Ideal monitor for low-res LCD games

[Hooliganseijin]

I recently built an emulation-oriented PC with an ArcadeVGA card and a PVM-20M2MDU (the primary monitor is a Sony PlayStation 3D display).

It is glorious for emulation of 240p consoles and arcade games.

When it comes to portable systems, however, the scanlines and other CRT attributes are not as delightful.

For Game Gear and Gameboy Advance, it just looks like an SMS or an SNES, respectively.

The original Game Boy, and Game Boy Color just look odd. I never liked the look of the Super Game Boy and this is somehow worse.

It's still a better look than the 1080p PS LCD, but does not capture the feeling of the dot matrix LCD.

My next step with this system, once I reorganize my space, is to add a SVGA CRT like a Sony GDM-F520 for 480p and 800x600 games. Now I'm thinking about another add-on.

Has anyone run across a low-res LCD monitor that takes a VGA d-sub or even a composite video input that would provide a good platform for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and perhaps other low-res LCD system emulation? Maybe PalmOS too? I have not seen an LCD monitor with a native resolution below 800x600, but I also have not done much research - the idea came to me today when I was at Value Village and noticed a 13" LCD monitor and lightbulb went off over my head.

Thoughts? Ideas?

[tacoguy64]

Not a low res lcd but the Pioneer PDP-V402EU plasma monitor looks like it could be what you're looking for. You seem kinda new here so if you haven't already, you should check out Fudoh's ode to crt thread to check out the monitor. Outside of that the only other early 2000s experience with lcd monitors where with the small consumer sets which were mostly bad. Though for GG and GBA they might be perfect since the screen on those portables were bad as well.

[Blair]

why not just use one of the many dotmatrix shader profiles for retro arch?

you can even add realistic borders and bad LCD ghosting/smearing, if you want that type of nostalgia. (personally that's the reason I didn't really enjoy all those handhelds very much)

here are some images with different settings.

(this is the option that I would recommend most, as its fairly easy to achieve and gives you a very high-quality option)

(and it will work perfectly on either your LCD or CRT)

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otherwise if you want a hardware solution you would probably have to order some type of lo-res display from a Chinese manufacturer, I'm not sure what the specs would be but you could probably find something. how you would wire it up to your computer is another matter (custom cabling of some type).

I remember some people in the 80s/90s had essentially larger versions of the Game Boy and Game Gear displays (sourced from the same production company's) I'm assuming they used similar connectors to the old Japanese microcomputer game systems like the FM towns and other such devices. you might look at Yahoo Japan auctions for some spare parts.

there's also custom solutions like making your own display out of an RGB LED matrix (sort of like the game frame) (but you would probably have to make a fairly large array to actually play games, or figure out a better way to make the math work for your desired resolution)

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4X4grFZa0


as tacoguy64 set up above, an older plasma display might give you a nice chunky pixels matrix look, depending on your area those can be hard to find and keeping them in good condition is also difficult (they're not as hearty as LCDs or CRTs). once again with the proper shaders you can emulate the look of most of the older plasma displays. (another problem is older plasma displays usually have problems displaying true blacks, instead you just get very dark grays)

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[bobrocks95]

Hopefully you'll find that with a PC CRT the scanlines aren't as noticeable and it looks good to you. That's definitely the easiest option.

Otherwise, another option might be EDTV plasmas (I know Panasonic, NEC, and Pioneer made them, probably more companies), or there were some small EDTV LCDs. The plasmas run something like 32-42" though, so they may be out of the question for you. As tacoguy said, I'm not sure those small LCDs will look that good- they always gave me the impression of tiny kitchen TVs I'd see at friends' houses. Early LCDs don't look that great in general anyway.

Also there's a thread buried in here somewhere about a 1366x768 plasma that might look pretty good for your purposes.

[Hooliganseijin]

Thanks, these are great ideas. I have been on the lookout for a 480p 4:3 plasma display like the Pioneer for some time, but have not had any luck finding one locally (or in Ottawa or Montreal for that matter).

I am going to experiment with some thrift shop LCD monitors. Adafruit has some nice low-res LCD screens marketed Raspberry Pi projects, but they are too small for what I have in mind. With that in mind, I'll take a deeper dive on Aliexpress.

I also remember a device called a Wide Boy from back in the day, which was apparently used for game development and photography on GB. I don't know what kind of monitor it used.

[bobrocks95]

The Wideboy 64 was just an adapter to play Gameboy games through the N64. It used the N64 standard output (or maybe a separate one on its back?) to plug into whatever monitor the press felt like using, I don't think it had any kind of specialized monitor to go with it.