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posted by martyb on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:20AM   Printer-friendly
from the for-some-values-of-phenomenal dept.

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...


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:03AM (5 children)

    by looorg (578) on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:03AM (#906160)

    Is someone even manufacturing crt-monitors today?

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:09AM (4 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:09AM (#906164) Journal

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8BVTHxc4LM [youtube.com]

    Video in TFA used the Sony FW900 from 2003.

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:53AM (3 children)

      by looorg (578) on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:53AM (#906181)

      yes, but that is not what i wanted to know. is there some company out there still making them to fill some niche market, which probably isnt gaming related.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:04AM (2 children)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:04AM (#906189) Journal

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube#21st_century_usage [wikipedia.org]
        https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1080821-any-place-to-buy-new-crt-monitors/ [neowin.net]
        https://www.thomaselectronics.com/faq/ [thomaselectronics.com]

        If CRT desktop monitors aren't dead, they're close to it.

        But I bet somebody with enough money or a Kickstarter could go to that Thomas Electronics company and get a "modern" CRT made, with all the new ports and maybe some design enhancements. Judging by TFA, there would be a slight demand for it.

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        • (Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:02PM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:02PM (#906321) Journal

          Just market them as “videophile equipment” and I'm sure you'll find a market. It's a tube, after all!

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:00PM

          by toddestan (4982) on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:00PM (#906381)

          I'm guessing what few are still produced are for things like the top picture in the last link - highly specialized things like the avionics display in an aircraft. Given the high cost and expense of certifying something like an avionics package along with requirements from things like the military/government for supplying the exact same thing for decades unchanged, it's probably easier to keep producing CRT-based equipment designed 20 years ago rather than going to all the trouble of redesigning it around something else.

          The big problem I would see for standard CRT monitors/televisions is that you would have to compete with the used market, where the retail value of most any CRT, including what were very expensive CRTs in their day, hovers around $0. It kind of pained me to see things like high end, perfectly functional Sony Trinitron CRTs getting binned, but no one wanted them and you really couldn't even give them away. I squirreled away a few myself, though I don't really know what I am going to do with them and they just take up space. My latest graphics card can't even drive them without some kind of Displayport to VGA adapter which I don't have.

          At some point the used supply will dry up. That may already be happening, as I see less CRTs entering the waste stream nowadays. Most people who were going to replace their CRTs have done so by now, and the ones getting thrown out now are more likely to have been owned by someone who held onto them and eventually had something go wrong with them which is the case for some others who have posted here. So eventually, maybe there will be a small market for people who want a "retro" CRT for some reason or another.