Valve reveals Steam Deck OLED for November 16th

I think it woulda been fair if they just waited till next year and announced it now so we could all plan for it and have a chance to resell our current ones before a price drop.

no way in hell they would do that, christimas is THE moment to sell something, like 50% of the sales of the entire year happens on christmass.

missing the opportunity to sell this right before christimas would make then lose a lot of money and give opportunity to the competition to react.
even worse is announcing something now to relase next year, that would mean losing their biggest oportunity to sell the current models.

i understand the frustration, but i dont expect an company to do something stupid like this, especially if this company is investing a lot into linux gaming.

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

I really don't get this reasoning, essentially being mad someone gets something newer.

That's not what I said. At all. But to make it clearer; I'm not mad in any way, and much less because someone can get something newer.

I only said that I was unhappy for the lack of opportunity to swap the old components for the new ones. That might be OK in the console world, but not in the PC industry.

I'm happy for those that can/want to afford the revision.

Where does the pain come from? I understand that OLED usually have higher brightness, but since that is a setting I guess that we are talking about something else?

Eyestrain and migraines. I'm told that OLEDs flicker like CRTs did (I had the same problem with those - LCDs were a godsend! ), which would both explain it and suggest that it can't be avoided.

Ah, was about to ask if you had the same issues with CRTs. Yes OLED:s "flicker" to control brightness so I can see why that might be an issue, probably different from model to model since the frequency of the flicker differs and once the frequency goes high enough I suspect that the issue should go away from sensitive people (the current issue is that the frequency is just above the detectable threshold and not way above, prob to save on power).

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

True, though the flkickering from OLED comes from a completely different frequency than the display frequency. However I'm just still amazed that we still since we moved on from a moving electron beam in a CRT to technology like LCD/LED/OLED where you can update any pixel at any time that we still have update frequencies. Monitors should basically by VRR as in the GPU sending "here is an image, and here is another" and only the capability of the monitor determinging the min time between such full frames.

Display frequencies have increased quite a lot though, I mean my OLED is 240hz and there exists 540hz in stores right now. And as others have already stated, the reason for the 85Hz CRT was to give a more stable image, not to handle high FPS in games.

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 12 November 2023 at 4:49 pm UTC

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

well that's not strictly true. You personally may not perceive a softness to an image (and im sure on a small low res screen like the steam decks it might be even harder to tell) but there are many threads on OLED monitors (perhaps not so much on a large TV as you sit further back) that comment on the sub pixel layout of OLED and how for desktop use it is softer and much better for gaming than desktop productivity. And that this is something that is not likely to be fixed any time soon. Right now LCD is sharper.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

true, but well there are monitors with PWM and that causes eye strain and flicker on both technologies you mentioned. thats the whole 'flicker free' thing you look out for when buying a new monitor.

However, it doesn't change that fact that, for me personally, I simply can't look at these displays without pain! I really hope that LCD remains an option with the eventual Deck 2.

people may not be aware that the OLED's can actually flicker ( it may not be visible to the naked eye but i imagine there are some people sensitive to this) Some TV's push this flicker way out of band and it becomes a non issue, but on energy saving devices like a steam deck it 'Might' be an issue that creeps over time and makes your eyes tired even if you cannot perceive it.

I was watching a review and noticed the difference between Steam deck OLED and LCD straight away:

https://youtu.be/FspKHot0Ckk?t=382


Also OLED's dependent on manufacturer and firmware have large brightness fluctuations and usually an aggressive ABL ( auto brightness limiter ) which can dim the screen quite a lot. There's a recent review i watched where the screen will dim aggressively on steam deck OLED when looking at a bright object and its quite noticeable like those early cheap LCD TV's that didnt control the brightness properly on light to dark scenes. Mini LED does not do this for example (but it has its own issues)


So the OLED hype is partially justified but i would not write off LCD just yet.

OLED has:

lower lifespan
visible ABL dimming
Softer image
high power draw requiring a heatsink / fan on TV's / Monitors
dependent on display manufacturer/firmware there can be issues around color banding

its not perfect but for Black level and response time its obviously amazing. The reason there is more color saturation here is more likely down to the fact the original deck screen was not the greatest. That said in terms of response time, the occulus VR headset has a response time as fast as a CRT and that is an LCD display. So it all really depends on the model and how it is setup.

no screen technology is perfect. Id like to see a better quality tuned micro-led display as an option for future, perhaps with a 1200p resolution. leaving the option for LCD or OLED as a choice.


Last edited by Lofty on 12 November 2023 at 6:59 pm UTC

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

well that's not strictly true. You personally may not perceive a softness to an image (and im sure on a small low res screen like the steam decks it might be even harder to tell) but there are many threads on OLED monitors (perhaps not so much on a large TV as you sit further back) that comment on the sub pixel layout of OLED and how for desktop use it is softer and much better for gaming than desktop productivity. And that this is something that is not likely to be fixed any time soon. Right now LCD is sharper.

Yes I have seen lots of such claims, especially from people online vomiting over my LG 45GR95QE-B since it's both a WOLED and 45" UW 1440p and thus have a DPI that is just slightly above that of a 27" 1080p but to me this is mostly BS. At work I have a high end 32" 4K LCD from Samsung and it is by all means not that much sharper than my OLED at home.

Online people claim that it is impossible to work with text on my monitor while I as a programmer do tons of work with text (and often in terminal windows) with zero issues. If this means that they are all wrong or that Gnome happens to be better at text on this sub pixel layout than Windows is I don't know since I don't run Windows but text and/or sharpness is a complete non issue.

Plus to get back to context, even if that would be true it would be nothing compared with the fuzziness that existed even on the really high end CRT:s (and I used seriously high end CRT:s at work back before LCD:s took over) due to their analogue nature (#1 the signal was analogue and #2 the ray painting the image can not hit the exact same spot with infinite precision). Combine that with the low resolution of 8-bit monitors of 320x200 / 320x160 depending on PAL/NTSC fed over analogue composite.

* lower lifespan was an issue before 2016 as already discussed, the OLED panels since then have 2x the lifespan of a LCD one
* fans are a problem on some models, mine not at all, completely silent
* visible ABL, can be an issue the few times it hits but IMHO beats the bleed from LCD:s backlight every single day of the week.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 13 November 2023 at 12:16 am UTC

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

well that's not strictly true. You personally may not perceive a softness to an image (and im sure on a small low res screen like the steam decks it might be even harder to tell) but there are many threads on OLED monitors (perhaps not so much on a large TV as you sit further back) that comment on the sub pixel layout of OLED and how for desktop use it is softer and much better for gaming than desktop productivity. And that this is something that is not likely to be fixed any time soon. Right now LCD is sharper.

Yes I have seen lots of such claims, especially from people online vomiting over my LG 45GR95QE-B since it's both a WOLED and 45" UW 1440p and thus have a DPI that is just slightly above that of a 27" 1080p but to me this is mostly BS. At work I have a high end 32" 4K LCD from Samsung and it is by all means not that much sharper than my OLED at home.

Online people claim that it is impossible to work with text on my monitor while I as a programmer do tons of work with text (and often in terminal windows) with zero issues. If this means that they are all wrong or that Gnome happens to be better at text on this sub pixel layout than Windows is I don't know since I don't run Windows but text and/or sharpness is a complete non issue.

Plus to get back to context, even if that would be true it would be nothing compared with the fuzziness that existed even on the really high end CRT:s (and I used seriously high end CRT:s at work back before LCD:s took over) due to their analogue nature (#1 the signal was analogue and #2 the ray painting the image can not hit the exact same spot with infinite precision). Combine that with the low resolution of 8-bit monitors of 320x200 / 320x160 depending on PAL/NTSC fed over analogue composite.

Gnome does seem to handle font's a bit better im my experience. One of my screens is a 24.5" 1080p screen running Gnome wayland and it looks okay at a suitable distance, but it's the lowest PPI i could possibly handle. I assume you sit further back with it being a giant 45" screen. Also it seems that the 45GR95QE-B does not flicker like the steam deck, seen as i have already looked previously at reviews of the LG and have seen no issues (id actually like a 5k version of that screen)

everyone has their acceptable preferences with regards to clarity,some people have returned OLED because they for some reason don't like it's color presentation. But i wouldn't assume that they are all wrong across the many forums mostly they base their experiences on other OLED's at 27" to 34" with a 109ppi vs your smaller 83ppi. Although, how many people actually own these screens vs theoretically disliking i cannot tell. On balance there is an issue, but not everyone is sensitive to it.

lower lifespan was an issue before 2016 as already discussed, the OLED panels since then have 2x the lifespan of a LCD one

I must of missed that bit of the discussion. OLED burn in is still a thing. its one of the reasons i believe the pricing has been so surprisingly competitive with mini-LED panels. Where is the study that shows OLED to last twice the length of an LCD screen ? I have LCD screens from 2012 with 10's of thousands of hours on working just fine like the day i bought it.

visible ABL, can be an issue the few times it hits but IMHO beats the bleed from LCD:s backlight every single day of the week.

ABL still looks weird to me, personally i prefer a more consistent visual experience. i don't have backlight bleed on any of my LCD monitors. Im not disputing the pure black of OLED of course. it's just my screens are black enough for my tastes.

* fans are a problem on some models, mine not at all, completely silent

So your screen has a fan ? I don't want a monitor that needs a fan TBH.

The power consumption on OLED is higher than LCD. which may or may not bother the end user. But i like to keep my energy bill & heat in room as low as possible. Like i said each technology has its strengths and weaknesses.


Last edited by Lofty on 13 November 2023 at 12:42 am UTC

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

Apparently the MiSTer now has some HDR support for doing cool things to bring back that CRT look (scanlines and such). I haven't tested mine out on my OLED TV yet though.

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.

Interestingly, I currently have my A4000 connected to an LCD monitor (via a zz9000, which has an HDMI output, but a pass through for native resolutions), plus a Commodore 1084 monitor (CRT). Watching a demo, I could see a square blue area around the main part of the demo running on the LCD screen, whereas on the CRT, it was very dark and you couldn't see it, making it look much better.

A lot of the old pixel art and such, just looks better with scanlines, which is why most emulators try their damnedest to recreate such things with shaders, etc. Ha, in a lot of ways, the computations to do just the shaders are more powerful than what it the original platforms were...

For the record, my Atari Jaguar does actually look quite amazing on my 77" OLED through an OSSC...

Plus to get back to context, even if that would be true it would be nothing compared with the fuzziness that existed even on the really high end CRT:s (and I used seriously high end CRT:s at work back before LCD:s took over) due to their analogue nature (#1 the signal was analogue and #2 the ray painting the image can not hit the exact same spot with infinite precision). Combine that with the low resolution of 8-bit monitors of 320x200 / 320x160 depending on PAL/NTSC fed over analogue composite.

With CRTs / Analog signals, a LOT of the clarity was based on the video card you had. I would only ever use Matrox cards for this very reason, up until they gave up and stopped really providing anything for the consumer. I still haven't been happy with video drivers of nvidia or amd since... But the crispness of a Matrox cart at 1600x1200 or even higher is just still something epic that I like using again!

Back in the day, one of my Matrox cards bit the dust, and I needed an RMA, a friend of mine lent me his TNT2, holy crap the ghosting on the screen from that made me want to chuck my whole rig into the trash...

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.

Interestingly, I currently have my A4000 connected to an LCD monitor (via a zz9000, which has an HDMI output, but a pass through for native resolutions), plus a Commodore 1084 monitor (CRT). Watching a demo, I could see a square blue area around the main part of the demo running on the LCD screen, whereas on the CRT, it was very dark and you couldn't see it, making it look much better.

A lot of the old pixel art and such, just looks better with scanlines, which is why most emulators try their damnedest to recreate such things with shaders, etc. Ha, in a lot of ways, the computations to do just the shaders are more powerful than what it the original platforms were...

For the record, my Atari Jaguar does actually look quite amazing on my 77" OLED through an OSSC...

Yes the graphics (just as it is today ofc) was created with the display used at the time so scanlines and other imperfections where used to enhance the image where the GPU of the time couldn't provide the color or resolution needed/wanted. Btw which demo was it on the A4000? I would like to see the blue rectangle to try and make out what it was.

well that's not strictly true. You personally may not perceive a softness to an image (and im sure on a small low res screen like the steam decks it might be even harder to tell) but there are many threads on OLED monitors (perhaps not so much on a large TV as you sit further back) that comment on the sub pixel layout of OLED and how for desktop use it is softer and much better for gaming than desktop productivity. And that this is something that is not likely to be fixed any time soon. Right now LCD is sharper.

I know that there are but lots of those people are confused, you see it's not OLED that have a subpixel layout, every display have a subpixel layout:

!https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4d/Pixel_geometry_01_Pengo.jpg/440px-Pixel_geometry_01_Pengo.jpg

One is not sharper or softer than the other, it's just that algorithms like ClearType are designed for one of them but not all of them when adding anti aliasing tricks to fake a higher resolution for text than what the screen can produce natively. A single pixel is as sharp on any of these, so this is only down to algos that are trying to increase the sharpness of text.

Gnome does seem to handle font's a bit better im my experience. One of my screens is a 24.5" 1080p screen running Gnome wayland and it looks okay at a suitable distance, but it's the lowest PPI i could possibly handle. I assume you sit further back with it being a giant 45" screen. Also it seems that the 45GR95QE-B does not flicker like the steam deck, seen as i have already looked previously at reviews of the LG and have seen no issues (id actually like a 5k version of that screen)

everyone has their acceptable preferences with regards to clarity,some people have returned OLED because they for some reason don't like it's color presentation. But i wouldn't assume that they are all wrong across the many forums mostly they base their experiences on other OLED's at 27" to 34" with a 109ppi vs your smaller 83ppi. Although, how many people actually own these screens vs theoretically disliking i cannot tell. On balance there is an issue, but not everyone is sensitive to it.

Due to how my setup is at home I sit at the exact same distance at home from my 45" as I did with my 27", the 32" at work is also at roughly the same distance.

Just for fun I made high res photos of text displayed on both the 1440p and the 4k one to show that the sharpness and clarity is identical but the issue is that the curvature of my 45" is visible so I cannot use it as blind tests to people since they will always see which is the 45" and therefore will always be able to just say that that one is less sharp or whatever their bias now is.

I must of missed that bit of the discussion. OLED burn in is still a thing. its one of the reasons i believe the pricing has been so surprisingly competitive with mini-LED panels. Where is the study that shows OLED to last twice the length of an LCD screen ? I have LCD screens from 2012 with 10's of thousands of hours on working just fine like the day i bought it.

LG made a public statement in 2016 that their panels as of then had a lifespan of 100k hours and LCD:s at the time had a max lifespan of roughly 50k hours, that is where 2x the lifespan comes from: https://www.oled-info.com/lgs-latest-oled-tvs-last-100000-hours note that is up from only 36k hours in 2013 so lifespan have increased greatly in just a short time frame.

Rtings have showed that burn in is mostly overblown on modern panels (yes they do experience burn in, but they run their displays for 24x7 on the same media just to trigger it as much as possible), what they do show however is that LCD:s experience tons of image uniformity that visually is identically to burn in: https://www.rtings.com/tv/tests/longevity-burn-in-test-updates-and-results

So your screen has a fan ? I don't want a monitor that needs a fan TBH.

I actually don't know if it does nor not. It is 100% silent, just that I know that e.g the smaller Alienware does have a fan and they have one model where the fan is noticeable and one where it isn't so I don't know if the LG have a fan or not, just that it is completely silent.

The power consumption on OLED is higher than LCD. which may or may not bother the end user. But i like to keep my energy bill & heat in room as low as possible. Like i said each technology has its strengths and weaknesses.

[/quote]Yes that is one drawback, roughly 130w vs 60W for an equivalent LCD, though it depends on what you display, if it is mostly dark pixels then the OLED draws close to nothing while the LCD still draws 60W (which is e.g why the switch to OLED have made the power consumption of the Deck to go down and not up). Nothing compare with my old Plasma though :)

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.

Interestingly, I currently have my A4000 connected to an LCD monitor (via a zz9000, which has an HDMI output, but a pass through for native resolutions), plus a Commodore 1084 monitor (CRT). Watching a demo, I could see a square blue area around the main part of the demo running on the LCD screen, whereas on the CRT, it was very dark and you couldn't see it, making it look much better.

A lot of the old pixel art and such, just looks better with scanlines, which is why most emulators try their damnedest to recreate such things with shaders, etc. Ha, in a lot of ways, the computations to do just the shaders are more powerful than what it the original platforms were...

For the record, my Atari Jaguar does actually look quite amazing on my 77" OLED through an OSSC...

Yes the graphics (just as it is today ofc) was created with the display used at the time so scanlines and other imperfections where used to enhance the image where the GPU of the time couldn't provide the color or resolution needed/wanted. Btw which demo was it on the A4000? I would like to see the blue rectangle to try and make out what it was.

Ha, you would ask me that... Twisted Dreams? I was clicking on some random ones, as I was having some issues with a hard lock when I would try and exit the whdload.

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.

Interestingly, I currently have my A4000 connected to an LCD monitor (via a zz9000, which has an HDMI output, but a pass through for native resolutions), plus a Commodore 1084 monitor (CRT). Watching a demo, I could see a square blue area around the main part of the demo running on the LCD screen, whereas on the CRT, it was very dark and you couldn't see it, making it look much better.

A lot of the old pixel art and such, just looks better with scanlines, which is why most emulators try their damnedest to recreate such things with shaders, etc. Ha, in a lot of ways, the computations to do just the shaders are more powerful than what it the original platforms were...

For the record, my Atari Jaguar does actually look quite amazing on my 77" OLED through an OSSC...

Yes the graphics (just as it is today ofc) was created with the display used at the time so scanlines and other imperfections where used to enhance the image where the GPU of the time couldn't provide the color or resolution needed/wanted. Btw which demo was it on the A4000? I would like to see the blue rectangle to try and make out what it was.

Ha, you would ask me that... Twisted Dreams? I was clicking on some random ones, as I was having some issues with a hard lock when I would try and exit the whdload.

Isn't that the name of the Great Giana Sisters game?

It's kind of amusing to me that CRTs started off as 50/60hz, then higher end monitors started getting really high refresh rates (like the one I have that'll do 1600x1200 at 85hz). Then when we started with LCDs, we were back to having crappy refresh rates, with the added disadvantage of any non-native resolution looking like trash... Many years later, they're finally getting better.

You're forgetting or ignoring the fact that we mostly wanted higher refresh rates for CRTs to reduce the eye destroying flicker, not to make games run smoother or whatever. Whereas an LCD doesn't really have a flicker problem, even with the old fluorescent backlights.

CRTs didn't either, except when you'd try to do foolish things like interlace. Well, or if you were someone not in the 60hz locations... While there are benefits of PAL, a higher refresh rate is not one of them, and there is definitely flicker to most people at 50hz vs 60hz.

There are definitely benefits and disadvantages to each tech. Older stuff though, was designed for a CRT, so on occasion can look like utter trash on an flat screen. Especially when you're looking at 8-16bit stuff.

speaking of it do you (or anyone) know if old games work fine on OLED ? i know they look like crap on CRT, but oled work different so it might look less crapy? i wonder if its harder to make shaders/filters to simulate an CRT on an OLED screen than on an LCD one.

The thing is that those old games where created with the notion that the display was fuzzy and not sharp and detailed as they are now and an OLED is just as sharp and detailed as any LCD. What OLED brings to the table is CRT like (and in some cases like my monitor, better) handling of black and increased color+brightness capabilities.

Also one have to remember that back when we played those 8-bit and 16-bit games a 14" monitor was the default and the viewing distance was the same as it is with our modern 45" monitors so the size difference alone shows imperfections that were not detectable back then.

That said, I find C64 games using VICE looking quite good actually both on my OLED and on my old LCD.

Interestingly, I currently have my A4000 connected to an LCD monitor (via a zz9000, which has an HDMI output, but a pass through for native resolutions), plus a Commodore 1084 monitor (CRT). Watching a demo, I could see a square blue area around the main part of the demo running on the LCD screen, whereas on the CRT, it was very dark and you couldn't see it, making it look much better.

A lot of the old pixel art and such, just looks better with scanlines, which is why most emulators try their damnedest to recreate such things with shaders, etc. Ha, in a lot of ways, the computations to do just the shaders are more powerful than what it the original platforms were...

For the record, my Atari Jaguar does actually look quite amazing on my 77" OLED through an OSSC...

Yes the graphics (just as it is today ofc) was created with the display used at the time so scanlines and other imperfections where used to enhance the image where the GPU of the time couldn't provide the color or resolution needed/wanted. Btw which demo was it on the A4000? I would like to see the blue rectangle to try and make out what it was.

Ha, you would ask me that... Twisted Dreams? I was clicking on some random ones, as I was having some issues with a hard lock when I would try and exit the whdload.

Isn't that the name of the Great Giana Sisters game?

The new one that I still need to play through? Yes! Pretty sure that was the demo name too, though it may have been the group that made it... my go to demo is usually State of the Art by Spaceballs... That's not an AGA one though, I'm pretty sure the one I saw with the blue was AGA though. I'll poke around and see if I can find it again.

Not sure about 130 W, but here are a couple of comparisons:

* https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27gr95qe-b-gaming-monitor
* https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27gp850-b-gaming-monitor

That's 65 W for LCD and 94 W for OLED.

These can roughly be considered in the same class of gaming monitors. Still a bump, but it's not as bad as 130 W at least.

I can't find any info on screens lifespan though.


Last edited by Shmerl on 14 November 2023 at 10:36 pm UTC

Here is also an interesting read which mentions WRGB and RWBG subpixel layouts (never heard of them before):

https://tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/lg-27gr95qe-oled

I wonder if FontConfig even supports that.

UPDATE: I can't find anything here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues

Given such subpixel layouts aren't even supported, benefits of OLED screens become pretty moot.

UPDATE 2:

Found something related:

* https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues/328
* https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=472340

UPDATE 3:

What a rabbit hole:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/issues/1182

> In fact, GTK4 does not support any subpixel geometry, which is upsetting to some people.


Last edited by Shmerl on 14 November 2023 at 11:08 pm UTC

The new one that I still need to play through? Yes! Pretty sure that was the demo name too, though it may have been the group that made it... my go to demo is usually State of the Art by Spaceballs... That's not an AGA one though, I'm pretty sure the one I saw with the blue was AGA though. I'll poke around and see if I can find it again.

Hehe, State of the Art brings back memories :), all of us suddenly started to code interference rings when that one came.

Here is also an interesting read which mentions WRGB and RWBG subpixel layouts (never heard of them before):

https://tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/lg-27gr95qe-oled

I wonder if FontConfig even supports that.

UPDATE: I can't find anything here: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues

Given such subpixel layouts aren't even supported, benefits of OLED screens become pretty moot.

UPDATE 2:

Found something related:

* https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig/fontconfig/-/issues/328
* https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=472340

UPDATE 3:

What a rabbit hole:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/issues/1182

> In fact, GTK4 does not support any subpixel geometry, which is upsetting to some people.

AFAIK gtk4 does subpixel-someting, it just does it in grayscale and not in rgba. In any case IMHO fonts looks perfect in GTK4 apps under Wayland. Google returns lots of posts from people complaining about fuzzy fonts in gtk4 though so not sure what is happening, if they simply have some old/bad config lying around or if I'm just lucky or what it is.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/3787


Last edited by F.Ultra on 15 November 2023 at 12:11 pm UTC

The new one that I still need to play through? Yes! Pretty sure that was the demo name too, though it may have been the group that made it... my go to demo is usually State of the Art by Spaceballs... That's not an AGA one though, I'm pretty sure the one I saw with the blue was AGA though. I'll poke around and see if I can find it again.

Hehe, State of the Art brings back memories :), all of us suddenly started to code interference rings when that one came.

Ah, I played the Twisted (AGA) Demo, which maybe it was that one, that I first tested in NTSC, where it had a really bad blue band around that didn't show on the CRT. In PAL it is not quite as visible on the LCD Screen, but there is some artifact of overscan not filling up the screen on the LCD where you can see a blue line.

State of the Art was the demo my friend would pop into his A500 to shut the PC crowd up when they said the Amiga sucked. Considering it could do what it does on a 7~ MHZ computer with 1mb of ram and 880KB of floppy disk... absolutely impressive. Hard to appreciate for younger people who didn't live through PC Speaker sound and CGA. :P