How would you rather play your games?

[Lord Alpha]

By games I mean anything you currently emulate.

A friend and I go back and forth on this on occasion, and he says that playing it on a computer monitor is better because you have filters and such that make the graphics look as nice as possible. I maintain that playing it on a TV comes as closely as possible to playing games the way they were meant to be played.

How would you perfer to play them, assuming you didn't have access to the original hardware?

On a TV hooked up to a comp?
On a computer monitor?
Other?

[Stifu]

I don't mind playing on the computer, but games on TV seem more appealing to my friends and brothers (as it's somewhat more "convivial"), so I usually go with that for multiplayer games...

[SquareHead]

When I can, I usually hook them up to a TV and play. But for portability, I run them off my WD Traveller so I can take em with my Laptop and play.

[Silensho]

When I'm the only one playing, I'll use the monitor. Yes, because of the many filters. If I'm playing with somebody else, I'll use the TV, you know, memory's sake (and a bit of show off).

[tetsuo55]

Blargg's NTSC filter comes to mind , best of both worlds

[AntoineWG]

HDTV's are becoming more like monitors than TV's, as far as picture quality goes, and they're only becomming more common. When I do emulate nowadays, I usually do on a 32" LCD TV.

[Starman Ghost]

I actually prefer to play it on the real things on a tv. Not because it's the original, but because it prevents me from fast forwarding/rewinding/save stating/etc..

[FitzRoy]

Antoine's right. The line is beginning to blur between tvs and monitors. Eventually, when we get oled or sed, and all the port mayhem clears, you'll essentially just have size differences, and crts will cease to hold any kind of advantage over future tech. The idea that older systems were "meant to be played" on an interlaced crt is kind of silly. Of course they were, it was catering to the most common tv display technology at the time. Does that make seeing them progressively now inferior? Not at all. It's purely nostalgic to want to see them as you did when you were young. Wanting to add analog noise and color bleeding to an image for any other purpose would be insane.

[Neo Kaiser]

The monitor because I don't care how exactly they looked but how they where played.

[adventure_of_link]

Computer.

Why sit in front of my TV and burn my eyes when I've got it all in front of my laptop

also I sold off most of my old systems

[Cyrus]

I use a monitor because I'm too lazy to bust out the SNES (my computer is not near the TV to use video output) and because my TV is shit.

[blackmyst]

Antoine's right. The line is beginning to blur between tvs and monitors. Eventually, when we get oled or sed, and all the port mayhem clears, you'll essentially just have size differences, and crts will cease to hold any kind of advantage over future tech. The idea that older systems were "meant to be played" on an interlaced crt is kind of silly. Of course they were, it was catering to the most common tv display technology at the time. Does that make seeing them progressively now inferior? Not at all. It's purely nostalgic to want to see them as you did when you were young. Wanting to add analog noise and color bleeding to an image for any other purpose would be insane.

Actually no. Run any SNES game on a 32 inch LCD, then run them on a little 14 inch CRT TV. You wouldn't have guessed a SNES game could look that nice. Same goes for PSX and N64 btw. Bigscreen LCD's just make old systems look shittier than they should.

[zoink]

sofa, TV and a game pad. rocks.

[FitzRoy]

Actually no. Run any SNES game on a 32 inch LCD, then run them on a little 14 inch CRT TV. You wouldn't have guessed a SNES game could look that nice. Same goes for PSX and N64 btw. Bigscreen LCD's just make old systems look shittier than they should.

You just compounded the argument with size, and then gave the smaller size the crt, and the bigger size the lcd. Additionally, now that we're on the subject of size, you're forgetting about the variable of view distance. Certainly, a 32 inch screen wouldn't look worse than the 14 if you were sitting 10 feet away, would it? Also, a small flat screen crt monitor running progressive emulation would kick that tvs ass at the same view distance.

[snkcube]

I'd rather use a TV because of the more open space.

[MisterJones]

For most singleplayer, I like my monitor.

I'd prefer if I could, to play multiplayer on a tv with a big room available.

Some old games I used to play a lot singleplayer at the real thing, I use the ntsc filter for nostalgia and charm.

[PHoNyMiKe]

I used to play some snes games on my projector. which is like 105 inch. only problem, even from across the room it's so huge that your eyes have to extend their movement to see things happening on screen. gets uncomfortable.

I would like to hook a computer up to my mother's plasma. I don't have a way other than s-video, which is like pointless. zsnes at like 1024x768 with a bunch of filters would kick ass.

[blackmyst]

Actually no. Run any SNES game on a 32 inch LCD, then run them on a little 14 inch CRT TV. You wouldn't have guessed a SNES game could look that nice. Same goes for PSX and N64 btw. Bigscreen LCD's just make old systems look shittier than they should.

You just compounded the argument with size, and then gave the smaller size the crt, and the bigger size the lcd. Additionally, now that we're on the subject of size, you're forgetting about the variable of view distance. Certainly, a 32 inch screen wouldn't look worse than the 14 if you were sitting 10 feet away, would it? Also, a small flat screen crt monitor running progressive emulation would kick that tvs ass at the same view distance.

No, that's not really right. You just have to see it. You can't deny it if you do.

[MisterJones]

I have to agree with you. There are some pseudo classy arcades here with large screens for popular games, one of them has KoF2001, and man, it looks like shit on such a large screen, whereas Marvel vs Capcom looks great.

[Nach]

I have to agree with you. There are some pseudo classy arcades here with large screens for popular games, one of them has KoF2001, and man, it looks like shit on such a large screen, whereas Marvel vs Capcom looks great.

Capcom designed a lot of their fighters to be played on huge screens.

Street Fighter 2 for example was regularly set up at expos on 50 inch television sets.

[SquareHead]

I use a monitor because I'm too lazy to bust out the SNES (my computer is not near the TV to use video output) and because my TV is shit.

I fixed that problem. I specially ordered a 25' svideo cable.

[Stifu]

I have to agree with you. There are some pseudo classy arcades here with large screens for popular games, one of them has KoF2001, and man, it looks like shit on such a large screen, whereas Marvel vs Capcom looks great.

On the other hand, KoF 2001 looks like shit however you look at it.

[striker]

I play ZSNES on a 32" HDTV, using the HQ2x filter... I use the fill screen function on my TV to stretch the picture to fill the entire screen. This HD screen is connected to my PC, of course.

[Panzer88]

on a CRT monitor with an emu. my fam still only will play with me on the real stuff, and Virtual Console has made this easier.

but yeah, not an LCD, or a tv, but a CRT monitor for me.

[Agozer]

Nice grave digging there.