this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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Clickbait would not include in the title that the secret is CRT shaders.
It's not telling me a secret, it's telling me that I'm doing something wrong and that I need to use CRT shaders, which are both wrong presumptions made to make me click on the video to find out why. Whether to use a CRT filter or other things like scanlines is completely subjective and up to a users preferences. There's nothing wrong with sharp pixels over blurry pixels.
"You're emulating retro games wrong" is not the best title. For example, Dosbox Staging enabled the CRT filter by default at some point; there is no graphical interface, you need to open a file and change a line to revert it. Moreover, there was no indication that the black lines were not a bug but were a filter.
Playing DOS games on operating systems which do not support DOS programs natively is still emulation. However, the number of DOS games which utilised CRT effects are much fewer such that I primarily played DOS games in 2022–23 and none of them made use of CRT. However, the black lines were enabled till I figured it out (because there were no support requests surprisingly, and the default filter being changed was mentioned in an unrelated request regarding bad performance issues—where it was made known and the recommendation was made to change the setting).
The (slight) problem is with the title itself. It is not a big issue for me, but the statement made in the title is the problem because it is only in a comment that it was mentioned not all old games use CRT effects. Clickbait might not be the best word for describing the situation, but the title will be annoying for many who play old games which were not designed for CRT effects. But then, it is not a big problem and I more or less ignored it (to be clear, for being wrong as far as the title itself goes) before seeing this thread. It would've been better to state directly instead that many old console games and games of the adventure genre, among others, were designed with these filters in mind and for practical reasons (like actually having the graphics show what they were meant to show) because like in your other comment that specific scene does not show the background at all without the effect, and it will be a fairly common occurrence for games which were designed to use the CRT effect.
Edit: spelling
Up to a certain point in the early to mid 2000s, virtually all home console and PC games were designed for CRT displays. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea from that the type of display that was used by 99% of gamers on these systems was somehow not influencing the art design and technology of games.
Might and Magic Book One does not. Heroes of Might and Magic 2 does not. Carmageddon does not. ~~Elder Scrolls Arena does not.~~ (It does, the pixels are designed for CRT effects but the Dosbox staging filter adds black lines to the game still).
I played them. With the filter. That's where I got the idea from.
Edit: These are pre-2000's games, sure. It isn't big enough of a problem for me anyway, I can ignore the title.
Which one? There a dozens commonly used ones. All of these games are from the CRT era and were developed on and for CRT monitors.
Notice the dithering pattern on the characters in this screenshot:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/1619/might-and-magic-book-one-secret-of-the-inner-sanctum/screenshots/dos/115836/
This was only done for CRTs, since it results in blended pixels.
More CRT dithering everywhere, just two generations later and with more colors and fine detail - but it's still the same technique:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/1513/heroes-of-might-and-magic-ii-the-succession-wars/screenshots/dos/634491/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/367/carmageddon/screenshots/dos/887670/
Notice the color banding on the textures? CRTs blend that together, resulting in a much smoother look even with software rendering.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/803/the-elder-scrolls-arena/screenshots/dos/305893/
Our old friend Mr Dithering makes an appearance once again.
I hope I've made my point clear. It's fine if you prefer the clean pixelated look of LCD displays, but it's clear that this is not what these games were meant to look like.
I did find something which did use CRT effects. However the Dosbox Staging one is still a bad one. Elder Scrolls Arena.
With.
Without.
I will make the edit clarifying the mistake.
However it does not change that the others do not use the effects (there is no indication the pixels in might and magic book one were for the CRT effects, unlike here. The pixels in Might and Magic Book One are also too sharp), and the problem has always, and solely, been the title of the post and nothing more.
And as I stated it is not too much of a problem for me, already. Not something I cannot ignore.
No-CRT filter screenshots that I have available. I do not have screenshots for the CRT filter. I suppose I could boot up and try to put the filter for this one; I have Heroes 2 installed too but it is currently a pre-configuration I do not want to mess with in case I possibly mess it up. It feels like a pain to do so though as I'm already occupied for the day, and would like my PC time to, you know, play. Since this is unrelated to help requests, in which case I may have made time for it (I'd usually do it in the past, but not for a while).
Edit: Changed No CRT to No-CRT for clarity
Dosbox Staging has one CRT filter which is the one I've used. The town wall graphics (edit: In might and magic book one) get completely messed up with it. It is possible the bad effects for each of the 4 games mentioned was caused by a bad CRT filter.
That said it would've been better to include screenshots which do use the CRT filter. I have played all 4 of these games with and with Dosbox Staging's CRT filter and they all have had black lines obscuring the screen. Not having it enabled, on the other hand, the games looked like these screenshots.