AuthorTopic: Retro games on HD TVs  (Read 6668 times)

Offline Seiseki

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Retro games on HD TVs

on: June 26, 2012, 01:36:30 pm
I recently played a few old Sega Megadrive games on a large Samsung HD TV and was horrified by the smudgy look of my old classic games!
They're just butchering the pixels and there's no way to turn it off.. Samsung TVs do have a "Game Mode" but turning it on didn't do anything about the smudging.
I can't believe this, but I guess it's a bit better than just using bilinear filtering, since it still looks quite sharp.
But those poor, poor pixels :(

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #1 on: June 26, 2012, 02:34:40 pm
What kind of cable are you using?  My 32" 1080p LCD HDTV is really crisp with pixels. I have the PS3 connected via HDMI cable and low res games look good on that (as does pixelly websites on the internet browser, I checked my own site on there when I was writing it, and often use pixel art wallpaper for the XMB background), my laptop connects via a VGA cable to be a general emulation machine and the pixels all look great on that too and even my real Amiga 1200 using a SCART cable looks great.  Really happy with that TV as it was a bargain at £199.99 (love the split screen mode. A friend and I did a speed run of Castlevania - Symphony of the Night in a sort of mock '2 player' to see who won the 'race'.  I was using the PS3 on the right side of the screen and he was using the PSP on the left side).  Only time a machine looked a bit crap was the old Mega Drive I was testing (as I was giving it away) but then that was the RF cable and that always looked crap on any TV I ever had.
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Offline Seiseki

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #2 on: June 26, 2012, 02:49:08 pm
I don't think it's the cable, I'm using a newer composite cable.

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #3 on: June 26, 2012, 02:53:10 pm
Hm, I've not tried a Mega Drive with anything but an RF cable, but I did have a SNES for a number of years and was disappointed with the quality of the output using a SCART cable.  It was somewhat clearer than RF but it still had 'fuzz' around sprites and various things that annoyed me.  Had friends with similar problems using different SCART cables and different televisions and we just ended up assuming it was the console's own video output to blame.  This was on old CRT TV's.
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Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #4 on: June 26, 2012, 03:42:04 pm
Yeah my TV does something strange when I play NES games on the Wii..  Has a weird 2xSal type effect, but only does it 'in motion'. If you stand still (in super mario bros), it goes back to normal pixels; so took me a while to make sure it wasn't just my eyes playing tricks on me.  I assume it's not the signal, it's probably some clever motion smoothing algorithm put on afterwards to make low res videos look better?  Mine's Samsung too, so we're probably seeing the same thing.. Haven't managed to turn it off (though haven't looked that hard).  I *think* it leaves HDMI input alone, so emulators don't get killed in the same fashion. 

Offline ptoing

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #5 on: June 26, 2012, 04:11:05 pm
What you can also do is buy an SLG 3000 and an upscaler. A bit pricey but if you play a lot of different older consoles on one HD TV worth it.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline yrizoud

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #6 on: June 26, 2012, 04:14:16 pm
See in your TV settings if you can disable "Automotion plus"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_interpolation#HDTV

Offline Seiseki

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #7 on: June 26, 2012, 05:02:47 pm
Yes, that 2xSal type effect is what I'm seeing!
I disabled all the fancy stuff like motion filters and what not. Also read that "Game Mode" is supposed to remove all that stuff as well.

Ptoing, as I only have one Mega Drive with 2 games so far, at my dads place, it's not really an option for me.. ;D

Offline blumunkee

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #8 on: June 26, 2012, 06:19:34 pm
I don't think it's the cable, I'm using a newer composite cable.

It is the cable. Composite cables such as RCA and SCART mix the color components and luminance into a noisy mess. Stuff like HDMI and component cables use separate channels for each color and another for luminance, thus no noise.

On a lot of older consoles, the only way to get a component signal is to open the case and start soldering the motherboard. On some consoles it's just impossible because the guts are hardwired to generate a component signal.

From what I understand, SCART cables can output component and RGB signals. RGB signals aren't as good as genuine YPbPr composite, more like S-Video. I'm not European so I can neither confirm nor deny this.
« Last Edit: June 26, 2012, 06:29:30 pm by blumunkee »

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #9 on: June 26, 2012, 06:34:47 pm
I don't think it's the cable, I'm using a newer composite cable.

It is the cable.

It isn't the cable, it's a completely different issue.  I'm using component and I also get the same thing, it's some kind of post processing on the TV. 

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #10 on: June 26, 2012, 06:57:41 pm
Took photos of my TV...  In my case it only goes into 'blobby' mode when the pixel's value's changed (pretty much everything when the screen's scrolling or just the goomba when he's moving along alone). Seiseki's processing might be a little different as I mistakenly thought I had a Samsung, mine's actually a Phillips, but it's likely similarly terrible.

If you zoom you can see there's a bit of anti-aliasing in the upscale too, but I don't know if that's the Wii's emulator or what. Either way, obviously filter thing is the worst offender, it's destroying the pixels completely.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1534394/pixel_inspection.jpg

Offline BladeJunker

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #11 on: June 26, 2012, 08:23:33 pm
It looks like you can only change one of 2 things which is the TV used or the video output of your Mega Drive to get rid of the bad pixel visuals.

Consider getting a SD-TV for your Dad's pad, or more specifically a high end model with a quality tube. With flat screens all the rage most people are getting rid of them for low prices or free which is what I paid for the 32" Trinitron I use for my older consoles. This gets you out of the more expensive options everybody has already mentioned.

Regardless of display used higher quality video output is always good since it cuts down on the picture noise. If you have the Model 1 Mega Drive they have RGB SCART cables that will clean up the picture quite a bit. Here in the west we can patch SCART to work on our TVs but its way more expensive to get it to do RGB output that popular mods settle for S-video and Component outputs instead. So if you have native SCART for heavens sake use it. D:

Still I should ask what does the output look like on your Mega Drive, how many pins on the DIN end? Over here our Model 2 Genesis removed the superior DIN connector that offered C64/others monitor support. More noise and rainbow bands in the second revision I'm afraid. :ouch:

Upscalers are quite good from what I've seen and the SLG 3000 looks interesting but I'm still on the fence about scanlines inherent value, technically its authentic but I quite like seeing the pixels au naturel.

Well that's all I can say, hope it helps. :)

Offline blumunkee

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Re: Retro games on HD TVs

Reply #12 on: June 26, 2012, 11:40:10 pm
Seiseki, what model Samsung are you using? Maybe I can look up the instruction manual online and see if I can't find something that helps.