racketboy.com

I'm thinking about getting a new TV to play my old games on, but I heard there's an input delay on older consoles and HDTVs. How do you fix it?

The delay arises from the processing yout TV is doing. Basically, the picture from your consoles is very low resolution (320x240, for example) and your TV has to stretch that, which takes time and creates a blurry mess.

Ideally, you would either play on a CRT or use an upscaler like the Freimemeister or the OSSC. Both are a good use of your money and time.

It will vary by TV. Check your set here:
https://displaylag.com/display-database/

Also try "game mode" if your monitor/TV has it.

The lag isn't JUST due to scaling the image. Most TVs do a lot of post-processing on images to improve quality, adjust contrast, etc...

Jagosaurus wrote:Also try "game mode" if your monitor/TV has it.

Game mode basically turns off a lot of the post-processing on the display. It still has to scale the image, but it doesn't apply a lot of the other post-processing effects that would normally improve image quality. The result is less lag!

Jago has it, use that website. They take into account anything you can do with the TV plus its own limitations to discover the bottom milliseconds in input lag you'll get from a TV for your old pre-HD systems. I've used it for the last couple TVs I had after one caused me to think a game I had years ago was broken, when it was the TV doing it. If you have all these processing effects stuck on or enabled on, combined with a poor internal working of the TV that has to work even longer to display your game on screen you'll have issues. It's best to be no higher than 30ms of display lag for an old gaming system, but fewer people are more sensitive to it and need the numbers much lower which gets you into PC LCD/LED space which basically has none.

Those who go on and on in many random reviews that complain some device or some console is lagged usually aren't bright enough to figure this out and misplace the blame as the TV is at fault. It's not always the case, sometimes you do have a junk clone console or PI/android emulator box with a configuration setup or a garbage emulator that'll cause it too.

Go with a Vizio or Samsung TV. Minimal lag.

I'd also suggest a Combo of a Retro Tink and OSSC as the Framemiester is about to go out of production.

You're right about that. The 2 TVs I have used old stuff on have been a Vizio 29" I had bought when my kid accidentally took out my old Panasonic Viera from the mid 00s and I used displaylag.com to find a rating of around 25-26ms on it and I can play stickler stuff on it like shooters fine. When my grandma passed a couple years back I got some of her stuff including her bedroom TV she barely ever turned on and it's like 4" bigger in a Samsung with +1 on the lag and it still works evenly well as the other games did. I've suffered the other end, it's not fun, you think you're out of practice or the game is broken and it's not.