Would a modern CRT make any sense?

One other thing I should add with regards to manufacturing and companies shutting down things is that it is extremely rare that a company makes everything themselves. They buy parts from other suppliers. So if a supplier of an important part decides to stop making it, that can make it difficult/impossible to continue the product line. You either have to buy out the equipment and process (if they are willing to sell) and set up a factory to do it yourself, which is expensive and time consuming, find a replacement and retool for that, if one even exists, or cease production.

Wouldn't surprise me if that contributed to CRTs going away was that a critical component stopped being made.

This forum is the last bastion for CRT displays.
I hope these answers clears it out: in 2026, we have 1000hz monitors with true under 1ms response time, many times going to 0.1 or 0.01ms.

There is ZERO need for CRT anymore.

wye said:

This forum is the last bastion for CRT displays.
I hope these answers clears it out: in 2026, we have 1000hz monitors with true under 1ms response time, many times going to 0.1 or 0.01ms.

There is ZERO need for CRT anymore.

Click to expand...

Except you need to drive a game to 1000 fps to achieve perfect motion clarity to what a crt can do at 60-95 fps. I'm sure some pixel art games can get to 1000hz though. Aaaaand crt's still have ZERO input lag and flat panels still have input lag, those low numbers are best case scenario grey to grey, anyone playing pixel art greyscale games at 1000fps?

Stryker7314 said:

Except you need to drive a game to 1000 fps to achieve perfect motion clarity to what a crt can do at 60-95 fps. I'm sure some pixel art games can get to 1000hz though. Aaaaand crt's still have ZERO input lag and flat panels still have input lag, those low numbers are best case scenario grey to grey, anyone playing pixel art greyscale games at 1000fps?

Click to expand...

Seriously, you guys need to stop with the input lag thing. Go look at a review for a modern OLED. The processing time here is 0.04ms and the WORST CASE element response is 0.48ms. If you are worrying over half a millisecond of delay that's rather silly. At that level, it is completely dwarfed by frame-time lag which is 16.7ms at 60hz 11.1ms at 90Hz. If lag is that big a deal to you, you'd get far less felt lag moving to a high framerate OLED or LCD and pushing your FPS higher than any reduction in display lag.

It's a dead argument, has been for some time. Motion clarity is the one last thing that CRTs can claim to be better on (though Pulsar monitors seriously challenge that) and IMO it is silly to let that one thing define all you are about for a display. Like don't get me wrong, I want and will take motion clarity improvements on modern displays, but the motion clarity is in no way worth all the CRT downsides.

Sycraft said:

Motion clarity is the one last thing that CRTs can claim to be better on

Click to expand...

CRTs also drove the youngin's away. Modern monitors don't squeal at frequencies I can't hear anymore.

toast0 said:

CRTs also drove the youngin's away. Modern monitors don't squeal at frequencies I can't hear anymore.

Click to expand...

I mean, computer monitors generally didn't have that issue. SD TVs had a horizontal refresh of 15.7kHz which is easy in the audible range for young people, and even many older people. However computer monitors with their higher resolutions generally operated at much higher frequencies, quickly leaving audibility. Like 1024x768 at 75Hz would be 60ish kHz which is WAAAAY above human audibility.

Do anyone remember any youngster being driven away by 15.7KHz noise?
Systems made to drive young people away operate at even higher frequency (as to not bother adults - not necessarily very old) and at much higher power - it needs to cause pain. 15.7KHz noise from your telly is quiet enough it isn't even irritating let alone painful.
Heck, I always found it nice. It always felt like room with TV on felt livelier like having more people in it.

Pulsar is nowhere near CRT where it comes to motion clarity. IPS running 120fps matching OLED at 360fps is impressive but this is for modern games and its main feature is working with VRR. CRT at 50Hz has better motion clarity. In fact on CRT there is zero difference between moving and stationary objects - exactly what you need for 2D games.

Sycraft said:

I want and will take motion clarity improvements on modern displays, but the motion clarity is in no way worth all the CRT downsides.

Click to expand...

What CRT downsides?
Unlike "CRT are obsolete - need to get rid of them ASAP!" psychosis from 00's people these days slowly but surely realize than CRTs look super cool and make each room they are in have this unmistakable glow. Room looks more comfortable to be in when it has CRT - and especially with round tube which reflects everything in this funny way which gives very nice vibes.

Today you have people justifying getting CRTs with motion clarity.
As soon as we have proper strobing (which I hope does happen) you will see people dropping the pretense and just say it straight: CRT are pleasant to look at.

By then you will have to spend real money to get one and many people who today pretend flat panels are up to the task will want to have at least one CRT.
Heck, it already started happening happens - a lot of people getting CRTs these days. Recent years is revival of CRT usage.

Of course in the grand theme of things its still small scale and it will always be small scale.
Also too many great second hand CRTs to justify production.
But give it few decades where CRT supply drops and manufacturing tech improves to the point making CRT is merely typing a prompt and you will have new CRTs made. Then it will make sense for someone to justify making them.

Personally I would love to have something like 32 inch 4:3 round tube TV made in wooden box in classic European sticking tube design with single speaker on right side and supporting signals from 15KHz to 4K or whatever.
At least something nice to look for in the future

XoR_ said:

What CRT downsides?

Click to expand...

Let's see here:

• Size. Biggest computer CRT you can get is 22". Monitors are hard to even find that small. 27" monitors are great, 32" are amazing. I wouldn't want to step back down.
• Refresh rate. Again we'll talk the very best, the FW900 and it caps out at about 90Hz but recommends only 80Hz to not have issues at high resolutions. Hard to find a gaming monitor that isn't at least 120Hz, 240Hz are easy to find and are awesome, that's what I have, and 500Hz are available.
• Related to that, latency. While their input-to-display latency is very low, the lower frame rates mean frame-to-frame latency is higher. Since modern displays now have vanishingly low element and processing latencies, they actually have better frame-to-frame latency if you are a competitive gamer.
• In like with that, flickering. I don't like CRTs for 60Hz because with short persistence phosphors, the flicker is really bad. For higher refresh rates like 85Hz it is fine, but I do still notice it. It isn't awful, but it is perceptible. No issues on modern displays.
• Color. CRTs had, at best, sRGB coverage and many fell short of that. Even then the color calibration often drifted as they aged. Modern displays get DCI-P3 and beyond and it is great. The more vibrant colors make things more lifelike and give greater pop.
• Geometry. I do not miss the hours spend trying to get my CRT to have the biggest image possible, and also trying to get it as straight as possible only to get to do it again in a couple months. No issues with modern displays, they have perfect geometry at all times.
• Focus/clarity. Particularly at higher resolutions, and particularly as they age, CRTs have issues with beam focus and convergence and can get fuzzy on small details. No problems with a modern display, they are razor sharp always.
• Brightness. The FW900 peaks out at like 120nits but that is new, and in 9300k mode. Also with CRTs the brighter you push them the more beam spray issues you can have again cause fuzziness. So you have to run them lower, my Lacie Electron22Blue recommended 80nits max back in the day. Now I like a dark room and all, but that's too dark. I run my OLED and LCD at 115nits and I'm on the lower side. It is also nice to be able to turn them up if lights need to come on.
• HDR. HDR gaming is not a small thing IMO, it is a huge step up in image, particularly when done well. CRTs just can't do it, any other issues aside, they lack the brightness.
• Bulk. They are big and heavy and while not a deal breaker, that can be an issue.

Probably actually a couple more that didn't immediately come to mind, but ya. It has gotten to the point where really the only thing that they hold on to is motion clarity, and I'd argue that at high framerates that is not such an issue, the smoothness beats the clarity for tracking moving objects. Maybe had development continued on them some of these would be things that would have improved, but as it stands their advantages slowly got less and less as LCDs and then OLEDs improved and now compared to a good OLED really the only thing they can boast is motion clarity at low framerates. That's nice and all... but not worth the other tradeoffs to me at least.

I meant disadvantages in the sense of owning one - there is basically single disadvantage - yet another thing you have in your room... maybe another disadvantage is that CRT grows to two CRTs, then CRT pile, then CRT pile and then eventually CRT wall and in the end you don't have enough walls.
Other than that I see no issue having CRT.
Should it replace OLED? I don't use CRT as my main gaming monitor ever since my current IPS monitor let alone OLED so I won't argue here.

Only thing I will argue is 120 nits of FW900. It can definitely do much more. I can do ~130 nits on my FW900 with polarizer and it makes image much darker than original AG. Also its 25+ monitor and saw its use.
Also where we talk modern CRTs it wouldn't be an issue to have them have higher gamut. First color TVs had much higher gamut.

Sure they changed phosphors to P22/SMPTE-C to boost brightness but we talk early phosphors and I am pretty sure we could do much higher gamut without much reduction in luminance. Likely as high as QD-OLED and it would make more sense to add proper strobing to QD-OLED but anyways...

Otherwise some of these limitations only apply to existing monitors.
You had giant CRT TVs and you could give them better shadow mask and coils with less impedance to drive them very fast.
Of course super heavy but TVs in general were much less heavy than VGA monitors of the same size somehow. At least the CRTs with more round tube as they latter did some tricks to make CRTs flatter and with added tons of glass.
Rounded tube CRT would be lighter. You would also save some weight on electronics which can be made smaller. Also coils - the less impedance the lighter the coil.
To get super fast horizontal/vertical refresh rates they can be made very light.

If I was to get new CRT I would not want it to be flat. I have all my displays flat, don't need flat CRTs.
Also if such CRT needed scaler and 15KHz/31KHz emulation because it wouldn't run very low resolution - I'd be fine with that. Emulating lower resolution on VGA CRTs with good scalers already gives excellent results and in the end its just a matter of supported resolution. Such scaling doesn't need to add lag.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RKyPsE9Loc
Well, someone made an interesting test. In any case, one of the first comments though is about a technology that could have been developed but was shelved. Anyway, we can always ponder...

I think the best way to bring back CRTs is to have OEMs such as Sony offer restoration services. That would be much more feasible than restarting production lines. This would also be ideal for the environment because it would prevent sets from going to the landfill.

If the program is a success, they could offer limited edition continuation models later on. I always like to think of an analogy with the classic car industry when it comes to displays like CRT and plasma. With TCL purchasing Sony’s display division this is extremely unlikely. Nevertheless it’s fun to imagine the possibilities.

We never really got a true successor for CRT and plasma displays. When it comes to display technologies: SED and FED are the holy grail. They really should not have shelved it. If Japan ever wants to be relevant in the display industry again, they should restart focus on SED and FED display technology. In my opinion, new production lines should be started here, not CRTs. The problem is, they seem to be having bigger issues right now. The world at large is in dire straits right now.

Unix said:

I think the best way to bring back CRTs is to have OEMs such as Sony offer restoration services. That would be much more feasible than restarting production lines. This would also be ideal for the environment because it would prevent sets from going to the landfill.

If the program is a success, they could offer limited edition continuation models later on. I always like to think of an analogy with the classic car industry when it comes to displays like CRT and plasma. With TCL purchasing Sony’s display division this is extremely unlikely. Nevertheless it’s fun to imagine the possibilities.

We never really got a true successor for CRT and plasma displays. When it comes to display technologies: SED and FED are the holy grail. They really should not have shelved it. If Japan ever wants to be relevant in the display industry again then they should restart focus on SED and FED display technology. In my opinion, new production lines should be started here, not CRTs. The problem is, they seem to be having bigger issues right now. The world at large is in dire straits right now.

Click to expand...

From what I've heard about SED and FED from those who've seen it. They didn't look all that great at the trade shows. Probably had some kinks that needed to be ironed out but from what I've heard they weren't all that. Yes, in theory they're great but apparently the prototypes were pretty disappointing.

Unix said:

When it comes to display technologies: SED and FED are the holy grail. They really should not have shelved it. If Japan ever wants to be relevant in the display industry again then they should restart focus on SED and FED display technology. In my opinion, new production lines should be started here, not CRTs. The problem is, they seem to be having bigger issues right now. The world at large is in dire straits right now.

Click to expand...

What is it exactly about SED and/or FED that you think would be better compared to QD-OLED?

jbltecnicspro said:

From what I've heard about SED and FED from those who've seen it. They didn't look all that great at the trade shows. Probably had some kinks that needed to be ironed out but from what I've heard they weren't all that. Yes, in theory they're great but apparently the prototypes were pretty disappointing.

Click to expand...

You have to compare those prototypes to other displays available at the time, not to today’s mature panels. An SED/FED panel made today would outperform those early prototypes by a wide margin. Most of the prototypes are from the early to mid-2000s. I believe the last demonstrations were sometime in 2006.

I disagree that they looked poor at trade shows. I saw them in person and they were far superior to contemporary LCD and plasma sets. Most press coverage at the time praised the image quality and said it set a new benchmark.

Unix said:

You have to compare those prototypes to other displays available at the time, not to today’s mature panels. An SED/FED panel made today would outperform those early prototypes by a wide margin. Most of the prototypes are from the early to mid-2000s. I believe the last demonstrations were sometime in 2006.

I disagree that they looked poor at trade shows. I saw them in person and they were far superior to contemporary LCD and plasma sets. Most press coverage at the time praised the image quality and said it set a new benchmark.

Click to expand...

That's fair. To clarify context we were comparing them to CRT when the forum discussion took place, so you're probably right. Oh well. It's too bad they never released.

XoR_ said:

What is it exactly about SED and/or FED that you think would be better compared to QD-OLED?

Click to expand...

Without getting overly technical, SED/FED uses phosphors (like CRTs and plasmas) and operate as impulse‑based displays. With SED/FED displays you don’t need 1000Hz displays to match CRTs. Movies and other low frame rate 24p content is flawless as well. Apart from the motion quality, the way in which SED/FED produce light provides for more pleasing colors to the human eye. This is underrated but has an equally important effect on the overall image quality. You get the same 0 cd/m² blacks as QD-OLED with true pixel level light control.

QD-OLED, OLED, QD-EL, and micro-LED are all sample and hold display technologies. Although they have extremely wide color gamuts they still lack the vibrancy, depth, and organic feel that you get from CRTs and plasma. Other areas of improvement are near black handling and uniformity.

Unix said:

You have to compare those prototypes to other displays available at the time, not to today’s mature panels. An SED/FED panel made today would outperform those early prototypes by a wide margin. Most of the prototypes are from the early to mid-2000s. I believe the last demonstrations were sometime in 2006.

Click to expand...

Maybe, sometimes a technology just doesn't work very well. I know people love to conspiracy and it is always some evil reason that a tech like Plasma was killed off but the truth is usually that is has issues that matter to consumers that aren't easy to overcome that another tech doesn't.

The

Sycraft said:

Maybe, sometimes a technology just doesn't work very well. I know people love to conspiracy and it is always some evil reason that a tech like Plasma was killed off but the truth is usually that is has issues that matter to consumers that aren't easy to overcome that another tech doesn't.

Click to expand...

For the vast majority of consumers, modern mini-LEDs are more than good enough. I know a lot of general consumers in real life who believe OLED offers marginal improvements. I think most enthusiasts would beg to differ.

Conspiracy is a loaded word. The fact is, conspiracies do exist in the real world but the stigma around being labeled a conspiracy theorist can sometimes shield those conspiracies from scrutiny. That’s not to say that there was some evil reason why they killed off plasma.

Plasma wasn’t selling as well, it wasn’t bright enough, and it didn’t meet ever restrictive energy efficiency standards. So yes, you’re right that there was no conspiracy to kill it off. But I don’t think that’s what most of the online discourse is referring to.

Cost, size, and convenience are the factors which dictate the display market. For what it’s worth plasma did have its strengths in comparison to LCD and OLED. SED/FED can improve upon those strengths. Whether that’s profitable or not for manufacturers is a different question but I’m interested in discussing those strengths. It’s interesting that CRTs and plasmas have such a strong following even in 2026.

Unix said:

SED/FED can improve upon those strengths. Whether that’s profitable or not for manufacturers is a different question but I’m interested in discussing those strengths. It’s interesting that CRTs and plasmas have such a strong following even in 2026.

Click to expand...

Allegedly can improve upon them. Like I said, there's this assumption that the tech is feasible and would be good. I am not so sure, I think more likely it's issues were too many hence it got abandoned.

Also two things with regards to the CRT following:

1) I don't think it is all that big, I think people who are in to it think it is big. It isn't something I see outside of enthusiast boards. I think very few people actually care or want it.

2) People may just be on the nostalgia train. Vinyl records have been popular and those are provably worse to modern digital audio in every way to the point that you can record one with digital and people can't tell the difference because digital can reproduce it, flaws and all. It's a nostalgia/love for vintage thing driving it, not a "this is the better tech" thing.

Fair enough. I never said that it’s something most people would like to see. I own CRT, plasma, LCD and 4K QD-OLED displays. I know it’s something I want to see. Owning all these different display technologies, I don’t think it’s a simple case of nostalgia like vinyl; the tech has real advantages compared to existing sample and hold displays.

Sycraft said:

Allegedly can improve upon them. Like I said, there's this assumption that the tech is feasible and would be good. I am not so sure, I think more likely it's issues were too many hence it got abandoned.

Click to expand...

Your viewpoint is valid too. Can’t argue with that. In my view, it wasn’t abandoned due to any issues with the display tech itself but rather the investment required to put yet another premium display technology on the market.

There was a recession in 2008. The last Pioneer Kuro TVs were manufactured in 2009 and Pioneer announced that they would officially exit the TV business by 2010. They could see that LCD was more profitable for manufacturers and most consumers preferred LCD over more expensive plasma TVs anyway.

SED/FED would have occupied a similar niche to Pioneer’s plasmas. For most consumers, the superior picture quality of plasma wasn't enough to justify the premium price tag. Looking at how Pioneer was hurt by the market shift, it didn’t make any sense to invest in SED/FED technology.

Stryker7314 said:

Hahaha, alotta naysayers here but the facts are crt does no input lag and perfect motion clarity and flat panels including oled don't. You can say all you want there isn't a market for it but the fact is there is because the fw900 sell at 3k+, I follow the crt listings and sales on the different marketplaces and they sell, just because you aren't paying attention doesn't mean it's not happening. Argue all you want but those are hard facts and that's the circumstance at this moment. Now go back to your blurry mess of a headache inducing monitor and get pwned by someone on a crt because your character appeared on their crt before theirs appeared on your flat panel. Ez

Click to expand...

They only have no input lag with an analog signal and no digital conversion taking place between input and output. VGA doesn't have the bandwidth to support modern high resolutions and high refresh rates, topping out at 388 MHz IIRC. Not to mention that analog signal quality degrades worse than digital at the upper limits. 4K at 60 Hz would require nearly 750 MHz and a horizontal refresh rate of 133 kHz.

Unix said:

Although they have extremely wide color gamuts they still lack the vibrancy, depth, and organic feel that you get from CRTs and plasma. Other areas of improvement are near black handling and uniformity.

Click to expand...

How can you put WOLED and QD-OLED in to the same bag?

CRT is superior for gaming in almost all aspects. Only problem is that no one makes them anymore and we were sold a lie with all this green revolution nonsense that they were bad for the Earth or whatever junk. However, I wont argue as to why they are better. There are countless informed opinions as to why they are better and almost countless uninformed opinions from everyone else in Gen Z and up who talk like they know what they are talking about and know nothing at all having never actually used a top end Trinitron at their peak in the late 90s. I am sure if they started making them again, with the modern design and tech advances, we could easily beam electrons at speeds great enough with bandwidth high enough that we could have 1000hz equivalent 4k displays.

I kick my self in the ass because I had some damn nice CRTs years ago. KDS, Viewsonic, even the venerable Sony Trinitron Models with the annoying 2 lines across the display all the time when powered off. I do miss the sound of degaussing and that flyback transformer zapping someone when they were servicing the sets haha.

Much of this "would make any sense" thread is rehashing CRT convos from other threads, just cleaning the slate again for fresh paint kind of. If you search crt stuff in the search tool, you'll see a lot of replies like the ones in this thread, and other valid replies that didn't make the jump to this new thread.


. . .

Sycraft said:

Let's see here:

• Size. Biggest computer CRT you can get is 22". Monitors are hard to even find that small. 27" monitors are great, 32" are amazing. I wouldn't want to step back down.
• Refresh rate. Again we'll talk the very best, the FW900 and it caps out at about 90Hz but recommends only 80Hz to not have issues at high resolutions. Hard to find a gaming monitor that isn't at least 120Hz, 240Hz are easy to find and are awesome, that's what I have, and 500Hz are available.
• Related to that, latency. While their input-to-display latency is very low, the lower frame rates mean frame-to-frame latency is higher. Since modern displays now have vanishingly low element and processing latencies, they actually have better frame-to-frame latency if you are a competitive gamer.
• In like with that, flickering. I don't like CRTs for 60Hz because with short persistence phosphors, the flicker is really bad. For higher refresh rates like 85Hz it is fine, but I do still notice it. It isn't awful, but it is perceptible. No issues on modern displays.
• Color. CRTs had, at best, sRGB coverage and many fell short of that. Even then the color calibration often drifted as they aged. Modern displays get DCI-P3 and beyond and it is great. The more vibrant colors make things more lifelike and give greater pop.
• Geometry. I do not miss the hours spend trying to get my CRT to have the biggest image possible, and also trying to get it as straight as possible only to get to do it again in a couple months. No issues with modern displays, they have perfect geometry at all times.
• Focus/clarity. Particularly at higher resolutions, and particularly as they age, CRTs have issues with beam focus and convergence and can get fuzzy on small details. No problems with a modern display, they are razor sharp always.
• Brightness. The FW900 peaks out at like 120nits but that is new, and in 9300k mode. Also with CRTs the brighter you push them the more beam spray issues you can have again cause fuzziness. So you have to run them lower, my Lacie Electron22Blue recommended 80nits max back in the day. Now I like a dark room and all, but that's too dark. I run my OLED and LCD at 115nits and I'm on the lower side. It is also nice to be able to turn them up if lights need to come on.
• HDR. HDR gaming is not a small thing IMO, it is a huge step up in image, particularly when done well. CRTs just can't do it, any other issues aside, they lack the brightness.
• Bulk. They are big and heavy and while not a deal breaker, that can be an issue.

Probably actually a couple more that didn't immediately come to mind, but ya. It has gotten to the point where really the only thing that they hold on to is motion clarity, and I'd argue that at high framerates that is not such an issue, the smoothness beats the clarity for tracking moving objects. Maybe had development continued on them some of these would be things that would have improved, but as it stands their advantages slowly got less and less as LCDs and then OLEDs improved and now compared to a good OLED really the only thing they can boast is motion clarity at low framerates. That's nice and all... but not worth the other tradeoffs to me at least.

Click to expand...

Agree with all of that, adding similar here reiterating most of those + with a few you didn't include. From my reply from the other more recent thread, with a few new edits. I have others but I didn't dig back farther atm.

---------------------------------------

I loved CRT motion clarity and ran through a few different FW900 CRTs.

-They took a 1/2 hour to warm up to full PictureQuality.

-They can (and probably do at some point) require adjusting their geometry internally (around powerful capacitors, and a pita removing housing to adjust your screen).
-They still eventually bloom and/or fade over the lifetime of the screen, if they aren't already to some degree when you get them.

-They can induce some eye fatigue (though BFI and VR headsets also have similar "strobing" in effect).

-They are gigantic in bulk (and heat), and power use , yet tiny in screen size compared to modern larger OLED and LCD gaming displays.

- They are subject to magnetic interference from other devices (like speakers), electric line noise, etc.

-They have a trinitron line across the middle.

-They are vga connection.

- They don't have high motion articulation that you get from high fpsHz. You probably benefit aesthetically and "ergonomically" from that motion definition/motion pathing articulation, and smoothness until at least 480fpsHz before returns are diminished/not as meaningful.
-Like Sycraft reminded us, your effective input lag is connected to your fpsHz draw times, too (frame-to-frame latency). CRT's windows to see new action states and windows to react are much farther apart. Maybe 75fpsHz at 2560x1600 ?

-They aren't as "crisp" as OLED or LCD imo.

-Their peak brightness is pretty dim (and even more dim over the lifespan).


-They have zero HDR.

Click to expand...

For me, the modern larger screen sizes and resolutions are a big thing, i.e. 4k, 4k+, and also some ultrawide options.
Even larger is that CRT lacks HDR. Despite the HDR implementations in some games being hit or miss, I prioritize HDR in games and it makes a HUGE difference. Even on CX, C1 (until I likely get C6 later this year) - turning HDR off is a drastic difference.. No going back. Any tech that reduces the HDR brightness due to screen blanking/strobing (or is in practice incompatible with HDR) - is also not appealing to me, personally.

Also, going forward, Samsung is adding eye tracking glasses-free 3D to displays, where games can support 3D natively, but it can also convert games to some 3D effect even if they aren't designed for it. Kind of like you can "inject" HDR into SDR games that have no HDR support, opening up a much larger library of games to get some benefit from the tech. Samsung's first 3d screens will be smaller desktop monitors, but over the next few years their multi stack tandem tech, newer color tech, and 3D tech will likely expand to larger screens and potentially large flagship ultrawides. (maybe 2027 - 2028).


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The google genie says:

Sony GDM-FW900 24-inch widescreen CRT monitor, widely regarded as one of the best computer displays ever made, was released in late 2000. It launched with a retail price of $1,999 to $2,300, and was aimed at high-end design and video professionals. $2,000 in 2000 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $3,867.83 today,

Click to expand...

Sony FW900's peak brightness for a new unit was around 125 nits (cd/m²), though this varied with color temperature (e.g., 115 nits at 9300K) and degraded significantly with age, with some reports showing it dropping to around 70-90 nits in older, used units, but calibration could often restore it to over 100 nits, with it being brighter on smaller white areas than full-screen white

Click to expand...

For stunning PC HDR,
Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, and Forza Horizon 5 are top-tier, especially with ray tracing/path tracing, while Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, and Resident Evil Village/4 offer breathtaking visuals; other great choices include Ghost of Tsushima, Elden Ring, and Doom Eternal, but ensure proper settings like Windows HDR, NVIDIA Control Panel settings (RGB, 10-bit, Full), and sometimes reshades for the best experience, especially on OLED. "

Click to expand...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


There are a number of great HDR pc games. Plus you can use RTX HDR to "inject" or lift/stretch SDR to quasi-HDR levels on scerens with decent HDR capability.
RenoDX can also inject HDR, but it can usually provide a brightness slider for the UI elements, unlike RTX HDR which may lift them to "HDR brightness" unnecessarily.
RTX HDR from nvidia works to lift more SDR games into HDR territory for "quasi-HDR" though, and it shouldn't trigger anti-cheat in online games like RenoDX can.


You can also fix some with RenoDX if there is a RenoDX mod file for it..

List of games with RenoDX mods available so far:

https://github.com/clshortfuse/renodx/wiki/Mods

. . . .

General overview of what HDR does that SDR screens don't, from a different reply of mine (zipped it up in a quote).

It's not about taking a normal scene height and cranking everything up 2x or 3x brighter.

Brighter HDR is brighter colors, but not just the colors you are seeing made brighter - it's showing you new color ranges. That means bright highlights, lightsources in scenes, etc, and bright scene elements in general will have a larger (taller range) light palette so that you can see those colors in the first place, plus that differentiates colors from each other more with new bright color values shown, adding details instead of bright things in a scene being not so bright and impactful, not as realistic looking, and having few or no details within them.

People sometimes choose to enable Dynamic Tone Mapping (DTM) , because their OLED screen isn't a bright enough range for them (isn't brightly colored enough) in the middle and normal ranges. What that tends to do is rob color slots from the higher end of their limited scale, which makes more colors share the same value (more compressed color value wise). That makes you lose even more detail in colors than your screen's static tone mapping already compressed by default, and can even clip to white at the top end if you run out of range, depending how that is resolved.

It's also about a con of oleds which is they can't provide 25%, 50% and 100% of the screen shown brightly in HDR (e.g. snow scenes, hockey games, etc), in the first place, and that their ABL kicks in sooner to a dim level. So a brighter capable oled, and one with tandem tech to avoid torching a single panel as much when outputting highly, can have benefits there too. On my oled I sometimes have a hdr video or rtx hdr lifted sdr video in a window and resize it, or make it fullscreen, and the brightness drops considerably, and by comparison is pretty dull or muted compared to the smaller field window.

So a higher rated (HDR) screen is better. Even higher than the C6 or G6 would be better imo if it were available (without deteriorating your screen unnecessarily). The 48 C6 is showing some good numbers, but the G6 goes higher than the C6 tandem because the G6 has a panel heatsink to help cool it btw. (It's just wayy more expensive to the point where I don't consider it a smart buy, and it has it's own issues so far.).

You don't "need" anything really.. That's a personal choice. I have held out on a 48cx at my pc so far (and a C1 in my living room which I'm not upgrading any time soon), but if this 48 C6 comes down in price in the next 6 months and irons out some of the issues in fw updates I'll likely buy one.

. . . .

This is a heatmap of a game's HDR 10,000 (pretty sure it's star wars battlefront). I think our screens with their current capabilities show the low end 1:1 and then compress the top portion into fewer colors to fit. The more it's comrpessed, the more colors are squashed together into fewer color values and less detail (and a lot dimmer peaks to begin with ~ 1000 nit to 1500 nit only in tiny windows on most modern screens, if that).

Another one:

Those are from this big thread here:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hdr-games-analysed.23587/

And some select examples from that thread are listed here:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/02/how-hdr-works-in-modern-games-broken-down-by-incredible-heatmap-imagery/

Click to expand...

. . .

HDR provides a huge benefit in "3D" color range, high color ranges in objects displaying more details, and impactful highlights and light sources. However, some very bright screens get tempered with OLEDs when they are bright in very large %'s of the screen (which doesn't happen that often or for very long) , but modern ones are much better than older gens in how bright they can remain at say 50% and 100% of the screen. However that comes with a higher price tag for the top color brightness model G6 OLED. (50% screen at 450-600nit C6, 500-700nit G6 ... 100% screen at 245nit C6, 471 nit G6).

Here are some numbers on HDR ABL dimming for the C6 and G6 OLEDs , which affects some scenes, but generally, looking at still image heatmaps of games, that isn't always kicking in at all, plus scenes are typically changing dynamically since you move your FoV a lot in most games.

C6 (no heatsink, unlike the G6 which has one)
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On the LG 48" C6 OLED, the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) constantly reduces screen luminance as the Average Picture Level (APL) increases to protect the panel from thermal stress. It aggressively limits full-field whites: [1]

• 50% APL: The ABL limits brightness to approximately 450–600 nits.
• 100% APL: The ABL limits full-screen brightness to approximately 245 nits.

You can review complete television lab results and specifications at the RTINGS LG C6 OLED Review and the LG 48" C6 Product Page.

How ABL Works on the C6

• The Threshold: While small, punchy specular highlights (like a 5% to 10% white window) can reach peak brightness well over 1,300 nits in HDR, the ABL threshold is crossed as soon as a bright object covers more than 25% of the screen.
• The 50% Screen: When half the screen turns brightly lit, the panel forces a reduction in light output. It restricts that surface area to a dimmer, sustained luminance level, bringing specular highlights down significantly.
• The 100% Screen: When displaying an entirely white field (like a bright desktop web browser or full-screen snow in a movie), the entire panel's voltage must drop to stay within power and heat limits. This caps the absolute maximum full-field brightness at roughly 245 nits in HDR. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Click to expand...

. .

G6 (has a heatsink unlike the C6)
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On the flagship LG G6 OLED, which features second-generation Tandem RGB OLED technology, the Auto Brightness Limiter (ABL) becomes progressively more aggressive as the Average Picture Level (APL) increases.

On a 50% screen window, ABL restricts brightness to approximately 500–700 nits,
while a 100% full-field white screen is limited to about 471 nits. [1, 2, 3]

For comparison, smaller bright highlights (e.g., a 2% or 10% window) can peak upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 nits. The ABL scale dynamically scales light output to manage thermal limits and protect the organic pixels from burn-in, meaning ABL "kicks in" (scales down from the maximum peak) the moment the bright content fills more than about 10% to 25% of the screen area. [1, 2, 3, 4]

For detailed reviews and technical measurements of the LG OLED G6 series, check out professional testing reports on FlatpanelsHD or explore AVForums.

Click to expand...

. .

Click to expand...

*There is also the option of miniLED FALD LCD displays if you want brighter larger fields % of screen wise, and sustained, with some tradeoffs in uniformity, raised blacks around zone lighting, and lost details, etc. LCDs likely won't be able to keep up with 500 - 1000fpsHz capable screens in the long run though.
. .

If, in the next few years, (say perhaps 2028) you had a 4k or 4k+, 5120x2160 etc. ultrawides, (and there are 6k screens coming, too) . . . and a powerful enough gpu to get 100fps solid baseline native fps with quality game settings, with more advanced DLSS+framegen as it progresses you might get framgen of that 100fps x3 to x5 (dynamic framegen likely a thing) , for a 240hz or a 480/500Hz screen at 300fps solid or 500fps solid (no vrr needed with a solid baseline multiplied, so frame draws all the same time period and no VRR flicker with oleds). You also might have that running on a glasses-free samsung 3D display, and one with their upcoming tech's higher HDR output and higher % window brightness, higher color detail. That as all of that existing gpu tech (DLSS+framegen) and new display tech all matures - coming out on more modern gpus and ai chips, and as it comes to larger screen formats in the years ahead.

For me, I loved crt for what it was, but I much prefer what we have available now with large 4k/4k+ HDR gaming displays, and I'm looking forward to what I just outlined. Once we get to 500fpsHz to 1000fpsHz on OLEDs we'll be able to brute force low persistence / blur reduction of FoV movement plenty at ~ 500fpsHz, and essentially to crt levels once 1000fpsHz (without using BFI/pulsar, etc). The 3d screens and 6k screens, new OLED HDR layering techs, color improvements, and features all sounds very promising. Farther ahead, high rez svelte sunglass format XR glasses for 4k+ virtual displays, too.

It’s always interesting to see how much pushback there is whenever CRTs or alternative display technologies come up. Reminds me of the fanboy wars around consoles and whatnot. CRTs offer advantages over modern sample and hold displays. Modern sample and hold displays also have their own advantages when it comes to HDR (i.e. mainly brightness), no one is denying that. Both can coexist, no one’s talking about replacing your giant 4K TV with a CRT. I would replace mine with a 4K SED/FED panel though.

tangoseal said:

Only problem is that no one makes them anymore and we were sold a lie with all this green revolution nonsense that they were bad for the Earth or whatever junk.

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Restarting CRT production lines from scratch now would be a massive undertaking. The tooling, supply chains, and expertise were dismantled over a decade ago. But that’s exactly why restoration is such an appealing middle ground. If we’re serious about environmental responsibility, the most impactful thing we can do is break away from disposable‑tech culture and the endless desire to upgrade. Reuse is the most effective way to reduce waste.

A professionally restored CRT, ideally handled by the original manufacturers who still understand the engineering behind these displays, would keep a huge amount of material out of landfills while also serving a real niche market. Some people are already doing this on their own right now, but imagine if someone like Sony did it. It would be much more widely accessible and of higher quality.

The idea is similar to classic car restoration. In many cases a classic car can be restored to better than new condition, and the same principle applies here. Preserve what already exists, extend its lifespan, and offer something that modern products cannot replicate. This is very different from the current situation, where random eBay sellers dig up half‑broken sets, flip them for absurd prices, and call it a day. A restoration program run by the original manufacturers would be safer, more reliable, and far more sustainable.

tangoseal said:

However, I wont argue as to why they are better. There are countless informed opinions as to why they are better and almost countless uninformed opinions from everyone else in Gen Z and up who talk like they know what they are talking about and know nothing at all having never actually used a top end Trinitron at their peak in the late 90s.

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At this point, I’m going to put on my tinfoil hat and say that it’s in the best interests of display manufacturers to pushback against the demand for impulse driven displays. Their entire business model is built on annual refresh cycles, incremental upgrades, and sample and hold displays. A durable, niche, enthusiast‑focused product that doesn’t need replacing every few years doesn’t fit that model. They want you to keep buying the products that they sell.

People often fall into groupthink, and it happens across all ages. Combine that with the constant stream of noise and misinformation online and it becomes difficult for anyone to get a clear sense of what is actually true. What is predictable, though, is how quickly opinions shift once a product becomes fashionable again. If CRTs ever return to the market, many of the same people criticizing them today will be the first ones lining up to buy them.

I encapsulated some things in quotes in my previous reply but It's worth repeating up front in this one that when you say things like "advantages like mainly brightness" , that brightness you're talking about in HDR means more differentiated color palette of many more colors within those brightness heights, adding more detail in colors. It's like you have a crayon box that is 100x taller with brighter color steps all the way up to the taller cieling, where SDR is instead a short crayon box even if it has colors width wise on that short crayon box. You aren't just taking the sdr limited range and cranking the whole scene 100x brighter, in HDR you are showing scenes composed of more colors throughout - specifically, colors differentiated from each other all the way up the range, which shows more detail-in-colors and objects, more contrasted, and more realism. It's not the same SDR color outputs relative to each other all "ramped up brighter" together while still the same relative relationship to each other.

The limits of different HDR screens and current tech is still compressing the top end, grouping more color values together into fewer colors, and some HDR screens are more limited than others even for today's tech - but nothing like the few that SDR is.

Brighter HDR is brighter colors, but not just the colors you are seeing made brighter - it's showing you new color ranges. That means bright highlights, lightsources in scenes, etc, and bright scene elements in general will have a larger (taller range) light palette so that you can see those colors in the first place, plus that differentiates colors from each other more with new bright color values shown, adding details instead of bright things in a scene being not so bright and impactful, not as realistic looking, and having few or no details within them.

People sometimes choose to enable Dynamic Tone Mapping (DTM) , because their OLED screen isn't a bright enough range for them (isn't brightly colored enough) in the middle and normal ranges. What that tends to do is rob color slots from the higher end of their limited scale, which makes more colors share the same value (more compressed color value wise). That makes you lose even more detail in colors than your screen's static tone mapping already compressed by default, and can even clip to white at the top end if you run out of range, depending how that is resolved.

It's also about a con of oleds which is they can't provide 25%, 50% and 100% of the screen shown brightly in HDR (e.g. snow scenes, hockey games, etc), in the first place, and that their ABL kicks in sooner to a dim level. So a brighter capable oled, and one with tandem tech to avoid torching a single panel as much when outputting highly, can have benefits there too. On my oled I sometimes have a hdr video or rtx hdr lifted sdr video in a window and resize it, or make it fullscreen, and the brightness drops considerably, and by comparison is pretty dull or muted compared to the smaller field window.

So a higher rated (HDR) screen is better. Even higher than the C6 or G6 would be better imo if it were available (without deteriorating your screen unnecessarily). The 48 C6 is showing some good numbers, but the G6 goes higher than the C6 tandem because the G6 has a panel heatsink to help cool it btw. (It's just wayy more expensive to the point where I don't consider it a smart buy, and it has it's own issues so far.).

You don't "need" anything really.. That's a personal choice. I have held out on a 48cx at my pc so far (and a C1 in my living room which I'm not upgrading any time soon), but if this 48 C6 comes down in price in the next 6 months and irons out some of the issues in fw updates I'll likely buy one.

. . . .

This is a heatmap of a game's HDR 10,000 (pretty sure it's star wars battlefront). I think our screens with their current capabilities show the low end 1:1 and then compress the top portion into fewer colors to fit. The more it's comrpessed, the more colors are squashed together into fewer color values and less detail (and a lot dimmer peaks to begin with ~ 1000 nit to 1500 nit only in tiny windows on most modern screens, if that).

Another one:

Those are from this big thread here:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hdr-games-analysed.23587/

And some select examples from that thread are listed here:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...es-broken-down-by-incredible-heatmap-imagery/

Click to expand...

. . .

Per google:

To understand how the color volume differs, compare the technical specifications via the RTINGS.com HDR vs. SDR Guide and the Formovie SDR vs HDR Article. The older SDR screen features roughly 16.7 million colors, while the modern LG G6 OLED outputs over 1.07 billion colors. [1]

Click to expand...

The massive difference in the number of colors comes down to the color depth (bit depth) and the size of the color spectrum (color gamut) utilized by the two displays: [1, 2, 3, 4]

1. SDR Screen (e.g., Sony FW900)

• Bit Depth: 8-bit (8 bits per sub-pixel for Red, Green, and Blue).
• Color Space: Usually limited to the sRGB or Rec. 709 spectrum.
• Total Colors: \(256 \times 256 \times 256 \approx 16.7\) million.
• Performance: While the Sony FW900 CRT is revered for its stellar black levels, geometry, and motion clarity, its actual color palette is fundamentally restricted to this 16.7 million ceiling. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

2. Modern HDR Scene (e.g., LG G6 OLED)

• Bit Depth: 10-bit or 12-bit.
• Color Space: Covers the massive DCI-P3 or Rec. 2020 color gamut (which encompasses colors the human eye can see but an SDR screen cannot).
• Total Colors: \(1024 \times 1024 \times 1024 \approx 1.07\) billion.
• Performance: The LG G6 OLED uses self-lit pixels and deep-level tone mapping to produce over 64 times more shades of color than the SDR screen. This prevents harsh "banding" or "stair-stepping" in gradients like sunsets or blue skies and allows for highly luminous, vibrant highlights that look significantly closer to real-life lighting. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Click to expand...

. .
CRT's also have the other cons recently listed by sycraft and myself, and going forward, if samsung's glasses-free-3d tech is delivered effectively that could be yet another thing crt doesn't have in addition to larger screen sizes, 4k to 6k resolution screens, ultrawides and curved screens, 120fpsHz - 240hz - 360fpsHz and higher motion definition/pathing articulation/smoothness, and especially HDR. Once per pixel emissive screens combined with advanced dlss+MultiFrameGen can do 100fps x5 to 100fps x10, for 500fpsHz solid to 1000fpsHz solid on 500Hz to 1000Hz screens, they will via brute force have the same lack of blur as a high end CRT. It is going to happen eventually. Eventually, someyear ahead, there will likely also be svelte sunglasses format very high rez XR glasses providing virtual 4k+ displays in real space, (and would provide "holographic" 3d MR gaming objects and planes via a different display per eye). CRT was a good thing for it's time, and for a bit longer after that, but it's dead to me now.


.

aint nobody got room for a heavy-ass screen that you can't mount. Regardless of the benefits, its tooooo heavy. It would NOT make sense, nobody would buy it (maybe 84 people globally would buy it)

greygoose said:

aint nobody got room for a heavy-ass screen that you can't mount. Regardless of the benefits, its tooooo heavy. It would NOT make sense, nobody would buy it (maybe 84 people globally would buy it)

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I would be one of them. But yeah the market is so small. Also there are people who have grown up never seeing them in action. So they literally don't know what they're missing. It's like explaining sex to a virgin. You just gotta do it to know

jbltecnicspro said:

I would be one of them. But yeah the market is so small. Also there are people who have grown up never seeing them in action. So they literally don't know what they're missing. It's like explaining sex to a virgin. You just gotta do it to know

Click to expand...

I grew up with CRTs and only switched over to LCD in 2013 when I discovered the Lightboost hack on the Asus VG248QE and I don't miss CRTs one bit. Especially now that GSync pulsar is now capable of making 60Hz content look like this:



So what exactly is the need for CRT anymore if you're chasing perfect that motion clarity when Pulsar can now give you that while being 1440p? Let me guess...something about CRT black levels being better than IPS?

It makes no sense to fabricate a modern CRT, when this technology is fundamentally flawed for targeting high resolutions, high luminosity, and a flat display profile. This is not what CRTs excel at, it is their weakness. Even low resolutions like 1600x1200 were a push on CRTs in term of resolvability and sharpness v.s. a 1600x1200 LCD. Electronics engineers developed tech that compensated for the CRT pitfalls associated with electron beam deflection (linearity, geometry and convergence issues mainly) ever since the 60s. Lots of development poured in, those bloody engineers just kept hammering away at those issues, but those are fundamental problems with CRT tech. Essentially, the ultimatum of this development was in the last generation of CRT monitors, with the most complex dynamic correction circuits for geometry, linearity, focus and convergence, ever before. But they didn't work well as phosphor dot pitch was too high. Linearity was notoriously bad out-of-factory on Mitsubishi Diamondtron monitors (including the top of the line 2070SB).

Development of a modern impulse-based display would be great. Vacuum electronics have advanced significantly in the last decades. Thin layers of graphene are proving to be excellent for usage in field emission devices, as they give massive current densities (potential for huge luminance in display applications; in addition, being longer lasting than electron guns used in CRTs (typically 13000 hours until half luminance, far worse than even a fluourescent based blue OLED at 100nits)). A far better venture would be into development of an SED / FED inspired display, using arrays of nano field-emission graphene electron guns. Inkjet printing would allow such tech to be economically feasible. Technology for creation and sealing of the necessary ultra-high vacuum already exists in production of OLED panels (was also in PDPs). Chemistry has also significantly advanced, quantum dots give wider colour gamuts than the phosphors used in CRTs, with faster decay times (no green trails as observed on CRTs), so motion clarity can potentially be improved.

MistaSparkul said:

I grew up with CRTs and only switched over to LCD in 2013 when I discovered the Lightboost hack on the Asus VG248QE and I don't miss CRTs one bit. Especially now that GSync pulsar is now capable of making 60Hz content look like this:

View attachment 805580

So what exactly is the need for CRT anymore if you're chasing perfect that motion clarity when Pulsar can now give you that while being 1440p? Let me guess...something about CRT black levels being better than IPS?

Click to expand...

Give me OLED pulsar. And I care not about ye olde Cathode Ray Tube.

Pretty sure we will get 1000hz OLED before Pulsar OLED, given how much brightness the current Pulsar tech requires. OLED brightness is improving slowly, but that's mostly on TVs which are big and can accommodate a large heatsink. OLED monitors brightness is really in a different, and worse, league.

1000hz is a good way of bruteforcing things, but to get the full benefits we'll also need a more efficient and cleaner frame gen along with a reprojection-like type of latency compensation (aka Reflex 2, which nvidia has somehow not done anything with, over a year after its announcement). We're really not that from those things mind you... since they already exist (there is a 720hz OLED out there, even if low resolution it still counts, a Reflex 2 tech demo has also leaked and works very well, and nvidia x6 frame gen looks very decent).

They just need to be refined a little further.

kalston said:

Pretty sure we will get 1000hz OLED before Pulsar OLED, given how much brightness the current Pulsar tech requires. OLED brightness is improving slowly, but that's mostly on TVs which are big and can accommodate a large heatsink. OLED monitors brightness is really in a different, and worse, league.

1000hz is a good way of bruteforcing things, but to get the full benefits we'll also need a more efficient and cleaner frame gen along with a reprojection-like type of latency compensation (aka Reflex 2, which nvidia has somehow not done anything with, over a year after its announcement). We're really not that from those things mind you... since they already exist (there is a 720hz OLED out there, even if low resolution it still counts, a Reflex 2 tech demo has also leaked and works very well, and nvidia x6 frame gen looks very decent).

They just need to be refined a little further.

Click to expand...

I mean you get the clarity benefits without reflex 2. It isn't like a CRT at 60Hz has great latency, it is 16.7ms just like anything else. So just straight framegen could do the trick.

It actually will look better, unless there's too many artifacts, because while CRT's strobing make get you clarity, it doesn't get you smoothness. Framegen does. It is amazing just how damn smooth things look at around 480Hz (the max my monitor can handle if I drop it to 1920x1080). I'd bet most people would take a 4-5x framegen to around 500fps on OLED over a CRT at 100fps if they tried it in terms of what looks better.

Don't get me wrong, something like reflex 2 would be amazing to make things feel snappier, but framegen does quite a good job of making things look smooth without visible artifacts provided you are starting from a good base FPS. Doing 10fps to 60fps with 6x framegen will look and play like dogshit. Doing 100fps to 500fps with 5x framegen will look super smooth and play extremely nice.

Oh yeah absolutely I would be fine with frame gen and no Reflex 2 at 1000hz, especially if base frame rate is like 100fps+ but no doubt even a 60fps base would be fine for a lot of things especially in single player.

Reflex 2 is more like... the last nail in the coffin and the point where we can really stop even thinking about the old way of doing things.

MistaSparkul said:

I grew up with CRTs and only switched over to LCD in 2013 when I discovered the Lightboost hack on the Asus VG248QE and I don't miss CRTs one bit.

Click to expand...

At the time LB2 monitors were a thing was about the last time you could get something like FW900 for ridiculoussly low prices like $100. I got mine at the time friend got LB2 monitor and comparing the two... yeah, no comparison really.
It was pretty cool to see LCD that sharp in motion and at the time 120Hz on LCD was pretty novel thing as well but otherwise its not even like the size was larger or brightness or anything really.

I would say the time when LCD became a decent gaming option compared to CRTs was when we had 27 inch 1440p 144Hz IPS panels with G-Sync.
I didn't like colors on these AUO panels, rubbed my eyes the wrong way and IPS glow was insane but still somewhat decent image and at least at 27 inch you did have size advantage and most games played pretty great with VRR. You don't really need that much motion clarity for most 3D games.

MistaSparkul said:

Especially now that GSync pulsar is now capable of making 60Hz content look like this:

View attachment 805580

Click to expand...

This is not pulsar though.
Pulsar doesn't make 60fps anywhere that sharp.

MistaSparkul said:

So what exactly is the need for CRT anymore if you're chasing perfect that motion clarity when Pulsar can now give you that while being 1440p? Let me guess...something about CRT black levels being better than IPS?

Click to expand...

2D games and more specifically retro 2D games - nothing modern comes even close to CRT.

The issue is that for that you don't need anyone to make new CRTs. You can grab second hand Trinitron for free or very cheap.

XoR_ said:

At the time LB2 monitors were a thing was about the last time you could get something like FW900 for ridiculoussly low prices like $100. I got mine at the time friend got LB2 monitor and comparing the two... yeah, no comparison really.
It was pretty cool to see LCD that sharp in motion and at the time 120Hz on LCD was pretty novel thing as well but otherwise its not even like the size was larger or brightness or anything really.

I would say the time when LCD became a decent gaming option compared to CRTs was when we had 27 inch 1440p 144Hz IPS panels with G-Sync.
I didn't like colors on these AUO panels, rubbed my eyes the wrong way and IPS glow was insane but still somewhat decent image and at least at 27 inch you did have size advantage and most games played pretty great with VRR. You don't really need that much motion clarity for most 3D games.


This is not pulsar though.
Pulsar doesn't make 60fps anywhere that sharp.



2D games and more specifically retro 2D games - nothing modern comes even close to CRT.

The issue is that for that you don't need anyone to make new CRTs. You can grab second hand Trinitron for free or very cheap.

Click to expand...

It's ULMB2 but this specific version is found only on GSync Pulsar displays, the previous ULMB2 found on non Pulsar displays looks nothing like this. And if I don't care about oldass 2D retro games then I have no need for a CRT, got it!

XoR_ said:

2D games and more specifically retro 2D games - nothing modern comes even close to CRT.

Click to expand...

Like, I get it for that particular use (though I actually find that retro games look plenty good on an OLED) but it gets a little silly to fanboy over the tech for that one use case: "Ok but if you play old games, that can only render at 60fps or less, then CRTs look better so the tech is totally the best!" If your specific use case is playing 25+ year old software then ya, a 25+ year old monitor is probably the right choice. However doesn't seem like a good use for modern software. Seems like the right answer for 3D stuff is to increase the rendering rate, possibly using framegen, and just get a smoother higher fps output.

Sycraft said:

Like, I get it for that particular use (though I actually find that retro games look plenty good on an OLED) but it gets a little silly to fanboy over the tech for that one use case: "Ok but if you play old games, that can only render at 60fps or less, then CRTs look better so the tech is totally the best!" If your specific use case is playing 25+ year old software then ya, a 25+ year old monitor is probably the right choice. However doesn't seem like a good use for modern software. Seems like the right answer for 3D stuff is to increase the rendering rate, possibly using framegen, and just get a smoother higher fps output.

Click to expand...

It's probably not about the frame rate, more like those super old games are rendering at like 240p and technically CRTs do not have a native resolution and will always make super low res content appear better Vs a modern display. If all you care about is playing Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis all day yeah sure CRT is king. I personally have zero interest in such games, I simply prefer to play the path traced HDR high fidelity games of today and in no way in hell will a CRT ever be better than my S95F for that. RenoDX has come quite a long way over the years and has added native HDR support to a bunch of games that never had it and I am having a blast re playing through them on a 5090.

MistaSparkul said:

It's probably not about the frame rate, more like those super old games are rendering at like 240p and technically CRTs do not have a native resolution and will always make super low res content appear better Vs a modern display. If all you care about is playing Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis all day yeah sure CRT is king.

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For old consoles in particular, the color artifacts also make a difference as games were designed with those in mind though there are some very good filters these days to emulate that. With computer games... I dunno, that was actually a problem high rez CRTs had. As resolution got lower, you started to get scanlines, the guns are only so wide so if the number of lines on a screen gets low, you get blank space between them, scanlines. My Last CRT, a LacieElectron22BlueIV actually had a double scan feature you could turn on where it would double the clock of low rez video to eliminate (or reduce in the case of really low resolutions) those scan lines.

At any rate I guess you could argue they are better for early PC pixel art games like Baldur's Gate since those run at a low frame rate (30 fps) so you'd get more motion clarity and there's no real way to improve smoothness. Also perhaps early 3D games that are 60fps locked.

For more modern games though I'd say no. Like for modern pixel art, high refresh OLED is brilliant. One of the few games I'd actually use my monitor's dual mode functionality in is Vampire Survivors. It features big pixels and so looks fine at 1920x1080 and at 480Hz the smoothness of the scrolling is just amazing. For modern, or even older, 3D games that DO support high frame rate, that's the answer: More FPS. I've been playing some NNW EE modules again as of late and I'd much rather play it on my 240Hz screen, which it usually is close to maxing if not maxing out, than on a CRT at 60-75Hz.

With a 960-1000hz oled you could run an electron beam / crt phosphor simulation that was a very good CRT replica with similar MpRT (motion clarity) and look to the CRT of your choice, minimal lag and still brighter than most crts. It would also keep many other advantages compared to a traditional CRT.