Shponglefan wrote on 2025-03-12, 11:58:Personally I find 60Hz on a CRT to be headache inducing and borderline unusable. So a similar experience on a LCD would be a non […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-03-12, 07:52:
Yes, at 60Hz it is more flickery than at higher refresh rates (a little worse than 60Hz on a CRT), but to at least have the option on such an expensive retro display would be nice.
Personally I find 60Hz on a CRT to be headache inducing and borderline unusable. So a similar experience on a LCD would be a non-starter for me.
The other issue is that for DOS at least, rendering at only 60Hz introduces judder via frame skipping for 70Hz resolutions. Added motion clarity in these instances just makes the judder more visible. This is where I find LCDs with higher persistence and visible motion blur actually mask the judder caused by frame skipping.
Really what we need is a higher refresh rate that can do both 70Hz native without frame skipping and a high enough refresh rate for BFI/BLS without introducing flicker. Unfortunately nothing exists that I am aware of in a traditional 4:3 or even 5:4 form factor.
I'm assuming this monitor is more suitable for some non-PC retro computing tasks but amongst all of retro stuff I tinker with, I can't really picture what it would be good for versus just using a cheap\free LCD and an appropriate external scaler, now that so many of those have been produced specifically for retro gaming\computing.
It is cool looking and the modular nature of it is neat... but... man, I just can't get over the physical limitations of the display and the form factor.
The modular nature of it does allow for the inclusion of different hardware scalers. The module with SCART, component video, S-Video and RF is a separate scaler built around a re-engineered GBS-Control. I haven't tested it yet, but from what I've read and seen on videos and discord, it does look more feature-friendly when it comes to scaling options.
So far the saving grace is that it at least does 4:3 aspect ratios correctly under the various DOS graphics modes I've tried. The panel is also nice and bright, and the colors are quite vivid. It feels like it's part-way there, but held up by the shitty implementation of the stock board with the VGA/composite/HDMI inputs. If they'd only thought to include a VGA input on the other scaler module, some of these issues I'm having might have been overcome. But it also gives me hope that it might be possible to rig another scaler up to bypass those issues.
I plan to do some further testing under Windows XP and DOSBox. I can use DOSBox to do all the scaling options and output a native 1280x1024. This will give me a better indication of what this monitor is theoretically capable of.
I agree with you about using 60Hz CRTs to an extent... I never used a CRT at that refresh rate unless I had no choice. I always opted to run my CRTs (during the 2000s) at 85Hz-110Hz if it was available. Regarding judder, it comes back to the panel limitation of 60Hz. If it had variable refresh rate support of some kind and could run at any rate needed for old games it could avoid judder as well. Obviously the games\OS wouldn't make use of true VRR like Freesync\Gsync, but if the monitor supported it it could at least switch to whatever refresh rate was required. It seems that DOSBox Staging has support for VRR monitors for this reason, though I haven't tried it personally.
This would also work with backlight strobing for LCDs. Though, really, the "holy grail" of a modern CRT replacement is CRT beam simulation. This gives CRT-like motion clarity with a lot less visible flickering. This is actually possible entirely in software now, and can even be done with an LCD (unlike BFI, which tends to look pretty bad on an LCD), though it looks a lot better on an OLED. BlurBusters actual made a shader that could do this and Retroarch picked it up almost immediately. This is also what the Retrotink 4K and 4K CE have built in for CRT beam simulation. Combined with an OLED monitor and a CRT bezel shader you can basically simulate everything about a retro display in software now, including the way they looked with the light hitting the inner edge of the bezel.
Personally, I think the ideal setup would be either a device that could pass VGA (or other inputs) directly into a modern PC and then output them to a window with shaders applied (like how Retroarch applies them to an emulator) with minimal lag, but that probably doesn't exist yet... or just use a box like the Retrotink with maybe a few different features, though this would likely never be able to give you a simulated retro bezel. Almost any modern OLED monitor or TV is capable of all of the things we've mentioned if it is being controlled by the right software, and the software already exists, it's just a matter of getting the image from an old PC onto it.
You could argue at this point "why not just use DOSbox" and that would be completely valid for DOS titles. It comes down to whether you're paying hundreds of dollars for a monitor that looks like an old monitor to sit on your desk but really cannot show the actual image the way an old monitor would, or if you're spending hundreds of dollars to make something that looks modern give you almost the exact (visual) experience that an old monitor would, while not looking old itself. Each of us has a different preference, and I think if I didn't have actual CRTs around the decision would be harder for me... but for now I would absolutely pick image authenticity over aesthetics with something like this.
Anyway, I'm sorry for derailing the thread. I have a thing for display technology, and I would love to see a proper implementation of all of these features some day. My CRTs won't last forever! 😁
