Make sure you don't run a 60 Hz LCD at any other refresh rate because it will likely throw away the extra frames and this causes obvious stutter.

To make this easy to set up for all resolutions, for Win9x you can get HZTool and for XP get ReForce. I'm not sure of the best way to set this up in DOS.

Ah yes, those darn fast CRT's, I miss their responsiveness. On occasion I will get my NEC 22" (20" viewable) out of the garage to play some Unreal Tournament 2004. It's the only way I can play it, really. Playing it on a LCD, the pixel lag makes everything blurry and the input lag adds to make things even more harder to pinpoint and hit.

I hear 120hz LCDs alleviates some of the pixel lag but I don't know how much but would like to try one out myself. I really like IPS LCD's, do the even make 120hz IPS or similar variant monitors?

I like CRT monitors, I really do, but I just hate how much of a strain they can be after a while, especially if you're just browsing on the Internet or doing stuff on your desktop.
I also hate how bad LCDs look in anything but their native resolution. Makes DOS games blurry as hell. At least you can make up for it nowdays thanks to the scaling options offered by graphics drivers!

I wish I could just use the CRT.D3D.fx shader on everything. 😜

My main computer has a 26'" LCD but I only use CRTs on my retro machines.

I even like to use a TV for low res games. Smooths out the blocky graphics and gives a game console feel.

part of the smoothness comes from phosphor decay, other is refresh rate of course

Ive totally gone off crts. they hurt my eyes too much. Now everything runs off my 22" samsung. Doesnt look too bad at all, but maybe im not that fussy.

Scanlines suck. So do reflections. The way CRT's refresh is also harder on your eyes than LCD's. I don't miss CRT's one bit.

I use LCD for work and webrowsing , CRT to play games.

MaxWar wrote:

My main computer has a 26'" LCD but I only use CRTs on my retro machines.

I even like to use a TV for low res games. Smooths out the blocky graphics and gives a game console feel.

I want to do this with emulators to play sonic, mario, and many others, how do you do it?

sliderider wrote:

Scanlines suck. So do reflections. The way CRT's refresh is also harder on your eyes than LCD's. I don't miss CRT's one bit.

I can't live without the scanlines on my Sony Trinitron CRT, gaming just doesn't feel the same, love them.

As for reflections, also love my Sony Trinitron as is special anti-refletion layer 😉

I'm a big fan of CRTs, I love every aspect of analog video generation and display and I have become obsessed with RGB equipment, which is quite difficult when you don't live in Europe.

For me there is no substitute for a CRT when dealing with low resolution TV based video gaming machines and home computers, no matter how good the scaling and processing might be on a particular LCD, it can't match a CRT for this application. From VGA resolution upwards the desirable properties of low resolution CRTs are not present or relevant anymore.

For high resolution workstation use (not color reproduction critical) an LCD with perfect geometry, discrete pixel addressability, no refresh flicker, low power consumption and greatly reduced footprint triumphs over CRT. Unfortunately the TV industry has stagnated LCD monitors into 1080p, when CRTs were over that ages ago. Larger-than-1080p LCDs are rare and expensive enough to put them out of reach of many consumers like me. I could get a badass used CRT for a decent price to use on my main PC but I gladly accept the shortcomings of a 22" 1080p LCD in exchange for a lower electricity bill and actually having space on my desk. I'm very tempted about getting one of those Korean 27" LCD monitors though!

Filosofia wrote:

I want to do this with emulators to play sonic, mario, and many others, how do you do it?

When i feel like playing some old school console emulation on a TV, I always use a modded Xbox ( the original one ). Its the best machine i can think of to use as an emulator for anything up to Neo Geo and some late 90's arcade stuff. It works just better than a PC for this purpose.

Its even very decent at emulating some N64 and PSX games but at this point its starting to suffer from lack of performance.

Outputting your DOS PC to play low res games on a TV is another matter, if you do not have TV out on your video card you need a special adapter.

The good news is that there is an extremely cheap adapter on the market that works very well, our Chinese friends have unlimited supply of them.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Universal-PC-Laptop-VG … =item45fff6e0db

There's even a VGA through and you can also use the S-video out to record footages ( if you have a capture card ). I highly recommend this gadget to play Duke Nukem 2 on your TV ( and other games of course!! )

133MHz wrote:

I'm very tempted about getting one of those Korean 27" LCD monitors though!

How about a Catleap- it's Japanese I think- 27" and 2560x1440

Exactly that one - the Yamakasi Catleap, it's Korean.

Well there is a scan converter. Such as the Micomsoft XRGB-3 Up Scan Converter

And here is a video of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JbpSlRhv2Q

With of course some lovely old retro video games too 😀

I love a small CRT for retro, pre 2000 stuff. But I've tried big CRT's on my modern machine and those bad boys (20" +) are just ridiculous. Waaaay too big and hot, not widescreen, and surfing the web, etc is painful on they eyes before long.

I've known people who liked 19" 1600x1200x60Hz. I think the pain must be similar to microwaving your head. But from what I've read, a person tends to not notice that flickering unless they have seen a higher refresh rate themselves, and some people are surely less bothered by it than others.

I have a couple of 21" FD Trinitron G1-based CRT monitors and would be hard-pressed to give them up for any LCD. 1600x1200 at 95 Hz with lower resolutions up to 160 Hz and no resolution rescaling artifacts, hell yes!

However, if I luck out with this one deal I just found, one of them is about to get replaced with the Holy Grail of computer monitors: the Sony GDM-FW900. 24" of widescreen CRT goodness that can handle 1920x1200 at around 95-100 Hz, from what I've read. If I can get it, I won't ever need another monitor for as long as it works!

LCDs are always full of trade-offs. Non-native resolution scaling, refresh rates, input lag, response time, viewing angles, general image quality, and so forth. For my uses (predominantly gaming), the top-of-the-line aperture grille CRTs do not compromise where it matters most to me, and I don't mind the sheer weight and bulk once I get them in place.

It's too bad that SED/FED never really took off, plasma is subject to image retention and doesn't come in PC monitor form, laser DLP is hideously expensive, and QLED displays are still several years off. Those technologies might actually have a shot at displacing CRTs for being the best gaming displays. LCDs certainly won't; good as the IPS and AFFS+ panels may be, they're still fundamentally flawed by filtering the image itself out of a backlight.

I'll admit that I get tempted sometimes with higher resolutions more in line with today's widescreen standards, but the typical 1920x1200 IPS LCD costs more than what I can get the FW900 for and still has the tradeoffs I mentioned earlier.

LCDs can have image retention (my Nook Color's IPS LCD for example). And CRTs have their moire and geometry problems. There are trade offs everywhere.

Plasma tech isn't as prone to burn in as people fear though. I've had a 50" TV connected to a PC for years. It even gets to display a Windows desktop for extended periods sometimes. Image retention is very easy to get but it goes away pretty fast. LCD tech is catching up with Plasma though from what I've seen, which is nice considering the differences in power consumption.