Show your CRT(s) setups!

rabidz7

rabidz7

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 24, 2014
Messages
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Here's my previous setup (few months ago). I will update later today.
This thread is for CRT setups. Having some other, non-CRT monitors as side displays is fine, but your main monitor should be a CRT. LCD users can head to their thread here.

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flod said:
none of those are possible unless interlaced
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Correct, and quite pointless. Those resolutions and frequencies being interlaced would look horrible on that tiny 19.6 inch screen. It only has a .24mm aperture grille. ;)
 
Sony GDM-FW900. Still need to calibrate it with Windas but haven't gotten around to it yet.
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Not sure why some people think higher refresh rates are a good thing with CRT's, basically the higher the refresh the harder the CRT has to work AND the overall image sharpness is reduced as refresh rate is increased.

When I had an FW900 I ran it at 1920x1200 @ 85hz which was enough to eliminate flicker plus it still had a nice sharp image.
 
mathesar said:
Not sure why some people think higher refresh rates are a good thing with CRT's, basically the higher the refresh the harder the CRT has to work AND the overall image sharpness is reduced as refresh rate is increased.

When I had an FW900 I ran it at 1920x1200 @ 85hz which was enough to eliminate flicker plus it still had a nice sharp image.
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Everyone has a different flicker threshold. For me 85Hz has noticeable flicker for me and causes eyestrain. 96+ is good enough if progressive.
 
Vega said:
Correct, and quite pointless. Those resolutions and frequencies being interlaced would look horrible on that tiny 19.6 inch screen. It only has a .24mm aperture grille. ;)
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Yeah, When quoting interlaced resolutions: Either cut the refresh rate or the vertical resolution in half: Don't try to pull the wool over our eyes by saying your VGA cable can pump out QHD+ at 120Hz progressive.
 
Interlaced resolutions are stupid, you loose half of the lines GPU is drawing without even using them to do anti-aliasing effect. To show all lines you would need to have half framerate compared to resulting refresh rate which would make motion to have ghosting.

1600x1200@90Hz at 90fps would look far better than 1600x1200i@180Hz at 90Hz
to have proper motion you would need to push exactly the number of frames per second as refresh rate but then you loose half of the lines

in any way no one uses interlaced resolutions and for a reason : they suck
 
rabidz7 said:
Everyone has a different flicker threshold. For me 85Hz has noticeable flicker for me and causes eyestrain. 96+ is good enough if progressive.
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Yep I agree, I was mainly referring to those who attempt crazy refreshes in the upper 100's / 200 range lol.
 
Got a new center monitor (LaCie Electron Blue IV 22" / 140kHz). Flawlessly handles 2048x1536p@85Hz, 1920x1440@95 and 1400x1050@120.
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trinitron monitors are so beautiful! what if they had continued developing the tech. ... :(
 
What graphic cards do you guys use?
Because I remember that the last CRTs I used (2 x HP p1230) all of a sudden became very dark when graphics cards were being tuned for LCDs instead of CRTs. When I swapped out the new graphics card for older ones, the monitors were OK again.
 
illustrator said:
What graphic cards do you guys use?
Because I remember that the last CRTs I used (2 x HP p1230) all of a sudden became very dark when graphics cards were being tuned for LCDs instead of CRTs. When I swapped out the new graphics card for older ones, the monitors were OK again.
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Sounds like a gamma issue. LCD's typically have lower gamma than CRT's, so I guess video cards began using less gamma correction than they did during the CRT days. The result is a darker looking CRT when plugged into a video card that's expecting an LCD. Raise the gamma correction in the driver, and things should turn out looking more normal. Of course, if you're doing anything that requires some degree of accuracy, you'll want to actually calibrate it rather than do it by eye.
 
I've tried all that, but correcting gamma in the driver or in the monitor only produced a slightly bleached looking image.
I actually calibrated them with a Spyder Pro 2 (the one before led backlights; just suited for CCFL and CRT). I was using the monitors for print design. I replaced with 2 NEC LCD3090W-BK-SV (including Sprctraview and colorimeter) which I still use.
Anyhow I'm going entirely off-topic, just wanted to know what graphics cards you guys use. Especially with the FW900 which I could lay my hands on for a pretty penny. It had only one year of use.
 
Personally, I use Nvidia. Single 980 Ti. I've heard ATI/AMD cards have lesser DACs (in the case of the new generation, none at all), so maybe you were getting bad analog coming out of the card. You never mentioned what you switched to and from.
 
illustrator said:
I've tried all that, but correcting gamma in the driver or in the monitor only produced a slightly bleached looking image.
I actually calibrated them with a Spyder Pro 2 (the one before led backlights; just suited for CCFL and CRT). I was using the monitors for print design. I replaced with 2 NEC LCD3090W-BK-SV (including Sprctraview and colorimeter) which I still use.
Anyhow I'm going entirely off-topic, just wanted to know what graphics cards you guys use. Especially with the FW900 which I could lay my hands on for a pretty penny. It had only one year of use.
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I gave my nefiew mine years ago and he still uses it to this day with a pair of nvidia 8800gtx cards in sli.

The monitor needs a few mins to warm up till the picture looks the best.. also if it's been sitting around for years there's an important menu button you will want to use if it's all washed out looking. I believe it's called restore or image restoration. Thst will fix it right up.. you just have to wait for it to warm up enough before it becomes accessable.
 
aeliusg said:
Personally, I use Nvidia. Single 980 Ti. I've heard ATI/AMD cards have lesser DACs (in the case of the new generation, none at all), so maybe you were getting bad analog coming out of the card. You never mentioned what you switched to and from.
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I went from a MSI Geforce FX5900 XT-VTD128 to a Quadro CX mainly for CS4. The Quadro caused the problems, and the cheap ass FX5900 was OK. I also got better quality cables, real thick ones with one side DVI-A and the other side D-Sub so I could rule out the DVI to D-Sub adapters.

eclypse said:
I gave my nefiew mine years ago and he still uses it to this day with a pair of nvidia 8800gtx cards in sli.

The monitor needs a few mins to warm up till the picture looks the best.. also if it's been sitting around for years there's an important menu button you will want to use if it's all washed out looking. I believe it's called restore or image restoration. Thst will fix it right up.. you just have to wait for it to warm up enough before it becomes accessable.
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Thanks for the tips. I'm going to have a look at it this Sunday evening.
 
stick to Nvidia for CRTs, as the 10 bit DAC allows for software calibration with less chance of quantization artifacts (e.g. banding)
 
spacediver said:
stick to Nvidia for CRTs, as the 10 bit DAC allows for software calibration with less chance of quantization artifacts (e.g. banding)
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Both are/were NVIDIA cards. The PCI-e Quadro CX (the problem maker) cost me just under € 1900. And the AGP FX 5900XT €199 (I think).
Both systems are gone.
The FX 5900 XT was slotted into a Iwill DK8N motherboard, the Quadri CX into a Tyan Thunder S4992. I spent too much time at 2cpu (2007 - 2009) and was dragged into the dual and quad socket BS.

If I buy the monitor on Sunday (without the graphics card, he said it was an AGP card) I'll have to find a good graphics card for it. That's why I asked what graphics cards you were using. That GTX 980 of yours is going to be severe overkill for the poor Q9550 I found I'm afraid. ;)

I just moved 2 days ago (I have a genormous amount of sand papering, painting, and hanging wallpaper facing me) and rediscovered 2 boxes with old PC parts in my Shurgard storage. Even 2 motherboards: Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 and Foxconn BlackOps X48 motherboards. So I wanted to build a nostalgia box from these parts.
If I end up not buying the FW900, I won't build.

But I'm taking this whole thread off-topic. Pardon me.
 
illustrator said:
Both are/were NVIDIA cards. The PCI-e Quadro CX (the problem maker) cost me just under € 1900. And the AGP FX 5900XT €199 (I think).
Both systems are gone.
The FX 5900 XT was slotted into a Iwill DK8N motherboard, the Quadri CX into a Tyan Thunder S4992. I spent too much time at 2cpu (2007 - 2009) and was dragged into the dual and quad socket BS.

If I buy the monitor on Sunday (without the graphics card, he said it was an AGP card) I'll have to find a good graphics card for it. That's why I asked what graphics cards you were using. That GTX 980 of yours is going to be severe overkill for the poor Q9550 I found I'm afraid. ;)

I just moved 2 days ago (I have a genormous amount of sand papering, painting, and hanging wallpaper facing me) and rediscovered 2 boxes with old PC parts in my Shurgard storage. Even 2 motherboards: Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 and Foxconn BlackOps X48 motherboards. So I wanted to build a nostalgia box from these parts.
If I end up not buying the FW900, I won't build.

But I'm taking this whole thread off-topic. Pardon me.
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Not so familiar with those cards, but Nvidia had some analog issues back in the day as well as far as I know. Good luck with the monitor; FW900's are only getting harder to obtain. If the picture is in good health (check for focus pops - they would indicate potential problems with the flyback transformer and other high voltage parts; a washed-out screen is no issue with a low-level calibration - see here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788&page=686), I would get it no matter what kind of superficial nicks and dents there are on the screen or bezel.
 
aeliusg said:
Not so familiar with those cards, but Nvidia had some analog issues back in the day as well as far as I know. Good luck with the monitor; FW900's are only getting harder to obtain. If the picture is in good health (check for focus pops - they would indicate potential problems with the flyback transformer and other high voltage parts; a washed-out screen is no issue with a low-level calibration - see here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=952788&page=686), I would get it no matter what kind of superficial nicks and dents there are on the screen or bezel.
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With focus pops do you mean the sharp crackling noise (sometimes even with the smell of burned wire insulation)?

I cannot find anything about low level calibration on the page that you linked.
Thanks for the tips.

I just looked again at eBay $1249.95 for a Sony FW900 and $849.95 for a Sony Artisan.
The €150.-- I'm supposed to pay looks pretty tempting now. I wonder what's wrong with the monitor.
 
illustrator said:
With focus pops do you mean the sharp crackling noise (sometimes even with the smell of burned wire insulation)?

I cannot find anything about low level calibration on the page that you linked.
Thanks for the tips.

I just looked again at eBay $1249.95 for a Sony FW900 and $849.95 for a Sony Artisan.
The €150.-- I'm supposed to pay looks pretty tempting now. I wonder what's wrong with the monitor.
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Sorry, the link was to the thread in general. Information is pretty well-dispersed in there, so I wouldn't bother with it unless you've actually bought the monitor or have the time to go through it - and into the rabbit hole. There's a Sony maintenance utility called Win DAS or WinDAS that was cracked for general usage which allows for low-level calibration of all desktop Trinitron units. Spacediver (the user you replied to above) has made a very good guide for the white-point balance procedure available in this software.

The listings you see on Ebay were made by one Unkle Vito, known as LAGRUNAUER on these forums. He calibrates them to factory spec and also supplies critical parts for these monitors. Those prices don't necessarily reflect on the condition of the monitor you are purchasing from any other individual. It may be that they were tired of the monitor taking up space or using too much energy or expelling too much heat, as it were. Perhaps they aren't confident enough to charge so much for a monitor that is yet more than a decade old.

As I said, I'd ignore any superficial damage that the monitor may have and make sure that the tube itself is bright enough at a reasonable setting (the defaults are 31 brightness, 90 contrast). Focus pops refer to the monitor coming in and out of focus along with a popping noise, typically associated with a flyback transformer that is on its way out. There may or may not be a burning smell. Still, at that price, I might take the risk as long as the display does not die completely during the viewing period.
 
aeliusg said:
Sorry, the link was to the thread in general. Information is pretty well-dispersed in there, so I wouldn't bother with it unless you've actually bought the monitor or have the time to go through it - and into the rabbit hole. There's a Sony maintenance utility called Win DAS or WinDAS that was cracked for general usage which allows for low-level calibration of all desktop Trinitron units. Spacediver (the user you replied to above) has made a very good guide for the white-point balance procedure available in this software.

The listings you see on Ebay were made by one Unkle Vito, known as LAGRUNAUER on these forums. He calibrates them to factory spec and also supplies critical parts for these monitors. Those prices don't necessarily reflect on the condition of the monitor you are purchasing from any other individual. It may be that they were tired of the monitor taking up space or using too much energy or expelling too much heat, as it were. Perhaps they aren't confident enough to charge so much for a monitor that is yet more than a decade old.

As I said, I'd ignore any superficial damage that the monitor may have and make sure that the tube itself is bright enough at a reasonable setting (the defaults are 31 brightness, 90 contrast). Focus pops refer to the monitor coming in and out of focus along with a popping noise, typically associated with a flyback transformer that is on its way out. There may or may not be a burning smell. Still, at that price, I might take the risk as long as the display does not die completely during the viewing period.
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Hey man thanks a lot for the information and tips.
And you're right. I'll just go over there and see what it looks like. Not giving away that it's a low price of course.
Your right it's better to dig up the low level calibration info when it's necessary.
Wish me good luck for Sunday.
 
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Lacie electron 22 blue (ver.2). Picked up for 10€ to play some games (dem hz) and ended up as my main monitor. With some CRU 16:9 modes are welcome, 1920x1080@100hz looks great.
 
144Hz on lcd isn't as good as crt at half the Hz still today in 2016. I think you have gone blind from staring at lcd garbage. Nice that you like your Chinese plastic toy Gsync monitors but simply put and by all measurement, a good crt still destroys them.
 
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