Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

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Guspaz
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Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by Guspaz »

Today I found out about the Eve Spectrum (https://eve.community/c/development/monitor-development), which is a community feedback driven gaming monitor that is currently in development. It has some features that seem to make it particularly well suited for retro gaming. Here's some of the core features:
  • 27" 2560x1440 panel at 144Hz (OC scaler to 165Hz), 400cd brightness, 98% of DCI-P3 colorspace
  • LG's new 1ms NanoIPS panel (same panel as used in new LG 27GL850)
  • FreeSync 2 and G-Sync Compatible variable refresh rate (10-165 hz), with VRR overdrive (which the 27GL850 lacks)
  • DisplayPort, HDMI, and USB-C input (with 100W power delivery on USB-C for laptops) with a USB hub.
  • Pixel-duplication integer scaling as the default image scaling (with potential option for normal interpolation scaling)
  • Open source firmware
Being a gaming display and from everything we've heard, I expect input lag to be very low... but it's probably those last two points that would be of the most interest to retro gaming.

This is a 1440p display, with built-in integer scaling, and you can do a perfect integer scale from 240p (6x), 480p (3x), and 720p (2x), which pretty much covers all console generations from the Atari 2600 through the XBox 360/PS3. And because it's opensource, it's likely that even if it doesn't have good OSSC compatibility out of the box, the retro gaming community could tweak the firmware to improve OSSC compatibility.

No mention of cost, but the LG 27GL850 that has the same panel is $500 USD. My gut says this will be in the $500-700 range, which is quite reasonable for a monitor with these specs.

Other things of note, the 1ms is only with overdrive cranked up to cause insane ghosting so that LG can advertise 1ms, Eve says that in the real world (with overdrive set to levels that you can't see it) 2-3ms is more typical, and IIRC 5ms is with no overdrive. There is theoretically HDR and full array local dimming support, but it's only 8 dimming zones and HDR400, which... doesn't really qualify as HDR, but you can disable the local dimming, and my understanding is that HDR10/HDR400 support costs them very little if anything.

It's still in development so there are a lot of things that they have in their list of "checking with manufacturer to see if feasible", like backlight strobing and such.
fernan1234
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by fernan1234 »

Guspaz wrote:like backlight strobing and such.
Arguably the most important feature on any monitor that is supposed to be suitable for retro gaming, so hopefully they do include it.
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Xyga
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by Xyga »

Yeah could be a good monitor but most of it is pretty mainstream stuff.

I'd drop most of the features for a bright processed 480Hz 32" with fully adjustable rolling scan, integer scaling and independently adjustable X & Y linear pixel interpolation.
Lag controlled as much as possible also of course.
And make two versions; VA and IPS.
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Guspaz
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by Guspaz »

They're not specifically targeting retro gaming, I dont' think they've ever specifically mentioned it, but they derived a lot of the feature set from community polling, and the feature set that resulted ended up looking pretty good for retro gaming.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by nmalinoski »

I didn't see anything related to 3D (and "3D" is too short for a search term to be helpful), but I did see that it will ideally support an open-source firmware. I'd hope that 3D support would be possible to add, but I don't think it could be unless additional hardware were added to provide either TRS jacks or an IR strobe for wired or wireless shutterglasses. What I'd really like is something that could support Sony's shutterglasses and the Simulview feature that appeared on the PSP-themed monitor (CECH-ZED1U).
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orange808
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by orange808 »

I'd rather just have a video processor (even if it only targets 1440p) that always provides frame locked integer scaling--with some nice image adjustment goodies baked in.

The biggest problem with our most of our displays is the video processing, not the panels themselves.

For a monitor, I'd prefer an instant "scan only" 1080p display that doesn't accept anything but 1080p--and adds zero latency. That way, I could just plug in my 25ms lag HQView 320 and be done with it.
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Guspaz
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by Guspaz »

3D is dead, so yeah, you're not going to find 3D on any modern monitor. nVidia dropped driver support too.

If the firmware is opensource, you'll have some degree of control over the video processing. Ultimately it'll come down to what you can configure the scaler in the display to do, though.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by strayan »

nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by bobrocks95 »

strayan wrote:nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
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strayan
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by strayan »

bobrocks95 wrote:
strayan wrote:nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
FTL, Miami Hotline etc. If you have a 4k 5K monitor etc you'll actually be able to run regular games at lower resolutions without blur.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by ZellSF »

bobrocks95 wrote:
strayan wrote:nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
Old PC games, basically none of them have any integer scaling option built-in. But I think most of the people who want integer scaling are misguided into thinking it will look good for 3D (some might like the look, but I think many will be disappointed) or that it will make 1080p on a 4K monitor look as it does on a native 1080p monitor (everyone who thinks this will be disappointed).
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orange808
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by orange808 »

ZellSF wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:
strayan wrote:nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
Old PC games, basically none of them have any integer scaling option built-in. But I think most of the people who want integer scaling are misguided into thinking it will look good for 3D (some might like the look, but I think many will be disappointed) or that it will make 1080p on a 4K monitor look as it does on a native 1080p monitor (everyone who thinks this will be disappointed).
Yeah. I gave scaling 480p to 960p a try and chained through the OSSC for scanlines.

It's a bit too sharp for my taste.

Extra options are always welcome. I wish nVidia would go a step further and add low resolutions with hybrid scanlines. (Not likely, though.)
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by BONKERS »

ZellSF wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:
strayan wrote:nVidia has added interger scaling to their new drivers. 20XX and 16XX support only.
Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
Old PC games, basically none of them have any integer scaling option built-in. But I think most of the people who want integer scaling are misguided into thinking it will look good for 3D (some might like the look, but I think many will be disappointed) or that it will make 1080p on a 4K monitor look as it does on a native 1080p monitor (everyone who thinks this will be disappointed).
Integer scaling of 1080p to 4k is IMO the best scenario for this. No it won't look like native. But it will look good for people who want higher framerates and not want a blurrier image. Or who have cards that can't handle 4k OR if a game is artificially locked to 1080p (there are a lot of these).

The only problem is that this feature is locked to high end GPUs. Kind of defeats the point IMO.

Also: What is the point of HDR400 certification when you know your display can never truly display a proper dynamic range at that level?
Yeah your display hits 400 nits but it's still only a 1000:1 contrast ratio. The color range I can understand (Which still will be problematic because it cannot display accurately saturated dark colors with such a low contrast ratio) but HDR is basically a joke with current display technology.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by ZellSF »

BONKERS wrote:Or who have cards that can't handle 4k
Going further off-topic, but even if you can't handle 4K you should still push resolution as far as possible. 1440p will still look a ton better than 1080p integer scaled to 2160p.

Of course there's no real reasons to stick to the set resolutions either, you can add custom resolutions, I have a 1800p custom resolution for games where my system can't quite handle 2160p.

Not that you can enable custom resolutions if you want to use the new integer scaling feature without constantly going into the Nvidia control panel. Or DSR. I wonder when Nvidia engineers will figure out how to enable two features at the same time.
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Re: Eve Spectrum: potentially great retro gaming monitor

Post by Guspaz »

BONKERS wrote:
ZellSF wrote:
bobrocks95 wrote:Curious what the use case for that really is. Every PC pixel art game I've played has an integer scaling option built in. Same with emulators.
Old PC games, basically none of them have any integer scaling option built-in. But I think most of the people who want integer scaling are misguided into thinking it will look good for 3D (some might like the look, but I think many will be disappointed) or that it will make 1080p on a 4K monitor look as it does on a native 1080p monitor (everyone who thinks this will be disappointed).
Integer scaling of 1080p to 4k is IMO the best scenario for this. No it won't look like native. But it will look good for people who want higher framerates and not want a blurrier image. Or who have cards that can't handle 4k OR if a game is artificially locked to 1080p (there are a lot of these).

The only problem is that this feature is locked to high end GPUs. Kind of defeats the point IMO.

Also: What is the point of HDR400 certification when you know your display can never truly display a proper dynamic range at that level?
Yeah your display hits 400 nits but it's still only a 1000:1 contrast ratio. The color range I can understand (Which still will be problematic because it cannot display accurately saturated dark colors with such a low contrast ratio) but HDR is basically a joke with current display technology.
nVidia's integer scaling is, as was pointed out, only for their latest and greatest generation of cards. The Spectrum's integer scaling support will presumably work with any graphics card or display input. It's a 1440p monitor, so 1080p isn't going to scale well no matter what you do, but 240p/480p/720p all have integer scales to 1440p.

HDR400... is probably something that they already have all the hardware for so they can add the marketing checkbox with minimal cost, so they might as well do so. They technically support local dimming, but with only 8 dimming zones for the whole screen, it's all going to be pointless. But this isn't really meant to be a proper HDR or local-dimming screen, it's basically just capabilities that they already had by default and figured they might as well just throw in the certification. They're not targeting the pricepoint that could support proper local-dimming, which is the only way any LCD display can support real HDR.

Integer scaling and quasi-HDR support isn't what attracts me to the monitor anyhow. It's a 1440p 144Hz FreeSync 2 / G-Sync Compatible display using the new low-response-time LG panel, which is expected to have good colour and low backlight bleed, and supports a variety of neat things like the opensource firmware, variable-refresh-rate-overdrive, BFI, etc.

LG has their own display that just hit the market that uses this same panel that has the same basic specs, but it uses a backlight that isn't quite as bright, doesn't support variable overdrive (can still overshoot on "fast" in some situations), doesn't support BFI, etc.
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