LG 32MN60T as a retro-gaming CRT replacement (using OSSC for upscaling)

 

My modest proposal for a CRT replacement: a fast + large LCD monitor with an OSSC to handle conversion from component to HDMI.  I still have a very good condition consumer Sony TV (27FS100) to compare to, so I can judge how well this works even if I can't photograph it successfully.

I'm using a 32" LG 32MN60T, which is big enough for playing from a couch. Because it's a computer monitor, it's super fast by TV standards (2.5ms input lag, but 8ms response time). It's only 1080p, but given what I'm going to send it from the OSSC, that's FINE.

The OSSC is set up to take 480i input and convert it to 960p using 2x BOB deinterlacing. In a somewhat feeble attempt to emulate the rapid phosphor decay of an interlaced screen, I selected the mode where rather than true line doubling it draws the current and previous frame simultaneously, but the old frame at 25% of original brightness. Think of it as 25% LACE,75% BOB. This nicely masks a lot of the BOB artifacts (flicker), and likewise the LACE artifacts (horizontal lines when the screen moves).

The result? not quite CRT quality, but before I had finished playing a single level of Ratchet and Clank I had already forgotten that I wasn't playing on a CRT. Not that I'm getting rid of my Sony CRT for now (well, make me a $$$ offer, purist) but this is a viable way forward. And FYI, I'm picky. This is the first time I felt like I had really seen a viable option that wasn't super expensive. 

You might quibble with calling this screen "fast" because of the response time. But it's an IPS which I consider mandatory if you are going to play from the couch. And the slow temporal response time between frames, in effect, duplicates some of the spatial blurring within a frame that a TV's CRT has. So pixels were pleasantly blended, ideal for old 3D games from the PS2 era. I think it would look quite good for a 2D game but didn't try that.