1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2020–2024score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN cites it as the example showing why CRT emulation is needed to render effects the original artists intended.
A one-minute demo comparing RetroArch shaders on the Sonic the Hedgehog waterfall, where Sega Genesis dithering creates a transparency effect. It shows how different shaders emulate the CRT look.
“here's a video that shows the Sonic waterfall in motion with various CRT-simulating shaders applied on top” (HN, 2020)
CRT emulation of some kind is sometimes necessary to accurately render effects that were intended by the original artists. For example, this waterfall transparency: [this video] Then there's the fact that a lot of early console artwork was designed to be output on a composite video cable instead of as separate RGB channels, so the crosstalk may need to be emulated to get the right color blending: [link] (The reduced effective spatial resolution is often more of a detriment, so plenty of games do look much better in pure crisp RGB from an emulator.)
Shows Sonic waterfall transparency effect needing CRT emulation.
> I think there's an argument that pixel art was designed for CRT displays and thus optimized for it In many cases there is no argument to be had. [link] These sprites are terrible without CRT-ness (skeleton has pixels unbalanced, clearly placed for an antialiasing effect; beast is unshaded). Also, look at that waterfall, for which filters have a hard time, either inefficient or making the rest of the scene excessively blurry. [this video] For some games I think the flat pixely look is OK, e.g Zelda III, although I personally prefer the darker, smoother, less saturated look of CRT which in my mind betters conveys the grim ambience than the unfiltered cel-shaded-y one. For others, either specific bits (Chrono Trigger's overworld map) or the whole thing is plain bad. > However, I think modern games with the pixel art aesthetic look best crisp. I would concur. Old game art was designed for CRT... and on CRT , whereas modern games are designed for and on pixel-perfect LCDs, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a bit like viewing a hinted vector font with vs without antialiasing (old games) [link] vs a bitmap font meant to land on the pixel grid exactly (modern pixel art) [link] Old games that were designed in the latter way are perfectly fine on LCDs, but those that hinged on it are terrible.
Waterfall example where filters struggle without CRT look.
Another example of this, is the waterfalls in Sonic the Hedgehog. No, it’s not meant to look like alternating blue lines on the remasters (even though that looks decent enough). In a CRT TV, that alternating pattern would have created a translucency effect after the smearing. Here’s a shader comparison which tries to properly recreate this: [this video]
Shader comparison recreating Sonic waterfall translucency from CRT smearing.
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
4 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes
Read more