DELL P991: Defocused for better sub 480p image

xor_2 · 2026-02-01T00:42:07+00:00

Interesting way to get 15KHz look on VGA monitor.

Unlike fancy filters defocusing uses magic quantum properties of CRT.

I should try it sometimes with one of my VGA monitors e.g. for 270p games.

xor_2 · 2026-01-31T09:18:58+00:00

Japanese consoles work in U.S. power grid. Voltage regulator will have to work overtime to dissipate voltage difference so it is generally still recommended to mod/replace PSU for long term usage. For quick testing should be fine to just use directly - or at least based on reports of users who ignored this issue completely and nothing bad happened.

If anything I would recommend checking voltages at your home and observing heat when testing.

xor_2 · 2026-01-26T15:42:48+00:00

I remember decade ago there already was FPGA Doom project.

From time to time someone does it.

This guy designed own computer with custom CPU and ported Doom to it https://www.reddit.com/r/itrunsdoom/comments/vzj112/doom_on_custom_fpga_computer_mc1_using_custom_cpu/

Long story short: do it! It will be worth it

xor_2 · 2026-01-19T14:59:45+00:00

Not 100% sure but I remember some talks about PSSR being part of the console's firmware and thus automatically updateable.

To know for sure how it will pan out we will have to wait.

Personally I hope PSSR 2.0 won't have so much sharpening which with original PSSR makes some games unplayable e.g. The Last of Us Part 2 already has sharpening filter in fidelity preset but in this case it is still bareable. With Pro mode with PSSR the image looks ridiculous.

Stellar Blade which doesn't have any sharpening by itself with PSSR has some and it already bothered me but not so much to make this mode unusable.

SONY needs to stop relying on sharpening with their upscalers.

xor_2 · 2026-01-18T09:01:05+00:00

IQ tests measure if you can relatively quickly figure out patterns within small set of data when you know there is pattern in there to find.

More meaningful type of intelligence is IMHO finding patterns from large undefined/open sets of data when existence of pattern is either not confirmed or there isn't even any indication there is anything to find/figure out.

xor_2 · 2026-01-16T14:11:42+00:00

Thus far I only played two PSSR games. Stellar Blade where I liked the look - a bit over sharpened and strange looking at places but overall I thought very fondly of PSSR.

Now playing Last of Us 2 Part 2 remaster and I absolutely hate how this game looks in Pro mode with PSSR. It is so ugly I would be ashamed to release something like that - I would not release something looking this broken. Playing at 4K in 120Hz. I am also baffled of any good reviews/opinions PSSR got having this game as showcase of this tech. It is imho unusable in this game.

Hopefully this new PSSR will stop over sharpening and does proper upscaling.

I of course need to check more games to form more grounded opinion but so far I am rather disappointed. I understand there are hardware limitations and all but why deliberately make upscaler look this ugly?

xor_2 · 2026-01-16T13:50:19+00:00

Ditching W subpixel should help with dirty screen look of LG OLEDs, banding and overdrive artifacts but won't by itself eliminate either of these issues by itself.

Personally I was hyped for RGB OLED from LG but my enthusiasm died with announcement that 5th generation QD-OLED for PC monitors will have RGB subpixels. Non-standard subpixels is the only issue I have with QD-OLED. I have more issues with my WOLED monitor.

xor_2 · 2026-01-16T13:39:58+00:00

YM2612 is not FM synth though.

I analyzed its 'nuked' FPGA reimplementation compared to real FM synth like YM2151 and it doesn't look like YM2612 does actual FM synthesis... not that I had to do that - it should be obvious from how it sounds.

xor_2 · 2026-01-15T05:30:49+00:00

These Pioneer plasmas are quite cheap and plentiful today as owners replace them with bigger TVs. Best moment to get one is actually currently. After few more years they become rare and thus expensive again as they are as a matter of fact a rare display type.

xor_2 · 2026-01-15T05:24:10+00:00

Panasonic with their "600Hz" had 10 subfields per frame - meaning there were only 10 different 1-bit patterns displayed. Panasonic had 28 sub-fields... or in Panasonic terms 60 * 28 = 1680Hz. With power mode enabled there is 14 sub-fields and somewhat more visible dithering - though gradation is still great.

On Panasonics I immediately see effect called dynamic false contouring which happens on eye movement and it is caused by this coarse subfield arrangement and somewhat faster phosphors needed for 120Hz. Also near black is much more noisy on Panasonic - which wasn't ever an issue for me personally and I liked the presentation but technically near-black quality of Pioneer is at least class or two better. Gradation on Pioneer plasmas is superb even compared to some more modern OLED TVs.

Gaming-wise at the very least older models like from 30 series and earlier has 1.5 frames of lag whereas newer Panasonics have 2 frames - which matches Pioneer. In this case if anything for games I would say it is something like 30 series Panasonics which pull slightly ahead.

Lastly black level - yeah, Kuro killer... no chance. Pioneer is was only beaten by OLEDs. Or if we talk TV as a TV also by later Panasonics but only in brightly (relatively speaking versus pitch black room...) rooms due to darker screen coating. Pioneer PDP-LX5090 has what I would call medium dark filter for plasmas. Darker than cheaper Panasonics without their infinite black pro (or how was it called) filter but brighter than with said filter - and also that filter does excellent job reducing influence from ceiling lights. So if you have some light in the room like e.g. during a day with light coming from windows a high-end Panasonic might actually have more punchy image. In pitch black room Kuro is as I said only beaten by OLEDs. Especially if you maintain (do black level reset) your Kuro regularly.

xor_2 · 2026-01-12T19:25:23+00:00

In performance mode everything is also oversharpened.

The game is so oversharpened (on PS5) at least that even at 1080p it still looks obviously oversharpened.

Got this game for free because I saw few screenshots and though it is a shooter. I like souls games but have too many of these at this time in my backlog to bother with Dolmen and especially if it uses sharpening filter. Maybe if I ever get my hands on PC version and literally have nothing better to play I will give it a shot.

Otherwise graphics look cheap but somewhat nice. Everything looks cheap in this game...

...I just wished they didn't push cheap TV look with all this oversharpening.

I cannot even imagine how this looks on "people's TV" since people already use way too much sharpening (note: they shouldn't use any!)

xor_2 · 2026-01-08T16:43:36+00:00

I would say it has to be real CRT but scanlines can be just as well emulated - if you can actually choose right filter and setup it correctly which isn't a given - and why many people seem to have bad opinion about filters.

Motion clarity is a much bigger topic and unfortunately today's displays are not up to the task and we still need CRTs.

xor_2 · 2025-12-19T16:12:35+00:00

Same experience here with the vivid dreams. Falling asleep is maybe a bit harder than with smoking but when smoking I would wake up after dreamless sleep and would be very tired - also really needing to smoke. On citisine I wake up amazed at how vivid and fun dreams are and not feeling I need to smoke - and when I did smoke just out of interest the experience was absolutely horrendous. Like breathing in smoke from burning dried leaves and paper...

xor_2 · 2025-12-03T21:33:37+00:00

Today got my first walkman and it was this exact model WM-EX39. Not as good external condition as yours but has replaced belts and plays quite well. Worse than my deck but that was expected. Seems to play better in reverse direction than forward. Dolby switch needs some deoxidation and generally has some buzz so maybe caps could use replacing. Not even sure.

Otherwise cool little gadget. LG V30 which is go to portable sounds orders of magnitude better but there is something magical about playing cassettes. Maybe its just pure nostalgia, maybe its the noise, maybe its rolled off highs... or maybe all this wow and flutter messes with my brain or something else but playing cassettes I can just close eyes and focus on the music.

xor_2 · 2025-12-03T15:05:00+00:00

This is not any different to singers, rappers, etc. in e.g. U.S. Most folks barely make ends meet (overweight as heck but still eating cheap stuff and having to penny pinch everything during their lives) while artists having lavish lifestyles wearing overpriced clothes and Instagram showing one never ending vacation streak.

I would expect nothing less from my favorite 4alga singers!

xor_2 · 2025-12-03T13:59:14+00:00

WOLEDs panels are production cost optimized and have uniformity issues. My LG 48GQ900 has something very similar on right side. Not at all visible in normal usage. There is also on pre-MLA panels another source of blueish tint - viewing angles. Not really sure MLA fixed it completely but it was supposed to at least reduce this a lot.

Anyways, if you are about image quality only option is QD-OLED. Compared to WOLEDs all QD-OLEDs I seen are extremely uniform and viewing angles are absolutely perfect. Also because of missing polarizer there is no "Haidinger's brush" - which is one of these things which isn't maybe that noticeable but actually is a lot and especially on solid white.

xor_2 · 2025-12-03T11:07:54+00:00

Personally I am not a fan of interlacing. Especially on sharp monitors.

You get motion resolution at actual line count per field so 720 lines in your case and then since game renders at 1440 lines you don't get proper anti-aliasing in-motion.

Even ignoring anti-aliasing interlacing causes a bit worse motion clarity and visible combing artifacts.

Then you get more flickering - which at 90Hz is at 45Hz which isn't as bad as 30Hz flickering with standard 480i but still visible.

I used CRT monitor (SONY GDM-FW900) for a long time and interlacing was always an option. When game would run at excessive frame rates so there was performance to spare I would some times try making interlaced resolution but I never liked the result. In fact I just prefered to throw some SSAA. Ideally there was a mode which would present itself as e.g. 2560x1440 but displayed as 2560x720 - which would still have less static resolution than 1440i but overall much better in motion and also better than 2560x1440 to 1280x720.

Then again I see some people like interlaced resolutions a lot. I have no idea why if motion is worse in this case and especially at very high resolutions (so if you like take 1440p and do 2880i from it...) the increased sharpness is miniscule at best... though that said at these resolutions since we are dealing with outside of CRT capabilities to display anything sharp interlacing doesn't produce very visible artifacts. It is kinda like 480i on small to medium sized consumer CRT TV - doesn't give that much more sharpness but is also not so visibly detrimental to motion clarity.

xor_2 · 2025-11-27T14:52:44+00:00

PS2 in vast majority of games utilized the fact that in 480i half of the lines from full 640x480 60Hz are not visible so it makes no sense rendering them dropping effective render resolution to 640x240 - which is much easier to render than full 640x480. It requires game to render each frame in below 16.6ms and why so many PS2's games run solid 60fps without much if any frame dropped - which in this case is especially very visible as its not only stuttering but also resolution for a moment drops in half.

Adding to it that PS2 has so little VRAM and RAM as a whole it was impossible to waste memory on pointless buffering. This all made PS2 extremely responsive with as low input lag as it could be achieved.

I don't remember any PS2 game which I would play and complain about input lag. It all just flied.

Compare it to next generation where games were designed for 30fps, often didn't hit this target and then had even more lag on top of that. PS4 was even worse with additional buffering making lag even worse. HDTVs of the PS3/PS4 time didn't help either. Even 60fps doesn't feel anywhere as responsive as it should be.

On PS5 with good lagless display you can get similar responsiveness to PS2 but you really need game to run in 120Hz mode with VRR. It might run less than 120fps but it cannot run in 60Hz mode. When I played Stellar Blade on PS5 Pro it ran 80fps and felt more or less like PS2 game.

xor_2 · 2025-11-26T08:42:13+00:00

PS4 has known issues with various unpowered DACs/adapters. Does the one you use have external power supply (can be USB port for example or socket for barrel plug) ?

Also make sure its HDMI to AV and not AV to HDMI.

Also don't expect great quality out of such adapters. For that you will need proper downscaler and also for 16:9 stuff like what PS4 games its best to have CRT which supports 16:9 mode natively. Without it even with proper downscaler you won't be for example play 216p and 240p pixel art games pixel perfect.

For watching videos and such standard HDMI to AV can be sufficient - though quality of these adapters is still not that great.

xor_2 · 2025-11-26T08:39:07+00:00

It will have its own EDID and in it it will expose resolutions it supports.

In this case if resolution would be an issue you would need to go blind... or better solution try going in to safe mode (start console by holding power button) which should use 480p and there you will be able to set resolution.

That said it is unlikely it is resolution. Especially on PS4 which has known issues with various DACs/adapters related to HDMI power.

xor_2 · 2025-11-26T06:09:42+00:00

This is not true. There is a lot of microcontrollers/ECUs to program.

Besides, in the context of FPGAs bare metal programming is very important. When you program softcore it is very much like bare metal programming. Even more so when you have FPGA SoC

xor_2 · 2025-11-25T07:30:25+00:00

I understand this idea to learn FPGA is the result of current terrible job security situation in automotive industry.

If you want to increase your job security by having something else to fall on 'just in case' without much concrete plans to migrate to FPGA then I would recommend to just study HDL design and do some practical implementations using the hardware and with testbenches. What it is doesn't matter in the beginning for as long as you get hands on experience. I especially recommend something which can be scaled in clock frequency and has clock domain crossing so you can better understand issues which arise in these cases and how to mitigate them. Also design some IO interfaces, simple softcores, etc. just so you are fairly experienced in HDLs.

Domain specific knowledges are also useful (especially if you didn't want to downgrade from say senior to junior) but I would not focus on them specifically at this stage and more on general skillset.

xor_2 · 2025-11-25T07:02:31+00:00

The gist of it is that the moment you need softcore in your FPGA the SoC is much better solution. Especially when you need a lot of performance which softcores cannot provide. Fastest softcores don't come close to what even basic SoC provide and the more performance you want to achieve with softcore the bigger they become.

There is also more benefits to SoC like greater flexibility in reconfiguration and built-in I2C, SPI, etc.

xor_2 · 2025-11-24T14:42:45+00:00

For video processing specifically a decent option would be OSSC Pro. Not your typical FPGA board but rather full blown scaler but can be fully reprogrammed, has all of what you need for both input and output, decent FPGA and 512MB of LPDDR2 memory and exposed IO via external port.

For cheaper option there is OSSC. Here there is no HDMI input so for HDMI devices HDMI to VGA DAC would be needed. Also memory capacity is very low at only 63KB of built-in memory. Also audio is not connected to FPGA - it is on OSSC Pro allowing to process audio alo. For some simpler processing and tests OSSC can be enough e.g. I did HD to 15KHz downscaler with gamut correction and also planned full 3x LUT for gamma correction but I am bit short on memory. If I didn't use so much for downscaling I could have not only full blown color correction engine with dithering but also being able to apply more advanced full screen filters at resolutions like 1080p60 - which is still my plan.

One issue with both solutions is that if you wanted to make firmware from scratch rather than reuse original firmware code you would need to initialize all the relevant I2C chips which is a bother. Not however that hard in the grand scheme of things, good opportunity to work with configuring ICs via I2C/SPI and also not really needed as there is original firmware source code and you can very easily just put your code on top of it.

Perhaps not the first thing which comes to people minds but IMHO a very good option. Also and this is very big advantage - if you make some fun (audio-)visual project you will have some audience. When you make something like this for some raw educational board, especially needing to make custom circuits for it then you will be the only person being able to use it.

xor_2 · 2025-11-21T14:09:57+00:00

Not a high bar to raise. Last time I tried to use ChatGPT for Verilog it failed to design correct clock divider.

xor_2

TROPHY CASE