retro gaming via projector

[laam999]

I've been collecting old consoles for years and love playing on them but I only have room for a little 15" crt. After being used to my large tv playing on a 15" is just too small. I'm wanting to turn my back bedroom into a retro gaming room and using a projector would be the best way so I'm wondering if there is particlar features I should be looking for when buying one, none seem to have a TV tuner and all seem to have too high a native resolution, if you've ever played an old console on a modern tv you'll see why I want to get this right.

Thanks

Liam

[cianha]

I'd have thought that anything with an analog input would do the trick?

[BrewsterBear]

I have a Master System, Mega Drive, SNES and N64 running to a Samsung 46" LED in my den. I get around this by have an AV switcher. It takes the Red/Yellow/White (L/R/Video) type leads. Just select which one you're playing at the time.

One point of note, though; These games were only ever designed to be played on a CRT telly. Even 28" was massive back then. Some games can look a little too blocky to play. Doesn't matter so much on simple Master System platformers, but things like Doom and Starwing on the SNES are nigh-on unplayable at 46". I have to scale down my telly so it appears as if on a 24" screen to make sense of it. On a projector they will just be meaningless blocks unless you're sat 300yds from the wall.

[crossy67]

I have have a Barco 1209s bolted to my ceiling and use it almost exclusively for my 360 in Full hd. It's fantastic.

As other posters have said older consoles won't have the best resolution and will look blocky, one way round this would be to use a line doubler. I have an unused one in my loft I bought from a company called Kean electronics. It works really well on my old and now unused Sony CRT projector. Don't know if they'd work on an LCD projector though.

[laam999]

It's not too much about the screen size I want a projector for, although 15" is too small, it's mostly space saving, a projector giving out a 30" image will be thinner and less of a space stealer than a huge and deep crt. Can I have some details on the average switcher and if it removes the fuzzy edges flat screens seem to introduce. I know that screen size doesn't cause this because at uni I had a 28" crt and 26" plasma and the crt was leagues ahead in retro gaming for clarity.

Liam

[BrewsterBear]

I use one of these.

I then bought two of these for the Master System and Mega Drive and two of these for the SNES and N64. It's probably not the most high-tech way of doing the job, but I haven't noticed any ghosting or blurring of edges. Were you using the RF cable with your other set up? The Samsung telly I have only has one AV input. I looked into getting some HDMI upscalers, but it would have cost a lot more and some people report that it could introduce a delay to the picture appearing on screen amongst other issues.