They're "uprenedered" not upscaled. I'm not trying to be nitpicky, it's a big difference.
I think Sony did well by coining that phrase with the announcement.
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Upscalers, CRTs, PVMs & RGB: Retro gaming done right!
- Thread starter IrishNinja
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They're "uprenedered" not upscaled. I'm not trying to be nitpicky, it's a big difference.
I think Sony did well by coining that phrase with the announcement.
geniusbits
Member
Uprendering gives an actually higher resolution image right, as opposed to upscaling that just makes the image bigger at the cost of detail?
entremet
Member
Doesn't that make it better for lag purposes?
Upscaling doesn't lose detail from the low res image if done correctly. But it does stretch it across more pixels which is usually ugly and leads to more jaggies. In other words:
Upscaling = the game is being rendered in the internal frame buffer at a lower resolution, then a device (either the TV, an external scaler, or the console) blows it up and stretches it over more pixels to fit the resolution of the tv screen.
Uprendering = rendering the graphics at higher resolution than the original release. This means the game is being natively played in a higher resolution. This is like a remaster, but rather than have a human go in and redo assets by hand, the emulator does it.
Huggers
Member
I do 99% of my gaming on a crt. Tried playing Mario the other day on an LCD screen and holy shit, the lag. I realise these things vary but I couldn't play it. I'm not a bad Mario player but I was fucking dreadful on the LCD. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm sensitive to it or because it was that bad. Need to try out a Framemeister, I hear the lag is hardly noticeable? Anyone used to playing on a CRT moved over to one and it been a smooth transition? I'm considering getting one for the spare room
I do all of it through my capture cards!
Huggers
Member
Using the pass through? Fuck man, you need to predict whats going to happen seconds before it does on screen! I've seen your Contra run as well, impressive! I was testing Rondo of Blood through my capture device and gave up after like 10 minutes. Playing it through my CRT is a piece of cake in comparison
Ha, ha, no pass through, as I only play on my main monitor, not on a separate one. And what capture card did you have? Hopefully it was internal or had USB 3.0 because USB 2.0 is not worth it to record and play at the same time.
Huggers
Member
Yeah just a usb 2.0 Elgato. I've since split the scart signal before going into the capture device so have zero lag when recording now as well
Ah, no wonder. With USB 2.0 you are forced to have a seperate screen, whereas you don't have to do that with USB 3.0 and internal(which I have) so I do all of my gaming on one screen.
Huggers
Member
I'm on the case with getting a new computer. The one I have isn't up to the task at all. Not enough ram, no USB 3.0 etc. Going to get an X-Capture 1 in the new year I think
Mario 3 and World on RetroArch emulators, and NES Remix on Wii U, is what pushed me into serious CRT gaming this past summer. These were both on a good plasma and it was still pretty dreadful. I revisited Remix last week and it's just as bad as I remember.
Retroarch's new navigation, setup and UI is also kind of bad despite the slicker menu graphics from past versions. It's a big downgrade experience-wise. The bare bones menu and select + play of any Everdrive is worlds better.
I'll probably ditch the CRTs years down the road when 4K+ res, lagless display/input, HD console mods and accurate CRT filters all become standard. I think we're almost getting there.
speedlolita
Member
When my CRTs die, I'll repair them, find more or stop gaming. 
I still have numerous PVM crts, but I mostly play on a Sony w900a with an XRGB3. The entire setup is somewhere around 20ms lag when all is said and done. I think I can notice a tiny tiny difference between that and a CRT, but it's at the limits of perception for me.
The Framemeister, however, adds 20ms of lag by itself. Personally I would find that noticeable.
My friend has a plasma+xrgb3 setup that's in the 40ms range (after adjusting for the leo bodnar overestimation), and while it's mostly ok, I notice the lag on particularly demanding platformers.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
NES Remix has garbage lag no matter what you're playing it on.
Is there a proof about it? And where is the lag coming from?
Perhaps they buffer one frame and apply their filters via FFT.
When my CRTs die, I'll repair them, find more or stop gaming.
Have you seen what's happening in PC gaming the past year or so? Between ultra high resolutions and better than ever filters, G-sync, VR, improved black levels and low persistance (no display lag akin to CRTs), HD mods with no added input lag, I think we will all be in a good spot to move on IF we wish to do so. I think I have enough Sony pro CRTs to keep me stocked up until I die, but the gap may be closing with new displays to a point where CRTs may be worth ditching well before they all crap out.
I have never been loyal to one brand or tech. I just go where the mix of quality and convenience is best. Heck, I'd MAYBE get rid of all my consoles if someone figured out a very accurate, no-lag, all-in-one FPGA console. I think Kevtris has been working on something since the RetroVGS fiasco.
speedlolita
Member
I'm a sucker for history though, as nice as modern displays are, I'll stick to the technology a console was intended to be played on - along with that original hardware.
I have a Dell U2515H (2560x1440) and a Dell U2410 (1920x1200) connected to my PC. Both are 60Hz, lovely IPS displays and I tend to leave vsync off. Old habits an all that. A 120Hz/144Hz panel doesn't mean as much as people give credit to I feel.
I do like that idea of gsync though, given how crap I have always thought that vsync was.
I have a Dell U2515H (2560x1440) and a Dell U2410 (1920x1200) connected to my PC. Both are 60Hz, lovely IPS displays and I tend to leave vsync off. Old habits an all that. A 120Hz/144Hz panel doesn't mean as much as people give credit to I feel.
I do like that idea of gsync though, given how crap I have always thought that vsync was.
NormalFish
Banned
I don't even want to know what "outrageous prices" means for 10-20k pieces of tech.
I mean, if companies can bother making new vinyl records and players for audiophiles, surely the same could happen for us, right... Right? All we have to do is being vocal about our passion, enough to be called crazy money throwing videophile idiots and surely the industry will notice us.
socksfelloff
Member
Lol this. I highly doubt anyone bought p/bvms when they were new to play games with.
i really hope HDTVs with almost no lag become real. i would be so happy since i don't mind using an HDTV to play retro games once the lag issue is solved.
right now i'm holding onto my current HDTV until almost-no-lag becomes real (sub 10 frames would be my minimum)
NormalFish
Banned
Would be cool but impossible! The problem there is that the manufacturing facilities had highly skilled people calibrating each set and then another skilled group on the field providing risky maintenance, repair and new parts installation. My understanding is that these people are old/retired or dead. Oh and those replacement parts... no one is making them and they're very expensive.
I don't think they're comparable. Record players look a lot simpler to make and take up less space (storage costs). You can spend three figures for an excellent record player, maybe low thousands for the top end. The equivalent high end CRT is 5 figures. Ikegami appears to still be making pro monitors and they sell for $8,500-$12,000. And to be honest, I think retro gamers are both less numerous and poorer than audiophiles. Edit: to be fair I should really be saying that audiophiles have (really) deep pockets. The BVM/PVM wasn't made for us to begin with. The market isn't there.
I think our best hope would be affordable consumer CRTs coming back with improvements in tech leading to quality that approaches the older pro stuff. I think Phillips still makes cheap CRT sets in places like India and a few companies make limited quantities of CRT tubes for military equipment, but that's about it. It will all probably die out in a decade or so along with the people and the facilities that could make it happen.
geniusbits
Member
It's a race between newer monitor tech being able to mimic everything you would want better and better, innovative home engineers coming up with ways to service and rebuild old monitors to extend their lives well past what was thought possible, and 3D printers being able to make the parts to build a new CRT. Today, 3D printers can make guns equivalent in function to 200 year old technology, in a decade why not 3D printing 3-4 decade old electronics technology?
^^ Funny, I also thought about of 3d printing stuff for CRTs (one day). But the
precision needed to actually build the tube of an (color) CRT is very high.
The tube and some parts of the actual cathode assembly are the most difficult
ones to say the least. Any other part can be produced without too much hassle.
Video circuits to drive the tube are well known and the deflection coils
aren't too difficult either. Yet, as Mega already said, calibrating these
things isn't an easy task (but doable). The problem with the tube is the fine
coatings needed, i.e. the alignment of the phosphors, the (utterly) thin
aluminium coating sitting on the phosphors and the aperture grill. All these
things need to be aligned / registrate perfectly with respect to each other
and with respect to the cathode-ray gun down to mere fractions of a millimeter
to get any usable (color) picture at all.
If we could print such a tube in one go, well, CRTs would stay forever.
Of course, there are many other problem in actually producing a tube. To build
the tube in such a way that you get the right colored dots on the screen while
tracing the gun over the whole screen is a very difficult problem. Sure, a lot
of problems do also come from electromagnetic considerations (non-linear
deflecting fields etc.) leading to misalignment on the screen as well (but
can be corrected in some ways), but if the tube itself is misaligned you
won't stand any chance to get a good picture.
In Russia there is a manufacture producing vacuum tubes again.
CRTs are "just" big vacuum tube.
precision needed to actually build the tube of an (color) CRT is very high.
The tube and some parts of the actual cathode assembly are the most difficult
ones to say the least. Any other part can be produced without too much hassle.
Video circuits to drive the tube are well known and the deflection coils
aren't too difficult either. Yet, as Mega already said, calibrating these
things isn't an easy task (but doable). The problem with the tube is the fine
coatings needed, i.e. the alignment of the phosphors, the (utterly) thin
aluminium coating sitting on the phosphors and the aperture grill. All these
things need to be aligned / registrate perfectly with respect to each other
and with respect to the cathode-ray gun down to mere fractions of a millimeter
to get any usable (color) picture at all.
If we could print such a tube in one go, well, CRTs would stay forever.
Of course, there are many other problem in actually producing a tube. To build
the tube in such a way that you get the right colored dots on the screen while
tracing the gun over the whole screen is a very difficult problem. Sure, a lot
of problems do also come from electromagnetic considerations (non-linear
deflecting fields etc.) leading to misalignment on the screen as well (but
can be corrected in some ways), but if the tube itself is misaligned you
won't stand any chance to get a good picture.
In Russia there is a manufacture producing vacuum tubes again.
CRTs are "just" big vacuum tube.
Never say never.
I can deal with a minimal amount of lag, or pixels being distorted with the upscale or whatever. These things can go better over time and don't interfere with the gameplay much.
What I'm really upset about is that with the CRT dies the light gun game. You can make new pseudo light gun games like with the Wii, but the precision and accuracy these have will be very difficult to match with fixed-frame flat-panel displays. And the amount of work to make old games work with new technology is much more important than just emulating the stuff, so there won't be a plug and play solution to play an old obscure light gun game.
What I'm really upset about is that with the CRT dies the light gun game. You can make new pseudo light gun games like with the Wii, but the precision and accuracy these have will be very difficult to match with fixed-frame flat-panel displays. And the amount of work to make old games work with new technology is much more important than just emulating the stuff, so there won't be a plug and play solution to play an old obscure light gun game.
Hey guys, I've got a question: do the Framemeister, or those RGB-to-HDMI converters show 'flickering' 2D graphics (not sure if 'flickering' is correct... I was going to write 'interlaced', but I was even less sure about it lol) properly, on modern TVs?
This is what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/j2p2jY1FCmc?t=1m35s. See the smoke coming out of the Harrier on the background? Or the god rays on Akuma's stage, here: https://youtu.be/j2p2jY1FCmc?t=7m46s.
Thanks in advance!
This is what I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/j2p2jY1FCmc?t=1m35s. See the smoke coming out of the Harrier on the background? Or the god rays on Akuma's stage, here: https://youtu.be/j2p2jY1FCmc?t=7m46s.
Thanks in advance!
http://junkerhq.net/xrgb/index.php/XRGB-mini_FRAMEMEISTER#Does_XRGB_Mini_add_input_lag_.3F
Lots of talk about the various XRGB models (and other upscalers) in the Hardware section of the shmupsforum, too.
Ah, I see. Deinterlacing with (frame-)comb filters adds lag, but gives
good picture quality. Too bad.
NormalFish
Banned
I think the lag on the framemeister is situationally less than 20 ms. iirc I've seen conflicting reports on this, but basically everyone agrees it's 1-2 frames. so 16-32ms.
Also that wiki isn't terribly useful these days, I find. Better off diving in to the shmups thread.
**I'll add I'm biased since I find the wiki's owner insufferable, but irish agrees the with what I originally said so I promise it's not just me
IrishNinja
Member
yeah, SHMUPs thread is way more helpful - i need to look at that one guy's site and see if there's any new profiles up too!
haven't kept up since plasmas kinda died out - are we headed into that, lagless input/CRT filters and all? is there any indication so far?
haven't kept up since plasmas kinda died out - are we headed into that, lagless input/CRT filters and all? is there any indication so far?
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
As long as the converter handles 240p correctly, those visual effects should be preserved.
If they don't look right, that's usually a tell-tale sign that the converter/display is incorrectly treating 240p as if it was 480i. A lot of old games have visual effects that alternate on and off (or "flicker," as you said) for several frames in a row at 60fps. If the device mistakes 240p for 480i, then neighboring frames either get blended together or dropped entirely and it just looks wrong.
Ok, here is may take; I think they may perhaps use an adaptive (1d (scanline),
2d (field), and 3d (multiple fields))-comb filter for de-interlacing. I
propose the lag will be small if the content of the image changes only in some
scanlines over time. In this case the comb filter may adapt on a per scanline
basis which just needs the storage of the previous scanline, hence, the lag is
only the time of one scanline. However, this is usually not sufficient for
games, movies etc. and as such 2d combing is added into the mix increasing the
lag to one field (16ms/NTSC). 3d is even better qualitywise but the lag adds
up.
Unfortunately, de-interlacing is an ill-post problem, you can't get it right
unless your screen remains constant (making it useless in this case).
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Per Fudoh:
XRGB-2: about 1ms lag
XRGB-3 (B1 mode): about 2ms lag
XRGB-3 (B0 mode): about 22ms lag
XRGB-Mini: about 24ms lag
Performed via camera tests and the 240p test suite, IIRC. If you want more details, then ask him about it.
XRGB-2: about 1ms lag
XRGB-3 (B1 mode): about 2ms lag
XRGB-3 (B0 mode): about 22ms lag
XRGB-Mini: about 24ms lag
Performed via camera tests and the 240p test suite, IIRC. If you want more details, then ask him about it.
IrishNinja
Member
^a lotta folks on this & other threads, yeah - but nothing solid yet. there was some talk of a potential XRGB3 replacement, i wanna say? but i recall that being more hopeful than concrete
speedlolita
Member
Maybe they'll release one that can scale up to 4K, for all those fools adopting tech too early.
Not much point in that, since any 1080p signal should scale up to 2160p pretty cleanly on any 4K set.
What would be nice is a Framemeister model that accepts more of each input type, so I don't need to add a selector switch.
IrishNinja
Member
yeah i never knew why it had 2 HDMI's, but i only use RGB and swap em out...well, one component for GC
now that we have profiles, id only like some way to change res on the fly a bit quicker, but i don't know if that's something that can be addressed by firmware anyway. really not much i'd ask for personally.
now that we have profiles, id only like some way to change res on the fly a bit quicker, but i don't know if that's something that can be addressed by firmware anyway. really not much i'd ask for personally.
IrishNinja
Member
yeah, really interested in seeing how that ultra plays out, now that ive got an ED64...but ive never understood describing the FM's 480p as "crappy"; granted most of what i play isn't in that res, but the stuff that was looked good. there's even a profile now for F-Zero GX.
it might be partly due to personal disappointment but seeing that most of the old stuff that i play is 480p and that being the FM's weakest link, i never felt 100% satisfied with my purchase. the whole thing about the input lag also soured me a bit.
also, i'm worried that they'll announce a new upscaler that's gonna kill the resale value since it's been a while and it seems likely that a new one could drop anytime from now.
also, i'm worried that they'll announce a new upscaler that's gonna kill the resale value since it's been a while and it seems likely that a new one could drop anytime from now.
D.Lo
Member
It's not really that old if it's 480p though.
Yes I would not buy a Feamemesiter for 480p. It's for the 30 years of gaming before the Gamcube, not after.
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