After being incredibly impressed with Mike Chi's RetroTink-5X (both Nick and Darran own one) the team is now looking forward to the incoming RetroTink 4K. Creator Mike Chi explains how it has all come together.

Why make an upscaler that targets 4K?

I think there's really two things... [sharp pixels and CRT simulation]. One of the big things is, you have optimal sampling, but you never quite get the right proportions, but with a 4K you can use linear scale directly from the console to 4K and basically get all that at once. So that's the sharp pixel side. The other thing is at 4K you have a lot more pixels to work with for CRT simulation. So you can create not only scanlines, but CRT shadow masks and aperture grills at 4K, which look a lot better than 1080p because you have more detail to work with.

How long has the RetroTink 4K taken you to create?

I think I started at the beginning of last year. So, if you add everything up I would say probably about a year and a half of development time. But you have to keep in mind that a lot of this is building on stuff that was done for the 5X... So if you think about it that way then...