Tell me about CRT

S

Simon

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 4, 2006
Messages
99
Hi

Most lcd/tft display ive tried are excellent for reading web pages and doing work but crap for games.

Anyway. I need a new monitor and as they are not made any more I dont think its probably prudent to pick up a couple of decent crts now.

What makes/models should I be looking for?

irrc Sony triniton & iiyama vision master, ctx, samsung syncmaster, mitsubiushi diamond were all decent monitors.

But what models were the best?
 
Simple Sony GDM-F520 (21 inch 4x3 aspect) for CAD and Graphics, and Sony GDM-W900 (24 inch wide 16:10 aspect) for gaming.
 
How exactly are they "crap for games"? A quality LCD is just as good for gaming -- especially if you ignore black levels -- as a CRT anymore. Old, slow IPS panels and cheap slow, non-gaming oriented TN panels are terrible for gaming, sure, but not all LCDs.
 
Ignoring the black levels is not optimal though, is it? I have LCD on my main computer but for older games that don't support widescreen I install to another computer connected to a CRT. The color quality, contrast and black levels are far superior to my TN panel LCD. It find the CRT quite soothing on my eyes after viewing LCD all day long.
 
silent-circuit said:
How exactly are they "crap for games"? A quality LCD is just as good for gaming -- especially if you ignore black levels -- as a CRT anymore. Old, slow IPS panels and cheap slow, non-gaming oriented TN panels are terrible for gaming, sure, but not all LCDs.
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The ONLY LCDs that aren't crap for gaming are the true 120 Hz ones. Everything else is complete garbage and everybody with two functional eyeballs and a little bit of experience knows it.
 
krameriffic said:
The ONLY LCDs that aren't crap for gaming are the true 120 Hz ones. Everything else is complete garbage and everybody with two functional eyeballs and a little bit of experience knows it.
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You've never seen a quality 60Hz low response time low input lag IPS panel, then. I'd take my current monitor over a 120Hz panel (all of which are currently TNs) any day.
 
its been well proven ever since LCD's showed up that the CRT tech gives a clearly better overal picture. the LCD only won because of wgt and profile convienence.

I have yet to see a monitor that looked better then my old FW900 24 inch CRT widescreen monitor.

I had really hoped the thin CRT tech woulda caught on but cheap won out and thus we have LCD everything.
 
silent-circuit said:
You've never seen a quality 60Hz low response time low input lag IPS panel, then. I'd take my current monitor over a 120Hz panel (all of which are currently TNs) any day.
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You've never seen a quality 100+Hz no input lag CRT monitor, then. If you did, then you'll know right away that LCD's are crap for gaming, even your overpriced planar with average response time for an LCD.
 
Although I love gaming on my 50" Kuro plasma I'd have to admit whenever I play the same games on my FW900 CRT the framerate fluidity is much nicer on it, especially when its 60fps or higher. Absolutely no motion blur.

Plasma's are known for having less blur than LCDs but CRT is still the king in this department.
 
Sure, CRTs in perfect condition looked better than today's LCDs for gaming, at least until you turn on the lights.

However... good luck finding one in good condition now. Seriously. Don't buy a CRT sight unseen expecting it to be perfect, or you're probably going to get burned with a CRT that's been dropped or scratched.
 
SonicBoom555 said:
You've never seen a quality 100+Hz no input lag CRT monitor, then. If you did, then you'll know right away that LCD's are crap for gaming, even your overpriced planar with average response time for an LCD.
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I owned a couple of Trinitron tube 21" CRTs (HP P1110s) and a couple Mitubishi 21"s as well. So, yes, I've pretty much seen the pinnacle of CRT based display technology.
 
silent-circuit said:
You've never seen a quality 60Hz low response time low input lag IPS panel, then. I'd take my current monitor over a 120Hz panel (all of which are currently TNs) any day.
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I totally agree. My 3007WFP is great for gaming. After getting this thing TN won't do.

SonicBoom555 said:
You've never seen a quality 100+Hz no input lag CRT monitor, then. If you did, then you'll know right away that LCD's are crap for gaming, even your overpriced planar with average response time for an LCD.
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Yes I have. I've had Sony Trinitrons, Mitsubishi's and high end NEC CRTs. If I could buy one of them brand new today I might consider them for gaming. Unfortunately everything out there is seriously old. Old CRT's are not pleasant. Faded colors, blurry text, etc. Most of them are old junk now.

evilsofa said:
Sure, CRTs in perfect condition looked better than today's LCDs for gaming, at least until you turn on the lights.

However... good luck finding one in good condition now. Seriously. Don't buy a CRT sight unseen expecting it to be perfect, or you're probably going to get burned with a CRT that's been dropped or scratched.
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Well said.

silent-circuit said:
I owned a couple of Trinitron tube 21" CRTs (HP P1110s) and a couple Mitubishi 21"s as well. So, yes, I've pretty much seen the pinnacle of CRT based display technology.
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As have I. The NEC MultiSync and Mitsubishi monitors kicked ass back in their day. Unfortunately you won't find these monitors in new condition anymore.
 
SonicBoom555 said:
You've never seen a quality 100+Hz no input lag CRT monitor, then. If you did, then you'll know right away that LCD's are crap for gaming, even your overpriced planar with average response time for an LCD.
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I have a Sony G400 and it was a great monitor. I have sense personally had 2 LCds sense. I VX922 19" and my current 22" westy. And I got to say I am never looking back. I mostly Game and surf the net and really like my cheap ass TN monitors. I really don't understand why you hate them so much. Are LCDs perfect, No, But niether were CRTs. They both have there ups and downs, but LCDs are the current and forseeable future so either get use to them or start doing some dumpster diving trying to find some good ol' CRTs thats been replaced w/ LCDs I am sure there should be plenty of good ones that have been thrown out.
 
How many here actually find it more desirable to game on a 4:3 CRT as opposed to a 16:9/16:10 LCD?
 
Sony GDM-W900 is 16x10 wide aspect. That is why they are more popular than the GDM-F520. The f520 has slighly better specs.

Dave
 
silent-circuit said:
You've never seen a quality 60Hz low response time low input lag IPS panel, then. I'd take my current monitor over a 120Hz panel (all of which are currently TNs) any day.
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It is partly a preference thing, and it is also extremely noticeable when you first switch from a CRT @ 100Hz or higher, to a 60Hz LCD, even a low lag one. It's unpleasant enough initially for some people, that they will not give it the time it takes to adjust to the LCD.


If it were not for Eyefinity, I would still game almost exclusively on a 22" Viewsonic P220Fb CRT.
 
Perception of motion on CRT is superior due to the front of the tube being continuously scanned at a fast fixed interval, the persistance of human vision works together very well in tandem with this. Lets hope that OLED will try to emulate this with black frame insertion in the future.
 
CRTs, yeah, having a massive part of your desk sucked up by an 80 lb tube, it won't be missed.
 
I only made the jump to LCD last summer with this Dell 2209WA, (before it I had a LaCie 19" CRT for god knows how long) I can say the move definitely didn't disappoint like I was expecting.
 
Largely the whole purest CRT vs current generation LCD is really overblown. I agree that CRTs just have tech that won't quit , strong contrast , great color regardless of how high quality the CRT is you are safe if you need strong color reproduction on most any decent ones , zero input lag for gaming and no ghosting. Those are all fantastic but LCDs are catching up ,in a big way.

However there will always be fanboys for each side , just choose whatever you think looks better because picture is truly eye of the beholder.
 
Wll from my point of view, it goes something like this:

For graphics design:

- There are many modern LCD's that are more then decent at color reproduction, then we have the ergonomics which give you more space, even if adding few extra monitors you won't feel the heaviness of CRT's and I'm not talking about 15" LCD's but 22" > 27" pairs. No radiation, less eye fatigue... can also makes long hours on LCD's more bearable.
- This days, only poor designer, fanatics or some unlucky ones with scrooge as a Boss would still keep their CRT.

Games

- CRT's are well known for their advantages at this category, but that's usually true with OLD shooter games or OLD LCD's. Many still play Counterstrike 1.5 or 1.6 and those games are played best as in smooth, at resolutions like 640 x 480/800 x 600 and 85 Hz - 100 Hz (as in 85 - 100 FPS). It's true that 120 Hz LCD monitors help but scaling and LCD at those resolutions looses some details, yet those are crappy looking games and only some TN LCD's are capable of 120 Hz and since those gamers don't care about graphics, this shouldn't be a problem for them.

Beyond those ancients games, there many recent shooter games that where made with LCD's 60 Hz in mind and higher resolutions that play real smooth on a decent modern LCD (one that doesn't suffer from heavy input lag and big response time). Games like Crysis, CoD, UT3, Bioshock, Stalker,... you get the picture.

Of course, those games play just fine on CRT's since they have no limitations, or to be honest since CRT's are capable of lower resolutions, playing modern games at lower resolution give you more performance as in, you could play a modern game with older hardware just fine and no loss in detail at those resolutions, since CRT's don't depend on native resolutions like LCD's.

So basically, if your poor gamer CRT's are still the best option... yet, I'm saying this with half of my mouth, since CRT's are out of production and most are real OLD with decayed tubes, that lost the shine they had in their 1'st years of usage. And guess this is the main reason why CRT's have no future and LCD's are other technologies are the only option for times to come.

Movies:

Most video content looks best on CRT's and I'll quote myself so I don't repeat the same thing:

well, I have very few HD video files since HD is still new and bluray's are still expensive, so most of my video collection is far from HD. Yet even HD movies look great on this CRT, the other video content scaled to LCD's native resolution or they other way around can loose same detail... yet on CRT looks perfect. Then we have the black levels, which look kinda awful during night time with that bluish glow... Watching a horror movie at night time, distracts my attention towards those washed black levels.
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I still have a 15 years old TV Samsung CRT, with an old tube that's starting to show... but I find more joy watching a horror movie on that, instead of my IPS LCD.
 
oh yeah, another maybe minor point (or not so minor). A crt will render the image real-time. A LCD has to process the data and then generate the image. This results in a few milliseconds delay that cannot be avoided. the proof is when they setup a video card to send out the same updating image (of time in ms) to both and then photograph the results. anyway in games it has a similar effect of increasing your ping.
 
jiminator said:
oh yeah, another maybe minor point (or not so minor). A crt will render the image real-time. A LCD has to process the data and then generate the image. This results in a few milliseconds delay that cannot be avoided. the proof is when they setup a video card to send out the same updating image (of time in ms) to both and then photograph the results. anyway in games it has a similar effect of increasing your ping.
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A games behavior from increased ping and input lag feel totally different. Ping increases result in erratic behavior while input lag is more constant. Thus input lag feels smoother. Both are still annoying.
 
I think this posted covered it:

"Simple Sony GDM-F520 (21 inch 4x3 aspect) for CAD and Graphics, and Sony GDM-W900 (24 inch wide 16:10 aspect) for gaming."

I love my FW900. I've had it for ~4 years now. I'm going to be very disappointed when I have to switch to LCD. I was hoping we'd have some new tech by then.

Remember there's some clones, monitors that use the same tube. I've got the HP clone of the FW900.
 
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