9 Comments

1. Madaracs Said, May 1, 2009 at 7:57 AM

   OK, this is cute if not a little over done. Some of us had some pretty darn clear pictures. To me the after images look terrible in these screenshots. As if someone where incapable of tuning their television. OK OK OK, I realize some of us didn’t have stellar TVs but even that looks bad. Anyone back me up on that?

   I like that scan lines. But the blurry is a just a tad over done I think.

2. POI Said, May 1, 2009 at 8:04 AM

   I could do without the blur. I think the “after image” is interesting. Doesn’t the MAME emulator do something like this for the scan lines?

3. Commander Tim Said, May 1, 2009 at 8:06 AM

   I agree. Our old Zenith wasn’t quite perfect, but it certainly never looked that bad. Methinks this is another case of gamers that weren’t there attempting to emulate the memories associated with retro gaming.

4. Zoyx Said, May 1, 2009 at 8:56 AM

   I played on an old RCA tube color TV. By tube I mean vacuum tubes. It looked that bad. Here is a picture of it… http://pics.livejournal.com/zoyx/pic/000a9zxq . That’s me playing Skittle tic-tac-toe. I think I have polaroid somewhere in my world of a hi-score, obtained on that TV. Just a matter of digging.

   I personally enjoy the pixel perfect emulation of Stella. It is the less than stellar control emulation that I am not much of a fan.

5. Zoyx Said, May 1, 2009 at 9:17 AM

   Found the polaroid… http://www.flickr.com/photos/25537037@N07/3490873743/

6. Madaracs Said, May 1, 2009 at 10:13 AM

   Of course, that photo suffers from motion blur as well does it not? Low light and whatnot… I’m not saying they’re doing a terrible job… I’m just being critical! :-) Zoyx would have had a few years on us where the VCS was concerned. I suppose it is likely many kids in the late 70s would have suffered the woes of a blurry picture. I do admit that the sprites look better and often times developers depended on the type of output device to have their games look better. I think I read somewhere (or heard it from Sparby) that Tempest X actually looks better without S-Video since the developers were counting on some motion blur and composite video to blend some of the effects.

7. Zoyx Said, May 1, 2009 at 10:55 AM

   That picture is the collision of lots of old/bad tech. It was also near the end of a roll, no tripod, I turned the lights off, which all added to the accident. I still like that photo… brings back memories.

8. s1500 Said, May 1, 2009 at 10:55 AM

   In MAME you can add “scan lines” to the display. It’s kinda cool to play with. Takes out the digital crisp perfection your monitor might display. It doesn’t do anything like described in the article.

   Now can we get a snowy picture & ghosting from WCCO to add to the mix?

9. Commander Tim Said, May 1, 2009 at 1:12 PM

   For my money, the 4xRGB filter in MAME delivers a pretty accurate representation on LCD panels. The one thing you can’t get though is phospher glow. A lot of emulators try it, but not many nail it.