CRT, RGB Scanline questions and buying a PVM/BVM

[Paradise]

Hello from Germany,

i have a lot of questions how you all handle your stuff and when to use what.
But first i need to tell what i have.
There is my 1.4 GHz Pentium III-S Tualatin with a Voodoo 5 5500 AGP.
Here i play all Win95 and Win98 3dfx Glide games.
The other one is a Athlon XP 2800+ with a Sapphire X800 XT Platinum.
Here i play everything Win98 that is not Glide.
For this PCs i have a 19" Philips VGA CRT.

Then there is the up to date PC with Windows 8 and XP connected to an LCD monitor.

Now for my Commodore 64, A500 and the Atari i will get a 20" BVM.

Now there is the console side.
Everything that can be RGB is RGB.
N64 - NUS-001(FRA)
GameCube - DOL-001 PAL
Segas...

I own a Loewe 29" 100Hz CRT TV - sure RGB cause i'm German
And a 55" Panasonic TX-L55ETW60 LCD.

Everything up to N64 goes on the CRT TV.
But i'm not sure what to do with the GameCube, Xbox, PS2, Dreamcast...
Until now it was clear to me to use the LCD cause they have 480p, component video...

But now i see people adding scan lines to them and connect them to CRTs.
If this consoles are made for 480p i thought this gives me the best picture
and the scaler in a good LCD or amplifier has no problems with it.

Also there are games that support it and some not.
(i have a chip in every console and my xbox is always in NTSC mode).
Then there is talk about 240p on the newer consoles.
Do you people have a list with all games and switch your console
and TV settings for every time you want to play?
How do you decide where to add scan lines on a game and where not?

And now i can also get a PVM-2950Q and ask myself if that makes sense for
somebody who lives in Germany and has RGB on every TV and owns a CRT
from a non cheap high quality company like Loewe.

[Fudoh]

Now for my Commodore 64, A500 and the Atari i will get a 20" BVM.

For good picture from a C64 on a BVM you need a s-video decoder board. Especially in a PAL version *NOT* easy to find. Keep that in mind. Everything RGB will be fine and for Composite you can use a SDI board (which usually includes a composite decoder - not sure about PAL right now though).

But i'm not sure what to do with the GameCube, Xbox, PS2, Dreamcast...
Until now it was clear to me to use the LCD cause they have 480p, component video...

I would always recommend to go as large as possible (LCD or plasma) with 480p signals. Yes, CRTs have certain advantages, but the size restrictions don't do the signals justice.

But now i see people adding scan lines to them and connect them to CRTs.

really, where ? You usually only add scanlines if you're running native 240p material (on a 480p output).

How do you decide where to add scan lines on a game and where not?

think of the hardware the game was running on when it was released. If that was a CRT and you want a LCD or plasma now, scanlines are nice to have.

[Paradise]

Oh Gott ein Deutscher

For good picture from a C64 on a BVM you need a s-video decoder board. Especially in a PAL version *NOT* easy to find.

So the S-Video output on the C64 does not just work?

really, where ? You usually only add scan lines if you're running native 240p material

In videos from Faginrs500 on Youtube he does it. For example here: youtube.com/watch?v=VdnC1mx7E0U
Around 12min and talks about its the way to go (Xbox 360).
In the downscaling edition article (just found out its from you) you have "getting back 240p from 480p.
Also here DC with scan lines: nintendolife.com/news/2011/04/feature_the_slg3000_and_the_glorious_return_of_scanlines
So if the DC is 480p, then why doing it?

think of the hardware the game was running on when it was released.

Thats what i do with the PC games. I check the game readme what the latest OS is that is listed and thats the PC it goes.
But not really sure about XP cause in this time there was more CRTs and LCD came later.

Sorry if i'm confused.
Maybe it's just that complicated if you don't have a RGB CRT.
So DC, Xbox, GC, PS2 to the LCD?
But what about the games that do not support 420p? Are the lists on Wikip just what the
console outputs if the don't have a chip and if i switch them to NTSC/480p also the PAL games are 480p?

[Fudoh]

The BVMs just got no s-video input without the matching decoder board.

On the 360 you have enough classic titles to make scanlines worth your while. Same with Dreamcast. Titles like Mars Matrix, Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike are all genuine low res 240p titles.

On DC, XBox and Cube (NTSC at least) the majority of titles output in 480p, so it would be waste to use them on a 15khz display using a RGB connection only.

PS2 has the majority of titles in 480i, but a few great ones in 480p.

[Paradise]

On the 360 you have enough classic titles to make scanlines worth your while. Same with Dreamcast. Titles like Mars Matrix, Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike are all genuine low res 240p titles.

That is what i was meaning. A list of all games and then checking the list and switching before playing?

[Fudoh]

Not really. More like common sense. Native DC titles or Naomi conversions are running in real 480p. 2D Arcade conversions from earlier on are genuine 240p titles. You know the difference once you've seen it once.