NormalFish
Banned
TLG is just repeating the cycle.
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Retro AV Club Thread 2: Classic Gaming Done Right!
- Thread starter Mega
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TLG is just repeating the cycle.
I have to say, guys if you don't own a PVM, track down a PVM. The thing has changed my life and unless you're really not doing your research it should cost you at least $200 less than a Framemeister. Honestly unless space is at a premium I don't understand why you would get one instead of a PVM.
Beer Monkey
Member
There's a really old post where I mention this, but yeah. 320x240 is the resolution. A game that some people say is one of the best looking on the PS2. I think it's really ugly. Not only is the resolution a generation behind, the frame rate is awful. Yet I love true classic 240p games. But in the context of the generation in which it was released, for a 3d game, Ico (PS2) is butt ugly. That's my opinion.
CrashPrime
Member
Size. Viewing distance on a couch is more important than when you were sitting cross cross applesauce as a 10 year old 12in from the screen.
This is new to me.
Personal preference for sure. 20 years on I instantly gravitated towards sitting criss cross apple sauce!
PumpkinSpice
Banned
I don't want to start the holy war again, but size, weight, flicker, geometry issues, squeal, power use, burn-in, gamma issues, needing a completely separate setup for retro games.
davidwhangchoi
Member
^but you need to play light gun!
GC Video up on Bad Ass Consoles for $50.
http://www.badassconsoles.com/gcvideo-1/
FAQ: http://www.badassconsoles.com/gcvideo-faq/
PDF: http://badassconsoles.com/product_images/manuals/GCVideo-InstallationGuide-BadAssConsoles.pdf
http://www.badassconsoles.com/gcvideo-1/
FAQ: http://www.badassconsoles.com/gcvideo-faq/
PDF: http://badassconsoles.com/product_images/manuals/GCVideo-InstallationGuide-BadAssConsoles.pdf
I need a way to get optical audio out of my GCN to match my PS2 and Xbox. I wonder if this would allow it.
soxinthebox
Member
There's videos of the ps1 version out there
CharlesDangus
Member
It's not optical but I'm pretty sure the GCVideo HDMI option will give you digital audio over HDMI.
Let's not go down this path. I have a bunch of CRTs, but owning a couple of HDMI modded systems and a capture card has given me much appreciation for the Upscalers + HD display route. I'm on the wait list for OSSC!
Never seen those before and didn't know about that either!!!
There are a good number of reasons to own one between being able to capture game footage directly from it, more convenient, being able to deinterlace games which is a godsend because interlacing sucks, hooking up numerous consoles to it, it's features, etc.
gingerbeardman
Member
HDMI splitter that has optical out?
sixteen-bit
Member
DracoBlade
Member
Hey guys, need to enlist ya'll again for assistance, though this one might be more specific to davidwangchoi 
So I'm having trouble playing The House of the Dead (saturn import) on my trinitron KV- 24fv 300 using a nyko cobra (a psx/saturn light gun). Here's a video that illustrates the issue as I struggle apparently to film onehanded.
Any ideas on why the gun isn't calibrating properly? TV is 60 hz (not 100hz like some ppl have had difficulties with it in the little documentatio that survives on light gun troubleshooting). Any help would be more than appreciated!
So I'm having trouble playing The House of the Dead (saturn import) on my trinitron KV- 24fv 300 using a nyko cobra (a psx/saturn light gun). Here's a video that illustrates the issue as I struggle apparently to film onehanded.
Any ideas on why the gun isn't calibrating properly? TV is 60 hz (not 100hz like some ppl have had difficulties with it in the little documentatio that survives on light gun troubleshooting). Any help would be more than appreciated!
Wow, that's quite a surprising list, and I own several games in there. Are the non-TATE shmup-titles 240p out of the box? Because I don't remember - say - the Neo Geo Online Collections defaulting that resolution. Or is it only selectable using component video out mode?
I played on an XM-29 before I realized CRT wasn't worth it in my case. It changed my life toward HDTV + scaler.
davidwhangchoi
Member
light guns guys, light guns!!!
jk, i'm just hyped for ordering time crisis 2 =)
jk, i'm just hyped for ordering time crisis 2 =)
For every man dying for a nice CRT, there's another man sick of it's shit.
saveweyard
Banned
I like my CRT, but I also enjoy my framemeister.
I don't really like scanlines on my HDTV, though.
cyborgnumberblue
Member
Curious, why not?
You know what I realized? I totally prefer Wii games (on original Wii hardware) upscaled to 1080p on my 60" HDTV rather than playing them on my 20" PVM.
Yes, the degree of aliasing is profound. And a PVM has way better colors and IQ at (even at 480i) than my 1080p LED HDTV ever will. But dammit, the games still look better to me even with all that aliasing on my HDTV. The image is just so much more stable when it's progressive scan and they still look really good when blown up on a 60" screen. I would not be shocked if some of the developers designed the games with upscaling in mind (similar to how Xbox 360 and PS3 developers designed games at sub-HD resolutions for performance reasons) because of how detailed they look when played on a large screen.
Furthermore, Wii games that use pointer controls (like the Pikmin ports) simply feel better when the screen is large and far away than when it's close and smaller in size. After trying to play Wii games on my small screen, I totally get why some people found motion controls annoying: you need a certain distance from the display to play comfortably. At 20 inches, things start to feel really cramped at 5-6 feet (which I found to be the minimum distance for adequate controls), especially if the game is letterboxed as many later-gen Wii games were on a 4:3 display.
For example, trying to play LOZ:SS letterboxed on a 20" screen gives you a play area that feels like its less than 10 inches tall (although I didn't actually measure this yet). And you can't really do motion controls in that game with the screen close to you so you're forced to squint at a tiny play area from far away if you want to play the game on a moderately sized 4:3 CRT as I attempted to do yesterday.
This makes me wish I had a decent sized 16:9 CRT monitor so badly so that I could see these games in their native resolution with perfect SD image quality. But really, I'd argue the games still look almost as good as HD games from the era when blown up to 1080p. No, the image quality is not comparable, but the sense of scale offered by many of the games like Xenoblade, Pikmin, and Metroid Prime certainly feel in the same league as Gears of War, Demon's Souls, and Bioshock.
I'd argue that even with the hardware limitations, many Wii games were meant to be on HDTVs.
P.S. I'm still team CRT for all 4:3 480i and 240p content even though I have a framemeister. I am also now more firmly team HDTV for all 16:9 480p content.
It's the 4:3 480p content that makes me feel like I could go either way.
Yes, the degree of aliasing is profound. And a PVM has way better colors and IQ at (even at 480i) than my 1080p LED HDTV ever will. But dammit, the games still look better to me even with all that aliasing on my HDTV. The image is just so much more stable when it's progressive scan and they still look really good when blown up on a 60" screen. I would not be shocked if some of the developers designed the games with upscaling in mind (similar to how Xbox 360 and PS3 developers designed games at sub-HD resolutions for performance reasons) because of how detailed they look when played on a large screen.
Furthermore, Wii games that use pointer controls (like the Pikmin ports) simply feel better when the screen is large and far away than when it's close and smaller in size. After trying to play Wii games on my small screen, I totally get why some people found motion controls annoying: you need a certain distance from the display to play comfortably. At 20 inches, things start to feel really cramped at 5-6 feet (which I found to be the minimum distance for adequate controls), especially if the game is letterboxed as many later-gen Wii games were on a 4:3 display.
For example, trying to play LOZ:SS letterboxed on a 20" screen gives you a play area that feels like its less than 10 inches tall (although I didn't actually measure this yet). And you can't really do motion controls in that game with the screen close to you so you're forced to squint at a tiny play area from far away if you want to play the game on a moderately sized 4:3 CRT as I attempted to do yesterday.
This makes me wish I had a decent sized 16:9 CRT monitor so badly so that I could see these games in their native resolution with perfect SD image quality. But really, I'd argue the games still look almost as good as HD games from the era when blown up to 1080p. No, the image quality is not comparable, but the sense of scale offered by many of the games like Xenoblade, Pikmin, and Metroid Prime certainly feel in the same league as Gears of War, Demon's Souls, and Bioshock.
I'd argue that even with the hardware limitations, many Wii games were meant to be on HDTVs.
P.S. I'm still team CRT for all 4:3 480i and 240p content even though I have a framemeister. I am also now more firmly team HDTV for all 16:9 480p content.
It's the 4:3 480p content that makes me feel like I could go either way.
Sometimes I think we are so focused on image quality in this thread that we often forget how the size of the display can be more important to creating a fun living room experience.
P.S. Now that I grabbed my original red Wii from my parents place, the waves of nostalgia are flooding back. This truly is my favorite system of all time.
Laevateinn
Member
Retro games are meant to be played 2 feet from the screen. At that distance, a 20 inch display is plenty.
I think the issue is ultimately a CRT is often a dedicated piece of gaming furniture in this day and age (not unlike the Naomi cab I just parted was with...) so there is a cost/benefit proposition that is inherent in just having it in your living space. It just isn't practical for some people.
I totally agree with you. But I think there's a cut off point in the middle of the 6th generation regarding certain hardware and games where that starts to become not true for me. Tons of OG Xbox games for example look fantastic on a big screen. Most PS2 games, on the other hand, don't. GCN and Dreamcast are mixed.
Part of it has to do with the lack of progressive scan for certain titles. Other factors are the type of game and my nostalgia as well. For example, you'll never get me to play SSBM on anything other than a CRT. But you'll also never get me to play Skyward Sword on anything other than a large widescreen display (of some sort).
There's no one-size-fits-all solution in my opinion. CRT remains amazing tech to this day and no one could ever get me to give mine up.
Lemme start from a broader sense of what I look out for. The bar for entry #1: Size. For as much as I post here, digging into the most esoteric details what I wanna know first in real life is: Is the dang TV big enough for me sit back in my recliner so I can eat chips comfortably while still being able to pick up and appreciate fine details or even flaws (shadow and highlight gradients, aliasing, textures with text, etc...)? The XM29 came closest to that ideal more than most pro monitors that don't require more than 2 people to lift. lol
Then I came to the real issue with large CRTs and geometry. The XM29 was not immune to having warpped visuals while looking at scrolling sceenes. For the life of me, I can't play Sonic games on a screen that has the slightest amount of geometric anomaly. Something about it just really rustles my jimmies. More so than what may be considered rational by most people. lol. It's just... Bleghh! I can't even explain it.
There's a list of problems I have with CRTs that, but that was the one that really detered me.
FTFY
For me... No, thanks.
davidwhangchoi
Member
if there's a way to play duck hunt on my HDTV, i'd be all over it.
CRT has it's upside.
CRT has it's upside.
There is. It involves using a wii remote and an arduino. And it works with all consoles not just the NES. There is a video on how the guy did it, but I can't find it right now.
davidwhangchoi
Member
is that what everyone is doing for light gun gaming? curious =)
I just love the possibility to blow up those games on my big screen, which is why i prefer the Framemeister over a PVM.
The beautiful thing about retro gaming is that there's no single "right way" of doing it. It can be cheap, expensive, casual, serious and so on. Not gonna lie though. I'm big proponent of CRT TVs/Monitors. Especially nowadays when it's so cheap to grab what it used to be top of the line sets.
I find it's the opposite for me... Wii games look much better on a 480p CRT than on my 1080p plasma. I agree it's better to play Wii shooters on a big screen, but nothing on a HDTV ends up looking as clean and smooth as it can on a CRT:
Would love to hear more about this.
Yes! The Wii was what truly got me back into console gaming, because it once again made game mechanics, and not presentation, at the front. This also led to the return of 2D-games with stuff like Mega Man 9 and the 30 million+ seller New Super Mario Bros Wii, and for that I will be forever grateful. I also think there is some merit to the fact that the Wii was the first console who was able to shake the perception that "new generation" equals more processing power, and was able to popularize (for a while at least) the concept that "new generation" could also mean new forms of play, and ultimately new forms of games. It might not be my favorite system in terms of the games, but in terms of what it represented in the industry at the time, there is nothing that will ever come close to Nintendos Revolution imo.
Damn, those are some nice looking shots! Some new pickups I got:
It's amazing how much better a new in-box PS2 controller feels compared to my controller I've had since launch. Also, I've never used a dogbone NES controller but it feels good to hold; I got it preemptively for my AVS en route.
gingerbeardman
Member
If you're European, your wish has been granted!
Sharp made a series of PAL-optimised widescreen LCD TVs (all have SCART and HDMI, naturally) with a native resolution of 960x540. They can also neatly downscale 720 and 1080, although you obviously lose some detail. They show PAL60 perfectly, and 480p too. 240p I'd have to double check.
For me they're the best way of playing the widescreen transition generation consoles: Xbox, Dreamcast, GameCube, PS2, and of course Wii.
http://www.whathifi.com/sharp/lc26p70e/overview
There were 3 releases, and the key differences are:
P50E (has component),
P55E (has VGA & component)
P70E (has VGA & component & Freeview)
They come in 26", 32" and 37" sizes. I have a spare LC26P50E that I'd be happy to sell within the UK.
There are also 480p wide-screen plasma and wide-screen PVMs.
PS: I don't agree with 480p looking good upscaled, but I've not tried the best upscalers.
Probably not, but make sure to check on that.
Kiddy Dong
Member
I do something similar, although I tend to err on the side of CRT. Anything that maxes out at 480p will be played on my CRT, no question. Eliminating input lag is my biggest priority and I don't want to put up with any as a result of upscaled standard def.
Anything with HD resolutions will be delegated to my gaming monitor, with some exceptions if the game is 4:3 or internally rendered at a sub HD resolution. Early 360 games like DMC4 and Need for Speed Most Wanted actually look better on my PVM in 480i than on an HDTV (imo).
Edit: Jesus Mega what's your Wii setup for those pictures? That looks amazing
I've found this to be the case for the Wii too.
Those are some superb shots, Mega, it's really hard to show how good a Wii can look on a CRT but those do it justice.
https://youtu.be/PLOyUQxIsj8
Just putting this here....
Video for Justice's new single, 'Randy', using an array of Sony PVM or PGM monitors.
I thinks it's cool.
Just putting this here....
Video for Justice's new single, 'Randy', using an array of Sony PVM or PGM monitors.
I thinks it's cool.
cyborgnumberblue
Member
Wow, hope those go up for sale.
Amazing! Favorited and saved!
I sold one of my PVMs to a local couple who said they do that sort of stuff. I don't think those will sell. They probably belong to an art studio that went through the trouble of professionally refurbishing and calibrating them.
Basically Wii Component to a 17" JVC HD CRT.
In sure if I had access to a 480p set, I'd agree with you. I'm super jealous. 17" is a bit on the small size for motion controls though... but I'd make it work.
A viable and pretty affordable HD CRT option is to keep an eye out for Sony BVM D14 monitors on eBay.
Buy a pack of these RCA-to-BNC connectors. Cheap. Just make sure your PVM actually supports Component. Some don't.
A few more pics of Wii Ware stuff... wish there was a 240p mode for these. If anyone knows a way to force it, please let me know. Would be a good excuse to play through these again.
Buy a pack of these RCA-to-BNC connectors. Cheap. Just make sure your PVM actually supports Component. Some don't.
A few more pics of Wii Ware stuff... wish there was a 240p mode for these. If anyone knows a way to force it, please let me know. Would be a good excuse to play through these again.
davidwhangchoi
Member
ah, no thanks....
i rather play with a original light gun on a CRT.
but thanks for the link though =)
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