8-bit Mario will never look good on a 65-inch 4K TV
If you own a vintage machine, such as a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis, you have access to some of gaming's most illustrious origins. However, you may discover that putting these amazing systems into your modern TV does not produce the sensation you recall from years ago. Games appear hazy and warped, and it's easy to believe your memory is playing tricks on you. But it's not your recollection; it's your television.
The CRT is the display of choice for vintage gamers. Those massive, boxy television sets that virtually everyone discarded or gave away in favor of new flat panels are now sought after for their ability to correctly display games from the 1980s, 1990s, and even the early 2000s. Let's look into why.
Retro games are not intended for current, pixel-dense televisions.
The major reason old games don't look well on current TVs is because of pixels. For the uninitiated, modern displays are made up of pixels—individual "dots" that, when merged, make the images you see on your TV.
Displays with a resolution of 1080p have 1,920 pixels across and 1,080 pixels down. In contrast, 4K refers to 3,840 across by 2,160 down. While a 4K screen has many more pixels than a 1080p screen (8,294,400 versus 2,073,600), both of these screens contain far more pixels than vintage games were meant to fill.
Let's take a look at the original Nintendo Entertainment System. When you play Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, or Metroid, you're seeing 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels, or a 480i signal, in addition to the beautiful 8-bit artwork and classic gameplay. That resolution appears excellent on earlier TVs; these CRTs don't have pixels, but rather "lines," and the TV shows the signal from the gaming console one line at a time (more on that later).
When you connect a 256 x 240 signal to a 1080p or 4K TV, though, things become a little...blurry. Because the console outputs less pixels than the display to which it is attached, your TV must upscale the image to properly show it. This entails taking the pixels from the vintage gaming console's signal and blowing them up to fit in your TV's considerably larger pixel grid. This upscaling produces a blurrier, less defined image than intended, which might be off-putting, especially if you're playing games that you remember looking excellent in the past.
Scanlines give older games a unique appearance.
However, it's not just the pixels that make things look good; scanlines are another factor that are a natural byproduct of displaying a 256 x 240 signal on a CRT.
Remember that the images you see on television are actually made up of a series of horizontal lines. In fact, 240 horizontal lines is barely half of the available real estate on these TVs. Instead of squashing the image, the TV skips every other line, leaving a line of blank space between each line of your game, a technique called as interlacing (the I in the 480i signal). This produces "scanlines," which contribute significantly to the unique aesthetic of vintage games.
Keep an eye on the links.
By the way, not all CRTs are the same. There are several connection choices available, and they all affect how your TV shows the signal from your console. Component video is the most popular, with three video connections and two audio ports. Composite wires function properly (two for video, one for audio), but lack the clarity of component connections.
If you come across a TV that lacks component connections, see if it has S-Video, which provides a quality that falls somewhere between the other two.
It's not just about the appearance.
While we're on the subject of vintage games, there's another significant advantage to utilizing a CRT for these titles: input latency, or, to be more specific, the lack of it. By definition, modern televisions have some input latency. That is, when you hit a button on your controller, there is a little delay before the action is displayed on screen.
There is no input latency with CRTs since the screen technology is basic enough to respond to your inputs instantly. While this absence of latency is critical for professional gamers or someone who do Speedrun gameplay who rely on exact timing, we can all benefit from the tighter control that a CRT provides.
There are vintage gaming alternatives to CRTs.
The CRT may be the best way for most retro players to play these games, but there are other ways to improve your experience if you don't have one. For example, titles featured on consoles such as the NES Classic and SNES Classic have been enhanced to operate natively on HD TVs. Because Mario is engineered to match the pixels on your modern TV, he'll appear a lot better on your flat screen from a NES Classic than an original NES.
If digital emulation is your route to retro gaming, many emulators provide choices to "fake" the look of CRTs; you'll find options to add scanlines to your games, and while they won't look exactly as nice as the real thing, they can better imitate the feeling that many people love with CRTs.
After all, you don't need anything special to play old games. After all, it's the same game whether you connect it to the perfect display or play it on the gear you currently have. However, if you want to make the most of that experience, you should understand both how and why.
Creating the ultimate vintage gaming experience, like any pastime, may be a bit of a rabbit hole. Among the enhancements are hacked gaming consoles, several types of CRTs, and European connection types. If you want to understand more about CRT gaming, I heartily suggest My Life in Gaming's excellent explanation.
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SOURCE: lifehacker
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