The Sega Saturn NetLink League

Something we never had to worry about until roughly the last 5-6 years. When I bought my first HDTV in 2007, I plugged in my original Xbox and loved the increased color saturation... but something felt off. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, until I saw something about "HD lag" online.

Of course, newer systems like the Xbox 360 and the PS3 do much to alleviate the problem, since the HDTV has to do much less work to scale the image. But that leaves us with limited options for enjoying our older consoles without lag. There are expensive scalers that will upscale composite and RF video somewhat quickly, like the XRGB-3. Maybe you'd prefer to keep a CRT around... but these consume a lot of space and energy.

How do you deal with this problem?

I haven't had to deal with this problem myself, really. All of my SD systems were connected to a CRT, with the exception of my Wii, which I bought a dedicated composite-to-HDMI upscaler for. Although the image wasn't that great, I don't remember having any issues with lag on my 24" 1080p LCD. Mind you, that's a computer monitor, not a TV.

Most computer monitors are less laggy than standard television LCD's, probably because they process the image less than a TV will. I use a 22" monitor both for an external screen for my laptop and I use the HDMI port for the Xbox 360. I have a Component to HDMI transcoder (doesn't upscale or process the image), but that works only with systems that output games in 480P and up... my monitor will only go down to 480P, and not 480i. This set-up seems to be mostly lagless.

Each month I think about getting a new CRT just to stock lol

My setup is hybrid too. I can't stand the impossibility of playing some games, like the light gun ones. The Saturn and Dreamcast must be ready all the time! =P

I experienced this when trying to play Guitar Hero (PS2) on a new HDTV. At first, I chalked it up to rust, but after sucking at 5 straight songs, I looked into it a bit more. Thank goodness I've still keep an old standard television around.