I haven't had any malty beverages of any temperature, but I am drinking 151 proof rum, so I think I can weigh in.

I'm on the fence.

I've been running Monster Bash in Scan Line mode for the last couple weeks, and I have to admit, it's grown on me. Randy is grinning right now.

But at the end of the day I really love the dots the best. I wish they were a little fatter. RANDY WHERE ARE THE FAT DOTS?

The beauty of it all is that you can choose. If you hate it then set all your games to pure colored dots, and bask in the old school glory with the added benefit of all the beautiful details coming out with the color. Feels just right.

to quote the dude: "you know that is like your opinion man"

For me hd upscaling on spiderman is awesome, the original dmd gives you this blurry mess with upscaling it looks unbelievable awesome and I see details that I have never seen before.

Scaling isn't for every title and there is some amount of nostalgia to seeing dots (though no nostalgia for monochrome - been over that since TRS-80 days).

What games have you checked out?

I have it on my Scared Stiff, and I think it looks amazing. Most of the animations and graphics work well with it, though. I can see how it'd be a little messed up if the graphics were more stills than animations.

Love ww and lotr with no dots. Not a nostalgic guy. Come April I will buying a shitelode of color dmds as the dots all look like crap now to me.

I totally agree that upscaling spoils the look. I'm a big time user of MAME video game emulators and those also have upscaling options. But Donkey Kong for example, looks all wrong without the classic 8 bit jagged edges. But I guess its always nice to have options.

JD looks amazing in Hi res. It's like the font they used on the translight was designed for it.

Other games are hit or miss. A lot probably depends on how the original dots were designed. For instance in STTNG some of the animation looks better, the star field with the Enterprise and the font looks jagged and off.

To each his own, I'm keeping it either way!

I hate the up-scaling. It looks absolutely stupid. The graphics weren't made with that style in mind, they were made to look good as pixels. If the animations are completely redone to fit the style I would probably change my mind.

It reminds me of SNES emulators I played 15 years ago. It's nice to have the option.

I have colordmd on tspp, afm, ss, wh20, cftbl, and ft.The only one I have switched back to dots is cftbl. it just seems more natural to me. tspp loves the upscaling

I disagree. I can't stand the dots anymore and want to upgrade all my other games to ColorDMDs to eliminate dots!

Just my opinion

I'm with you. The art was designed for a certain type of display. I'd prefer to see what the designer intended. I'm not even very thrilled about color dmd let alone the upscaling.

I prefer the original myself but welcome the options for others.

Lol what the artist intended ? Same argument against LEDs yet the old designers still working now use LEDs . Why ? Because now they exist and they are better.
Dots are all They had. Once gone you won't see designers using them.

I've spent many hours looking at dots, both traditional and upscaled

Personally, I prefer standard dots. Of course everyone is different, so it's nice to have options.

I have to admit the upscaling look has grown on me. However, most of my ACDC and MET animations are running in the standard dot format. With that said, I do have my Sparky MB and battery animations running in 16x.

Some games look better than others. I think I'll end up running MET in 16x when it's complete. I have ACDC running with standard dots except for the MB intro, which uses the anti-aliasing upscaling. It took me some time to get used to the look, so you aren't alone.

I agree...for people like you and me the TILE mode is where it's at! Better than dots, still has that look. It's much brighter too, which is a plus. ColorDMD is an amazing product that breathes life into games. I'm getting it for whatever game it comes out for that I own. Family Guy please.

...or the guy's product above me. I'll check that out too.

I upgraded 5 of my DMD's to the upscaling mode and I think it needs to grow on you like some of the other posters have said. I videoed the 5 dmds with gameplay and posted them on my Youtube page if anyone wants to take a look at a game they may not have seen yet.

The videos are labeled Color DMD 3.0 High Res

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYkP5URZoS8NApETWc7uBmA

You are very welcome.

The faces in the animation with upscaling on Totan didn't look right.Had to go back to dots.

The upscaling on Wh20 works much better.

Stop making me feel old... SNES emulator... then 15 years ago... talk about insult to injury

Only seen it up close once, on SS long ago, but I didn't care for it much.

Some art lends itself to smoothing better than others. The metallica dots pretty universally look good smoothed. I don't really think the dots are BETTER per se, it's just what we're used to. 128x32 source is pretty awful no matter what it is, it's low resolution, low detail crap (really) in any output form. We're just used to looking at the dots for years, so that's the crappy we're familiar with and anything else tends to look odd. If displays had been smoothed low res all these years, the dots would look strange instead.

Hooray for options!

I like the upscaling but animations were sacrificed. I have it in my Addams family which doesn't have that much animations to being with. but it wont display extra ball. cut the mansion animation off short. so you don't know what window your getting half the time. some other small flaws I have seen to. good idea but needs improvement

I'd be interesting in purchasing a few working used DMDs that have been removed for the incoming up-scaled units if anyone is interested in selling. I have a few early 90's B/W games that could benefit from a transplant . . .

WAT? All upscaling does is smooth out the frame data as it exists. It should be the exact same content as any other rendering method, just solid blobs instead of individual dots.

You need an option for sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Simpsons has some wonky animations in upscaled mode, but in general looks fantastic.
Monster Bash looks amazing upscaled with very few exceptions, IMO.
Creature for whatever reason translates poorly, thus I went back to dots.

I find that it is hard to go back to all that black space around the dots once you have tried the upscaled mode.

Try tiled or 8-bit instead? I've had my CCC on an 8-bit style display since I first mocked it up for the ColorDMD discussion thread. I really like it.

this does not make sense, its just smooths the exact output the game rom sends it.

I can't help you on b/w displays, but I will have an AC/DC display for sale in a few days.

I'm glad my post brought you some laughter, although I didn't think it was so amusing. Yes, what the artist intended with the technology he was working with at the time. Allow me to better explain my sensibilities. Any object reflects the state of technology at the time it was produced. I prefer to preserve a machine in that state for nostalgic and historical reasons. I enjoy seeing any machine as it was made, including the limitations of the technology at the time. It's just what makes me happy. I get a kick out of it. It's not about being right or wrong. If a machine was designed and produced with incandescents, that's how I'll keep it. If with LEDs, that's how I'll keep it. If a dot matrix display that's how I'll keep it. Just because we have digital music now, it doesn't mean we should gut every old jukebox machine and put in a hard drive. It's just my point-of-view. It doesn't have to be yours.

Jack

That's what's lovely about the update, they didn't force you to have it. Don't like it, change modes.

Wow. The videos really help.
Suggestions? If I want to try one which of my games should be first? LOTR, STTNG, or Williams IJ? Looks like TZ is not ready yet.
And don't say all 3 because budget will be for one. Also assume I can move it from one game to another by just changing the operating firmware?

They all look great, but I'd pick between IJ and LOTR personally.

Yes, you can move them, but the mounting hardware is different between the Williams and Stern. So you'd need to get both kinds if you wanted to go from say LOTR to IJ. If you got IJ you could easily try it out on STTNG though, so maybe that's the best one to get first.

Great. Thanks for the advice.

We have a LOTR, still with incandescent bulbs (and no plans on changing it). Given the theme and colors present in the game, the ColorDMD looks *great* in it. Not just great, but well matched.

Sure! And reading my post again, when I said "get both kinds" if I wasn't clear I just meant get both mounting kits, not whole displays etc. It's the same display no matter what, there's just some little differences with how you mount and connect it to a Williams game vs a Stern game, no big deal.

When you get the display it's "generic", will work with any game, but not in full color. You just download the color file from colordmd.com, load it on the display, and 15 seconds later it's set. So if you put it in IJ, and then a month later wanted to swap it to STTNG you'd just swap displays, and load a quick file.

someone posted a pic of the tiled mode over in the CDMD vs SDMD thread and I think that looks quite nice actually

That makes it completely clear. Thank you for clarifying that.