> Yes, the original game devs were limited by the tech of the time, so they designed > their graphics to look as good as they could on a CRT. HQ filters look muddy and > destroy fine detail and I'm all about going for as authentic an experience (to the > original arcade cabs) as possible.
I programmed a commercial SNES game (and assisted with a few others) and we had a DOS TSR (terminate and stay resident) that would copy the current DeluxePaint II screen into an attached SNES or Genesis devkit and show it on the target system in real NTSC color. Hence my stance that CRT simulation gets you closest to the intended experience.
HQ and SuperEagle filters are universally loathed by the artists I know who worked on those old games. They don't consider having worked around the limitations to have been a cap on what they would've done, they consider it to be working within the medium. It's like doing real-world artwork in watercolor vs. pencil vs. charcoal vs. oils vs acrylic. Each one has different limitations; it doesn't mean that colorizing a pencil drawing means you're magically rescuing the artist's true intentions.