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We Played Modern Games on a CRT Monitor - and the Results are Phenomenal :
It's true. Running modern games on a vintage CRT monitor produces absolutely outstanding results - subjectively superior to anything from the LCD era, up to and including the latest OLED displays. Best suited for PC players, getting an optimal CRT set-up isn't easy, and prices vary dramatically, but the results can be simply phenomenal.
The advantages of CRT technology over modern flat panels are well-documented. CRTs do not operate from a fixed pixel grid in the way an LCD does - instead three 'guns' beam light directly onto the tube. So there's no upscaling blur and no need to run at any specific native resolution as such. On lower resolutions, you may notice 'scan lines' more readily, but the fact is that even lower resolution game outputs like 1024x768 or 1280x960 can look wonderful. Of course, higher-end CRTs can input and process higher resolutions, but the main takeaway here is that liberation from a set native resolution is a gamechanger - why spend so many GPU resources on the amount of pixels drawn when you can concentrate on quality instead without having to worry about upscale blurring?
Are there any Soylentils here who still use a CRT for gaming? If I could just find a CRT with a 65-inch diagonal, and a table that could support the weight...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:40AM (22 children)
First of all, games are like gambling and tobacco, but if I were foolish enough to indulge...
I lived in that era. I remember what it was really like. CRTs are hot, bulky, heavy, and dusty. They shoot X-rays at you. They give off a high-pitched whine that tortures people with young ears. The blur is directional, so for example the vertical and horizontal lines of the "+" symbol are not the same darkness.
I remember getting headaches because the text on my screen would wiggle. I eventually figured out that this happened when the laundry equipment was running. Imagine everything on the screen vibrating by a pixel or two, except they weren't really pixels because it was analog.
I gladly spent $2500, equivalent to $3700 in 2019 dollars, to get a glorious 22" 1600x1024 LCD with a digital connector. Visitors would gawk at it like it was science fiction fantasy.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:58AM (11 children)
Uh, no they don't. At least not enough to be concerned about. If you are that paranoid about that sort of thing, you probably never step outside or fly on an airplane.
The better ones from the late 1990s and 200x's usually didn't unless there was a malfunction. It seems like you probably had some cheap third rate CRT monitor, and that was unfortunate.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:13AM (5 children)
Yes, they do. You can prove the existence of the x-rays by using math, which is not a neutral subject.
Looking at math as "neutral" subject really harmed my heart. As a young adult, I began wanting mathematical "proof" of God's existence. I'd been taught, ever so subtly, to trust _math_ and _man_, rather than realizing that math's very existence testified to a Creator.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:19AM
Sounds like you took one too many x-ray photons in the brain. Better get that checked out.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:55AM (1 child)
Oh good grief, mathematical Platonism? I thought that died out after people finished the 100-level philosophy courses and put the bong down...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @12:22PM
Nobody puts the bong /down/ after the 100-level philosophy courses. Unless they're picking a needle up...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:00PM
Then clearly the problem is that you exist in a universe where such math is possible. Better move to one where that isn't so.
Anything other problems the internet can fix while you're still here?
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:02PM
What little xrays come from a CRT usually come out of the back. All that leaded glass (remember how heavy they are) protects you while viewing from the front. The later ones even more so, as to make a flat CRT the glass has to be even thicker.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:15AM (4 children)
OMG, some guy just admitted CRTs do in fact shoot x-rays at us! Teach the controversy!
(Score: 2, Informative) by RandomFactor on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:42AM (3 children)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787304/ [nih.gov]
https://emfacademy.com/computer-monitor-radiation-everything-you-need-to-know/ [emfacademy.com]
In summary, yes CRTs, particularly those manufactured prior to around 2001, leaked Xrays and potentially enough to cause actual harm. I remember monitors being sold as low emission for a while in the early 2000s. Of course, once companies figured out LCD monitors paid for themselves in power savings they went away in relatively short order.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday October 12 2019, @12:11PM
You are sure these are not just FUD pieces designed to sell LCD monitors?
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:13AM (1 child)
A cousin of mine worked for a lab in which they tested the radiation emitted by products the company was designing. I'm not privy to information about exactly what products he was testing, but he worked in a division that was working on the about to explode (not literally of course) home and business PC market. Anyway, we shared an apartment. I worked evenings, so I was home during the day. I listened to college radio stations of which we lived at the farthest extent of their range. He would frequently come home for lunch, and as soon as he walked in the door reception for the radio stations was obliterated by static. Reception would resume when he went back to work. Thankfully, he only worked in that department a short time, but I have to wonder what damage it did to him.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @07:33AM
Whatever it was it wasn't x-rays. They are not persistent. You could x-ray someone into a puddle of goo on the floor and as soon as you turned off the machine the radio would work fine. If he was doing neutron analysis and emitting that much induced radiation he is either dead or a superhero now.
Did his vehicle have an electric fan that started up after he turned off the engine? Small electric motors are great static generators.
Or maybe he just didn't like your choice of station and built a little static generator.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Saturday October 12 2019, @06:51AM (3 children)
lol I got CRTs from 7 to 21 inches of all kinds, shit, almost trinitron and trinitron, green phosphors, mono, color, never one interference with electrical motors nearby. Small kitchen maybe?
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 13 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)
My first color CRT did not like my color TV very much, and they perforce shared a shelf. I had to put a chunk of sheet steel between 'em to stop the rainbow glowies on the CRT.
However, didn't bother the Herc mono CRT at all, and it was right below the TV.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 13 2019, @09:02AM (1 child)
Magnetic fields change the trajectory of the electrons. With monochrome CRTs, that just causes a distortion of the image, and whatever fields came from your TV were probably small enough to make those distortions non-noticeable.
Colour CRTs, however, have phosphors for different colours close to each other (close enough that their colours blend to a single mixed colour in your perception), thus already a slight distortion causes the electrons to hit the wrong phosphor, and thus causes very visible colour changes.
I suspect the culprit were the speakers in your TV, as speakers contain permanent magnets. Since the speakers are typically on the side of the screen, it also gives a second reason why the mono CRT below the screen was less affected than the colour CRT on its side: On the side, the fields are stronger. Indeed, if it's a stereo TV, the fields of both speakers may even partially cancel out below, while they add up on the side.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:54PM
Good info, thanks. TV was old enough to not be stereo (1975ish, large 'portable'), and the speaker was on the far side away from the color CRT, under the controls (was actually closer to the mono CRT which was directly under that). But the TV had a pretty good speaker, so wouldn't be surprised if the magnet was big enough to have an influence. The color CRT was a 15" which at the time was still pretty newfangled in the consumer market.
Without the metal barrier, the color CRT also 'whined' loud enough to notice.
Didn't have much space so they had no choice but to be crammed together like that. Sheet metal to the rescue!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:54AM
While having never spent maybe $100 on an UPS, or even $10 on a stabilizer, and exposing your supposed stupid-monkey purchase to the same electricity spikes? I claim bullshit.
And sockpuppetry as the source of "+4".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:04AM (4 children)
A lot depends on the CRT quality, which in turn depended on the price you were willing to pay. I used top-of-the-line Viewsonics for many years. No vibration, incredibly sharp, I could run at 2048x1536 resolution - which was almost unheard of in the day.
Today's LCD panels? A fraction of the price, and they are at least as good. Sure, you have to set them to your preferences (brightness, contract, temperature, etc.), but you had to do the same with the CRTs.
I threw away all my CRTs years ago, along with my vinyl records. Technology progresses.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:58PM
I wonder how many low back disk herniations have been avoided by the move away from CRTs and vinyl. I got rid of my records in 1992 in preparation for a cross country move. In the mid 2000s I got rid of the CRTs. In both cases, I saved an enormous amount of dead weight and would never go back. I think the nostalgia for this stuff, comes largely (not completely of course) from people who didn't have to live with these things on a daily basis.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:42PM (1 child)
You know one thing that CRTs excelled at compared to today's LCD? They had knobs. It was a lot easier to adjust. Otherwise, I'm totally with you. I prefer LCDs overall.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:57PM
Knobs. KNOBS! Geez yes. Gimme a damn knob, or button, enough with the crappy onscreen controls already!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday October 13 2019, @03:31AM
I also became a ViewSonic bigot -- sharper picture and better color. Never had one that would do 2048x1536, tho -- do you remember which model?
My eyes still find a CRT more restful, but anymore it's not worth the space or the bother, so ... flatscreens.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.