Retrotink 4k Review

[David S_rpr1z3 Gauthier]

 

 

 

Retro Video Games and Consoles are back and bigger than ever but it’s hard to play them on your 4k OLED TVs. The Retrotink 4k might solve that problem, and we’re going to test if you even need to keep your CRTs. Trinitron? More like Trini-GONE! This UHD scaler has HDR, 120hz, advanced phosphor emulation and an HDMI input. But is it worth adding to your collection?

 

Check out the RetroTINK-4K: https://lmg.gg/Ewj2B Check out the AVPro Edge 8k 8x8 HDMI Matrix Switcher: https://lmg.gg/diYKK Check out the Ultimate MiSTer PRO: https://lmg.gg/YOUTu Check out the RetroTINK 5X-Pro: https://lmg.gg/VHNPs Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

 

[Zodiark1593]

For anything older than PS2, I rely pretty heavily on retroarch with the CRT Royale shader. Gets me about 90% of the way there. Would love to use this scaler with my PS2 though. 
 

Can we get a retro game livestream? Maybe some og Silent Hill with a phosphor shader?

[BaidDSB]

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

 

 

[LMGcommunity]

4 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

 

 

Games don't age. If they're fun, then they're fun

[BaidDSB]

5 minutes ago, LMGcommunity said:

Games don't age. If they're fun, then they're fun

sure, but if you only play retro games, then it just means you want to keep living in a time long gone

 

and its time to come back to reality.

I mean, one of my first games i played when i became a PC gamer is Most wanted 2005. its still one of my favorite games. but the last i played it was ... 7-8 years ago.

cant keep living in 2005, even if i wanted to.

[Middcore]

6 minutes ago, LMGcommunity said:

Games don't age. If they're fun, then they're fun

 

Replace "games" with almost any other form of media in this "sToP lIvInG iN tHe pAsT" take it becomes apparent immediately how vapid and philistinic it is. 

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, BaidDSB said:

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

Stop reading classic books and living in the past
stop watching classic movies and living in the past
stop listening to old music and living in the past
Stop having media literacy and living in the past

retro tink 4k being 750 was a knife in my heart
I have Cyclone V sitting here next to me but it doesn't have all the IO or that amazing software. But its the first time I have felt a promising future for retro gaming being faithful without the need for keeping the old hardware that isnt being made anymore working. 

[marcgii]

It's a shame they couldn't include 4k 120 support.  It would have had the benefit of lower latency and great CRT filters.  

[heIly]

i got so very utterly confused

 

 

i got some extension that adds cats to thumbnails last night that i forgot entirely about

Edited January 18 by heIly
more context

[geo3]

Stupid click bait nonsense. 

[Tideroo]

I missed that genuine happiness on Linus face, it's great to see it again! Hopefully the inventory guys won't notice the tink 4k missing from the shelves

[sharedknowledge]

It has been a while since I posted on here. Loved the video, fascinating niche product.

Great content always rules, regardless of how old it is. e.g. 12 Angry Men is a damn old film (1957) - yet I am so glad someone took the time to upscale it up to 2160p. Such a great movie.

In a similar way, I'm very glad someone took the time to develop a solution to enjoy retro games in modern hardware.

 

There's an old video of Linus trying a relatively old Hot Wheels computer, and his kids disregard the quality of video and just enjoy the content. And he makes a remark about it

 

Thank you for making a video about this! And I don't even game.

 

[cooky560]

16 hours ago, BaidDSB said:

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

 

 

I don't understand this line of thought. It's perfectly acceptable for me to love music from the 1960s, so why not games from the 90s. I thought the device is an interesting way of keeping these games playable, without buying them again digitally every time a new console comes out

[naylor2006]

3 hours ago, cooky560 said:

I don't understand this line of thought. It's perfectly acceptable for me to love music from the 1960s, so why not games from the 90s. I thought the device is an interesting way of keeping these games playable, without buying them again digitally every time a new console comes out

I have a RetroTink 2x-Pro, I am wondering if there is a ton of settings I can screw around with to improve it, I use the default smoothing looks lovely.

 

For us and my uni friends it allows us to all meet up once a year and play N64 Mario Kart like we used to for hours but with HDMI one whatever TV is there in the accommodation. Im not at home playing N64 but this little box is such a cool way to let us reminisce. Slightly different use case I guess to being an enthusiast for retro gaming, but a fantastic tool none the less.

[FlyingPotato_is_taken]

Hot take:

Old games where fun.

Modern games are MBA optimized money printer.

 

 

Maybe I am just getting old: Games released around 2000 are now nearly 25 years old. Even Wii Mario cart was released 16 years ago in 2008.

[heIly]

a good game is a good game forever, there's no reason to not play them.

 

thinking just because a game is old it must not be worth playing is one of the dumbest takes on the planet. 

[MarkPol88]

21 hours ago, BaidDSB said:

I mean, one of my first games i played when i became a PC gamer is Most wanted 2005. its still one of my favorite games. but the last i played it was ... 7-8 years ago.

What should I play then if every NFS after that is worse IMO? And developer openly laughed about remake/remaster?

And - news flash - 2005 is not much a "retro" per se, so I think reviewed product is just not for you.

[BaidDSB]

Everyone replying to me is making a crucial mistake.

 

Im NOT SAYING dont play retro games at all.

 

Im saying stop making retro anything [games, music, movies, books anything] your identity. Like there's people [doesnt emily do this too?] who ONLY play retro games, ONLY listen to OLD music, ONLY sees old movies..

 

These are the people i think refuse to live in today world and seem to think everything today is shit and everything in the olden days days is good. I get it, we all miss our childhood, we miss the things we played,heard,ate,saw, but at some point we have to leave that behind.

 

There's two types of of retro gamers. Those who play casually and plays retro games alongside everything else, and people who makes it their everything.

 

The former at max uses a emulator and is satisfied with that. The later group goes overboard with hoarding 25 year old TVs and using stuff like this.  I have a problem with the later.

 

I mean, if you only wanted to play retro games, emulator is sufficient. But adding everything from scanlines to using CRTs to these upscalers, at that point its evident they want to live in the old ways.

 

And THAT is the group i have a problem with. That is unhealthy.

[MarkPol88]

22 hours ago, BaidDSB said:

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

Everyone replying to me is making a crucial mistake.

 

Im NOT SAYING dont play retro games at all.

Be more clear next time then.

[tkitch]

23 hours ago, BaidDSB said:

or, here's a crazy idea...

 

stop living 30 years back and stop playing these ancient games?

 

45 minutes ago, BaidDSB said:

Im NOT SAYING dont play retro games at all.

"Stop Playing these ancient games!"

"I never said don't play them at all!"

Well, you kinda sorta directly did.  Maybe that wasn't your intention, but it certainly is exactly what you said.

[Dedayog]

19 hours ago, heIly said:

i got so very utterly confused

 

 

i got some extension that adds cats to thumbnails last night that i forgot entirely about

I'm more "Why?" about that than anything else.

 

 

[BaidDSB]

32 minutes ago, tkitch said:

 

"Stop Playing these ancient games!"

"I never said don't play them at all!"

Well, you kinda sorta directly did.  Maybe that wasn't your intention, but it certainly is exactly what you said.

yeah probably should have made an edit making my stance more clear.

[tikker]

Apart from my wallet not liking the price tag this looks great. I should still have a CRT stashed away somewhere for if I ever would want to hook up the good ol' SNES again, but it looks like I no longer have to.

  

1 hour ago, BaidDSB said:

Everyone replying to me is making a crucial mistake.

 

Im NOT SAYING dont play retro games at all.

 

Im saying stop making retro anything [games, music, movies, books anything] your identity. Like there's people [doesnt emily do this too?] who ONLY play retro games, ONLY listen to OLD music, ONLY sees old movies..

 

These are the people i think refuse to live in today world and seem to think everything today is shit and everything in the olden days days is good. I get it, we all miss our childhood, we miss the things we played,heard,ate,saw, but at some point we have to leave that behind.

Nobody is talking about making it their identity? I think you may have missed a vital point of this video and the retro gaming aims in general besides just keeping  old games available to play. The goal of the device is to reproduce the old games in a way that is faithful to how they would be experience in their time (see the point at the end).

1 hour ago, BaidDSB said:

There's two types of of retro gamers. Those who play casually and plays retro games alongside everything else, and people who makes it their everything.

The former at max uses a emulator and is satisfied with that. The later group goes overboard with hoarding 25 year old TVs and using stuff like this.  I have a problem with the later.

You know that it is not as black and white as posed here. Of course nostalgia will play into it, but enthusiasts exist everywhere. N.B. we are on a forum that worries themselves with the unbearing struggles of having to choose between buying a 4080 now or waiting a few months to see if a 4080 Ti will drop; an issue that probably 99% of people could not care less about. All of us would be in your second group of people. The way you have phrased this makes you sound just as obsessed with making "living in today's world" your identiy as you accuse retro gamers of for wanting to faithfully reproduce the CRT era. Linus even makes the exact point that now there seems to be little reason to still hold on to CRT's image-quality wise as they are far past their prime and since new ones aren't produced anymore for a while now.

1 hour ago, BaidDSB said:

I mean, if you only wanted to play retro games, emulator is sufficient. But adding everything from scanlines to using CRTs to these upscalers, at that point its evident they want to live in the old ways.

Why, what is your definition of "sufficient"? As the video goes to show, the CRT era games have a specific look to them is not trivially replicated by not-a-CRT. Reproducing that look is a valid reason on its own. Emulators exists because of your first reason: first and foremost people want to play retro games. That doesn't mean you are not allowed to chase the dream of actually reproducing what it would have looked like. If you start entering the territory where, say, sprites were specifically designed with the workings and shortcomings of a CRT in mind you can say that if you don't properly emulate what a CRT would look like then you are not seeing the game as it was intended to be seen.

[Tideroo]

3 hours ago, BaidDSB said:

Everyone replying to me is making a crucial mistake.

 

Im NOT SAYING dont play retro games at all.

 

Im saying stop making retro anything [games, music, movies, books anything] your identity. Like there's people [doesnt emily do this too?] who ONLY play retro games, ONLY listen to OLD music, ONLY sees old movies..

 

These are the people i think refuse to live in today world and seem to think everything today is shit and everything in the olden days days is good. I get it, we all miss our childhood, we miss the things we played,heard,ate,saw, but at some point we have to leave that behind.

 

There's two types of of retro gamers. Those who play casually and plays retro games alongside everything else, and people who makes it their everything.

 

The former at max uses a emulator and is satisfied with that. The later group goes overboard with hoarding 25 year old TVs and using stuff like this.  I have a problem with the later.

 

I mean, if you only wanted to play retro games, emulator is sufficient. But adding everything from scanlines to using CRTs to these upscalers, at that point its evident they want to live in the old ways.

 

And THAT is the group i have a problem with. That is unhealthy.

 

I don't really see how not listening/playing/watching modern content makes you stuck in the past?  I personally am what most would consider as an "early Gen-Z" (1998) yet I often prefer movies and musics made before I was even born (from the 40s to early 2000s), because the modern approach to it often displeases me. That's not nostalgia, that's just my tastes, and I don't find it illogical that many people prefer it that way too. And of course the same applies to games (and everything else actually, even niche topics like architecture or paintings).

 

As for being wrong because I use scanlines and other things on emulators I gotta disagree because again, it depends on what you're looking for and what your tastes are. I prefer what the Tink4K offers because that's the most accurate experience possible to what players had when the game got released and that's what I am looking for. I dont plan on using it, but I definitely don't play on emulators to have something crystal-clear with vibrant colors and near-perfect black, I only do it because of its ease of use. (I played retro games on a CRT screen as a child so you may argue I'm biased or simply "stuck in the past", but that's how I see it).

 

There's no real reason to deny that possibility for people who wanna use their own consoles instead of "mere" emulators. Yes it's pricey, yes it's a niche, but damn is it useful for those who are looking for this specific kind of experience. Heck, it's even better than actual CRTs just like Linus showed it in the video ! 

[Required]

That old CRT are ssssooooooo loud!
I dont misst them at all! Since I switch to a Flatscreen my Headache is gone away.