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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, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:45AM (7 children)
LCDs give much better resolution, which makes it easier to see the other guy and start shooting before he does the same. Not to mention they're a lot bigger and weigh a lot less than CRTs.
CSB: Back in, jeez, '97? I was a consultant and went to work for, jeez, General Instrument? They were big in HDTV, satellite TV, and MPEG. They had an HDTV that I think was maybe 36" diagonal. It was on a cart, weighed something like 800 lbs, and took it's own power outlet. It cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Now I'm watching Jeapardy on a 55" flatscreen I paid maybe $400 for .
I came. I saw. I forgot why I came.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:54AM
"Jeez" "jeez" "jeez"
"I'm a faggot white boy"
"I oppose men marrying female children"
"Jeez" "Jeez" "jeez"
"#canclestallman"
"Jeez"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @10:35AM (4 children)
> LCDs give much better resolution
What? Once I had the dough my Sony Trinitrons were 2400x1600 and in the late aughts I got a secondhand Sony that was 3200x2400, and included connections on the back for some kind of professional visual graphics, which looked like the old locking network plugs.
I got headaches from the whine of CRTs running under 80Hz or 85Hz, and I think I had to upgrade my video card to handle the big one. That thing must've weighed 40kg. It bowed the first cheap table I had it on. I used a colour calibration tool (had some friends who did graphic design and borrowed one a few times) and it didn't meaningfully drift. That thing was a total delight, and I'm sad I had to get rid of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViewSonic [wikipedia.org] lists
I can't find a single 3200x2400 LCD, and to get 1600 vertical I have to go to 5k HD, and pay literally thousands. Ridiculous.
So, no, LCDs do not give better resolution,
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:53PM (1 child)
I still toy with the idea of picking up an IBM T221 LCD. So much vertical real estate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:27PM
I toyed with the idea for years, but never pulled the trigger. Partly because the refresh rate was low - which is fine for what it was built for, but not good for gaming or video. The other reason is to get the resolution back when it was built, it actually acts as several smaller monitors - to your PC it looks like several separate monitors (with actual separate physical connections) and you span your desktop across them and the screen stitches it all together. The original monitors actually came with their own special graphics card to do all of this, which as you might imagine is AGP. Though since the cables running to the monitor are just a bunch of DVI connections you can make more modern graphics cards work with it. Maybe it's not as big of a problem but I'm guessing many games wouldn't play nice with that.
I also considered buying an IBM T210, which was a much more conventional screen sporting a 21" 4:3 size, 2048x1536 resolution, and can be driven by most any graphics card with a DVI port. But these screens seem to very rare on the second-hand market (much more rare than the T220/T221), long out of production, and I never found the right one.
Eventually I bought a 4K monitor instead. Still doesn't have the resolution of the T220/T221 but it's close
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:39AM
Sure, but there's a zillion 3840x2160 LCDs, that's 20% wider and 10% shorter, so still 8% more pixels.
WQXGA is 2560x1600, but to be fair QHD (2560x1440) has replaced them; I don't think you can buy a new WQXGA monitor any more, so we'll say it doesn't count.
"4k" is 3840x2160, that's way over 1600, and absolutely ubiquitous.
Oh [amazon.com], really? [amazon.com]
8% more pixels than even your cadillac CRT, and you can find prices like this any time. i.e. you don't have to catch when someone is dumping obsolete tech for pennies on the dollar.
(Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Sunday October 13 2019, @09:13AM
Actually, to get 1600 vertical, you can just take a Full HD monitor and put it sideways. Of course you'll get less horizontal pixels, but you didn't specify those.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by NateMich on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:42PM
I actually owned a Zenith 36" HDTV that was the largest CRT I've ever seen. I'm not going to exaggerate with some bullshit number like you did, but it really did weigh 120 lbs. I know this because I couldn't really move it myself, given it's size and weight. I remember trying, and it was extremely awkward and likely to tip forward onto it's face.
I read on the back, where it said in fairly large print: "120 lbs".
Anyway, something about CRTs that people maybe don't remember is the incredible depth needed for a large screen, and when you're talking about a 36" screen, the damn thing needed to be a long way from the wall which made my entertainment center look a little odd.
In 2001 or 2002 when I bought it, it had a far better picture than the LCD TVs on display at the time and actually cost less. Within about 5 years it was clear that it's time had come and gone. I'm glad that it is no longer mine.
I had to move it twice, but I left it when we sold the house it was in about 10 years ago.