Arcade monitor no longer needed?

[Cisek]

Hi

Some time ago I bought new lcd tv (42" Sony W705) and recently got retroarch with quite new shader "crt royale". After setting various options in this shader i got the results that are IMHO exactly like on trisync arcade monitors. You get 100% authentic arcade monitor looking picture in 15/24/31 khz, plus of course you get perfect 720 and 1080p So the question is: do we still need to use those heavy and bulky crt monitors? For many years I was using soft15khz with Philips crt tv via scart rgb but I think we finally made it with emulation to the point where even arcade picture purist like me can switch to lcd now (I recommend Sony W7 and W8, becuase of lowest lag time, no ghosting and really good contrast/blacks due to mva type screen). Check those screnshots I made and be sure to download them on harddrive and view in 1920x1080p in fullscreen to see the how it should look.









What do you think?

[PL1]

What do you think?

Looks good, but I'm amused that DK and Pac-Man have horizontal scan lines.   


Scott

[mgb]

Looks good.
I tried using retroarch on my htpc for console games but it didn't work out right.
I didn't put too much effort into it but maybe I will give it a second shot.

[CraftyMech]

The DK & Popeye screenshots you posted don't look anything like actual Sanyo 15k monitors running DK/Popeye boards.

"100% authentic" 

[yotsuya]

The DK & Popeye screenshots you posted don't look anything like actual Sanyo 15k monitors running DK/Popeye boards.

"100% authentic" 

Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. I'll stick with CRTs.

[zebidia]

The DK & Popeye screenshots you posted don't look anything like actual Sanyo 15k monitors running DK/Popeye boards.

"100% authentic" 

Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. I'll stick with CRTs.

Does this mean I'll need a Sanyo monitor to get a %100 perfect experience?

[CraftyMech]

The DK & Popeye screenshots you posted don't look anything like actual Sanyo 15k monitors running DK/Popeye boards.

"100% authentic" 

Yeah, I agree with this sentiment. I'll stick with CRTs.

Does this mean I'll need a Sanyo monitor to get a %100 perfect experience?

The only way to get a 100% authentic experience is to get a Nintendo cab and use original hardware.

[adder]

i would only switch to lcd if it looks at least (i did say at least ) this good:

[GradiusFan]

Hmm... Looks pretty great really. I want to build a MAME machine so it really looks like this is the way to go for that. But definitely not so much if we're talking about anything other than MAME.

[Cisek]

The nice thing about this setup is that once you configure your crt royale, you can use it with various systems that retroarch supports so most 8/16/32 bit consoles will work, even amiga and dosbox will run and look like on native resolution in crt. I must admitt it is not a 100% same look as on crt, but it gets really damn close and it is a major breakthrough comparing it to different shaders/filters that were made (to see all the effects you have to view thlse screenshots in fullscreen in 1080p). This crt royale give you tons of options as to how you like to emulate crt, you can make it to look like hantarex/wellsgardner type monitors, or more like Sony trinitrons.
In the screenshots I posted I tried to recreate the look of my philips crt via scart rgb. If you're not a big fan of lcd, it will look great also on pc crt monitor in higher resolutions like 1600x1200 or 1920x1400 even better. I tested it on 21" pc monitor and results are maybe even a little bit better due to crt blacks and contrast.

[copados33]

Sorry but neither of those shots look like an actual arcade CRT, even trisyncs, CRTs screen bloom is very difficult to replicate by TFT displays.

















So, to answer your question, yes, we need arcade monitors, but only if you are anal about video quality for your games.

[Cisek]

My screen is not tft or ips lcd, but mva screen and it really makes the difference in picture. Actual tv has only 14 ms input lag in LeoBodnars test which from what I've heard is the best result in any lcd tv that was ever produced. In "crt royale" shader options you can choose how much bloom do you want and it really works with this shader.

I made few shots from the actual tv and I think it looks the same as your screens, or my soft15khz setup, the only advantage with lcd is it doesn't glare so badly, so I can play longer, without hurting my eyes. The shader is very customizable so everyone can replicate his crt look.

Check those (grey sides are bezel graphics, because I don't like stretch to 16:9):





I am viewing those screenshots on my 15" dell netbook, and the lcd really makes the difference. So basically if anybody want to use lcd for mame, or build viewlix type cabinets I really recommend this w705 from Sony, which is 2014 model + retroarch and "crt royale" shader. I think 32" would be better for cabinet, as 42" is a little too big.

[CraftyMech]

The problem with using your Phillips tv as a baseline is that the aperture & shadow masks in standard res arcade CRTs are totally different. That is why your screenshots of Pacman, DK, and Popeye, look nothing like the arcade.

[Elbaid]

I have the same Sony HDTV, I'm on the look out for a CRT display, but may settle for CRT royale filter if I'm happy with the results. How do you configure the shader? There aren't many options within the GUI.
Also, you said it supports DOSBOX and Amiga, have you actually tried these emulators? I can't get DOSBOX to work and can't even see the Amiga core...

Thanks

[matsadona]

Hm... horizontal scanlines on a vertical game is a total fail. However perhaps that can be changed with some settings?

Anyway, this looks pretty interesting. Yes, it will never be "perfect", but even for me with more than 20 original machines a LCD solution might be needed sometime and then this is way better than MAME out of the box.

[DolansCadillac]

Hm... horizontal scanlines on a vertical game is a total fail. However perhaps that can be changed with some settings?

It can actually, there's a trick to it. I ended up using two Retroarch config files (one for horizontal, one vertical) to make it work that I load from the command line. In the RA options you have to set the display output rotation to 90, then within the MAME ROM's video options you set the rotation to 90 there as well, which gets you vertical scanlines. Hassle, yeah but it's the only way to do it that I've found.

[matsadona]

It can actually, there's a trick to it. I ended up using two Retroarch config files (one for horizontal, one vertical) to make it work that I load from the command line. In the RA options you have to set the display output rotation to 90, then within the MAME ROM's video options you set the rotation to 90 there as well, which gets you vertical scanlines. Hassle, yeah but it's the only way to do it that I've found.

Aha, great. I really need to test this RA someday. I am a little overwhelmed by everything that needs to be downloaded and configured though... Not that I am styupid, just don't have the time to do it 

[mgb]

It can actually, there's a trick to it. I ended up using two Retroarch config files (one for horizontal, one vertical) to make it work that I load from the command line. In the RA options you have to set the display output rotation to 90, then within the MAME ROM's video options you set the rotation to 90 there as well, which gets you vertical scanlines. Hassle, yeah but it's the only way to do it that I've found.

Aha, great. I really need to test this RA someday. I am a little overwhelmed by everything that needs to be downloaded and configured though... Not that I am styupid, just don't have the time to do it 

I feel the same way about Retroarch. I started setting it up on my htpc but got lazy.

[bulbousbeard]

The only important metric CRTs are winning at right now is motion blur, IMO. You still can't really play a scroller as fast as Sonic 2 on an LCD without a crappy amount of blur.

Of course that Popeye screenshot looks nothing like a real Popeye cabinet. A real Popeye machine is flickery, shaky, interlaced dog poop. For medium res/30hz classic games such as Rampage and Popeye, a setup such as SDLMAME with the Lottes shader or Retroarch with CRT Royale looks far better than any real machine. Interlaced games are absolutely hideous and unplayable to me given the alternatives available today.

[bulbousbeard]

So, to answer your question, yes, we need arcade monitors, but only if you are anal about video quality for your games.

Actually, SDLMAME with the Lottes shader looks exactly like that (only better; it's at the right aspect ratio whereas the CRT in that shot is stretched out too much horizontally (or it isn't stretched out enough vertically), squishing the characters slightly.

[CraftyMech]

The only important metric CRTs are winning at right now is motion blur, IMO. You still can't really play a scroller as fast as Sonic 2 on an LCD without a crappy amount of blur.

Of course that Popeye screenshot looks nothing like a real Popeye cabinet. A real Popeye machine is flickery, shaky, interlaced dog poop. For medium res/30hz classic games such as Rampage and Popeye, a setup such as SDLMAME with the Lottes shader or Retroarch with CRT Royale looks far better than any real machine. Interlaced games are absolutely hideous and unplayable to me given the alternatives available today.

I've played on 3 different Popeye cabinets in the last few months, and the displays were stable, flicker free (all three cabs had Sanyo EZ-20s).

I'm not normally a fan of interlaced anything, but Popeye looked fine to me in its original form.

[bulbousbeard]

The only important metric CRTs are winning at right now is motion blur, IMO. You still can't really play a scroller as fast as Sonic 2 on an LCD without a crappy amount of blur.

Of course that Popeye screenshot looks nothing like a real Popeye cabinet. A real Popeye machine is flickery, shaky, interlaced dog poop. For medium res/30hz classic games such as Rampage and Popeye, a setup such as SDLMAME with the Lottes shader or Retroarch with CRT Royale looks far better than any real machine. Interlaced games are absolutely hideous and unplayable to me given the alternatives available today.

I've played on 3 different Popeye cabinets in the last few months, and the displays were stable, flicker free (all three cabs had Sanyo EZ-20s).

I'm not normally a fan of interlaced anything, but Popeye looked fine to me in its original form.

I completely disagree. If you don't notice the flicker with interlaced arcade games, you need to get your eyes checked, IMO. I've seen a Popeye and Rampage recently, and they both looked like smouldering butt compared to the results I can get with a 4k monitor and a good shader. I just want to emphasize that the images in this thread are NOT as good as it gets for LCDs with shaders.

First of all, CRT Royale pretty much needs 4k resolution to look right. There simply aren't enough pixels to throw at it to get the correct effect at 1080p.

Secondly, most shaders have REALLY screwy default bloom settings. There is WAY too much bloom by default, and it makes them look really weird. I'd take some screenshots from my cabinet, but it's too much of a nuisance, because there's no keyboard hooked up to it anymore.

[CraftyMech]

I completely disagree. If you don't notice the flicker with interlaced arcade games, you need to get your eyes checked, IMO. I've seen a Popeye and Rampage recently, and they both looked like smouldering butt compared to the results I can get with a 4k monitor and a good shader. I just want to emphasize that the images in this thread are NOT as good as it gets for LCDs with shaders.

My eyes are fine.

[yotsuya]

You guys didn't know Bulbousbeard had his corneas replaced with 4K G-Sync receptors, didn't you?

[Vigo]

You guys didn't know Bulbousbeard had his corneas replaced with 4K G-Sync receptors, didn't you?

I guess he won't need this shampoo anymore. 

[chopperthedog]

I experimented with fooling myself for about 20 minutes once and that led to buying 14 crts over the last year or so. 



good day.

[DolansCadillac]

Just for another point of view, I switched from my old faithful Toshiba 27" to an HP IPS about six months ago, mainly to play modern games at 1080p. It took me weeks of messing around with shaders to get a level of fidelity I was satisfied with, but in the end I'm happy enough with the result that I honestly don't miss my CRT. Granted I probably wouldn't start dropping panels into dedicated cabs but for jack-of-all-trades boxes like mine, if you asked me if a mid-grade 1080p monitor with sufficient post-processing is a viable alternative to a CRT on a multi-game cab, I'd say yes and believe me I'm a picky bastard.



My current configuration, which uses 3 shader passes: A gamma/saturation/luminance adjustment pass, a pass to add subtle scanline flicker, and a modified version of CRT-Geom to do the heavy work (halation, screen geometry, etc). The exaggerated contrast can be blamed on my old SLR.

[lamprey]

My current configuration, which uses 3 shader passes: A gamma/saturation/luminance adjustment pass, a pass to add subtle scanline flicker, and a modified version of CRT-Geom to do the heavy work (halation, screen geometry, etc). The exaggerated contrast can be blamed on my old SLR.

If I have a hot moment, I can try a screen shot from my cab for comparison. But, I was curious what you are using for the subtle scanline flicker? Given that you mentioned CRT-Geom, I'm guess you are using an SDL-build of mame? I'm working with Timothy Lottes' shader and would like to add a tiny amount of flicker. So if that is a separate shader that can run as another pass, that'd be killer to try out. If you have a link you can share or if you are willing to post you file please do (or PM me).

 

[DolansCadillac]

Sure thing man, attached. I use it in the pass directly before Geom (in Retroarch), nearest/no scale. The variables in there are pretty self-explanatory, the one to pay attention to is on line 30 (scanlineDim). My setting of 0.96 is pretty subtle, just enough to make the picture look 'alive', or 'not flat' anyway. Going any lower will make it more noticable but it doesn't take much (anything less than 0.94 tends to look like chaos).

Also thanks for tipping me off that Lottes' got a CG port, don't know how I missed that. Just started testing with it now and I can already see why it gets so much hype. I do have a soft spot for Geom though since I've been tweaking it for so long.

[DolansCadillac]

Hey lamprey, question for you - I was messing around with Lottes' for a while last night and I'm getting the vibe that it's much like Royale, in the sense that 1080P isn't going to do it justice no matter how much I mess around with it. The best results I've got so far were too blurry and dim for me. What's your experience been with it? And what resolution are you using?

[lamprey]

Hey lamprey, question for you - I was messing around with Lottes' for a while last night and I'm getting the vibe that it's much like Royale, in the sense that 1080P isn't going to do it justice no matter how much I mess around with it. The best results I've got so far were too blurry and dim for me. What's your experience been with it? And what resolution are you using?

I have a bit of an odd scenario because I've built a "virtual cabinet". So I have a 4k TV in portrait mode displaying bezel and marquee artwork. That, effectively, makes the game "screen" area is closer to 1080p-ish. Additionally, I didn't calibrate the TV like I normally would so that I can make further adjustments to the artwork and game screen... Without boring you with all the details. I pumped up brightness so I could get the game screen to "pop" a little more like a CRT and the marquee to be brighter and I dimmed all the artwork to be more subdued.

That having been said, I've attached my modded shader to see if it makes a difference for you. You might just need to change the hardPix value as that seems to sharpen things up a bit.  I've tweaked just about all the settings, so I suspect it wouldn't look good to anyone else. I'm also trying to bump up the floor a bit so that you can see the "screen" even when all black. Don't ask, just something I'm playing with on my cabinet..

Here is  a screen capture from my workstation (cropped from 1920x1200). Obviously, you'll need to view the original size on photobucket to see it in a 1:1 pixel size: