Retro gaming on 1440p monitor

[Joelepain]

Hi everyone,

It's been almost 10 years that I'm gaming and retro-gaming on a 24" 1080p 60hz pc monitor.
Lately I've been thinking to upgrade my monitor and my graphic card, my main motivation is to buy something with better refresh rate (144hz/165hz) and FreeSync, but i'm wondering if I take the oppotunity to jump to 1440p too.
So I'm asking to those of you who have been retrogaming on 1440p monitor, what they think.

Right now I have a RGB modded N64 and a PS2 hooked to an OSSC which then goes into a VP50pro (for 3D games I don't like the sharp "pixel perfect" look of integer scaling/basic scaling of monitors, I prefer the smoothness of the DVDO even if I know there are better solutions out there).
I have a gamecube too which I used to use with component, but I recently upgrade to HDMI output (Insurrection Carby v2), which goes into the VP50pro too.
I have a WiiU and a Switch. I know they're not really "retro" but they are 720p/1080p system.
I don't care about owning hardware of older stuff (8/16bit), I much prefer using good emulators with CRT shaders for these (and I know 1440p will be better than 1080p for this)

If I go the 1440p route, I'm thinking of something like the LG 27GL850 or Gigabyte Aorus AD27QD.
I wonder if the VP50pro will still be usefull (so whatever resolution->VP50pro->1080p->Upscaled to 1440p by the monitor) or if it's better to go straight into the monitor.

Thanks.

[tongshadow]

Real upgrade would be a good CRT PC Monitor tbqh.

[Joelepain]

Real upgrade would be a good CRT PC Monitor tbqh.

Haha not really the answer I was expecting.
I've been a die-hard defender of CRT for a long time myself, but I'm not really interested to own one anymore. They really take too much space.
I've been fustrated by the lack of real strive in LCD quality for a long time too... man really we're almost in 2020, we can send Cars in space, but we still have to choose between TN, IPS and VA depending on the aspect of the picture we favour...
The last video of Digital Foundry on CRT monitor was quite recomforting and refreshing. It was becoming more and more difficult to not sound dumb when you tried to explain to people that CRT was not as bad as they want to remember...

[tongshadow]

I have a very similar setup to yours, also own an OSSC and a DVDO VP30. Both of my monitors are BenQ 1080p low lag TN displays, "24 and "27 each.
I'm only using the OSSC on my PS2 and OG Xbox, and I was surprised to see that my displays accepted the oddball multiplied resolutions. So no need for the big VP30 machine, although it's still the best when it comes to deinterlacing 480i PS2 games, which is like 90% of them. But I can live the OSSC's simple bob deinterlacing, I like my games lag free.

While they're very good at their jobs of improving image quality to a LCD panel (I run both consoles at 960p mode), you're still dealing with low resolution sources. So even if the machines can properly upscale the signals, it's either comes down to: A) Exacerbate the low resolutions into a pixelated mess (VERY noticeable on HUD elements); B) Try to hide and mask the low res by turning it into a blurry mess. I personally prefer the pixelated mess, because hey, you have to love the jaggies to enjoy 6th Gen games

And, finally, to add insult to injury, you still have to deal with LCD technology. The thing I hate the most about it is the motion blur whenever anything moves fast, that can really ruin the look of certain games like 2D titles. Second thing I hate would be... uh... contrast and black levels. You see, I think the PS2 gets some unwarranted hate because of its "muddy and washed out visuals", but thats only because most have played a PS2 on LCD screens. So the thing is, PS2 games were made with good contrast and deep black levels in mind. Most LCD displays dont have enough contrast to make it look even remotely good, so what you get usually is a very dark image or an overbright picture that basically turns all black into greys. Colors is another issue as well, but not as bad as the contrast.

With a good PC CRT? All of those issues are automatically solved. Not having to deal with upscaling because standard resolutions look good on a CRT, no blur on high speed games, no bad contrast/colors and above all, no lag.

Am I saying they're an unplayable mess even with a good converter like the OSSC? Not at all! But you can see and feel that something isnt right. Well, that could be just me.
The bottom line is: play on what makes you happy.

And as an apology for stealing your thread into a somewhat personal rant sorta thing, you can find good info about 1440p Displays on this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58897&hilit=tate+scanlines&start=30

[Classicgamer]

I play 240p games on my 12" 1600p Oled tablet when I travel and I used to use a 1440p one. I think there is a small but noticeable improvement from using a screen with a resolution that is divisible by 240 (but not life changing). My larger lcd laptop screen is 1600p and 240p games still look terrible without a decent upscaler.

If you already own a decent upscaler then the benefit (of 1440 or 1600p) will be far less noticeable imo. Some may disagree but we all know what we like.
The issue with using a 1080p fixed pixel display for old 240p gaming is poor scaling - which the upscaler solves. Would it solve it better on a 1440p screen? Maybe a little.

If the goal is to get the best possible image from 240p and 480i games without using a CRT, it's hard to beat a decent Oled with a quality upscaler imo. The Oled screen would deliver a far more noticeable upgrade than going from a 1080p lcd to a 1440p one.

LCD was a major step down in image quality from CRT. Oled is the first display tech that shows actual progress since the pinnacle of the CRT era.

[Joelepain]

My main concern/question was more : Will I get at least the same quality if I use a 1440p monitor instead of 1080p one? Or will the quality degrade because of the multiple upscaling stage (external processor + scaling inside the monitor) ? Is a 1080p external processor (like the vp50pro) still relevant in this case?

Upgrading to a 1440p is more for today gaming (or should I say PC gaming which can output whatever resolution natively). Better looking CRT sharders I know will be a bonus.

I just don't want to degrade quality of retro-gaming. If 1440p is a bad idea for this case, I can save money by upgrading to another 1080p monitor and on the graphic card.

[Guspaz]

What retro gaming thing is outputting 1080p, though?

If you're talking about the 240p era, then 1440p is a 6x integer scale. If you're running through some intermediate device, output 720p, which is half 1440p.

If you're talking about the 480i/480p era, then 1440p is a 3x scale. It's a better fit than a 1080p display.

[Classicgamer]

What retro gaming thing is outputting 1080p, though?

If you're talking about the 240p era, then 1440p is a 6x integer scale. If you're running through some intermediate device, output 720p, which is half 1440p.

If you're talking about the 480i/480p era, then 1440p is a 3x scale. It's a better fit than a 1080p display.

Yeah, however you look at it for retro gaming, it is unlikely to reduce image quality over an otherwise equal 1080p one.

Even with the OSSC, 1440p presents less of a scaling challenge than 1080p. I define retro-gaming as anything upto and including the PS3. The majority of retro content is 240, 480 or 720 line graphics. It may look slightly better for this. It won't help some of the games with obscure resolutions or EGA arcade games but they probably wouldn't look worse.

"otherwise equal" is the important point. Two monitors are rarely equal besides resolution. You should really try before you buy if possible. Even flat-screen monitors are a pain in the ass to sell if you buy the wrong one. Resolution is just one factor in image quality.

My Sony PS3 monitor is 1080p and retro games look pretty good on it. I have a similar size Asus 1080p display that makes old games look like my granny's gash.

[orange808]

There's no guarantees. Gotta go shopping and go prepared. Otherwise, make sure you buy from someone with an excellent return policy.

Two possibilities:

1. The monitor has good scaling and you get clean 240px6 and 480px3. Good luck with all that. Maybe someone knows of a model that does that.

2. The monitor has 1:1, so you can use the OSSC linex5 1200p and linex4 960p with boxed borders.

I hear there are monitors with increased lag in some situations as well. So, you might want to buy a Time Sleuth to help you shop. You probably want to bring your laptop along when you shop as well. A couple fast test patterns will tell you everything you need to know about the scaling in a hurry. (and you'll need something to power the Time Sleuth.)

[Guspaz]

There are no guarantees that a 1440p monitor will do a good job with the 6x 240p scale or the 3x 480p scale, but it's unlikely to be worse than a 1080p monitor doing 4.5x for 240p and 2.25x for 480p.

The only common resolution that a 1440p monitor will probably be noticeably worse at than a 1080p monitor is 1080p, and even that depends a bit on the source material. I've been playing Link's Awakening on my 1440p monitor, and that game's dynamic resolution scaling is rarely at 1080p, so it's going to be a softer uspcaled image no matter what you do. As a result, it looks fine, as do 1080p videos. But try to display a 1080p desktop style image on a 1440p monitor and it's not a great experience.

[tongshadow]

Alright my "17 inch monitor arrived and I have already tested a bunch of PS2 games using my XRGB-3. All I can say is, OMG.
You know, for the longest time I believed that upscaling PS2 to modern displays and having to deal with poor image was just a fact of life. You always have to compromise one way or the other.
But this CRT Monitor? It's like it was *meant* to be used on a PS2. It automatically solves all the problems this console may have with modern displays.

Having to deal with Interlacing/Deinterlacing 480i? Not here. Sure, the XRGB-3 in B1 mode uses a fast bob-deinterlacing that causes some flicker, but it's barely noticeable on this monitors, specially if you add light scanlines and sit at a reasonable distance. Also, 480i games look incredibly **sharp**. No blurry or pixelated mess here. 480p is gorgeous on some games, like Burnout 3.

Bad contrast and muddy visuals? Not a problem! Not only the blacks are truly blacks, but the brightness of a CRT monitor just cant be replicated by most modern displays. This unique combination makes even the darkest and "colorless" games have incredible contrasting and vibrant colors. Colorful games are even better!

And because it's a CRT, it has no trouble dealing with low resolutions, so the graphics and HUD elements blend perfectly and you dont have low res assets that are upscaled and look out of place.

I gotta say, I knew it was going to be good, but not this good!

[fernan1234]

@tongshadow which monitor did you get again?

[makar1]

Bad contrast and muddy visuals? Not a problem! Not only the blacks are truly blacks, but the brightness of a CRT monitor just cant be replicated by most modern displays.

Blacks are only black in a dark room. Any ambient light will reflect off of the CRT phosphors, turning black areas light grey. CRT brightness doesn't come anywhere close to a modern HDR display.

[tongshadow]

@tongshadow which monitor did you get again?

It's a Samsung Syncmaster 794mb, a very common display around here. There are many variants it, such as the 794V, 793S, 793DF and so on. They're far from being high-end monitors, but they're also pretty decent. Max res is 1280x1024@66Hz.

You probably can find way better monitors, such as Viewsonics, Dells and HPs, all 19" and above.
So, like said in another thread, you really dont need the legendary Sony FW900/W900 to benefit from the advantages of a CRT PC monitor.

[tongshadow]

Bad contrast and muddy visuals? Not a problem! Not only the blacks are truly blacks, but the brightness of a CRT monitor just cant be replicated by most modern displays.

Blacks are only black in a dark room. Any ambient light will reflect off of the CRT phosphors, turning black areas light grey. CRT brightness doesn't come anywhere close to a modern HDR display.

To be honest, bright room on a LCD is actually way more annoying lol.
Yea that's why I said most modern displays. Havent seen HDR in a while, not really into TVs.

[makar1]

Yea that's why I said most modern displays. Havent seen HDR in a while, not really into TVs.

High end smartphones and laptops will be several times brighter than a CRT also.

[tongshadow]

Some pictures of the monitor running through the XRGB-3, using light scanlines. Notice how they are very thin in 480i (persona 3 image), but in motion they really help to reduce the flicker and the image doesnt get darker at all.

https://i.imgur.com/B9DdeWj.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/a6d65A3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/1xUosty.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qqZs8Bt.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/bWjQwl5.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XHIWU5q.jpg

Pictures dont really do justice, in person it's at least 10 times better.
Also, the noise in the signal is unnoticeable compared to a LCD screen, I can even use the XRGB-3 without the low pass filter.

[fernan1234]

Does that Samsung give you stretch/overscan controls? Looks like it's displaying games at their internal resolution, but it would be nice to stretch them into 4:3 or even overscan them a little, but this option may be something not available on PC CRTs? It's been years since I used one.

[Fudoh]

na, you have pretty much full resizing controls on any PC CRT, that allow you to add enough under- or overscan as required (or desired).

[fernan1234]

Oh that's good to know, I think I'll just get a PC CRT when the time comes for whatever reason to part with the BVM I use currently.

[Classicgamer]

Using a PC crt monitor for 15khz games is better than using an HD LCD but it's still not great if any scaling is involved.

In general, 3d graphics usually don't scale as poorly as 240p sprite based games. Running 480i ps2 games through a high quality deinterlacer and outputting 480p will run natively on most PC CRT monitors which is great, as poor built in monitor scaling is the route of most vintage gaming display issues. Outputting a quality 480p deinterlaced image, only to have the monitor upscale it (poorly) to fit a 1080p fixed pixel grid is no good.

From a PC, you can run 15khz 240p games in 31khz 240p 120hz on most CRT PC monitors but the image won't look much better than on an HD flat screen. The pitch on pc crt monitors is way too fine. I still needed to turn on HLSL when I briefly used one for mame.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend a CRT pc monitor as a general purpose vintage gaming monitor. They are decent options for the PS2, Dreamcast, original Xbox era only. The brightness thing is irrelevant. Only contrast matters.CRT's are capable of significantly better contrast than an LCD but not all CRTs have great contrast. I have only seen great contrast on high end models and it's still nowhere near Oled or high end plasma.

[orange808]

Using a PC crt monitor for 15khz games is better than using an HD LCD but it's still not great if any scaling is involved.

In general, 3d graphics usually don't scale as poorly as 240p sprite based games. Running 480i ps2 games through a high quality deinterlacer and outputting 480p will run natively on most PC CRT monitors which is great, as poor built in monitor scaling is the route of most vintage gaming display issues. Outputting a quality 480p deinterlaced image, only to have the monitor upscale it (poorly) to fit a 1080p fixed pixel grid is no good.

From a PC, you can run 15khz 240p games in 31khz 240p 120hz on most CRT PC monitors but the image won't look much better than on an HD flat screen. The pitch on pc crt monitors is way too fine. I still needed to turn on HLSL when I briefly used one for mame.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend a CRT pc monitor as a general purpose vintage gaming monitor. They are decent options for the PS2, Dreamcast, original Xbox era only. The brightness thing is irrelevant. Only contrast matters.CRT's are capable of significantly better contrast than an LCD but not all CRTs have great contrast. I have only seen great contrast on high end models and it's still nowhere near Oled or high end plasma.

Fair points. I don't use my PC CRTs much when I'm playing 8 bit games, but it's not an awful idea.

Who wins the lag and motion resolution categories?

For instance, if a user doesn't care about scanlines, 1600x1200 from the OSSC on a good PC CRT will look nice.

Depends what you want. If you want to see the game crystal clear and play it without delay, the PC CRT could have plenty of merit in catagories that digital displays absolutely cannot compete with. (And digital displays can't deliver those things right now.)

[tongshadow]

Does that Samsung give you stretch/overscan controls? Looks like it's displaying games at their internal resolution, but it would be nice to stretch them into 4:3 or even overscan them a little, but this option may be something not available on PC CRTs? It's been years since I used one.

They're all 4:3, it's just that I havent bothered to adjust the underscan for the signal coming from the XRGB-3 (480p) yet.
Adjusting the over/underscan for each resolution is part of the experience I guess

[fernan1234]

I have only seen great contrast on high end models and it's still nowhere near Oled or high end plasma.

I would dare to say that subjectively my D24 BVM has "better" (more natural, to be precise) contrast than my C8 OLED. Sure, the blacks themselves on the OLED are deeper in all lighting conditions, but blacks are not not all there is to good contrast.

[thchardcore]

CRT or death. I feel bad even using a line doubler with a VGA tube...

[Classicgamer]

Using a PC crt monitor for 15khz games is better than using an HD LCD but it's still not great if any scaling is involved.

In general, 3d graphics usually don't scale as poorly as 240p sprite based games. Running 480i ps2 games through a high quality deinterlacer and outputting 480p will run natively on most PC CRT monitors which is great, as poor built in monitor scaling is the route of most vintage gaming display issues. Outputting a quality 480p deinterlaced image, only to have the monitor upscale it (poorly) to fit a 1080p fixed pixel grid is no good.

From a PC, you can run 15khz 240p games in 31khz 240p 120hz on most CRT PC monitors but the image won't look much better than on an HD flat screen. The pitch on pc crt monitors is way too fine. I still needed to turn on HLSL when I briefly used one for mame.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend a CRT pc monitor as a general purpose vintage gaming monitor. They are decent options for the PS2, Dreamcast, original Xbox era only. The brightness thing is irrelevant. Only contrast matters.CRT's are capable of significantly better contrast than an LCD but not all CRTs have great contrast. I have only seen great contrast on high end models and it's still nowhere near Oled or high end plasma.

Fair points. I don't use my PC CRTs much when I'm playing 8 bit games, but it's not an awful idea.

Who wins the lag and motion resolution categories?

For instance, if a user doesn't care about scanlines, 1600x1200 from the OSSC on a good PC CRT will look nice.

Depends what you want. If you want to see the game crystal clear and play it without delay, the PC CRT could have plenty of merit in catagories that digital displays absolutely cannot compete with. (And digital displays can't deliver those things right now.)

CRT's win on input lag but only if no scaling / processing is involved. E.g. Some of Sony's later HD CRT's upscaled all 240p / 480i content and are not much better than LCDs in this respect. Lag is caused by processing.

"scanlines" or more accurately, the gaps between scanlines, were only there on 240p content. Fake scanlines should not be added to 480i and 480p consoles like the PS2, Dreamcast, Wii and Original Xbox. Either way, fake scanlines or real scanlines (using 120hz) on a CRT pc monitor will do little to make 240p vintage games look good and it will make 480 line games look wrong.

The unsightly jaggies you see with vintage games on HD flat-screens and CRT PC monitors is not an abundance of clarity. It's a (poor)scaling artifact and it often makes it harder to see fine detail. Your average crt pc monitor has a vertical pitch roughly 3x finer than old CRT tvs and arcade monitors. That mismatched pitch is the analog equivalent of a scaling problem. It stops circles being round and lines being smooth etc.

It can not be taken as a given that a crt pc monitor will produce a superior image to all flatscreen monitors for vintage games if you go through a quality upscaler. If you aren't running games at native res, all bets are off. You need to judge it on a monitor by monitor basis.

A CRT pc monitor should win out if the scaler / deinterlacer device outputs at a different res to the flat screens native pitch though. E.g. If it just converts 480i to 480p, the crt pc can display it without further scaling where as a 1080p flat screen could not.

[orange808]

Not really sure why you brought HD CRT consumer televisions into a discussion about computer monitors. I'm not interested in discussing those at all. About 540 visible lines at 60Hz isn't enough to be in a "PC CRT" discussion.

Of course, I also added a qualifier and referenced high quality PC CRTs that can handle 1200p. So, that's going to put us in an "higher-end" premium tier. So, I'm not the least bit concerned about image quality, provided the monitor in question is in good condition.

Telling me that fake empty lines shouldn't be added to 480i is just fucking condescending. Check your tone. Other people may not tell you, but *nobody* likes that. Don't tell me obvious shit.

Edit: Also, didn't say a damn thing about 120Hz super resolutions. I suggested using 1200p from the OSSC. It's on the screen right now in front of me. Looks fantastic. I'll need a magnifying glass to find the individual lines. Maybe younger eyes could see them with their faces against the glass. Is that a normal use case?

[fernan1234]

Speaking of that, anyone else think it may be good to add "fake scanlines" for stuff that's supposed to be 480i to make it look similar to how it does on an 15khz-capable display? After all, each field has blank lines between the scanlines.

See, for example, the "interlace" shader on RA.

[Fudoh]

Speaking of that, anyone else think it may be good to add "fake scanlines" for stuff that's supposed to be 480i to make it look similar to how it does on an 15khz-capable display?

the OSSC can do this. The older XRGB units did the same, even by default.

[Classicgamer]

Speaking of that, anyone else think it may be good to add "fake scanlines" for stuff that's supposed to be 480i to make it look similar to how it does on an 15khz-capable display? After all, each field has blank lines between the scanlines.

See, for example, the "interlace" shader on RA.

That would not make it look like a 15khz crt. There are no visible gaps between scanlines on 480i content on a CRT. The visible gaps are from using just one field of a 480 lines image for 240p. 240 lines are used for the game graphics while 240 are left blank to achieve 60 full frames per second. 480i uses all 480 lines. Instead of leaving one field blank, it alternates between fields for 30 full frames per second.