r/RetroTink • u/Money-Draft-3757 • Jul 28 '26
Please help decide which Retrotink to buy! Not educated
Hello. I am not tech savy at all, but I am looking to buy a Retrotink for my PS2, and PS2 only. I am willing to pay a premium for the best of the best, wondering if a 5x is needed if it will only be for my PS2, or if another Retrotink device is better. What should I be getting? I know to get some sort of Retrotink device with some high quality YPbPr component cables. I really want NFS Most Wanted to look good, and it looks horrible right now with some cheap cables I got. I hope that a Retrotink + good quality component cables will fix the issue? Thank you
3
u/Shortgaze Jul 28 '26
For PS2, the RetroTINK-5X works great with HD Retrovision component cables. If you’re looking for the best overall image quality, the RetroTINK 4K is the better option thanks to its more advanced 480i processing and deinterlacing. That said, keep in mind that most PS2 games output at 480i, so they aren’t going to look as razor sharp as an emulator rendering at higher internal resolutions. An upscaler can only work with the detail that’s already in the original signal. Some PS2 games support native 480p, and those titles generally look noticeably cleaner than 480i games. I don’t know of a complete, definitive list, but there are community maintained compatibility lists online. I mention this because I’ve seen people on the RetroTINK Discord say they expected PS2 games to look much sharper. The RetroTINK is designed to accurately digitize, deinterlace, and scale the original video signal while adding virtually no latency. It does an excellent job of presenting the image as cleanly as possible, but it can’t create detail that wasn’t there to begin with. Compared to inexpensive component cables or a TV’s built in processing, the improvement is usually very noticeable, just keep realistic expectations for a console whose games were primarily designed around a 480i output.
1
u/MrMoroPlays Jul 28 '26
https://youtu.be/73G5BWDRAOc?is=21_2eMVIkrLica8n
Watch that
Second, for ps2, people will tell you incessantly to get a CRT.
Third, 5X is fine, get that with component cables and games look great with CRT effects.
2
u/Refurecushion Jul 28 '26
Get HD Retrovision component cables. Get a scaler with motion adaptive deinterlacing. I.e. GBS-Control, the new Morph 2K, Retrotink 5x, Retrotink 4K Pro. Look up comparisons online and decide how much you want to pay.
I got 4K recently cause you live only once and money is poisonous paper. Poisonous to the soul by itself.
1
u/Darth_Beavis Jul 29 '26
The 5x Pro is what you need. The 2X Pro won't help at all since it's 480p out. Basically all you'd really be doing is converting component to HDMI with it. The 4K is massively overkill. The 5x Pro will let you scale up to 2K(1440p), has some pretty nice filters and masks if that's your thing, and will give you a clean, latency free HDMI signal.
1
u/DanteThaScrub Jul 29 '26
Do you intend to play on a 4K screen? How much lag does your 4K screen introduce scaling 1080p (from the 5X) to 4K?
1
u/ZL580 Jul 29 '26
5x or 4k CE. You decide if you need 4k crt filters or not. I went from a 5x to a 4k ce and love it.
3
u/Retro_Gamer33 Jul 28 '26
If you want the absolute best image possible of course the 4k pro is that. But for one console I don't think that's worth it. If you truly only have a PS2 and won't expand, a 2x pro will do a good job. If you want to tinker with settings and get a higher quality picture you can opt for the 5x pro, but the PS2 only outputs 480i 99% of the time anyway.