Hacker News Reader

Comment by arduinomancer | Hacker News Reader

Tl;dr:

Pixel graphics on CRTs look smoother (almost like anti-aliasing) because CRT pixels don't behave like the clean pixel squares in modern displays.

Just displaying the same pixels on a modern display may not match the original artist's intent.

View on HN

It also depended on the TV set you had. I was allowed to play secret of evermore a few nights on the TV set of my father for a few nights. He had a Sony Trinitron and the game looked amazingly sharp. It was also one with a flatter screen compared to the bludgy curved mess my TV was at the time. I still love pixel art. I would love to see a reinterpretation of FFVI with the Octopath Traveler engine. I know that for some the only way to play that game is as original as possible. But sadly that is no longer possible for the most of us.

I think that's what these people are doing at Project Final Fantasy 6. I haven't delved into the details but the screen shots look just like Octopath Traveler.

Thanks didn’t know this project exists.

Any idea why you're being faded? That's an apt enough summary of the article.

I keep a bunch of BNC to RCA connectors, S-video adapters, and RF modulators at work to connect legacy hardware we grew up on and started our careers with to some of our CRTs because they just don't look right on LCD. Gotta keep analog evil.

I've also got a green phosphorescent display that I keep a raspi B+ connected to running asciicam that I sometimes point a camera at to use as an avatar for meetings. It looks cheap on LCD, but people get a big kick out of it when they realize what they're seeing isn't just a filter.

Even without interlacing (which will alternate the set of scanlines that are used and thereby "double" the resolution), having black scanlines reduces the brightness and allows your brain to fill in the imagined intermediate image.

I think this is why it's just not possible (or at least super difficult) to replicate the look of a CRT on a modern LCD. On a CRT it's firing an electron gun at one point on the screen which burns searingly bright, while the rest of the screen is fading out and between the scanlines it's perpetually dark.

Your brain somehow turns that mess into a surprisingly coherent image, especially if it's animated, to the point I remember lots of people comparing 1080P LCD TVs in the store back when they came out to their old CRTs at home and asking, "is it really any better? I can't tell". (I still think they all needed glasses, but there were a LOT of people talking like that!)

Maybe someday we'll be able to emulate the whole effect with fast enough, bright enough, LED/LCD screens but right now even the photos of CRT screens viewed on an LCD screen don't really give the right idea.

> Maybe someday we'll be able to emulate the whole effect with fast enough, bright enough

Please, never ever do that shit again. Ever. It was an actual strain on the eyes to watch TV back then (or work on a CRT monitor). You could actually catch tan if you were sitting too close to a CRT (hot sensation and slight discolouration of the skin from the electron radiation).

Truly an ergonomic nightmare in every way (the flickering, OMG, the flickering...) - I don't miss CRTs.

You forgot the high-pitched noise, the worst offender imo. CRTs sucked.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com