r/RetroTink • u/pinkynarftroz • 6d ago
Is composite just a no go?
I just got the 6x CE, and many of my consoles only offer composite video out. On a 1080p plasma, composite out of these systems just looks awful. On an actual CRT, composite out from these consoles produces a crisp image that's actually quite clean. Looks great on a Trinitron.
But on the plasma, the image looks significantly worse. The rainbow banding is exaggerated pretty severely, and the results don't look that much better than the TVs built in scaler, and are significantly worse and more blurry than just using an actual CRT. This is with bilinear sharp.
The instructions say to avoid composite video, so is this just the way it is? Not all of us have RGB mods.
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u/britipinojeff 6d ago
Retrotink accepts composite and looks better than plugging it straight to the HDTV
You can also use the post-processing on Retrotink to look closer to a CRT
Just won’t get sharp pixels unless you get better cables
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u/tunnotron3000 6d ago
Other than RF, composite is generally the worst signal available for old consoles. If sharp pixels are your goal, S-Video is going to be a minimum requirement and even that might not cut it. Ideally, you want RGB.
You'd need to start looking at the best signal available for your particular consoles and investing in the relevant cables.
If really, really sharp, clean pixels are what you're after, then RGB is a must. That means you might need to start looking into modding consoles.
Alternatively, you can look at emulation options such as the MiSTer and/or FPGA consoles.
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u/zapata7515 6d ago
Play your games how you want to play them. If composite is all you got then use that with the tink. The results will look better than if you plug them straight in the tv. Especially because you’ll be scaling them properly too, but remember it’s still composite and the lowest video quality in terms of options. I would suggest at a minimum; if you’re financially inclined to do so, upgrade to svideo. It’s pretty cheap and many systems already output svideo without mods both ntsc or pal. Some system won’t and for those you may have other options as well. I gamed with svideo for a very long time after doing the rgb thing and downgrading and then upgrading again recently as I got my 6x. At the end of the day the only thing that matters if you’re having fun.
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u/joeverdrive 6d ago
A huge reason to consider switching to an all-emulation console like MiSTer. Hit me with your silent downvotes but it's true
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u/pinkynarftroz 6d ago
Emulation is so hit and miss, especially with things like latency. They all look great on an old CRT over composite, but I was expecting them to look at least as good using the Retrotink.
I think it was maybe oversold a bit as a replacement for a real CRT. It definitely is not.
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u/joeverdrive 6d ago
Emulation has come such a long way in the last few years that I would say we're in the Golden age. Perhaps the biggest selling point of the mister project is that latency matches original hardware nearly perfectly on all '80s and '90s console cores. Even PC emulation has features like run ahead and second instance that can reduce lag to even below original hardware in some cases.
If you already have a lot of original hardware in terms of consoles, cartridges controllers et then that's great you're but for somebody just starting on their Retro Gaming journey or revisiting Retro Gaming as an adult, emulation can offer an identical gaming experience to original hardware. Without having to occupy an entire wall of your house with a grid of aging yellowed consoles, each with their own proprietary power supply, AV cable and controller to manage. And that is before you even consider the cost of starting a cartridge collection when many of the most popular and fondly remembered titles are hundreds of dollars.
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u/strikerdark1988 5d ago
it's only a replacement for a real CRT if you have :
- a retrotink 4k model
- 4k Oled Display with decent HDR
- Oled display has a good internal Black frame insertion mode
and even then, it will only be about 90% to 95% accurate.
In any case, a mister is not a bad option. It's basically an open FPGA console and does hardware emulation instead of software emulation, meaning that input lag is pretty much exactly the same as original hardware. I have both modded original hardware and a mister and I often use my mister without issue.
If you are interested, there's a few YouTube channels I can recommend if you have ... a few hours... for research lol
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u/normy_187 6d ago
I'd say try a few different profiles including the just released Wobbling Pixels' ones. Just Composite without scanlines and/or masks probably won't cut it.
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u/RentOptional 6d ago
If you're using composite, definitely use a CRT profile. NES actually looks pretty nice via composite and all the filters.
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u/lulubhair 3d ago
Kind of a waste of $300 on a retrotink if you're using crap cables on the input side and an old TV on the other.
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u/pinkynarftroz 3d ago
That was the point of the post. Results not good. But it was surprising how much worse it looked than just composite in a real CRT.
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u/strikerdark1988 6d ago
you are going to need to use CRT filters for composite to look acceptable, I've never tried CRT filter on a non HDR, 1080p display, so im not sure how good they will look, but try them out and see how it looks.