Mau1wurf1977 wrote:Yea RGB to Component is to way to go for TVs in Australia for example. Europe was quite blessed but we got punished with PAL 50Hz which gaves us games that ran slower and vertically stunted.
Except on the Megadrive, Amiga (or ST), and a few others where many games had 50 Hz optimization (or lacking 60 Hz optimization in some Amiga games), and commonly used resolutions that used close to square pixels on 60 Hz TVs, but were much too "tall" on 60 Hz sets (ST was worst, actually still tall in 50 Hz, Amiga was near pearfect in 50 Hz, and MD was almost 1/2 way between 60 and 50 Hz -hence Sonic is egg-shaped in both NTSC and PAL, just tall vs wide). Granted, that's only for the large number of games that didn't compensate for pixel aspect ratio. (a much bigger problem on systems like the NES, Master System, SNES and low-res MD games, where pixels were too-wide in 60 Hz and MUCH too wide in 50 Hz 😉)
This was also a problem for 320x200 DOS games as standard calibration for monitors at 70 Hz left this stretched to 4:3, meaing pixels were much too tall. (same games compensated, others didn't, and some did so inconsistently . . . for consistent games you could just manually adjust the screen though . . . or use a driver forcing 60 Hz)
Mau1wurf1977 wrote:Compared to the console and home computer machines, PC Monitors always had razor sharp pixels.
I have to Giggle when retro console gamers just now discover Scart RGB, scalers and whatnot to get a good image. We had all of this at 70Hz flicker free and with no interlacing. Under Windows 85Hz+ for super smooth FPS action.
Though by those same merits, you didn't see console gamers complaining nearly as much about resolutions or dithering artifacts . . . they were simply less noticeable on TVs (especially thrhough composite). Seriously, how many people actively complained about the Playstation or N64's dithering at 320x240?
And, of course, the whole "HD" console revolution just moved onto resolutions in the range that had been common de-facto standards years earlier on PC.
Old consoles and home computers: Monitors were TVs more or less
PCs: We had proper Monitors
The higher-end Amiga and ST monitors should have had relatively similar sharpness to contemporary CGA/EGA and early VGA monitors in the same range. Granted, there were (are) many cheaper, often blurrier monitors as well.
THat's also not including the ST's 31 kHz 640x400 70 Hz monochrome mode.