Scanlines

[PopetherevXXVIII]

Hiw do you guys feel about scanlines?

What I use them for

To Sharpen upscaled 480i/480p

Hide bob deinterlace flicker

Make the N64 not look like Ass on modern TVs.

I don't use them for 16 bit or 32 bit systems. At least not though my Framemiester.

 

[psydefx]

for me, dont like them dont use them

 

[speedyink]

Not a fan. One of my CRT's has thicc scan lines and honestly I don't like it. Fake scanlines are a definite nope.

Even growing up i'd tend to notice things like thicker scanlines and I didn't like those TV's. Same with 60Hz computer monitors...I could pick out 60, 74/80Hz from a lineup, I'd specifically choose the higher refresh rate ones if I had the choice (school/library/work). If I got stuck using a 60Hz one I'd change it, even if it meant lowering resolution, it drove me nuts otherwise.

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

They've made a huge difference with my PS2.

Dreamcast doesn't NEED them but the pattern on that setting looks just like an old VGA monitor.

Only way the N64 was viewable.

I don't find them nessessary for my Megasis, SFC Saturn or PS1 games.

 

[cta]

I did not get a PVM to only use every other line of it.

 

[Awbacon]

I never add them. If I want scanlines I drag my PVM out

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

I don't have room for a PVM

But I got my Dreamcast and PS2 looking like they're coming from a good VGA monitor

 

[Spaceman]

The definitive (and only) way to properly play retro console games of the respective eras, provided it isn't some fake filter bullshit. No upscales, no fancy tech hookups into horrid modern televisions. Anything that has to passthrough the signal at ANY point of the chain inherently creates even the smallest amount of input delay, and that just isn't allowed for me and my setups. For an example, the OSSC adds around a half to full frame of delay.

Early 3D games without scanlines really highlight the low-detail of the textures, seams in geometry, and jaggy pixels of 2D elements (mostly HUD or text related). Mostly apparent in N64 and early 3D PSX, but even later on in the PS2 days, if the screen was big enough, noticeable.

2D games (especially the more detailed sprite art masterpieces like SOTN) just pop with the right hardware.

I have a beautiful Trinitron with a solid picture still, and the aperture grille does brighten the image slightly compared to shadow mask-based CRTs but by god, ever since we picked the thing up there's no going back.

 

[FamilyGuy]

I like them for low-res 2D sprite games. Some games were simply designed with CRT in mind, including scanlines, for their graphical look/style. They can even hide some distracting artefacts, like aliasing.

Donkey Kong country just looks better with proper scanlines. I don't really care if they're real or emulated, as long as they're high quality.

 

[Trimesh]

The definitive (and only) way to properly play retro console games of the respective eras, provided it isn't some fake filter bullshit. No upscales, no fancy tech hookups into horrid modern televisions. Anything that has to passthrough the signal at ANY point of the chain inherently creates even the smallest amount of input delay, and that just isn't allowed for me and my setups. For an example, the OSSC adds around a half to full frame of delay.

If you're getting anything like that latency out of the OSSC, then something is badly wrong. I've got one of them in my Naomi cabinet so I can drive the (31kHz only) monitor from boards that output 15kHz video. The OSSC is connected to a dumb DVI to VGA converter (I.E. it just has a DAC in it) and the total latency from analog input to analog output is about 0.12ms.

 

[la-li-lu-le-lo]

I like scanlines on a CRT, but I also like CRTs - so that’s inevitable. One thing I found about my XV29 is that the scanlines on 240p content seem more noticeable than with my PVM. I think this is partly because the screen is bigger and also because it uses an invar mask rather than an aperture grille like the PVM. I really love my XV29; it does anything from 240p up to 1024 x 768, and anything you put on this display looks really amazing. There's no way to really get a sense of how good it looks until you see it for yourself. I vastly prefer CRTs to modern displays for retro gaming, but if I didn't have a CRT then I'd probably be using a Framemeister with scanlines.

To Sharpen upscaled 480i/480p

What kind of scanlines are you using for 480p stuff? If they're scanlines that are made for 240p content, then if you use that with 480p content you're essentially converting it from ~640 x 480 to 640 x 240. So you're losing half the vertical resolution. That's fine if it's something like a 2D game that's just 240p upconverted to 480p, but if the game is rendered natively at 480p and the scanlines work like I just described, that's not good. You have a Framemeister, right? What options does the Framemeister have for scanlines?

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

I don't really use anything on PS2 480p, I just deinterlace with Game_2 or Picture. Those scanlines are pretty thick but give off the CRT look from a distance.

On Dreamcast I'm using a modified Firebrand X profile and 2x scanlines. These give off a very VERY fine effect I can't replicate though any other input. It looks like my old flat VGA CRT (Can't recall the brand, they came with Gateways around 2003) The scanlines make the Dreamcast Menu look pretty sharp without them it's blurry. In game everything looks fine with or without.

 

[Bramsworth]

Fake scanlines are autrocious. They look nothing like what really playing on a TV back then was like. I've seen some CRT shaders recently that look like they're more true to the real experience back then, however. Really need to seek them out sometime since from what I saw, it captured that fuzzy warm feeling TVs had back then that fake scanlines in emulators get totally wrong. We never played games on TVs and noticed scanlines like how they're exaggerated in emus, everything blended and it felt like a consistent image without any in-betweens and all that junk. Kids seeing these emulators are probably wondering how did people stand playing games where individual lines were so clear and it disrupts the clear flow of the image on-screen, but I swear it never looked like that.

Man I feel like an old man typing this

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

Have you seen an arcade monitor recently?

pixel chunks are very much a noticeable thing.

 

[Alastor]

I used fake scanlines on a variety of devices (SLG 3000, OSSC, Super NT, etc.) and have grown accustomed to the look. True, it looks nothing like in the old days just like @Bramsworth said and I never expected them to replicate that distinct CRT look, but I appreciate how they clean up the image. Then again, it has been years since I came to that conclusion and with newer display technologies, I suppose it would not hurt to reevaluate the (subjective) necessity of scanlines on modern displays.

 

[StevO9389]

I'm fine with 'em, even the 3mm thick ones on a 60" Hitachi Ultravision from 1998.

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

I need to get a picture of how good Project Justice looks with them. It doesn't NEED them but having them there adds something.

 

[Foas]

I think they're fine in some scenarios.
For example, 240p with fake scanlines looks pretty damn good, though I'd almost say it looks even better on a 31khz CRT being upscaled with something like an OSSC 4x, I'd almost consider it a valid alternative in my opinion if you can't get a pro 15khz capable display.

Hide bob deinterlace flicker

I find that Bob deinterlacing looks pretty alright on a CRT monitor, so I usually just keep them off and run it in 2x (which shows thin natural scanlines on my monitor anyway), when using an LCD display I prefer to just leave the signal as is, if I played my old systems on modern displays more I'd definitely look into getting a Framemeister though, bob deinterlacing looks like shit on there, and scanlines look odd in 480i imo.

 

[PopetherevXXVIII]

On the Framemiester for PS2 I'm using Game_2 because that filter gets rid of any combing which is rampant in PS2 games toss in some scanlines to hide the flicker and it looks pretty good ALMOST CRT like.

 

[Leynos]

I like them for 2D games