How to Play Shovel Knight on a CRT Display [Pixel Perfection]

welcome back to the channel everyone i hope you're doing well this summer it's been a hot one anyway i've got something a little different for you today so let me know what you think afterwards in addition to my retro gaming hobby and mech obsession i've taken a deep dive into the world of crt televisions and monitors the last several years you've probably seen a few of them in my previous videos whether you love them or hate them there's no denying this old technology is gaining popularity again i mean just look at the crt gaming subreddit it only had a few thousand members back in 2017 2018 and now there's over 70 000 members 70 000 and that's just read it we've seen plenty of big name youtubers post crt videos in recent years that have only continued to shine a spotlight on the hobby alongside all this there's also been a monumental increase in the number of retro inspired video games especially from indie game developers many of these games use beautiful pixel graphics that instantly take you back to the 8-bit and 16-bit era of gaming additionally a lot of these games even include crt screen filters to help simulate the look and feel of a tube even if you're gaming on a 4k tv or pc monitor personally i am not a huge fan of these filters they tend to blur the image too much and they often lack accurate scan lines but what if i told you that many of these retro style games can be displayed accurately scan lines and all on a real crt [Music] as far as i know it all started back in 2020 on the arcadecontrols.com forum where users started compiling a list of retro style games with native resolutions low enough to take advantage of crt displays and amazingly users are still discovering compatible games and posting their findings to the form but by now you might be wondering why does any of this matter in truth you don't need a crt to play these games they work just fine on modern displays but there's just something so cool about using older technology to play these games and what better game to demonstrate what i'm talking about than shovel knight [Music] released in 2014 to widespread critical acclaim it was one of the games that helped bring retro style games back into the mainstream shovel knight is a delightful throwback to the 8-bit era that incorporates elements from nes classics such as mega man castlevania zelda 2 and some mario 3 for good measure if you like the retro inspired stuff definitely give it a play through if you haven't already i mean the game looks like it came from the late 80s or early 90s so playing it on a crt seems like the next logical step now rather than have this video turn into a lengthy tutorial about how to set this all up let me just go ahead and show you the end result well here it is shovel knight displaying at its native resolution of 400 by 240 pixels on my crt monitor the scan lines are sharp and the image is crisp but you still get that warm crt glow behind every pixel filming this honestly doesn't do it justice it looks even more amazing in person i mean shovel knight is such an awesome game no matter what display you're using but i am just blown away with how it looks on here i mean it really takes me back to 1989 or 1990 just immediately the color accuracy especially black levels are excellent as with most crts but you also get the added benefit of zero input lag every jump and every attack is accurate which is essential once the difficulty ramps up in this game and to top it all off shovel knight is just one of hundreds of retro style games that can take full advantage of a crt display but hey if you like what you see so far throw me a like or feel free to subscribe since i will be showing off more games like this soon and if you are curious about how to play shovel knight like this i'll briefly go over how to set it all up first and foremost you need a crt at a minimum you need a standard definition crt television or monitor please please please do not think you need to own a fancy pvm or bvm to play retro style games with real scan lines next and most importantly you need to install a special graphics driver called crt mu driver and pick up an older amd radeon graphics card this driver will allow your card to output standard definition signals over a vga cable i've included a link in the description for compatible graphics cards as well as a video link for how to install crt emu driver courtesy of youtuber kurt effinger you'll also need a way to connect a vga cable from your computer to your television or monitor for example i'm using a sony bvm which has rgb inputs so these monoprice vga to rgb hv cables work just great for me you can find them on amazon however if your display only has composite or component inputs you need to find a different vga adapter online [Music] and last but certainly not least you need the pc version of shovel knight as you saw earlier the game's native resolution is 400 by 240 which unfortunately cannot be displayed using the home console versions of this game so if you have shovel knight on your switch or your ps4 yeah it's not gonna work those games do not display resolutions below 720p now switch does 480p but that's another story once you've got everything set up go into the program vm maker that was included with your mu driver download go to edit settings user modes and open the user modes inei file make sure to add 400 by 240 to your resolutions list and set the refresh rate to 60 hertz now that you've got everything set up turn on your crt and make sure your pc is detecting it via display settings you should be able to select 400 by 240 as a resolution from the drop-down list if nothing is showing up on your crt or you're getting a warped image make sure you have composite sync turned on under the video card settings in vm maker also when testing stuff like this i highly recommend that you keep your primary pc monitor set as your main display in case something goes wrong i can't tell you how many times i've had something fail and i've been forced to navigate windows at 240p resolution it's frustrating finally open up shovel knight on your main display go to video settings and make it windowed now using your mouse carefully adjust the window as small as it will go then drag it onto your crt display now select monitor number two in the options then set it to full screen shovel knight should now be displaying at 240p resolution and you should see scan lines all over the screen if the image appears stretched vertically like if you're using a 4x3 television or monitor go into your monitor's settings and adjust it so that you have a wide screen image since 400x240 is a widescreen resolution if your crt does not have any aspect ratio settings in the menu try googling the model number and see if there's a way to access the service menu which is a hidden menu where you can change a lot of different settings once you've got it set up and working enjoy i honestly don't want to go back to playing these games any other way as ridiculous as that sounds and again like i said earlier there are tons of games like shovel knight that can use low resolutions on a crt display and i'll definitely be taking a look at some of those in my next video but as always thanks again for watching take it easy and i'll catch you next time

Channel: PT_Samurai

Views: 10,446

Keywords: crt, pvm, bvm, sony trinitron, shovel knight, nintendo switch, playstation 5, ps4, ps5, retro, crt emudriver, radeon, shovel knight dig

Id: R7yK1TYdBY8

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022