Playing modern games on a CRT monitor

[Kain]

[Nascar24]

I still have that behemoth Sony sitting on the floor in the room over, haven't turned it on in probably 10 to 12 years.

[twonha]

Not sure how I'm going to judge a CRT panel when I'm watching the videos on a flatscreen anyway. I have only skipped through the video, but are there any shots where they've got the CRT sitting right next to an LCD to at least try and show some of the difference?

[nutcrackr]

I tried this a few years ago when my LCD was in for repairs.

It was BLURRY as hell. I did not like it and would rather a 540p LCD than a 1080p CRT

[Quickstrike]

My NEC FP2141-SB is on its last legs .

The screen turns black when the background isn't a bright white screen. Don't know if it is an easy fix.

Been using a LCD screen for the past few weeks. Miss the CRT.

[SubCog]

I've been getting more into CRTs for retro consoles. I currently have 4, of various sizes. I haven't gone down the retro crt computer monitor route yet (and don't really plan to). Also haven't gone down the RGB/PVM rabbit hole.

[12Bass]

The Sony FW900 is a better gaming monitor than almost any flat panel. LCD is an inferior technology in many ways, particularly motion resolution, black level, and viewing angles. High refresh on CRT trumps pretty much everything else. LCDs are great for static images, web browsing, sort of stuff, but only when used at native resolution; CRTs don't have that limitation....

[acroig]

Originally Posted by 12Bass

High refresh on CRT trumps pretty much everything else.

What is a high refresh on a CRT? 90Hz?

[12Bass]

Originally Posted by acroig

What is a high refresh on a CRT? 90Hz?

Used to run 100Hz on my pair of 21" Trinitrons, or even 120Hz at lower resolutions. No flicker, and much better motion resolution than any LCD, no matter what sort of trickery is happening in the processing. And, importantly, zero input lag. 100Hz on a good CRT beats 144Hz or more on an LCD... those higher rates simply are not needed because CRT technology has always been better for displaying moving images... which is what it was designed for... unlike LCD, which was made for word processing, watches, and other static images.

[Exposed]

Originally Posted by 12Bass

The Sony FW900 is a better gaming monitor than almost any flat panel. LCD is an inferior technology in many ways, particularly motion resolution, black level, and viewing angles. High refresh on CRT trumps pretty much everything else. LCDs are great for static images, web browsing, sort of stuff, but only when used at native resolution; CRTs don't have that limitation....

This hasn't been true for at least 5 years now.

Color/resolution/sharpness/blackness etc.. all belong to 1440p/4k gaming displays now.

CRTs are good for old console and early PC games. Nothing more.


These guys are head over heels about the fact CRTs handle low resolutions better and don't have as much motion blur. But the nonsense about low resolution looking as good as high resolution like 4k is bunk. CRT's don't have pixels, the closer you look at the screen the more scan lines you see. Compare games with 4k texture detail, the CRT isn't going to be able to display those minute details. I can walk up to my 4k 65inch display and pick out minute details in every game, can't do that with a CRT as any up close details are blurred out into scan lines. CRTs have no advantage over modern displays in terms of color either, especially if you have a 10 bit HDR display.


I loved my Viewsonic CRT for the longest time, enjoying games at 1900x1200 resolution back in the Dungeon Seige days. But I wouldn't go back from what I have now, just because CRTs can display low resolutions better without scaling and motion blur.

[12Bass]

Originally Posted by Exposed

This hasn't been true for at least 5 years now.

Color/resolution/sharpness/blackness etc.. all belong to 1440p/4k gaming displays now.

CRTs are good for old console and early PC games. Nothing more.

Did you watch the video?

Have yet to see an LCD with black levels as low as my old Trinitrons. My current display is a Philips 2560x1440 AMVA display with excellent color and contrast ratio, but still not CRT level blacks, and certainly nowhere near CRT motion resolution and lag. OLED obviously wins for blacks, but still has problems with motion. Every display technology has strengths and weaknesses....

[Exposed]

Originally Posted by 12Bass

Did you watch the video?

Have yet to see an LCD with black levels as low as my old Trinitrons. My current display is a Philips 2560x1440 AMVA display with excellent color and contrast ratio, but still not CRT level blacks, and certainly nowhere near CRT motion resolution and lag. OLED obviously wins for blacks, but still has problems with motion. Every display technology has strengths and weaknesses....

Yes I did, and where were the objective tests? Like comparisons of 4k texture detail as I mentioned? Or a color gamut test? Don't tell me 1280x900 looks just as good as 4k when no fine texture detail comparisons were done side by side.

Seems they liked the cinematic look of lower resolution vs higher resolution on CRT.

That's like saying TXAA is the best AA method because of the cinematic look (aka masked blurring, like CRT's) it provides.

I've yet to see any CRT provide the same image quality and color as an HDR enabled game on a high end 10 bit display. Why would anyone want to give up resolution clarity, color, etc.. just to get that cinematic motion look of a CRT at lower resolution? Every display has its strengths and weaknesses but you'll be giving up alot more with CRT rather than the other way around, especially in 2019.

There's no disparity with OLED black levels and if you care that much about motion you'd be running a 144/165hz GSYNC or Freesync display anyways.

[12Bass]

Originally Posted by Exposed

Yes I did, and where were the objective tests? Like comparisons of 4k texture detail as I mentioned? Or a color gamut test? Don't tell me 1280x900 looks just as good as 4k when no fine texture detail comparisons were done side by side.

Seems they liked the cinematic look of lower resolution vs higher resolution on CRT.

That's like saying TXAA is the best AA method because of the cinematic look (aka masked blurring, like CRT's) it provides.

I've yet to see any CRT provide the same image quality and color as an HDR enabled game on a high end 10 bit display. Why would anyone want to give up resolution clarity, color, etc.. just to get that cinematic motion look of a CRT at lower resolution? Every display has its strengths and weaknesses but you'll be giving up alot more with CRT rather than the other way around, especially in 2019.

There's no disparity with OLED black levels and if you care that much about motion you'd be running a 144/165hz GSYNC or Freesync display anyways.

CRT development ended a decade and a half ago... of course CRTs are not going to support the latest standards/resolutions. However, unlike CRT, the claimed LCD resolution/clarity advantage quickly disappears once the image starts moving. Motion resolution has always been a major weakness of the technology, as is input lag, though new monitors are better than older ones. Even plasma was much better with motion (and viewing angle). A lot of investment has been put into making LCD motion resolution as good as CRT and it still isn't there yet... as noted by DF once they made an actual comparison.

Guessing DF will have more testing forthcoming....

[SubCog]

Originally Posted by Exposed

These guys are head over heels about the fact CRTs handle low resolutions better and don't have as much motion blur. But the nonsense about low resolution looking as good as high resolution like 4k is bunk.

There's definitely something to be said for having your content resolution match your display resolution, and the fact that CRT's are flexible that way shouldn't be ignored.

Playing something like Gears of War 2 on xbox360 on a 720p display is glorious... with that setup, it definitely punches above it's weight. It's just not the same when you play it on a 1080p screen.

I have an old 480p projector, and Mario Galaxy looks unbelievable on it.

Sure, both would prolly look better rendered natively at 4k and displayed on a 4k oled. But displaying them at their normal native resolutions on properly matched displays is WAAAAY better than you would expect.

I think any kind of scaling kindof ruins image quality in ways that are difficult to put your finger on.

They also mentioned that they were playing Control on that CRT at a very fast framerate... if I recall correctly, they said it was 160fps. That's a ton of temporal resolution. And I suspect that in their next video on the topic they'll discuss how CRTs might make transitions between frames feel smoother... probably because they're not strobing a backlight? It'll be interesting to see what they say there.

Also, CRT scanlines do have interesting aesthetic effects, and tend to make images look smoother. I think it allows your brain to interpolate details?

In terms of contrast ratios, color gamuts, etc., even a cheap 4k tv nowadays should blow an old CRT out of the water... maybe with the exception of a PVM or something.

[Sundance Kid V2]

Damn, who has space for a 24" CRT on a desk these days ? I remember my 21" took up 2/3 of the desk...

[acroig]

Originally Posted by Sundance Kid V2

Damn, who has space for a 24" CRT on a desk these days ? I remember my 21" took up 2/3 of the desk...

Right on!

[DigitalDemon]

I vividly remember going to CompUSA back in the day, they had their gaming demo PCs on the counters where you bought the higher end components. They had UT99 running on custom rigs with trinitron monitors. I will never forget how smooth they felt, and how I could never replicate it afterwards. No LCD ever came close, even now with my current monitor, no matter how high the refresh rate, its overall motion resolution just isn't enough.

[SubCog]

Originally Posted by DigitalDemon

I vividly remember going to CompUSA back in the day, they had their gaming demo PCs on the counters where you bought the higher end components. They had UT99 running on custom rigs with trinitron monitors. I will never forget how smooth they felt, and how I could never replicate it afterwards. No LCD ever came close, even now with my current monitor, no matter how high the refresh rate, its overall motion resolution just isn't enough.

I remember the Oculus guys were experimenting with different ways to strobe the backlights on lcd monitors, and found solutions to dramatically reduce flicker and enhance the sense of motion. I'm not sure this will ever match a CRT, but clearly there's things that can be done to improve it.

[Athena]

People buy low quality LCDs and say wow my old CRTS were awesome. I have not skimped on my screens in years and have not looked back. I have awesome black levels with full 30 bit colors G-Sync with 120 refresh and eye popping NITS. Yes it cost some dollars but my CRTS back in the day cost a lot as well as I did not skimp on those at all. Granted my LCDs did not look his good till a couple years ago when this kind of tech come out and into my price range. But it is here. The day of CRTs being universally better are gone.
One thing I would say how ever is most people I know do not actually know how to shop for LCDs.

[jimjobob]

Originally Posted by Athena

People buy low quality LCDs and say wow my old CRTS were awesome. I have not skimped on my screens in years and have not looked back. I have awesome black levels with full 30 bit colors G-Sync with 120 refresh and eye popping NITS. Yes it cost some dollars but my CRTS back in the day cost a lot as well as I did not skimp on those at all. Granted my LCDs did not look his good till a couple years ago when this kind of tech come out and into my price range. But it is here. The day of CRTs being universally better are gone.
One thing I would say how ever is most people I know do not actually know how to shop for LCDs.

No CRT that I've seen would even come close to the IQ of my current monitor. They also have pretty decent upscalers that would do a good job bringing those older resolutions up to that of today's displays for retro consoles.

[Drexion]

Coming down to the end of CRTs popularity, just before the rise of flat panels, a couple manufacturers were making 24"-27" widescreen (16:9) CRTs.

You needed to look like this guy to move them around.


That alone is reason enough that flat panels won the war.

[metroidfox]

Originally Posted by Athena

People buy low quality LCDs and say wow my old CRTS were awesome. I have not skimped on my screens in years and have not looked back. I have awesome black levels with full 30 bit colors G-Sync with 120 refresh and eye popping NITS. Yes it cost some dollars but my CRTS back in the day cost a lot as well as I did not skimp on those at all. Granted my LCDs did not look his good till a couple years ago when this kind of tech come out and into my price range. But it is here. The day of CRTs being universally better are gone.
One thing I would say how ever is most people I know do not actually know how to shop for LCDs.

There is no way you actually have 30 bits of colour. The best HDR TVs/Sony's $80000 reference monitor can't even do 12-bit (Rec2020) fully yet.


https://pro.sony/en_SI/products/broa...bvm-hx310-v1.1
"Note: BVM‑HX310 V1.1 does not cover the ITU-R BT.2020, S-Gamut/S-Gamut3 and S-Gamut3.cine colour space in full."

Even the OLED (i.e. lower end one) can't do it: https://pro.sony/en_SI/products/broa...Block-pvm-x550
"* The PVM-X550 does not conform in full to the DCI-P3 or BT.2020 colour space."


Unlike consumer grade stuff, these things have truthful ratings. 10-bit all the way through.




^ either way, these things will crush CRTs in all but maybe motion performance.

[Bitey]

CRT's are better but manufacturing and transportation costs are why we have LCD's..etc

10 years for LCD to get "comparable" and that is only so because they stopped development for CRT tech 10 years ago.

I had a 22" mitsubishi 2070 sb(trinitron licensed from sony ) over its lifetime I used it with 3d glasses (200HZ), gaming with actual zero input lag and being able to lower resolution without it going to a smudgy scaled mess. Plus proper sRGB colour profile/contrast AND high refresh rate.

Like they said in the video... how much tech have they thrown at LCD's to compensate for it short comings.
Look at the best a LCD's and check their real "grey to grey" time minus all the crap they have to use to make it appear like LCD's can actually do blur free high refresh rate.(there is a real physical limit to LCD pixel switching speed)

Only real limit that CRT's hit was in dpi as they were close to physical limits of screen masks, well that and size as the cost of over 22" screens went up exponentially.

I miss CRT's but I know large screen CRT's were never going to be affordable like LCD's etc are today.

And I also had a wide screen CRT TV which I bought why they were still available...

I know LCD's/OLEDS..etc are good enough for me now. But you still need an expensive flat panel screen to get the same contrast/colour/saturation as the old cheap CRT's.

[Exposed]

Again, show me a texture quality image comparison using 4k textures. 4k OLED vs CRT.

Resolution, sharpness, clarity, wide color gamut all are important for me for gaming. I want to be able to see fine intricate details and fantastic color on a 4k display. CRT's can't provide that. I'll take 60fps locked at 4k vs 160fps at 720p or 1080p if I get a breathtakingly more beautiful, colorful, sharp image with excellent fine detail.

CRT's don't even have an advantage with blacks anymore. That advantage is long gone for years now. Only those with cheap LCD's will say a CRT still has an advantage with blacks, because in those cases it probably actually does. My Samsung S10 phone display has better black levels than a CRT.

About all a CRT has now is motion in low resolution. And that advantage is mitigated with any high end, high refresh display.

All a CRT is good for is retro gaming, especially side scrollers.

[12Bass]

Examples of LCDs with better-than-CRT blacks? My Philips AMVA panel has better than average contrast ratio and black level, but still nowhere near CRT, and TN and IPS are worse. With CRT, you can basically dial the blacks down to invisible. Only OLED has true blacks, IME. And, again, all that 4K detail turns into mush on LCD as soon as the image is in motion. I doubt LCD will ever get close to CRT for motion resolution... but there are new technologies that will. A FW900 is hardly a low resolution monitor.

[DeathKnight]

lol at people gushing over small CRT's in this day and age

Meanwhile I've been gaming at 42"+ for over a decade and haven't looked back.

CRT's may still be good at some things but the cons far outweigh the positives in more weighs than one.

[jimjobob]

Originally Posted by 12Bass

Examples of LCDs with better-than-CRT blacks? My Philips AMVA panel has better than average contrast ratio and black level, but still nowhere near CRT, and TN and IPS are worse. With CRT, you can basically dial the blacks down to invisible. Only OLED has true blacks, IME. And, again, all that 4K detail turns into mush on LCD as soon as the image is in motion. I doubt LCD will ever get close to CRT for motion resolution... but there are new technologies that will. A FW900 is hardly a low resolution monitor.

Predator X27

[metroidfox]

Originally Posted by 12Bass

Examples of LCDs with better-than-CRT blacks? My Philips AMVA panel has better than average contrast ratio and black level, but still nowhere near CRT, and TN and IPS are worse. With CRT, you can basically dial the blacks down to invisible. Only OLED has true blacks, IME. And, again, all that 4K detail turns into mush on LCD as soon as the image is in motion. I doubt LCD will ever get close to CRT for motion resolution... but there are new technologies that will. A FW900 is hardly a low resolution monitor.

Most good HDR TVs (albeit with dimming) probably beat CRTs at this point.

Also this thing: https://www.apple.com/ca/pro-display-xdr/
1000000:1 is the static contrast ratio on that thing. It dims per pixel.

[Meteor_of_War]

I still have an old Sony Trinitron 4:3 CRT (mfg date around 2002) that I use for my retro consoles that I don't have HD mods or HD clone consoles for. It looks great, and I much prefer playing them on the CRT. Those old consoles and games were designed for CRTs with scanlines so its just the ideal way to play them.

But I don't think I'd want to play current games on a CRT that were designed for modern flat panel HDTVs with no scanlines. The pixel art in retro games were designed with scanlines in mind, but modern games are designed for no scanlines and I think they would look odd with the scanlines. Maybe it would give them a retro aesthetic and that could be seen as a novelty to some, but its just not the way they were intended to be.

Modern TVs have really come a long way and I think at least to my eyes they have finally surpassed CRTs. Hell, even the Pioneer and Panasonic plasmas of the early 2000's had CRTs beat in most areas. Not to mention the fact they take up much less space being flat panel, which is a HUGE advantage to most people. My old 27" Trinitron takes up a big footprint in the room and is heavier than flat panels that are more than double the size.

Can't beat the nostalgia though:

[Meteor_of_War]

OK I posted before watching the video. I guess there is something to be said about running modern games at lower resolutions (1024x768) and being able to lock it at high refresh rates and max all graphics features without needing a lot of GPU power. That, and without the inferior drawbacks of LCD technology (like motion resolution blur). Of course you could always get yourself the best possible flat panel monitor but I think the point of this was to not need to spend tons of money on the newest best monitor and just enjoy the fully matured CRT tech that can be had now for cheap.

All that said, its cool but I think I'd still rather have a flat panel on my desk.