I think my CRT has some bad capacitors or something, I have some very bad contrast/ghosting effects that are really ruining the experience for me. I have hooked my consoles up (NES, Genesis and Saturn) to my modern TV, but I can not tolerate the input lag. I'm trying to figure out where I should go from here, my modern TV is 60hz, so I was wondering if a high refresh rate monitor/TV might solve this issue? Or if I should just do a deep dive and teach myself how to replace the capacitors on my CRT. I was thinking I could just try picking up a free CRT, but I'm a bit worried they are likely going to need work done as well considering how old all of these are right now and I am pretty short on space as it is. Anyone pick a lot of these up? If so, how common is it for them to not need any work? My final question is regarding the retrotink, I see a lot of people say that will solve my issue, has anyone used these?
Sorry, I know there is a lot of questions in there, just trying to figure out what I should do here.
Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
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spacetravelingcactus
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thchardcore
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Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
Grab a retrotink/ossc/whatever and a cheap 17 or 19 inch PC CRT. You will never want a normal CRT again.
Lag on modern sets can be very minimal. Most people probably won't notice. Solid enough for everything except maybe shmups and fighters. 99% of games, you will not notice.
Lag on modern sets can be very minimal. Most people probably won't notice. Solid enough for everything except maybe shmups and fighters. 99% of games, you will not notice.
A camel is a horse designed by a committee
Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
As mentioned you will want to put a device between your modern display and your old console. GBS-Control is probably the cheapest option if you don't mind doing some soldering and DIY, otherwise a RetroTink2x is a nice plug and play solution, OSSC is a bit more involved but has a few more features, there are also several new devices on the way that will offer some more benefits. There is a good chance your TV thinks the consoles are sending 480i signals and it is trying to deinterlace them, which adds a fair bit of lag.
Another important thing is to ensure that game mode is enabled on your TV. Most of them have the setting hidden somewhere, even older ones. If you can't find it try looking it up online. Refresh rate is not the factor you want to be looking at, but reviews will just call it input lag or display lag. Some TVs are real fast now but monitors are still generally better. If you decide to buy a new display try to get one that is verified as low latency from several independent sources.. even better one that people have reported high compatibility with different display modes like from an OSSC.
Another important thing is to ensure that game mode is enabled on your TV. Most of them have the setting hidden somewhere, even older ones. If you can't find it try looking it up online. Refresh rate is not the factor you want to be looking at, but reviews will just call it input lag or display lag. Some TVs are real fast now but monitors are still generally better. If you decide to buy a new display try to get one that is verified as low latency from several independent sources.. even better one that people have reported high compatibility with different display modes like from an OSSC.
Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
Read retrorgb.com
Watch My Life in Gaming videos on youtube.
They may be a bit outdated, but they'll give you the basics.
Watch My Life in Gaming videos on youtube.
They may be a bit outdated, but they'll give you the basics.
Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
OSSC + TV with an effective "game mode".
It can be a little hard to dig up reliable tests for lag on individual HDTV models, but for example most modern Samsung LCD TVs have a super low latency with game mode turned on (and stupidly high when it's off). The models I were looking at when I bought my new one were all 13ms for 60hz footage (for comparison, one frame is 16.6ms, and lag-free CRTs measure 8ms using the same method, so that's a mere 30% of a frame on top of what you'll get with a CRT).
The OSSC itself adds barely anything, I think like a single scanline of lag? Any TV's internal upscaler (or any cheap external ones) will add several frames.
It can be a little hard to dig up reliable tests for lag on individual HDTV models, but for example most modern Samsung LCD TVs have a super low latency with game mode turned on (and stupidly high when it's off). The models I were looking at when I bought my new one were all 13ms for 60hz footage (for comparison, one frame is 16.6ms, and lag-free CRTs measure 8ms using the same method, so that's a mere 30% of a frame on top of what you'll get with a CRT).
The OSSC itself adds barely anything, I think like a single scanline of lag? Any TV's internal upscaler (or any cheap external ones) will add several frames.
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nmalinoski
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Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
As I understand it, what you are experiencing is display lag, which is lag introduced by the display's video processor, due to additional processing that CRTs don't do, like deinterlacing and digital noise reduction; whereas input lag instead refers to the lag experienced between a button press and when the system running the game responds to that input, such as with the Bluetooth input on more recent consoles as well as emulator input polling.spacetravelingcactus wrote:I have hooked my consoles up (NES, Genesis and Saturn) to my modern TV, but I can not tolerate the input lag.
Re: Input lag from older consoles on modern TVs
The source is from the display yeah, so "display lag" might be more correct, but it still adds up in the total delay between activating a controller input and seeing the result on screen.
Whether it comes from the controller or the display, the effective result is the same. There are a lot of other issues that can cause lag in this equation, including game logic, or extra layers of abstraction in the engine, hardware, or operating system. Essentially what the player experiences is still input lag.
Whether it comes from the controller or the display, the effective result is the same. There are a lot of other issues that can cause lag in this equation, including game logic, or extra layers of abstraction in the engine, hardware, or operating system. Essentially what the player experiences is still input lag.