My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

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fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

From one perspective I could say I dislike what we call scanlines too, but I dislike even more how rough and ugly 2D sprites and early 3D graphics can look without them in virtually all games. Grabbing a hack pseudo progressive image and rendering it in real progressive is not pretty, it turns out.

So a kind of necessary evil, they don't add anything good but they prevent something worse. For that reason I'm glad upscalers like the FM and OSSC offer scanline options, and the more options and configs the better.
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

What I really dislike about scanlines is the claim that all older games were made with scanlines in mind - that's bullshit. Artists didn't account for scanlines to be an inherent part of the final graphic appearance, and why should they? After all, scanline appearance heavily varies depending on the monitor.
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maxtherabbit
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by maxtherabbit »

I like the way CRTs actually look, scanlines and all

I also like the way sharp pixels look on modern displays

but fake scanlines just look like bogus garbage to me
ldeveraux
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by ldeveraux »

Jeez guys, I don't like scanlines either I just thought everyone else did. I didn't mean to start a debate.
fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

Thomago wrote:What I really dislike about scanlines is the claim that all older games were made with scanlines in mind - that's bullshit. Artists didn't account for scanlines to be an inherent part of the final graphic appearance, and why should they? After all, scanline appearance heavily varies depending on the monitor.
What they mean is probably that they were designed via testing on CRTs. One thing's for sure, designs would have been different if artists knew stuff would be displayed on (a tech that didn't yet exist) fixed pixel displays/flat panels.

More on topic, even though Micomsoft is still not getting things right, it's commendable that they're offering more options. The grid "scanlines" are also something that can be a subject of preference, but the same argument as above can be made for graphics design for systems that used low-res LCD panels, so it's good it's implemented at least.
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

fernan1234 wrote:What they mean is probably that they were designed via testing on CRTs.
Nah, that's pretty much never the reasoning. Usually they show comparisons of non-scanlined content vs. content with highly pronounced BVM style scanlines, highlight the "hidden detail" the scanlines bring about and claim that's why scanlines are necessary.
Dochartaigh
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Dochartaigh »

Thomago wrote:
fernan1234 wrote:What they mean is probably that they were designed via testing on CRTs.
Nah, that's pretty much never the reasoning. Usually they show comparisons of non-scanlined content vs. content with highly pronounced BVM style scanlines, highlight the "hidden detail" the scanlines bring about and claim that's why scanlines are necessary.
If a professional video game designer didn't account for how their game would look displayed on it's final medium (i.e. a CRT TV), then they would be quite a hack and not much of a real video game designer at all.

That would be like me, a graphic artist, never, ever, getting any proofs from the printer before I send a $100,000 job to print.... that would be absolutely insane.

That would be like a composer (not talking about Mozart/Beethoven) making all his notations on paper and never actually listening to the music played in real life.

And also, some things like the transparency dithering effect many games have I feel like was custom made for CRT technology (as some effects like that totally disappear if emulating or even if playing on a really high quality non-consumer CRT over RGBS or whatnot).

Plus, coincidence? I think not lol:

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fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

Yeah that sounds more like people incorrectly making the point rather than making an incorrect point. The horizontal scanlines associated with 240p (a hack of 480i really) don't add anything when "faked", but they may prevent distortions inherent to displaying the picture raw on much higher resolution, fixed pixel displays. I like these discussions because now even playing retro games on a CRT is not a necessity, so it all comes down to taste, and we usually like to feel that our taste is the better or right one :lol:

In any case, it'd be nice if there's also more discussion about grid "scanline" filters to emulate low PPI LCD displays, i.e. handheld consoles. Here fixed pixels were anticipated by the artists, but they were also counting on the low pixel count of the tiny screens. What's the best way to represent their work when upscaled and blown up on a comparatively gigantic screen?
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

@Dochartaigh:

I think you are giving "professional video game designers" too much credit. I mean, many of them didn't even account for basic stuff like aspect ratios ("basic", because there was an objectively correct way to handle these). And yet you think that they accounted for the look in the "final medium" in regards to scanline effects, something they couldn't exactly determine because it was heavily dependent on the equipment used (TV vs. BVM, different mask types and, you mentioned it yourself, connection type)? That doesn't make sense.
Ryoandr
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Ryoandr »

Thomago wrote:What I really dislike about scanlines is the claim that all older games were made with scanlines in mind - that's bullshit. Artists didn't account for scanlines to be an inherent part of the final graphic appearance, and why should they? After all, scanline appearance heavily varies depending on the monitor.
A lot evidently took 240p scanline effect into consideration.
SNK Oda told so to its teams, he said in an interview.

Some back covers and manuals (particulary jp ones) have screenshots with scanlines very visible.

That the same argument about composite being what was intended, 100% of the time, because 5% of games (or worse, 5% in 1 game) takes advantage of bluring.
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

Now that you say it... I remember what you might be referring to: https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/1796 ... e-industry (Interesting read!)
"A lot" is far fetched, but there were indeed some artists accounting for scanlines. I should have added a "generally" in front of the "account for scanlines".

Yet, my point stands; claiming that all older respectively all 240p games were made with scanlines in mind is bullshit.
fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

Thomago wrote:Now that you say it... I remember what you might be referring to: https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/1796 ... e-industry (Interesting read!)
"A lot" is far fetched, but there were indeed some artists accounting for scanlines. I should have added a "generally" in front of the "account for scanlines".

Yet, my point stands; claiming that all older respectively all 240p games were made with scanlines in mind is bullshit.
It only stands if your definition of "scanlines" is very narrowed down to the relatively thick and prominent blank lines characteristic of high TV-line CRTs showing 240p content. But when it comes to 240p, all SD CRTs have "scanlines." The lines that do get drawn on the CRT are either shown very distinctly from blank lines in between (think BVM), or they more or less blend into the blank lines with a gradient (especially on older shadow mask sets). But 240p even on a CRT with barely perceptible blank lines ("scanlines") will look very different from the same content, without additional filters, on a higher-res monitor or LCD.

Higher res monitors, and especially LCDs, are what made the whole discussion of scanlines actually relevant. In a way it's anachronistic to talk about scanlines on SD CRTs.

The real problem is that, for a long time, people did a very lazy job of trying to emulate the effect that "scanlines" had on CRTs. The FM doesn't do a good job, but at least it tries. The OSSC on the other hand can do great, though only with the right match of TV and upscaling.
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

fernan1234 wrote:It only stands if your definition of "scanlines" is very narrowed down to the relatively thick and prominent blank lines characteristic of high TV-line CRTs showing 240p content. But when it comes to 240p, all SD CRTs have "scanlines." The lines that do get drawn on the CRT are either shown very distinctly from blank lines in between (think BVM), or they more or less blend into the blank lines with a gradient (especially on older shadow mask sets). But 240p even on a CRT with barely perceptible blank lines ("scanlines") will look very different from the same content, without additional filters, on a higher-res monitor or LCD.
That's exactly my point! Scanlines don't equal scanlines, so accounting for them is somewhat of a lost cause. At best, an artist would have adjusted his work to look best on the most common CRT type at the time, but that's it.
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Kez
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Kez »

I don't personally care about developer intent, however I do find on some games adding scanlines simply makes them look better to me. First turning them on is jarring, but after a little while my eyes/brain adjust to the image and it feels like I am subconsciously filling in the gaps between the lines. This is all very subjective of course, but the result to me is that the addition of scanlines adds imaginary detail and makes the game feel higher resolution than it actually is.
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Thomago
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Thomago »

I get that. It's somewhat like putting a movie grain filter over highly compressed video - there isn't more graphical detail, but it may feel like it. And speaking of feeling: Artistic intent aside, scanline filters essentially seek to emulate the look of CRTs. If you want that look, for example for nostalgic reasons, that's certainly nice.
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by ASDR »

I wonder if a future iteration of the Framemeister will be able to simulate OLED burn in. Keep track of what you're showing and then wear out virtual OLEDs. Or how about a camera in the Framemeister that tracks your head position and then starts simulating various off-angle viewing behavior like IPS glow or TN color shift. Maybe add options for MPEG compression artifacts and vinyl crackle as well. I also miss backlight clouding and dead pixels and that dark smudge on my childhood TV. Maybe we need an entire FPGA based video processor to correctly preserve the various image quality defects of yesterday's display technology? Would be a tragedy if they all vanished forever :cry:
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by rama »

ASDR wrote:Maybe we need an entire FPGA based video processor to correctly preserve the various image quality defects of yesterday's display technology?
Don't count that off yet, I think I would investigate the option xD

Honestly, CRT filters work very well for me.
I get that not everyone wants to smear over their pixels, but having the option for those that want it, why not?
To me, CRT filters are a dramatic improvement. A pixel perfect SNES image looks naked to me, and has no depth in it.
Just a clump of pixels, instead of art.
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maxtherabbit
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by maxtherabbit »

as far as CRTs go, I vastly prefer the look of high end ones with sharper lines like pro monitors and VGA PC CRTs

blurry ass old garbage tier consumer sets remind me of poverty, and belong in the trashcan - IMO no self respecting developer of the era would have "tailored" the experience for the lowest common denominator when better displays existed all along
fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

ASDR wrote:I wonder if a future iteration of the Framemeister will be able to simulate OLED burn in. Keep track of what you're showing and then wear out virtual OLEDs. Or how about a camera in the Framemeister that tracks your head position and then starts simulating various off-angle viewing behavior like IPS glow or TN color shift. Maybe add options for MPEG compression artifacts and vinyl crackle as well. I also miss backlight clouding and dead pixels and that dark smudge on my childhood TV. Maybe we need an entire FPGA based video processor to correctly preserve the various image quality defects of yesterday's display technology? Would be a tragedy if they all vanished forever :cry:
Joking aside, some people actually like to emulate some of the worst characteristics of low end consumer CRTs. Have you seen some of the crazy CRT shaders people have made for Libretro/Retroarch? Personally I don't find that nostalgia outweighs visual quality, if I were to use one of these shaders I'd use the one that looks like a BVM.

Unlike RF noise, composite dot crawl and color bleeding, etc., what we call scanlines are not a defect though. That would be like saying that the visible gaps between pixels on, say, a Game Boy Advance screen, are a defect. They are a normal aspect of the technology used. Like the gaps in a low PPI LCD screen, "scanlines" are not exactly intended either though. They are rather an artifact of displaying a lower resolution picture on a display that is roughly double resolution. In a way they are the result of a very unique kind of upscaling! So this artifact was not intended, but it was expected, and, in hindsight, desirable.

Both 480i and 480p can be said to be double 240p, but only one was "taken into account" when testing games on SD CRTs, I'm sure. I remember the first time I encountered the term "scanlines" was in '96 when I emulated SNES games using ZSNES on a Compaq computer with a CRT monitor @480p. It was a CRT, but not the right resolution, and clearly a kind of correction was necessary (though the ZSNES scanlines sucked).
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Ryoandr
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Ryoandr »

fernan1234 wrote:Joking aside, some people actually like to emulate some of the worst characteristics of low end consumer CRTs. Have you seen some of the crazy CRT shaders people have made for Libretro/Retroarch?
The worst is Reshade, literally ALL filters are super duper overdone, with shadow/slot/aperture reproduction, bloom, dot crawl, distortion...
Ironically the solution was a port of the simplest scanline shader from retroarch...
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Shuco13 »

Thanks for the write-up FBX. Would be nice to see the new features also for 5X profiles. Anybody contacted micomsoft before the firmware exceeds beta status?
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by FBX »

By the way, I've since come to find that "858" doesn't work for what appears to be 320 mode on the PSX either. I checked the game menu screen of the PSIO, which allows you to set a 320x256 wallpaper image as the background. Turns out the optimal clock rate for that is 853, which is even lower than the 855 for the Genesis. So yeah, it's looking more and more like I just need to buckle down when I find the time and pinpoint dot clocks for the resolutions of the major consoles. Granted, I can't do this for 256 modes because Micomsoft fucked that up for 1080p output, but oh well.
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by dreadnought »

fernan1234 wrote:Unlike RF noise, composite dot crawl and color bleeding, etc., what we call scanlines are not a defect though.
Dismissing anything that's not "like BVM" is one of the biggest fallacies to be found in this hobby. Sure, dot crawl & RF noise are annoying and best avoided. Color bleed and "etc" such as dithering or NTSC artifacting on the other hand were used to great effect in countless games as roundabout post-processing effects. Emulating some of these effects is far from "crazy".

This of course varies wildly from system to system and game to game, but it is a fact of life/history. I know it does not fit neatly in the popular modern narrative of "perfection", epitomised by super-sharp pixels and thicc scanlines and is not really worth arguing about...just worth reminding from time to time :)

I'm playing some of Amiga's finest via composite atm and can see how immensely these games benefit from it - you may lose some detail but overall the scene looks like a gorgeous watercolour painting. On other outputs you will get bunch of pixels instead. Sure, would love to get rid of dot-crawl, which is why I'm trying to go one up to S-Video atm, a possible compromise, but will probably stop there for this platform. And it's just one example.
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

dreadnought wrote: Dismissing anything that's not "like BVM" is one of the biggest fallacies to be found in this hobby. Sure, dot crawl & RF noise are annoying and best avoided. Color bleed and "etc" such as dithering or NTSC artifacting on the other hand were used to great effect in countless games as roundabout post-processing effects. Emulating some of these effects is far from "crazy".
The smoothing effect (allowing dither to look like transparencies or otherwise unavailable colors) of imperfect NTSC decoding characteristic of composite output, in games of select retro consoles, is literally the one single effect worth emulating or preserving. Deliberately preserving any of the other defects is indeed crazy.

I actually play NES/Famicom games using the composite output of a NESRGB, since it amounts to a nice compromise that preserves the smoother (i.e. blurrier) picture which indeed was accounted for in sprite design, while also vastly reducing the dot crawl and color bleed of stock NES composite output. Without this alternative, I probably would still put up with the terrible dot crawl and shimmering of the stock output, or perhaps just go with RGB after getting tired of it.

And S-Video won't be a good enough compromise. It's much closer to RGB than to composite, and lacks the defect/effect actually desirable for these older systems.
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by rama »

dreadnought wrote:
fernan1234 wrote:.. watercolour painting...
This is what I call it as well!
Composite Video is definitely an effective filter and I like how it looks when it is implemented well.
This scene here exclusively works in CV. Any sharper video output just creates a pixel mess.
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fernan1234
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by fernan1234 »

rama wrote:
dreadnought wrote:
fernan1234 wrote:.. watercolour painting...
This is what I call it as well!
Composite Video is definitely an effective filter and I like how it looks when it is implemented well.
This scene here exclusively works in CV. Any sharper video output just creates a pixel mess.
Image
I think scanlines are more important for pre-rendered backgrounds on PS1 games like that. I actually replayed through Chrono Cross last year using RGB (on a CRT) and that part looked great, not pixelated or anything. PS1 games have no argument in favor of composite. The only argument really is for systems from the 1980s, and some games in the Sega Genesis since it used so much dithering for color blending and transparencies.

The Genesis is the one case I can think of where emulation may have an advantage, as long as it's really accurate. With Retroarch you can have the best of both worlds, combining shaders that make it look like high quality RGB with a shader that blends dithering. It would be great if some day we could have a device that we could add to our video chain (whether for 240p video or for upscaled/linedoubled output) with a dithering blend algorithm (or if a future FM/OSSC firmware can implement this).
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FinalBaton
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by FinalBaton »

maxtherabbit wrote:as far as CRTs go, I vastly prefer the look of high end ones with sharper lines like pro monitors and VGA PC CRTs

blurry ass old garbage tier consumer sets remind me of poverty, and belong in the trashcan - IMO no self respecting developer of the era would have "tailored" the experience for the lowest common denominator when better displays existed all along
That's the 2 extremes though. There's stuff in between...

For me, a top shelf consumer set with RGB is superb and perfectly sharp enough to render the content of these old games. you could also say the same of prosumer sets and lower-tier presentation monitors

But yeah developpers probably didn't work on low tier consumer sets, I agree with you there. From the footage I've seen, they usually worked in RGB with lower-tier presentation monitors from JVC, Sony, Ikegami etc (except for NES where they obviously had to work in composite, on the same sets, or on equivalent-quality composite-only(or composite+s-video)monitors)

It wouldn't suprise me if they sometime referenced their work on middle-of-the-road consumer sets though, just to make sure it also doesn't look wack on there (just like an audio producer/mixer will listen to his/her mix on consumer gear to reference the mix and make sure it sounds good on there also)
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maxtherabbit
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by maxtherabbit »

FinalBaton wrote:
maxtherabbit wrote:as far as CRTs go, I vastly prefer the look of high end ones with sharper lines like pro monitors and VGA PC CRTs

blurry ass old garbage tier consumer sets remind me of poverty, and belong in the trashcan - IMO no self respecting developer of the era would have "tailored" the experience for the lowest common denominator when better displays existed all along
That's the 2 extremes though. There's stuff in between...

For me, a top shelf consumer set with RGB is superb and perfectly sharp enough to render the content of these old games. you could also say the same of prosumer sets and lower-tier presentation monitors

But yeah developpers probably didn't work on low tier consumer sets, I agree with you there. From the footage I've seen, they usually worked in RGB with lower-tier presentation monitors from JVC, Sony, Ikegami etc (except for NES where they obviously had to work in composite, on the same sets, or on equivalent-quality composite-only(or composite+s-video)monitors)

It wouldn't suprise me if they sometime referenced their work on middle-of-the-road consumer sets though, just to make sure it also doesn't look wack on there (just like an audio producer/mixer will listen to his/her mix on consumer gear to reference the mix and make sure it sounds good on there also)
I agree with all of that. And there are some consumer CRTs that are very nice. These 32" sets I have (JVC D Series as well as a Sharp from 2005) can give pro monitors a run for their money.

As an aside, I hate impressionism. Maybe that's why I like sharp pixels :mrgreen:
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Konsolkongen »

How do I downgrade properly again? I've tried firmware 1.11 and 2.03a and in both cases the XRGB-mini still says firmware 2.04 on the status screen :/

I guess it does work because the 'DATA' menu is missing now that I have flashed the 1.11 version :/
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Re: My findings on the new 2.04 Framemeister firmware:

Post by Koston »

Micomsoft introduced some remote control bugs in 2.04 firmware, too. Pressing the volume up/down buttons doesn't work, instead it brings up an unnamed slider that can't be adjusted. Same thing with Gamma button. Instead, the Brightness button does bring up volume controls!
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