How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks Different [video]

Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by jcrites on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:51AM (#37817270)

Are there any emulators that try to account for this?

(I did a brief search and came across graphics libraries and discussions about shaders, but didn't find anything easily downloadable...)

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by washadjeffmad on Monday October 09, 2023 @02:21AM (#37817472)

Yes, quite a few! This topic tends to draw in resident experts, but what I can offer is that the complexity you experienced is because CRT shaders are designed around the qualities and features of modern display hardware with the intent to accurately reproduce the effects of a CRT. Your display matters.

These aren't generic visual imitations like early Super Eagle or scanline filters. The ones I've been using require a 4K 120HZ OLED for contrast and latency, and to be able to accurately represent how the frames would be rendered over a CRT's pixels. It's pretty wild how good it is.

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by Sakos on Monday October 09, 2023 @04:04AM (#37818119)

Which ones do you use?

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by washadjeffmad on Monday October 09, 2023 @08:32AM (#37819755)

Well, that's the complicated part. For NTSC content, you might use an NTSC shader with a color hack or shadow mask, integer scaling, and either RBG, composite, RF, or S-Video depending on the generation of console or cabinet you're going for. Some people just want to recreate the experience of their childhood TV, others want to model a quirk of a specific tube or board rev. Lots of options!

If you haven't, check the libretro forums for "new-sonkun-crt-guest-advanced-presets-thread". I've only tried with RetroArch for management, but it's not limited to that.

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by zokier on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:59AM (#37817322)

Oh yes, for example https://docs.libretro.com/shader/crt/ and https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/CRT_shaders

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by undersuit on Monday October 09, 2023 @02:04AM (#37817354)

A bunch, I knew of some of these filters from using SNES9x over a decade ago: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/NTSC_filters

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by metaphor on Monday October 09, 2023 @02:18AM (#37817449)

  s/a decade/two decades/

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by undersuit on Monday October 09, 2023 @12:23PM (#37822014)

Yeah, it's getting there.

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Re:How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks D... by DvdGiessen on Monday October 09, 2023 @04:01AM (#37818099)

One I remember is [0], mostly because of the excellent accompanying blogpost about how it works [1].

[0]: https://piratehearts.itch.io/supercrt [1]: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/programming/crt-simulation-in-...

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