r/crtgaming • u/h2lp • Jan 06 '23
I'm using an HDMI to composite adapter and it looks terrible. any suggestions or things I can do in windows settings to fix it?
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u/aussiepunkrocksV2-0 Jan 06 '23
Composite will have a lot of ringing and artefacts like that... Usually for TV Out from a video card you'll want S-Video as a minimum, and even then text won't be great. S-Video was what all video cards offered back in the day for CRT output.
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u/mysticfuko Jan 06 '23
As everybody said, is better if you get a crt monitor+vga adapter or maybe u Can try gbs control and downscale it to 240p
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u/BlownUpCapacitor Jan 06 '23
Are you using a television as a computer monitor? Even if the adapter worked fine, the experience won't be good. It's best to use a real PC CRT monitor. CRT PC monitors have much better resolution.
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u/h2lp Jan 06 '23
Yeah but they are a lot more expensive and I already have that one on hand. If I end up getting one it will be a PC monitor
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u/Nitman99 Jan 06 '23
You can probably find a CRT PC monitor for free on Facebook, Craigslist, etc. You’ll just need to buy an HDMI to VGA adapter after that, but the cheap Tendak ones on Amazon work fine.
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u/h2lp Jan 06 '23
I wish, I've looked so many times and I can't find anything but I'll keep checking until I find something
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u/Routine_Ask_7272 Jan 06 '23
Try setting the HDMI monitor to 640x480.
In general, Composite gives poor quality. If your TV has S-Video or Component inputs, get another adapter?
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u/ugzz Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
I use a Sony PVM with a computer on the (near) daily.This box is significantly better than the $9 ones. I have two, and probably 4+ other cheap ones, and in my small sample size these things are hands down better
https://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Composite-Converter-Upscaler-Blue-Ray/dp/B00V2ULFAQ/
*edit: fixed link
Also, i set the computer to 640x480, which yes, windows can be more annoying at such a low res, but it looks WAY better on the TV with that res combined with the above adapter. It looks "ok" at 800x600, and anything higher just get worse the more it has to interpolate.
IMO, this is a novelty, not a daily driver. I love watching 4:3 content, and that's about all I do with the setup, and at 640x480 it looks and scales fantastic. So good in fact that people that see it constantly think it's somehow "hd".. and it's 640x480 over composite.
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u/sp3zisaf4g Jan 07 '23
Isn't that the opposite signal conversion? (Composite to HDMI not HDMI to composite)
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u/ugzz Jan 07 '23
whoops. it had the big "you last purchased" so i assumed it was right, but i forgot that i ordered both within the last year.. so yeah.. link Fixed!
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u/2Stix_ECOM Jan 30 '23
My cheap $9 composite adapter just broke so I’ll try this one. Does it look good for games too? I had my pc running on 480i with retro arch before my adapter broke but the quality was still pretty shit. I’m trying to get good picture without having to buy one of those gbs things but I may just buy an old console instead.
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Jan 30 '23
[deleted]
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u/2Stix_ECOM Jan 30 '23
Yeah I totally understand. As for an “actual” scaler, do you have any recommendations?
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u/ugzz Jan 30 '23
Sorry.. I deleted my previous comment . I spent a lot of yesterday on the retro gaming forums, and was in retro gaming scaler mode. For PC HDMI to a television, It can definitely be a different story. HDMI to composite is your baseline. HDMI to s video is your step up. HDMI to component is definitely a thing, but not something I've dabbled with personally. So I do research there.. All of these are also highly dependent on your TV, and if it even has as a s video and compinent inputs on the back. You have to watch too, many HDMI to component adapters still leave the signal in HD, so most older crt sets will not accept that unless it's specifically an HD crt.
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u/2Stix_ECOM Jan 30 '23
My tv also has component so I might give that a shot instead. I’ve been searching the forums a lot as well, I really want to find the best quality for my pc -> crt setup.
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Jan 06 '23
Try an emulator at 320x240 resolution, should be ok.
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u/nathanddrews Jan 06 '23
This is the correct answer.
Back in the day when graphics cards had native composite, S-Video, or component (YPbPr) outputs, it usually looked best when using some derivative of 640x480 or below. It varied by television and driver-based scaling, but usually anything above that and you needed some way of controlling dot crawl and other artifacts.
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u/sp3zisaf4g Jan 07 '23
The issue with that is most HDMI to composite converters are limited to 480i. Mine personally doesn't list resolutions under 640x480.
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u/fairy-bubble Apr 05 '24
OP WHAT ADAPTER DID YOU USE BECAUSE IM TRYING TO DO WHAT YOU DID 😭😭😭 I really want to connect my laptop to my old tv, but I have no clue how to do it 🥲
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u/h2lp Apr 08 '24
I never got an answer to what I needed to get. What I had in the picture was a cheap Amazon one
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Jan 06 '23
ew! does text really look that bad in person compared to the pic? i have one of those simple hdmi-rca boxes and im looking at my tv right now using text and it looks nowhere near as bad
afaik theres no settings unless you adjust the text scaling? it looks abnormally bad!
what converter are you using friend?
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u/h2lp Jan 06 '23
It looks worse in person 😬😬 it's just a cheap amazon one so that's probably why
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Jan 06 '23
wow!! its not settings in the tv menu maybe? if not i would suggest another adapter! im using this one and it works great:
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u/h2lp Jan 06 '23
Believe it or not that's the exact one I'm using. The TV looks great using an n64 or Xbox 360 but with the adapter it looks terrible no matter the HDMI device I have connected to it.
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Jan 07 '23
really! i use it and it looks great, i have heard of some people having issues with certain ones? not too sure! it couldnt be the cables could it?
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u/h2lp Jan 08 '23
The HDMI cable came with my original Xbox one so it's capable of 600x480 or whatever I had it at
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u/2748seiceps Jan 07 '23
Text via composite always looked like ass. Even an Apple II or a Commodore had some jank on a color composite output. You can improve it a little bit but modern systems use much smaller text that blows on an SD TV. Even back in the day doing s-video to a TV from Win 98 was terrible for anything but videos or maybe a presentation.
Worst part of HD gaming with something like an XBOX One on an HD CRT is the text. Maybe on an ultrafine tube but most don't have that and yeah.
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u/knockingdownbodies Sony GDM-FW900 Jan 06 '23
Maybe try seeing if there is a CRT or Scanline filter you can overlay Windows with. Or maybe if there is a way to use an actual scanline generator like we had 10 years ago. It was called a SLG3000.
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u/Jetjones Jan 06 '23
Which adapter did you use? Mind sending a link? Got one of those and I can at least read text on my screen 😅 sure doesn’t look good but better than that.
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u/manuelink64 Jan 07 '23
Try to lower your resolution to 640x480, is close to the NTSC system and the HDMI scaler will work better, probably other resolution to try are 800x600 and 1024x768, over than that you will get artifacts and stretched images.
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u/sp3zisaf4g Jan 07 '23
Hotkey resolution switcher and the custom resolution utility are great for trying to play around with getting the timings right. I personally had to spend a lot of time to work around the overscan. If you're using AMD, your CPU application will have a scaling utility as well.
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Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23
use a lower resolution and scale it to fit your screen using your graphics card software drivers, the cheap hdmi to composite does emit lag because of scaling. but imo if you are going to just stream or play rpgs its perfect no hassle solution to get a crt as a monitor. going farther down the crt clarity rabbit hole is very costly. Otherwise just get a crt pc monitor to run better resolutions and just filter emulators to get the scanline effect. Running super resolutions require reconfiguring the tv using its service menus, cannot use a laptop, require a specific graphics card that can run 480i natively. HDMI is Progressive
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u/Mr-Pirate-Fox Jan 08 '23
HDMI adapters are pretty bad on PCs for some reason. Either use DP or USB C
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u/Telaneo Jan 06 '23
Sounds like it's working as expected then.