If you grew up playing video games in the ’80s or ’90s, you might have a problem returning to those titles now. Trying to play Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country on your 65-inch 4K TV isn’t quite the same experience as you had during your childhood, especially if you simply plug your old console into your TV.
Sure, technology has advanced significantly since the age of the Super Nintendo, but the truth is, these games still look great. It’s less about how much these titles have aged, and more about the way you’re experiencing them in 2025. Games from this era simply weren’t designed to be played on high-definition displays, whether that’s an enormous TV, or your portable Switch. Nintendo’s most recent update shows why that is.
This week, Nintendo updated the Nintendo Classics app on Switch 2. As part of this update, SNES games now have an updated CRT filter. As the name implies, this filter replicates the experience of displaying the game through a CRT TV, complete with scanlines and interlacing. If you remember what it was like to play games on these types of TVs, the filter is going to bring you back—and show you how these 30-year-old games are really supposed to look.
What’s the deal with scanlines?
Modern TVs are made up of pixels—individual color sources that together can form a picture. CRTs, however, do not have pixels. Instead, CRT displays are made up of horizontal lines, “drawn” one at a time by an internal electron gun firing at the display. (Yes, CRTs are very cool.) The standard allowed for 480 of these lines to be drawn each second. Either half the lines are drawn at a time, alternating between the even-numbered and odd-numbered lines (interlaced video), or half the lines are always blank, while the other half are always active (progressive video).
This is wildly oversimplified, but here’s the upshot: When a console like the SNES is outputting progressive video, you see those blank lines running through the image. These are commonly referred to as scanlines.
This is the display standard game developers were working with at the time, and, as such, their artwork was designed with it in mind. When you play a retro, pixel art-style game on a modern TV, especially if that game has been optimized for a modern system like Switch 2, you’re able to see each individual pixel in that artwork. It’s interesting to see how the art was done, and the game is perfectly playable in this form, but it’s often not how the artists originally intended for that art to be seen.
When that same pixel art is displayed on a CRT, or through a CRT filter, the interlacing blends those pixels. What you end up with is an image that is less sharp, but might actually be more pleasing to the eye. The pixel-perfect image without the filter might look too blocky, but through scanlines, those blocks blend into the image its supposed to represent. As someone who remembers the age of CRTs all too well, the CRT filter just looks so good. Polygon has some good side-by-side examples here if you’d like a visual.
Now, this doesn’t mean these SNES games are unplayable without the filter. The games themselves are upgraded to play on modern consoles and displays, are still look good. This isn’t like plugging a SNES into your 4K TV using composite cables: I’ll take sharp pixel art without the CRT filter on the Switch 2 over that blurry mess any day. If you prefer the sharp look, go for it. But for those of us that want to experience these games closer to how they looked back in the day, the CRT filter is where its at.
How to use the Switch’s CRT filter
To use the CRT filter, you’ll need to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online. From here, open the SNES Classics app, go to settings, and choose “CRT filter.” This is available on both the original Switch and the Switch 2, but Polygon says it looks better on the latter.
The CRT filter has also been an option for Nintendo 64 and GameCube games on Switch 2, for subscribers of Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion pack.
