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OLED vs CRT

I think once we get 1000Hz capable OLEDs, we can treat the individual pixels like a PWM strobed backlight, and time the "PWM" duty cycle to essentially always be a 1ms strobe at varying brightness to compensate for variable refresh inconsistency.

If the content is 60Hz, the Pixels would only strobe for 1ms per refresh totalling 1ms the pixel is on, 15ms the pixel is off, but at incredibly high brightness to compensate for the 1 to 15 duty cycle.

OLED brightness is incredibly power-bottlenecked. small parts of an image can reach over 1000nits, so all of the OLED pixels are capable of reaching that brightness, it's just that manufacturers limit how much a full screen can con produce due primarily to heat and power through ABL. But if the light output per watt is linear (not sure it is! not looking it up!) than 1 pixel illuminating at 300 Nits for 16ms would consume similar total power (and thus produce the same heat) as that same pixel illuminating at ~5000 nits for 1ms.

Am I missing something?
 
Enhanced Interrogator said:
Yeah this demonstrates why we need Pulsar-like strobing OLEDs.

Sure, we won't get 900 nits of HDR brightness, but the tradeoff is VERY much worth it.
Click to expand...

A lot of games today either still don't have HDR like Arc Raiders, or just have broken implementations that are not worth using. In those games I'd happily opt for perfect strobing instead.
 
I'm confused why HDR in PC games is suddenly a problem. Didn't HL 2: Lost Coast introduce HDR that worked just fine in the mid-2000s? Hasn't every PC game that's come out in the last ~15 to 18 years supported HDR pretty much automatically?
 
arthur_tuxedo said:
I'm confused why HDR in PC games is suddenly a problem. Didn't HL 2: Lost Coast introduce HDR that worked just fine in the mid-2000s? Hasn't every PC game that's come out in the last ~15 to 18 years supported HDR pretty much automatically?
Click to expand...
Nah not at all in my experience. HDR is a hassle to get working on PC to the point where I'm considering getting a PS5 for HDR gameplay Many games on PC don't support HDR and if they do it is not uncommon to be scuffed and buggy

IDK what state HDR support is in Linux for gaming either. I'm assuming poor.
 
MistaSparkul said:
Half Life 2's HDR is not real HDR.
Click to expand...
So

the "HDR" we have in games is a completely different definition of HDR than when we talk about HDR in displays, but kind-of related...


HDR in the rendering pipeline is rendering the world lighting with a large floating point maximum, far beyond any defined standard, and tonemapping the result to fit the SRGB colour space: that tonemapping can be just a plain clamp, or a divisor or a LUT, but the idea is that the difference in the rendered scene's minimum and maximum light values are extremely vast, and this "range" of lighting values is "Dynamically" tonemapped to the output image.

HDR in the display world is similar in that the video contains far more values than an average screen can display, but it's more for storing values outside of the typical SRGB colourspace and increasing brightness and contrast, and the display needs to honestly report back what it's capable of displaying so that the content is tonemapped to fit the display capabilites.
 
OLEDs are blurry as heck at 60fps. You need at least BFI to cut persistence in half. Ideally OLED panels got proper strobing.
CRT is the sharpest monitor at 50/60/70fps/Hz.
Second best are plasmas. On Pioneer PDP-LX5090 after some tweaks (like text optimization option enabled) sharpness is very good. Not like CRT but other than typical for plasma green-yellow to blueish) coloration on fast eye movement it is surprisingly very close.

For PC I use OLEDs and for PS5 I often also play on OLED. Some games do play better on plasma and some I even play on CRT - if game needs both motion clarity and very low lag.
For retro games like 2D games - the only option is CRT.

Half-Life 2 you can run at bazzilion FPS - and yeah, even at 480 or so fps some aspects of motion will be worse some other aspects like smoothness will be much better than anything you can get with CRT. Input lag scales nicely with refresh rate. All in all its best played on OLEDs. A lot older games even if they seemingly support high refresh rate and computer could easily play them at arbitrarily high frame rate needs frame rate limiting so here CRT might be better.
 
XoR_ said:
OLEDs are blurry as heck at 60fps. You need at least BFI to cut persistence in half. Ideally OLED panels got proper strobing.
CRT is the sharpest monitor at 50/60/70fps/Hz.
Second best are plasmas. On Pioneer PDP-LX5090 after some tweaks (like text optimization option enabled) sharpness is very good. Not like CRT but other than typical for plasma green-yellow to blueish) coloration on fast eye movement it is surprisingly very close..
Click to expand...
I’ve got the krp 500m (the pro monitor only version of the 5090) and the added resolution over crt makes it a better viewing experience IMO. That thing will be used until they wrest if form my cold, dead hands. Maybe not COLD, since it’s basically space heater when turned on
 
It’s only a matter of time till there are OLEDs with pulsar or an AMD equivalent. Should finally end the clarity issue ever since CRT production ended. Well except for DLP projection which is also great for clarity but not as convenient.
 
I loved CRT motion clarity and ran through a few different FW900 CRTs.

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 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.

For me, the modern larger screen sizes and resolutions are a big thing, i.e. 4k, 4k+. 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. No going back. Any tech for OLED and CRT that reduces the HDR brightness due to screen blanking/strobing (or is in practice incompatible with HDR) - is also not appealing to me, personally.




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

The google genie says:

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)


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


====================================================================================================

******** Long info/tutorial about RenoDX and Lilium (don't click to open and explode the quote if you aren't interested) ********

RenoDX rewrites the game's DX12 shaders to add HDR and user controls for the game. It uses the ReShade Add-on API to hook into the game, NOT RESHADE EFFECTS.
Since it rewrites the shaders, you typically don't have to update anything after you install game version updates from the game developer/company, like you would most other game mods.

https://reshade.me/#download (download the one with full addon support)

https://github.com/clshortfuse/renodx/wiki/Mods
Click to expand...

.

==================================================================

Basic install of Reshade + Lillium (+ Shader Toggler optionally) :




RenoDX 's primary goal is to fix bad HDR implementations where games clip and lose details, wash out color, have inadequate color saturation, etc. Then the Lilium HDR Black Floor Fix is used to fix the low end.

Additionally, the RenoDX mod for a particular game can do a few other things, too - like they can remove film grain, edit other DX shaders, etc. Some RenoDX mods for a game also allow you to change the brightness of the HUD, or remove it entirely. As stated above, the RenoDX module for a game, if avaialble for that title, operates on the native HDR of the game, when a game has native HDR and HDR is enabled in the game's own settings.

If you aren't happy with the settings the dev used by default in the RenoDX mod for your particular game, the Reshade menu (home key is the hotkey by default for the popup) has a RenoDX panel that pops up right alongside where you can modify or enable/disable settings and values of the mod, moving sliders, etc.

If you think the black floor is raised and/or detail-in-darks are lost in a game (especially on an oled screen), the "Lilium HDR Black Floor Fix" is where it's at to fine tune that.

Don't forget that you can right click any module within Reshade in order to assign it a hotkey. That way, you can toggle any of the modules on and off without having to go back to the menus and enable/disable their checkmark. You can also do sets of modules to a single hotkey if you want to mess with the "Shader Toggler" addon. After doing that, you can hit a hotkey to enable/disable the HDR analyzer tool, for example, which is very useful.

. .

RenoDX can also be used to "inject HDR" to SDR games similar to Nvidia RTX HDR, Windows Auto HDR. An important difference, other than the ones in the quote below this, is that RenoDX can provide a HUD dimming function in the game mod's settings panel, where RTX HDR can make the huds "HDR bright" along with the normal scene.
Click to expand...

RTX HDR I feel like has a huge performance cost, funky gamma, and overly bright unnatural whites. It's good at debanding, but that's also why it has a big performance cost.

AutoHDR has massive caveats, as in it needs to be corrected via reshade or icc profiles since Windows has a gamma-mismatch with it enabled. But, when setup correctly I really like this solution as it perserves artistic intent, applies to pre-rendered cutscenes, and has abit more brightness headroom for an inverse tonemapper compared to SpecialK and RTX HDR. It also has very low performance cost relative to the other options. Added benefit of being anti-cheat safe, can force on non-white listed games using https://github.com/ledoge/autohdr_force.

Setup to correct gamut mismatch:
easiest : https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/c..._how_to_get_windows_auto_hdr_to_look_how_its/

dank: https://github.com/dylanraga/win11hdr-srgb-to-gamma2.2-icm (it might not be that dank anymore if the ICC profile system is improved on the latest windows 11 update, but i'm not sure as I never tried it on that version)

danker personal method: https://github.com/dylanraga/win11hdr-srgb-to-gamma2.2-icm/issues/60
Click to expand...

. .

Mods vs Game Updates:
Another thing worth mentioning is that: "Using Reshade simplifies all the hooks necessary to tap into DirectX without worrying about patching version-specific exe files." . That should avoid the pain in the ass it would be waiting on updates to mods for every patch a game puts out.

. .

Cons of RenoDX:

..There are game-specific RenoDX mods published by RenoDX devs, and not every game has a mod for it yet.
.. It's primarily for single player games, because mods can be flagged by anti-cheat engines.
..The native settings of a mod may not be 100% to your liking for some games (but you can modifty and tweak the settings in the mod's menu).
..Some people have to disable raytracing to get it to work on certain games, but afaik that's not always the case.


Performance / frame rates:

RenoDX is an HDR mod that has a minimal impact on frame rate, often less than the performance cost of other HDR solutions like RTX HDR
. It enhances visual quality by rewriting game shaders rather than using post-processing effects, leading to more efficient performance that is comparable to a game's native HDR implementation.

RenoDX performance and efficiency

Low FPS impact: RenoDX works by rewriting a game's rendering shaders from within its DirectX API layer, rather than adding a heavy post-processing layer. Because it functions more like a native HDR setting, the frame rate cost is typically a few percentage points at most. This is more efficient than methods like RTX HDR, which has been reported to cause frame rate drops of 10% or more on powerful hardware.
Superior to software alternatives: Reviewers and users frequently report that RenoDX provides a more accurate and visually stunning HDR image with better performance than alternatives such as Auto HDR or RTX HDR. This is because it works on the game's actual rendering data, revealing details lost when converting from SDR to HDR.

Factors that influence performance
While RenoDX itself is very efficient, the overall frame rate still depends on several variables:

  • GPU power: A powerful graphics card is essential for high performance, especially at higher resolutions and with more demanding graphical settings.
  • Game-specific optimizations: The mod requires custom integration for different games, though the core toolset supports a wide range of DirectX 9, 11, and 12 titles. Performance can vary between games depending on the quality of the mod's implementation.
  • Additional settings: The optional color grading tools and visual effects included in some game-specific RenoDX packages, such as those for V Rising or Cyberpunk 2077, could add a minor performance overhead.
The RenoDX experience
For most gamers, the performance tradeoff for using RenoDX is negligible compared to the significant visual enhancement it provides. The HDR output is often considered the best available on PC, offering:

Increased visual detail: Makes previously hidden details in dark or bright areas clearly visible.
Correct gamma and colors: Provides accurate color representation, avoiding the washed-out or oversaturated look of some other HDR solutions.
Click to expand...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Installing Lilium HDR Black Floor Fix :

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

..You run the Reshade installer once for each game you want to use it on, where in the end it automatically adds a "reshade-shaders" folder to the game's directory.

..During the install, you pick your game you want it to "inject" those folders into, and then it prompts you with a list of checkboxes next to module names, (with a short downward scroll on each page), where you select which shaders/modules you want to add.

..Choose all of the Lillium shaders from those lists, checking all of the boxes next to the modules named Lillium. You may also want to add "Shader Toggler" from those lists for later use, or get it from the shader to github page. You don't need any of the other shader modules from those lists. In fact, if you install and leave any of the default Reshade modules or other Reshade modules enabled, it can cause a performance hit. Adding more will also just overpopulate the modules list for no good reason. You can also get the the Lilium files from the Lilium github page if you want to manually put them into the reshade folders from the .7z file instead.

Reshade effects selection screen during install
ReShade_Setup_6.0.1_fxelfzRhqi.png


..The "LiLium hdr black fix" and the "Lilium sdr and hdr analizer " work well with the RenoDX mods, and will later allow you to find your game's black floor and adjust to a new black floor + new rolloff so that blacks aren't lifted, while avoiding lost detail-in-darks.

..In the end, the single RenoDX mod you download separately for the specific game from the RenoDX mods repository (if available for that game) does not use reshade shaders as a post-process. According to the dev, the RenoDX mods operate on the direct X shaders pre-process, working with the native HDR of the game, and are just using Reshade as the api to operate on those from. You simply copy the single mod file (e.g. " renodx-cp2077.addon64 " into the same directory as your game's exe.

When you launch the game after you've installed Reshade onto it and dropped the RenoDX mod into the exe's directory, reshade will load with the game automatically. To see the reshade panels after the game has fully loaded, hit the reshade hotkey, which is the "home" key by default.
Click to expand...


===================================================
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Enhanced Interrogator said:
Anytime elvn posts

View attachment 779509
Click to expand...

cleaned up the RenoDX and lilium HDR black floor fix tutorials part, encapsulating it into quotes more. ;)


. .

Dated 2024 video but shows some good ones. 10 Best HDR Games of 2024 (PC) - GamingTech Youtube Channel

He's got a bunch of vids covering individual games' HDR up to the last several months of 2025 or so (including covering problematic ones), on his GamingTech Youtube Channel here.

. . .


A brief HDR black floor fix using Lillium tutorial from JDSP youtube channel here .

. . .

The "Plasma TV for Gaming" channel (though he uses OLEDs now) , is another good resource for HDR settings for particular games, and for fixes like RenoDX and Lillium.

Plasma TV for Gaming Video List (youtube)


Plasma TV for Gaming Video List from "RenoDX" search.

. .
This video below was published in HDR, so you can view it in HDR if you have a capable display. (Might have to use google chrome browser, depending)


View: https://youtu.be/PxChAv0kvGk?t=964
 
Last edited:
MistaSparkul said:
Prioritizing HDR while still using a CX which by 2026 standards has extremely subpar HDR is wild stuff lol.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvvYqfouobA&t=23s

View attachment 779532
Click to expand...



It's a lot higher than 80 - 120 nits :)


I tried the gx950a but I didn't like it's PQ.

the current (2025 anyway) gen of the samsung screens, both oled and QLED LCD have matte abraded AG so those are out for me.


LG G5 OLED gaming tv had dithering lines that scared me away. Will see what the G6 is like. Unfortunately, they started relegating 48" models of some tvs to outside of the usa only, if they make them in some product lines at all. I can prob do a 55" though.

.
 
CRT is king for viewing content with low resolution and a fixed, low frame rate on a tiny dim screen.


I remember developing games during the transitional period from CRT to LCD and I don't miss it at all.

UI and HUD for games was the biggest PITA.
You couldn't have content within 10% of the edge of the screen because overscan might cut it off, and console games had to work at 640x480 interlaced which meant text had to be huge just to be legible.
Now do all that with a 4 player split screen game where you had to cram everything into 192 pixels of vertical resolution (and only 96 of them showing every frame because it's interlaced).

I think it was Call of Duty 3 on xbox 360 where you couldn't see anything in 4 player split screen because the HUD took up the entire screen.



CRT motion clarity was great though.
I can't wait for OLED to get low persistence VRR.
 
elvn said:
It's a lot higher than 80 - 120 nits :)


I tried the gx950a but I didn't like it's PQ.

,
Click to expand...

Brighter than 120 nits is a very low bar to clear. Also he's comparing the S95F against a C5 which is decently brighter than the CX, if the comparison was done against the CX then that gap in image quality would be twice as much. Not just talking about brightness either but color volume on a QD OLED which doesn't rely on the white subpixel to reach high brightness is on a whole different level.
 
I believe you lol. Yeah it's a 7.2 brightness on RTings I'm not saying it's a top of the line 2026 HDR experience or anything, or comparable to those you mentioned - but it's way better than SDR and I wouldn't want to trade HDR for BFI/black frame insertion ever, let alone go back to a CRT. I can turn HDR off and see the difference and even with a 48CX it''s pretty drastic.

.
 
CRTs the way they display image make it extremely easy to experience range expansion. HDR is not needed for full immersion.
In the past people thought that something like bright light sources on TV and especially the Sun* are just much much brighter.
Only people with technical background in how TVs and TV signals work knew that this is an illusion.

I don't think many people know how it worked.
Even less people can actively induce similar effects on modern displays. To some degree it all happens automatically just by exposure - but then again for CRTs it was way stronger because CRTs the way they operate is... let's say just pure magic.

*) Remember to praise it!
 
XoR_ said:
CRTs the way they display image make it extremely easy to experience range expansion. HDR is not needed for full immersion.
In the past people thought that something like bright light sources on TV and especially the Sun* are just much much brighter.
Only people with technical background in how TVs and TV signals work knew that this is an illusion.

I don't think many people know how it worked.
Even less people can actively induce similar effects on modern displays. To some degree it all happens automatically just by exposure - but then again for CRTs it was way stronger because CRTs the way they operate is... let's say just pure magic.

*) Remember to praise it!
Click to expand...

Whatever floats your boat. My take is about my own preferences.



XoR_ said:
HDR is not needed for full immersion.
Click to expand...


You can get immersion from an old black and white reel movie, or a windows 95 FMV game - so that's really not the point.

The picture quality from HDR shows way more range, much more detail and vividness in higher color volume heights, and more contrast. It's not just about being brighter, it's like taking a box of crayons and making it sky high stadium seating by comparison to the "2d" color gamut - with each color distinct from each other, so showing more "3d" color range height and more detail available between more colors instead of them being muddied together into fewer color "slots". Still not reality of course , but aiming for more realism, and getting a much better picture quality as a result. At least on a decent quality HDR display (or on a much better more modern unit as MistaSparkul pointed out).

HDR_3d-color-volume_1.png


. .

I loved my FW900 CRTs for the time I had them. That was some time after 2006 and I went through 2 of them over time.
I personally wouldn't trade a HDR OLED for going back to CRT, or trade HDR for modern screen's BFI / strobing ~ crt emulation .. though I would use strobing in VR if I ever dropped money on VR again (or lightweight super high rez XR/MR glasses someyear hopefully) However - due to the nature of VR lenses being so close to your eyes, they may be able to have much higher HDR ranges to compensate for the lower perceived brightness when using bfi / partial scan, etc. if they can get everything to work together seamlessly someyear (projection and frame gen, foveated rendering, and high range HDR, etc.). For me, brute forcing 500Hz to 1000Hz OLED screens at 4k+ using multi frame gen is the way forward for low persistence / blur reduction on HDR screens.

monitors_27.5in-LCD_24in-crt_walls-1.jpg


That said I'm all for options so that people can customize their experience to what suits them best. There are a lot of nvidia / game option choices to choose between now, too (DLSS, raytracing, Multi Frame gen - whether to keep them on, or if on, what settings/values), some 3rd party tool options, and of course microLED LCD types, OLED types, and sizes/formats. . etc. One "size" does not fit all.

.

.
 
Last edited:
Enhanced Interrogator said:
Yeah this demonstrates why we need Pulsar-like strobing OLEDs.

Sure, we won't get 900 nits of HDR brightness, but the tradeoff is VERY much worth it.
Click to expand...
100%. Full panel off means no cross-talk on BFI strobes. The newer panels ought to be able to do near-CRT motion with decent brightness.
 
elvn said:
For me, the modern larger screen sizes and resolutions are a big thing, i.e. 4k, 4k+. 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. No going back. Any tech for OLED and CRT that reduces the HDR brightness due to screen blanking/strobing (or is in practice incompatible with HDR) - is also not appealing to me, personally.
Click to expand...
Funny how different we all are. For me, HDR is on the very bottom of image quality preference list, with resolution barely above it near the bottom. And I find my LG CX inferior to my Panny Plasma.
 
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Just got the Viewsonic OLED with BFI. I'll be playing with it. The XG-2431 has better motion clarity because it can strobe more extremely. But man, no cross talk and pure blacks are just something that's amazing to behold. It's really a shame that this is the only friggin OLED with BFI across the frame rate range of 60-120hz.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Just got the Viewsonic OLED with BFI. I'll be playing with it. The XG-2431 has better motion clarity because it can strobe more extremely. But man, no cross talk and pure blacks are just something that's amazing to behold. It's really a shame that this is the only friggin OLED with BFI across the frame rate range of 60-120hz.
Click to expand...
I'll report my findings in a thread for the display soonish. I think there may be a thread already on it. Short version - for the price I paid for it ($400 shipped for a refurb - it looks brand new) - it's hard to be mad at it for anything. The brand new price? Eh, I don't know if it's worth it, even for the BFI. Viewsonic sells it for a whopping $900.
 
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