Question about LCD scaling

[xmultiply]

I'm afraid that my CRT might die soon. It's running okay for being as old as it is, though I am starting to see signs of wear and tear (like minor screen burn).

Looks like I may have to move to an LCD soon since CRTs aren't made anymore (getting one used sounds like a bad idea).

The problem is that I play lots of retro games and indie games that run on 640 by 480 resolution (usually 320 by 240 doubled), such as Cave Story and La Mulana.

One thing that I enjoy about these games is the graphics style, where you can see each individual pixel (since the games involve 320 by 240 graphics zoomed in by 2).

On a CRT, these games can easily be played fullscreen without any blurring of the pixels. However, I hear that LCDs have to scale up using interpolation to their native resolution, which is a really bad thing for pixel art.

I know some LCDs allow you to use use 1:1 pixel mapping, but that makes the screen area really small. Is there anything like 2:1 pixel mapping in terms of LCD scaling? I mean, zooming in without any interpolation. Do video cards have an option for this? Or are there any LCDs that scale things up without interpolation?

Basically what I want is this:

Is what I'm looking for even possible outside of using a CRT monitor? Because if not, I really don't know what to do.

 

[Gorankar]

Setting the monitor to 1:1, then using your emu software to quadruple the res should give decent results. That would cause four pixels to mimic 1. That usually at least preserves pixel geometry, (4 pixels in a box config, have the same shape as 1). It looks much better than 2 acting as 1, or 3 acting as 1 with surrounding pixels being interpolated. 320x240 looks OK at 1280x960 with 1:1 enabled, but still will leave you with a lot of unused real estate on a 1920x1080/1200 LCD.

If you do not care about quality, you can still pick up low end 17" and 19" shadow mask CRT's new. But I do not recommend that really. If you have desk space, reserve your current CRT for when you want to play your retro games and buy a decent LCD to go along with it. Dual monitor is easy.

 

[xmultiply]

I'm aware of emulators letting you set the resolution. But many non-emulation (especially "indie") games only run at one resolution. I wish there were a way to zoom in with hardware without blurring the pixels. 1:1 pixel mapping sounds like a great idea. I just wish they had something like that but with 2x zoom.

I may have to keep my CRT around. I just wish it didn't have such an ill fated future. The thought of ditching it someday and never being able to play some games the way they're meant to is a very scary thought.

 

[Gorankar]

I'm aware of emulators letting you set the resolution. But many non-emulation (especially "indie") games only run at one resolution. I wish there were a way to zoom in with hardware without blurring the pixels. 1:1 pixel mapping sounds like a great idea. I just wish they had something like that but with 2x zoom.

I may have to keep my CRT around. I just wish it didn't have such an ill fated future. The thought of ditching it someday and never being able to play some games the way they're meant to is a very scary thought.

I know you said you were not really interested in used, but I have picked up some gems over the last couple years via Craigslist, pawn shops, and even the thrift store.
Just bring a lappy or have the current owner prove it works, and never pay more that $50 for a used one, and it is hard to get ripped off, or feel bummed if it dies a year later.
I use both, a 22" flat Diamondtron CRT that I picked up for less than $50 off of Craigslist, and a 24" Dell LCD. They each serve me where they work the best. LCD for wide screen movies, HD TV, web surfing, mundane work related chores, and CRT for games, and SD TV, and SD movies.

 

[Dark12]

I second the vote for CRT/LCD dual monitor.

 

[MetaGenie]

On my 2560x1600 LCD, with NVIDIA Control Panel's "Do not scale" option enabled (ATI may have a similar option), the LCD doubles the pixels in exactly the way you want as long as the doubled size fits within the LCD size. Anything up to 1280x800 will be doubled using pixel replication, including 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. When I run Cave Story on this LCD, with "Do not scale" enabled, the 640x480 is doubled to 1280x960, which effectively quadruples the game's internal 320x240. The preserves the pixel look. (Of course the ideal thing on this monitor would be to triple the 640x480, which would get close to filling the screen, but alas it doesn't do that.)

However this might be a feature exclusive to 2560x1600 LCDs that don't have scalers. It shouldn't be, but it probably is, unfortunately. Also, neither VirtualBox nor VMware offer an option to double pixels; maybe some of the other PC emulators do?

 

[xmultiply]

Hmm.. interesting. I'm currently using an ATI video card. I wonder if it's possible to do the same thing with ATI's scaling options (I can't tell since they're not available with a CRT).

I was thinking of getting an LCD with around 1920 pixels max, so doubling would work well for me. I just wonder if ATI has the same options that Nvidia has.

Edit:

However this might be a feature exclusive to 2560x1600 LCDs that don't have scalars. It shouldn't be, but it probably is, unfortunately.

Well, that would suck. I really hope it's not.

 

[MetaGenie]

Another option would be to ask the game's author nicely to add a custom multiplication option (2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, etc, instead of only the 2x e.g. of 320x240 to 640x480).

Or reverse-engineer the game and patch it to do that. Or do the same for one of the PC emulators (better yet, an open-source one).

Or write a wrapper DLL for all pertinent DirectX calls, virtualizing them into a doubled/tripled resolution.

 

[xmultiply]

I have another question that is slightly related to this.

You know, LCDs that allow you to pivot the screen into portrait mode. Do they display 4:3 content any differently? Say if you use 1:1 pixel mapping in portrait mode, will the image be any bigger?

 

[Gorankar]

I have another question that is slightly related to this.

You know, LCDs that allow you to pivot the screen into portrait mode. Do they display 4:3 content any differently? Say if you use 1:1 pixel mapping in portrait mode, will the image be any bigger?

1:1 mode is just that. If the input is 800x600 pixels, it displays 800x600 pixels. Individual pixels are a fixed size on LCD's. Turning the monitor from landscape to portrait does not change that. If pixels were of variable size on a LCD, all your stated problems would already be solved.