them.

[Todd H]

I agree 100% that there's nothing like an authentic arcade monitor. Having said that, however, I bought a 26" LCD monitor for my cabinet. I wanted to use an arcade monitor, but nobody makes a 25" digital multisync. Plus, I plan on using mine not only for classic arcade games but for console emulators and PC games as well. So an LCD just made the most sense.

Hopefully MAME effects will one day improve to the point where you can achieve that arcade monitor look. With CRT's going the way of the dodo bird effects might be the only way in the future to get that authentic arcade monitor look.