What Screen or TV Do You Use

[ristac]

I have just started taking an interest in Retro gaming, a sudden urge to play California Games and Speedball 2 on a Sega and I nearly took the plunge and brought one off eBay then it suddenly dawned on me, it probably isn’t going to look good or even work on my 2 year old Flat Screen, I don’t really want to be taking it off the wall and checking if I have an old airial socket so maybe a dedicated CRT is in order.

So those who are actually playing the old games consoles rather than emulators what are you playing them back on, what screen size or are you playing them on or is there a magic device that enables simple connection to modern TVs?

 

[Duke]

I'm using an old 15" 4:3 LCD TV with SCART to connect to my Amiga

 

[almoststew1990]

For your old consoles, the best connection is generally RGB scart. My man-cave TV is five years old, a Logik TV from Currys (own brand) is 24" 1080p* and has proper scart, composite and component connectors and doesn't have any input lag. The image quality is fine and very similar over SCART and Component, and the aspect ratio can be adjusted to 4:3. In my opinion it looks as good as I remember our old Sony CRT TV being. I certainly have no desire to hunt down a giant CRT TV for old console games. Our main TV is also a good five years old and has weird 3.5mm input connectors for "AV". It came with adapters for SCART, Component and Composite and I can only do one of these at a time. It has pretty bad input lag even with "game mode" on.

I might consider hunting down a Standard definition LCD flat panel TV though.

I do most of my retro gaming on my desk. When I bought my monitor I made sure it had a VGA connector. It is now 2 years old and was about £200 so not a top end model by far! 27" IPS 1080p by AOC.

I use this monitor just fine for my Dreamcast, Win 98 PC (1999) and DOS PC (1992), all over native VGA. I set the aspect ratio to 4:3 so it isn't stretched but tbh all cards I tested worked at 1920 * 1080 on the desktop in Windows 98 which is useful! It works just fine in DOS and the BIOS, 320*240, 640*480 etc. I've never had any issues at all with getting a display even when the lower resolutions default to 75Hz. Retro gaming on original hardware is already a time and space consuming faff so I like to keep it simple and not have a bigass CRT on my desk! Plus I am not nostalgic about CRTs. They're hot, flickery, heavy and need the image adjusted to fit the screen. LED screens are better for my typical retro gamer uses.

Also important - what speakers you are using!

* I don't get how my basic TV from Currys five years ago was 1080p, included a DVD drive, freeview and cost £150, yet today the cheapo TVs are only 720p!? And you can spend £250 on a 32" TV with HDR... in 720p!

 

[Flibster]

Depends on what connectors, and what's closest and working best.

Got a couple of Sony GDM FW-900 24" CRT's which are big, heavy and absolutely lovely. 2304x1440@80hz? Yes please.
A very old Panasonic 28" widescreen TV that doesn't work too well.
Commodore 1960 Multisync monitor - Kinda works, after replacing most of the caps and several transistors... Still needs some tweaking.
3 Dell 2007fp 1600x1200 LCD screens
2 Dell U2412M 1920x1200 LCD screens for general stuff.

 

[Ninco!]

Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 (19" CRT) for retro gaming. Agree with Flibster, it's been said before but firing up classic PC games designed for the time, flat panels never capture. I'm currently messing about with Blood: One Unit Whole Blood and it runs/looks awesome.

DELL 19" 198WFP Flat Panel Screen LCD Monitor (4:3 aspect ratio). Very cheap and classic games just work. A decent image in my opinion, running classic RPG's (Nox, Diablo) looks really good, decent blacks. It's my back up

 

[Housey]

Hitachi 1080p screen with a Framemeister

 

[Tee Hee Johnson]

A Sony Trinitron 21"

 

[cee-S-dee]

I use a 2 Sony PVM's. A 14" & 20". I was lucky to get mine before PVM's blew up on the Retro Gaming Scene and become hella expensive. I built 2 BNC to Scart cables to use RGB signals on my old consoles.

 

[jasoncb]

Dell 2007fp

 

[panthro]

I use a 2 Sony PVM's. A 14" & 20". I was lucky to get mine before PVM's blew up on the Retro Gaming Scene and become hella expensive. I built 2 BNC to Scart cables to use RGB signals on my old consoles.

What's a PVM and why is it good for gaming?

 

[cee-S-dee]

What's a PVM and why is it good for gaming?

PVM's are Broadcast monitors. They are good if you are after the sharp scanline look. My 14" is a 600TVL set while the 20" is a 800TVL set. I did have a consumer 20" Sony Trinitron TV and that also gave a nice image.

Here are a pic of the 14" and the 20"

 

[Flibster]

What's a PVM and why is it good for gaming?

Professional Video Monitor (also known as a Broadcast Video Monitor)
Usually very high quality CRT screens with a wide range of inputs, occasionally even use cards internally to change connection types.
Some of the last models are widescreen and will accept 1080i/p signals.

 

[kinger8938]

Would love a PVM, you did well to get on those before they became so sort after for gaming.

I use a Trinitron CRT that I grab for £10 from British heart foundation. About 24" if I recall. Works well and has a nice sharp RGB picture

 

[mattf]

I have the Vader Star Wars tv/dvd set

 

[panthro]

Professional Video Monitor (also known as a Broadcast Video Monitor)
Usually very high quality CRT screens with a wide range of inputs, occasionally even use cards internally to change connection types.
Some of the last models are widescreen and will accept 1080i/p signals.

What's the next best thing to a PVM? I standard CRT?

 

[Flibster]

What's the next best thing to a PVM? I standard CRT?

I'd probably go with a good CRT monitor. Especially if you can split the audio out and get RGB or VGA out of the console.
Otherwise, a really late model CRT TV. Panasonic, Sony, even Bang & Olufson. Or go slightly earlier and get a 4x3 screen rather than 16x9.

 

[.one.]

Commodore 1084 for my miggy.

The Sony PVM's is king for consoles for sure.