RGB or Emulation via CRT

General Games
#1

I’ve been looking at methods to connect my real hardware to the VGA CRT PC Monitor and well… they are a bit pricey. So, before I invest I was hoping to clarify something I’ve been wondering about but can’t seem to find a lot of info on.

I know it’s not a 1:1 comparison here… but is pushing out an emulated game over VGA to my CRT going to be ‘on par’, from a visual standpoint, with pumping out RGB to the same CRT from a real console?

Like I said, I know, I know that it’s not the same thing - I’m just wondering if I pull up, let’s say Sonic 2 on RetroArch via CRT Switch Res on RetroArch, and pull up Sonic 2 on my Genesis with RGB, and then flip between the inputs… am I going to notice much difference?

I’ll be doing this all someday regardless, but I don’t wanna drop the cash right now if I’m gonna get all my equipment, hook it up and go “Oh… this just looks like my emulation collection…” instead of “Oh hell yes! This looks AMAZING!”

Tl;dr - does RetroArch and RGB look the same-ish? Hoping someone with some know-how can fill me in here.

#2

Yes, they can/should be essentially indistinguishable.

2 Likes
#3

Thank you. It’s been driving me crazy trying to find something online that stated as much, or contradicted my assumption. I’m probably gonna pick up a RetroTINK2x, at least that will let me use my composite cables for the time being… gonna need to find a decent scan-line generator I think though.

Anyway, thanks again. You are always a bountiful resource of information HunterK haha I appreciate it.

#4

Does the retrotink-2x not have a scanline generator built-in? I thought it did…

#5

From all the reviews I’ve watched and looking around I haven’t seen any indication it supports the feature. I wasn’t too surprised though as it seemed like it was targeting as low of a price point as possible.

#6

Oops, you’re right. “Sadly, there’s no scanline mode available with the RetroTINK 2X on its own.”

Odd that they included “smoothing” and not scanlines…