How do you like to display your retro pixel art games: filtered or unfiltered?

[ScOULaris]

I've always been into toying with various visual filters/shaders when displaying low-res pixel-art games on modern displays. For me personally, I enjoy trying to replicate the look of old CRT televisions when either emulating retro games or playing modern ports of older games that offer such visual options. I know that for many, however, a cleaner pixel-perfect upscaled look is preferred. It's not a binary issue, however. There's a whole spectrum from unfiltered pixels to complex shaders that layer many different visual effects on top of one another to come as close to that original CRT look as possible. In some instances (like Neo-Geo games and CPS-2 Capcom arcade titles) I prefer to simply add some 50% transparent scanlines over the otherwise raw, unfiltered image. The scanlines add back some of the definition that the original pixel art was designed for while offering clearer image quality than what was possible on the original display hardware.

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Oh yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

Sidenote: This is why the ACA Neo-Geo releases from Hamster drive me nuts. They offer a whole range of scanline display options, but all of them force a rather hard bilinear smoothing filter. Why can't we have scanlines without the smoothing? It boggles the mind.

Anyway, I just like talking about this subject and though I'd put up a poll thread to gauge how people feel about it.

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Sonic Mania is an example of a modern pixel-art game that offers really solid filter options.

 

[Flandy]

I'll take a good filter over raw output if I'm emulating. Not so sure about modern games since those aren't really designed with CRTs in mind

 

[Nanashrew]

Sharp raw pixels unless there's a good filter and I may shift back and forth depending on how I feel.

 

[SHAQ]

Unfiltered. I appreciate the pixel art and time put into designing those games.

 

[Lant_War]

CRT filtered

 

[Deleted member 8593]

 

[Nanashrew]

I will say that I will always go for a CRT filter in some games though because otherwise the art is totally destroyed. Examples being games that try to imitate 3D like in Super Mario RPG.

 

[Platy]

Only ones that give us pixel glows and just for like og GB and VB

 

[AmericanKirby]

Either unfiltered/nearest-neighbor or sharp-bilinear. I can see why people would like CRT shaders, especially if they're really good ones that mimic quirks of CRTs pixel artists took advantage of, but they're not for me. Regular bilinear looks like you smeared the screen with vaseline and scanlines by themselves just make the picture look weirdly dark.

And if you use anything like HQx or Super Eagle, then like what the hell is wrong with you?

 

[Azriell]

I really like raw pixels, but those gifs that show how CRT blur was used as a graphical effect make me question everything.

 

[Deleted member 21003]

CRT all day every day.

 

[Deleted member 2102]

Sharp pixels with good scanlines is my go-to. Especially "hybrid" scanline options, like the one on the Super Nt - basically, varying brightness depending on the surrounding pixels.

I like CRT shaders when done well, but I'm both picky with them and unable to properly ascertain what I want out of them.

Bilinear is only appealing if the game has display issues at some aspect ratios (i.e. uneven pixel sizing for 8:7 SNES games that appear to be intended for 4:3 display), and usually that's when paired with a scanline filter. Even then, it's not my first choice for a solution. Aggressive filtering is awful looking - especially with how muddy edges look. Completely destroys the illusion it's trying to go for.

 

[TwoPikachus]

I didn't even realize I liked scanlines until I tried the filters in Sonic Mania. Now I use it all the time when emulating 2D games.

But it depends on my mood, sometimes I like Eagle or HQ4x, depends on the game, really. I know that makes some people upset but fuck 'em. I'll take one of those over raw tbh. Give me nostalgia or modernize it, I got no love for the clean look.

 

[lowlifelenny]

Scanlines.

 

[Yurinka]

By default scanlines because CRT effect many times it sucks. But if very well implemented I'd take that.

 

[Rellodex]

It depends on the game. I just play around with it.

I use no filters for Sonic Mania, but use the full CRT effects on the SNES Mini.

 

[Piichan]

Depends on my mood. It's pretty much 50/50 for me.

 

[ghibli99]

Some form of nice and even scaling (2x, 3x, 4x, etc.) or a quality CRT filter. Usually the former though.

 

[Waffle]

i always prefer it with scanlines. Not sure why, but the sharp raw pixels really put me off.

 

[RM8]

Clean, or scaliness. Anything that makes things blurry is not an option for me. Btw it's often said that classic 2D games were not supposed to have a clean look, but that'd only be true if you ignored handhelds. Give me my raw pixels!

 

[Sabretooth]

CRT filters or scanlines at the very least. Clean and upscaled is for uncivilised brutes.

 

[J75]

And if you use anything like HQx or Super Eagle, then like what the hell is wrong with you?

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I just like it, simple preference. Makes some games look much more modern and clean to me. I find chunky pixelated visuals unappealing.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I don't even up-res 3D games, let alone use any 2D filters.

I get the impression that most "scanline filters" were designed by people who never owned a CRT in their lives.

Btw it's often said that classic 2D games were not supposed to have a clean look, but that'd only be true if you ignored handhelds. Give me my raw pixels!

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You'd have to ignore most arcade games as well.

 

[Spaceroast]

Retroarch has some amazing crt filters packed in, so I usually use those for everything up to and including ps1/n64. I fibd it's preferable on a big TV, but on a smaller screen I'll usually take unfiltered. Not sure why; it's just a feeling. Often just depends on the game, too.

I'm currently playing through xenogears which is a mix of 3d and pixel art, and the crt filter benefits it greatly.

 

[Dreamboum]

CRT filters on my LCD screen hust looks like crap. If I need scanlines I'd play it on my CRT. Otherwise it just dims and blurs the image

 

[hibikase]

As a owner of a PVM I find all "CRT filters" to be horrible and not representative of the real thing at all.

I assume that people who like them haven't seen a real CRT in a long time.

 

[ZServ]

And if you use anything like HQx or Super Eagle, then like what the hell is wrong with you?

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THIS IS HATE SPEECH

but I can't say that I disagree, I just like it on some games :(

 

[RM8]

I couldn't care less if other people like filters, I just don't understand it, lol.

On the left, each pixel has been carefully placed to convey visual information. On the right, microwaved crayons.

 

[Deleted member 24079]

CRT on my 49" is life. Nothing fancy. Just some nice lines and I'm good

 

[Awakened]

CRT filters on my LCD screen hust looks like crap. If I need scanlines I'd play it on my CRT. Otherwise it just dims and blurs the image

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There are shaders like crt-easymode-halation that offer a light touch approach that barely dim or blur the image (example from aiden's post in the shaders thread):

 

[Bradford]

I live for a good CRT filter and curved glass overlay setup. It's the only way.

 

[JudgmentJay]

I prefer CRT-Royale tweaked to get rid of the faded edges and pixel glow... whatever you call that. Retro games were designed with CRTs in mind so it makes sense to me to emulate that look. Raw pixels blown up on modern displays looks terrible imo.

 

[Parfait]

i never ever remember seeing scanlines as a kid so i never used any kind of crt filter. raw all the way, it's the best.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I live for a good CRT filter and curved glass overlay setup. It's the only way.

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I think curved screen filters are literally at the top of my worst list.

It's like looking at a photo of a TV instead of just looking at a TV.

 

[Unknownlight]

Speaking of Sonic Mania, it has a filter option called "Clean" which I think is the default. It looks completely identical to "None" to me. What's supposed to be the difference?

 

[MegaMix]

I find anything but a CRT filter to be horrendous, unless the game was designed around using raw pixels.

 

[Syril]

I spent forever messing with Reshade to make Shovel Knight look like the 3DS version.

Speaking of Sonic Mania, it has a filter option called "Clean" which I think is the default. It looks completely identical to "None" to me. What's supposed to be the difference?

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It blurs the edges slightly.

 

[Iva Demilcol]

The more it looks like a CRT the better.

 

[BocoDragon]

1st choice is scanlines. 2nd choice is sharp pixels.

Scanlines aren't really a nostalgic filter effect, in my book. It's more that the "sharp pixels" version is drawing additional lines that were never meant to be seen in 240p (though games were drawn on PCs that might have shown it, their reference output was to a CRT). I see scanlines as restoring the original image. I still want it sharp and I don't want to distort or filter the lines that were originally there.

It's a bit like watching 4:3 content on a widescreen set. It wasn't designed to be stretched to fill the wide TV. You need some kind of mode that intentionally introduces black bars on the sides, to emulate the shape of the 4:3 TV the content was designed for. I see scanlines as being analogous to that: emulated black space to preserve the original image. Just interspersed between alternating lines rather than on the sides.

That said, I'm not a purist about it. Some games aspiring for a high res look might be fine without scanlines, particularly where 3D polygons are concerned.

 

[Mental Atrophy]

Generally unfiltered, but I replayed the AD&D Krynn series recently and used hq4x because the fonts were actually way easier to read that way.

 

[Pargon]

You should pretty much never be using unfiltered pixels.
Unfiltered pixels mean that you are either displaying the game in the wrong aspect ratio - likely with black borders instead of filling the height of the screen, or there will be pixel crawl/flickering artifacts when anything moves across the screen.

At the very minimum, you should be using something like the Pixellate shader.
This shader retains virtually all of the sharpness of unfiltered pixels, but prevents flickering artifacts caused by non-integer scaling - whether that is to fill the height of the display, or to correct the aspect ratio.

Here's an example of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, scaled to 1080p.
Unfiltered pixels - displays in the wrong aspect ratio, and the image does not fill the display:

Bilinear filtering - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display, but the image is significantly blurred:

Note: this is bilinear filtering in linear light rather than gamma light, as most filters will use. Bilinear filtering in gamma light will dull the picture (look at the health counter).

Pixellate shader - displays in the correct aspect ratio and fills the display with minimal blurring:

If you zoom in close on this image, you can see that the blurring is generally constrained to a single pixel width around every source pixel, and at typical TV/monitor distances it should not be noticeable.


My preference is for a good CRT shader - though not one which adds distortion. I have a tweaked CRT Royale preset that I like.
One thing that is very important to note about scanlines or CRT filters however, is that any filter which brightens the picture is not displaying color accurately.

If you have a really basic scanline filter, one which just draws solid black lines every other line, it is supposed to make the image dimmer.
Half the screen is now black, therefore the brightness should have dropped by about 50%.
Scanline filters which try to brighten up the image are distorting it by lowering the gamma or doing something even worse. You end up with ugly and washed-out colors.

What you need to do with a scanline filter like that is to double the brightness of your display. If your backlight was at 5, raise it to 10 (assuming the control is linear).
This way you restore the brightness/vibrance that was lost by adding the scanlines without affecting the color reproduction.
Even with the most basic scanlines, doing this can start to make the picture feel a lot more like a CRT which had a very high intensity light output, but only for a very short amount of time, and only for a small area of the screen at once.
With better scanline implementations or CRT shaders - ones which do not do brightness compensation or can have it disabled - you probably don't need to raise the brightness quite so much, as the scanlines are likely taking up less than 50% of the screen.

 

[AdiGrateles]

My earliest experiences with pixel games was on a CRT display, but I never thought the differences displayed on there and on an LCD display were as drastic as they apparently are. My sense of nostalgia for that kind of display isn't strong, so in most cases, I'd prefer the sharp look pixel games get when they're displayed "unfiltered".

 

[Deleted member 2620]

CRT filters for sure. While they may not look exactly like a PVM (though, imo, they're getting there on the right modern display), nearest (I hesitate to call this "raw") looks way too harsh on high-res displays. Even completely ignoring matters of accuracy, I find something like crt-easymode-halation to be way, way more pleasing to look at on top of being a bit more readable.

 

[lightchris]

A good CRT filter is the best. Its both more pleasing to the eye and also looks much closer to how I remember the games looking when I was young.
I also believe that for classic games it looks closer to what the original artists intended.

Now for the unpopular opinion:
I even prefer a simple bilinear filter to no filtering at all. Its not good, but still better than giant sharp pixels cutting my eyes.
It's different for 3D games though: Here I prefer a clean look over a bad blur filter (at least when the resolution isn't too low).

 

[Corporal]

Pixels so sharp that I can cut my eyes on them, for me. Sure, TVs back then smudged the pixels somewhat, and the best artists even utilized that fact, but I'd really rather have the raw output without any artificial degradation.

 

[Velocity:Design:Comfort]

Can't play a second of an emulated 16 bit game without some good scanlines with no filtering/smoothing. That's by far how I prefer it. early 3d consoles maybe I prefer it unfiltered.

 

[floridaguy954]

I play all of my old school games unfiltered (or with a good CRT filter if available) @ 1080p/120hz.

 

[blackmass]

I like my pixels untouched.

 

[GymWolf86]

some filtered some unfiltered.

 

[Gelf]

Really depends on the game but generally for actual retro games that were designed for CRT then I like to use filters. Modern pixel art games are a different matter as many don't feel right with scan lines or other filters, especially those that use a mash up of different pixel sizes.

When I am setting up filters I do adjustments for my own personal preference which is not to have too heavy scan lines, none of my TVs at the time looked like that, I just want to do my best to match the smoothing of the image CRTs had, something many artists designed for.