computer monitor?

[BruceMcF 237]

If you are really concerned about pixel perfect on an LCD monitor, a 1440p 16:9 monitor with a 4:3 display setting allows pixel perfect at 3x3 physical pixels per display pixel.

[SzieberthAdam 0]

I have a really bad experience about how VGA signals are handled by LCD monitors. Most of them is unable to display with the highest possible integer upscale, centered in a black frame, pixel perfect and with low latency. The best option seems a RetroTink with Composite or S-Video. Anyone knows better?

[TomXP411 307]

2 hours ago, SzieberthAdam said:

I have a really bad experience about how VGA signals are handled by LCD monitors. Most of them is unable to display with the highest possible integer upscale, centered in a black frame, pixel perfect and with low latency. The best option seems a RetroTink with Composite or S-Video. Anyone knows better?

The Commander will put out a 640x480 video signal, so you need a monitor that runs at some multiple of 480 lines. As Bruce suggested, a 1440P monitor is the best choice, since it can integer scale a 480p signal up to 1440p. 

Back when I upgraded to 32" monitors, I picked up several Asus PA and PB monitors; they turned out to be a great choice. in my office, I use a PB328Q, which has DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, and VGA inputs. On my retro desk, I use a PB277Q with a variety of devices. 

They all look fantastic with everything I've thrown at them. I don't think I've tried this with a 480p signal lately, so I'll dust off my DOS computer and plug it in, to see what it looks like. From what I remember from the last time I had that machine hooked up, it looked great on my 1440P display, but that's been a couple of years.

Edited January 28 by TomXP411

[Lorin Millsap 171]

Unfortunately, the only thing I wish could be revisited is the 640x480 resolution, just because it's proving hard to find new monitors that will natively support that resolution. Folks support 5:4 multiples close to that, and 16:9 multiples close to that, but when it comes to 4:3, the closest you tend to see is 800x600 or 1600x1200. I don't understand why monitors worked out that way, but... well, they did. A pity.
That's hindsight for you, though.

Almost all modern displays even if they don’t state so, do support 640x480. It’s not hindsight. A lot of thought was put into that.


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[Lorin Millsap 171]

knew i wasn't crazy for thinking it had composite. the preliminary search i did yesterday didn't turn up much but ill keep looking. i wonder if any company especially Chinese still make CRT monitors? ill do some searching and if i find anything ill post it here. i still think the easiest thing would be to include a monitor as an option it doesn't have to be very big but something.
I did buy a 7 inch monitor from amazon for my rpi and now that im thinking about it i think it had multiple outputs on it.  

Why would you need a CRT? Any LCD with a VGA input will work. No need to overcomplicate it.


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[Lorin Millsap 171]

Well, that's something i do not completely understand.
Let's say we have an old 15" LCD and the resolution is a typical 1024x768. 
1024-640 = 384 and 768-480 = 288 and those leftover pixels could be filled with the border colour.
Thus we have a fixed 640x480 resolution and a left/right border of 192 pixels + top/bottom border of 144 pixels around it.
Couldn't VERA handle that automatic "resolution filling/fitting"?

Your screen handles that.


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[m00dawg 107]

Reminds me I should get a CRT before the prices keep going up With all the "retro" stuff coming out, guessing there's gonna be a run on these things (there already is I suppose). I'm sure X16 will be just fine on an LCD but I do think 640x480 just looks so much better on CRTs, which I suppose makes sense given how they work.

[SlithyMatt 520]

The people who helped me move a few years ago were dumbfounded that I'd want to keep my 20" Trinitron monitor. They have no idea what a treasure it is.

[EMwhite 61]

This reasonably sized lcd has 'all' the inputs and a pretty good review by Chris Torrence (Apple ][ guy).  Might be suitable for the "> 10" but not huge" use case.  See here:

 

Here is the link to ReActive Micro:

https://www.reactivemicro.com/product/reactivemicro-12-lcd-display/

[Cyber 119]

5 hours ago, Lorin Millsap said:

Why would you need a CRT? Any LCD with a VGA input will work. No need to overcomplicate it.

Of course it will. But what we are talking here is crisp pixel-to-pixel display of an image. Very geeky stuff, which is hard to achieve using LCD. I know that not that many people bother with this.

[Cyber 119]

5 hours ago, Lorin Millsap said:

On 10/22/2020 at 7:37 PM, DoubleA said:

Well, that's something i do not completely understand.
Let's say we have an old 15" LCD and the resolution is a typical 1024x768. 
1024-640 = 384 and 768-480 = 288 and those leftover pixels could be filled with the border colour.
Thus we have a fixed 640x480 resolution and a left/right border of 192 pixels + top/bottom border of 144 pixels around it.
Couldn't VERA handle that automatic "resolution filling/fitting"?

Your screen handles that.

Sorry, DoubleA, but VERA could not, would not and should not handle that. Like Lorin said, your screen (monitor) will handle that.

The truth is, your monitor will likely just stretch VERA's 640x480 output over 1024x768 screen. I, personally, never seen a monitor, that will do automatic border around output image to make it pixel-to-pixel result (I'm not even sure that such automatic calculations is possible on the monitor side). I've seen monitors that have manual adjustment of such border, but they are rare (at least in my experiance).

[Cyber 119]

On 10/22/2020 at 8:46 PM, DoubleA said:

Hm, but if the monitor doesn't do it's job, the device could compensate that. E.g. most of those mini retro consoles offer some decent scaling performances (even with CRT effects).

I agree with team, that device should not do this. Besides, it will rise the cost and complexity of X16. So people who need this may use separate upscaler connected between X16 and monitor, like Perifractic adviced:

On 10/22/2020 at 9:02 PM, Perifractic said:

If you're still stuck for choices you can use any HDMI display by connecting the X16 to a RetroTink or similar upscaler.

 

[TomXP411 307]

5 hours ago, Cyber said:

Sorry, DoubleA, but VERA could not, would not and should not handle that. Like Lorin said, your screen (monitor) will handle that.

The truth is, your monitor will likely just stretch VERA's 640x480 output over 1024x768 screen. I, personally, never seen a monitor, that will do automatic border around output image to make it pixel-to-pixel result (I'm not even sure that such automatic calculations is possible on the monitor side). I've seen monitors that have manual adjustment of such border, but they are rare (at least in my experiance).

A good LCD actually will do exactly that. All of my monitors have 1:1, 4:3, and full screen scaling modes. 

 

 

Edited January 30 by TomXP411

[BruceMcF 237]

@Cyber To be clear, yes, it's not a setting to automatically do a pixel perfect display, it's just a setting of how much of the physical screen to use. 2560x1440, 1920x1440, and 1440x1440.

Given the parts overlap between modern LCD monitors and TV's and the ubiquity of 4:3 settings on LCD TV's, it would be surprising if a 4:3 setting was not available, but it is worthwhile to get a PDF of the manual and double check before purchase.

Sadly, no colored border.

[Cyber 119]

16 hours ago, TomXP411 said:

All of my monitors have 1:1, 4:3, and full screen scaling modes.

15 hours ago, BruceMcF said:

Given the parts overlap between modern LCD monitors and TV's and the ubiquity of 4:3 settings on LCD TV's, it would be surprising if a 4:3 setting was not available, but it is worthwhile to get a PDF of the manual and double check before purchase.

Well, may be it's something with my country, but most wide monitors I encountered did not have 4:3 setting. TVs - yes, they always have 4:3 mode, but it's a rare feature for monitor. And pity this feature is not demanded by consumer, so it won't be specified in specs. So I tend to be on the safe side and double-check things.

And I'm actually happy to hear it's not a worldwide problem, because I see you guys don't seem to have this issue. )

[TomXP411 307]

The first pic is using 1:1 scaling

the second is 4:3 (or “aspect ratio scaling”)

This monitor is 1680x1050, so the 640x480 image looks pretty good scaled up. I also happen to run the text interface on this system at 640x480, and the picture looks perfect - the edges of the text are sharp, and there are no obvious scaling artfacts. My Ultimate 64 also looks great on this system; it also looks fantastic on my 54" 4K TV. 

This is not to brag about my great monitor - I'm just saying that modern hardware does a much better job than the ones made just a few years ago. 

Edited January 31 by TomXP411

[EMwhite 61]

@TomXP411 what version of Ultrix are you running or are you a VMS?

[TomXP411 307]

4 hours ago, EMwhite said:

@TomXP411 what version of Ultrix are you running or are you a VMS?

I haven’t actually dug into the software yet. I just finished the PiDP-11 build a few days ago, and I’ve set that aside until after I finish a few other projects. 

[Cyber 119]

18 hours ago, TomXP411 said:

The first pic is using 1:1 scaling

This is so handy! What model is this?

I know that this features is just the monitor software (or should i say firmware), so it should be possible to implement all kinds of thing. For example, looking at this 1:1 picture, it would be great to add 2x zoom to this. Thus every source pixel would occupy 4 pixels of monitor (1 pixel -> 2x2 pixels).
Would your monitor surprise me doing that? )

Edited February 1 by Cyber

[Cyber 119]

10 hours ago, TomXP411 said:

I just finished the PiDP-11 build a few days ago

This is rad!