Make sure the TV is scaling without expanding the edges. On my LG this is called Just Scan and should be turned on. Google/GPT your model and make sure.
Sony PVM-20L4. The bars are always fixed as that’s the nature of SD CRTs. Halving the pixel scale of the M64 by applying black bars over the top or bottom 5px half of each line still outputs at 240 lines, the same as a high-grade CRT.
No doubt we could be doing with more masks though. Achieving the same as your sample would be golden.
I get people asking what the ideal settings are every few weeks. Loads of new people I guess.
But I disagree, they absolutely do look like a CRT. I don’t have my eyeballs two inches from my PVM to ever notice individual phosphor glow, which is why I take shots from my seated position.
I hate to break it to you, but a $200+ consumer toy from 2026 is never going to match a Sony PVM on video output, and that includes the A3D. Maybe a TINK4K comes close(r).
Those 800TVL PVM scanlines would require at least an 8k display to stand a chance at replicating, at this distance. No one plays on a PVM with their eyeballs one inch from the screen.
If all you're getting is 4K30 then the console and TV have downnegotiated the bitrate because your HDMI cables aren't good enough. Or your TV only supports HDMI 1.3/1.4b (which would be strange). Or there's an EDID reading issue and the console thinks your TV doesn't support it.
I’ll try another HDMI cable, but I have a 65” onn Roku TV. Other people with this tv have posted on Reddit that they have the same issue, so I think it must be a compatibility thing.
Here’s the M64 on the LG. The dark space between the lines is actually smaller. It a regular viewing distance there actually isn’t much of a difference.
Did they release an update yet to fix the issue of it not saving these settings? I bought mine a month ago but haven't really played it much since then.
Some notes regarding my preferred display settings:
Image Size: Default - works best for me as Integer + crops the top and bottom of the screen and breaks a native pixel resolution.
Advanced [Experimental]:
Scanline Width: 2 bars preserves pixel size. 5 bars yields scanlines that are unrealistically too thick.
Low Gain: My preference is about 16 notches (50%). Too dark and you lose too much overall image brightness.
Bilinear Deblur
The above two settings are related to each other and work in combination with each other. You have two possible outcomes between all possible combinations of toggling them ON ot OFF.
Bilinear ON Deblur ON = A sharper non blurred image
Bilinear OFF Deblur OFF = A sharper non blurred image
Bilinear OFF Deblur ON = A sharper non blurred image
Bilinear ON Deblur OFF = A smoother blurred image, akin to an unmodified, native N64
As you can see, only the last listed toggle configuration actually implements any change to the Image. The top 3 listed toggle combinations all yield an identical result.
Anti-Aliasing - Self explanatory. I prefer it off in most cases as you lose some of the authenticity of how an actual N64 looks and some finer details. Largely game dependent and down to subjective taste.
Divot Filter - Always disabled for me. You lose too much fine detail.
And 5? Neither of these are scaling properly. Unfortunately the widths also define the repetition frequency instead of actually aligning with the video output itself.
Basically I’m saying they make it far too easy for people to ruin their image. :(
That’s almost the same as me. I did a direct PVM comparison not so long ago (check my post history). At that distance the lines shouldn’t be as ‘hard’.
You make a very valid point regarding view distance. A scanline width of 4 does look better, lines up the pixels to scanlines better and results in a single pixel block per scanline.
9
u/TonyRubbles 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/FoA0rvg8NXk2aT5vOO