TLDR:
Image persistence = motion blur
Response time = panel ghosting/streaking

Even if you have 0.0001ms response times, there will still be 16.7ms of motion blur resulting from image persistence if your display holds the image for the full duration of a frame at 60Hz.
If your display flickers like a CRT, persistence (hold time) is far lower. An average CRT might only have a persistence of 1ms.

To match an average CRT, that means you need 1000Hz (and FPS to match).
600Hz would be quite a bit worse.
But our displays are now much higher resolution, so we really need far shorter persistence than that. Something more like 0.1ms would be closer to ideal.
The problem with low-persistence displays is that they flicker a lot at low framerates and you lose a lot of brightness.

I do hope that one day we have displays which combine the advantages of modern flat panels with the motion handling of CRT displays.

Something I will point out is that G-Sync is not about reducing motion blur.
G-Sync is about eliminating latency, screen tearing, and stuttering. And it does a very good job of it.

I would like to see a mode that enables G-Sync to work at the same time as ULMB because then you would be able to play old games that run at a fixed framerate without V-Sync latency and without motion blur.
I doubt NVIDIA will enable this as an option though because people will be stupid enough to try and use it with modern 3D games where fluctuating framerates will cause the screen to change in brightness and flicker more/less as the framerate changes, or they will complain that it flickers too much at low framerates.

Give early LCDs a try and you will really appreciate modern lcd monitors even when it comes to retro use. I got one lcd monitor from around 98 or 99 and it is the pickiest monitor I have ever owned.

Thanks for the input and for the correction on the 600Hz thing. I was getting it confused with something else. I've looked it up again and 1000-2000Hz would be needed to achieve CRT-like motion clarity at high resolutions on an LCD\OLED screen.

So far the only display technology I have heard of that is available and being improved that can bring back the capabilities of a CRT is laser projection. I guess it does a pretty nice job, but I've never seen it myself and at this point I think resolution and expense are the main issues with it. Most likely it requires some distance for the display too which brings us back to larger monitors or at least needed a lot of space around them.

A 2000Hz OLED screen could do it too, but unless your games are running at 2000Hz, you'll still see persistence.

And yes, variable refresh rate is probably a very cool thing to experience, but it simply can't work with low persistence displays at this point. Considering the advantages of just having higher frame rates, I find low persistence to be the more valuable of the two technologies at this point, which is why I chose the BenQ screen rather than saving up for a Gsync model.

To keep all of this on the subject of "old games" (since I put it in Marvin for that purpose), playing emulated 2D games on an LCD is a good way to see the shortcomings of modern displays. Just watch anything with fine, pixely details. If you have access to a CRT of any kind, just try it and you'll be amazed at the terrible loss in motion clarity we've grown accustomed to over the past 15 years.

Yes, LCDs have improved, but when we've got people splitting hairs over 1Hz tone differences in midi music and the specific way that 3dfx cards dithered 16bit color graphics in Glide, you have to acknowledge that gaming on anything but a low-persistence display is a gigantic step backward from what we had years ago when our old games were new.

What about plasma? I've noticed that plasma TVs have a very CRT-like flicker, mostly noticeable when displaying a completely white screen.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

So far the only display technology I have heard of that is available and being improved that can bring back the capabilities of a CRT is laser projection. I guess it does a pretty nice job, but I've never seen it myself and at this point I think resolution and expense are the main issues with it. Most likely it requires some distance for the display too which brings us back to larger monitors or at least needed a lot of space around them.

The problem with laser projection is that physical deflection using mirrors is orders of magnitude slower than the electromagnetic deflection of an electron beam in a CRT.
There is also difficulty scanning the image in straight horizontal lines too.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

A 2000Hz OLED screen could do it too, but unless your games are running at 2000Hz, you'll still see persistence.

The annoying thing is that a lot of this problem is just software.
You could build an OLED display that lets you specify the number of lines that you want held from 1 to the panel's maximum vertical resolution, and that would be a way to do a minimal latency low-persistence mode.
As you reduce the number of lines being held on-screen at once, you could drive the panel harder to compensate for the loss of brightness, since the overall power consumption will be lower.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

And yes, variable refresh rate is probably a very cool thing to experience, but it simply can't work with low persistence displays at this point. Considering the advantages of just having higher frame rates, I find low persistence to be the more valuable of the two technologies at this point, which is why I chose the BenQ screen rather than saving up for a Gsync model.

Depends what you play. G-Sync is very nice to have for modern games with their highly variable framerates, or old games that run at non-standard framerates that most displays won't sync to now.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

To keep all of this on the subject of "old games" (since I put it in Marvin for that purpose), playing emulated 2D games on an LCD is a good way to see the shortcomings of modern displays. Just watch anything with fine, pixely details. If you have access to a CRT of any kind, just try it and you'll be amazed at the terrible loss in motion clarity we've grown accustomed to over the past 15 years.

I agree wholeheartedly. It's really disappointing that the only way to get good motion performance in many games is to dig up an old CRT. Even the best of these low-persistence LCDs are far from ideal.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

What about plasma? I've noticed that plasma TVs have a very CRT-like flicker, mostly noticeable when displaying a completely white screen.

Plasma does flicker, but they usually have a duty cycle of about 40-50% while CRTs are more like 5%.
So they're better than a flicker-free LCD or OLED, but noticeably worse than a CRT.

Plasmas also have some very undesirable properties due to the response time of the phosphors used, and the fact that their pixels can only be switched on or off instead of displaying discrete values.
They make up their shades by driving the display at rates like 600Hz and using temporal dithering which means that the image can break up into separate color images similar to the problems that DLP displays had.
I find Plasmas very uncomfortable to watch, but have no problem with CRT flicker.

Deep Thought wrote:

Plasma does flicker, but they usually have a duty cycle of about 40-50% while CRTs are more like 5%. So they're better than a fl […]
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Standard Def Steve wrote:

What about plasma? I've noticed that plasma TVs have a very CRT-like flicker, mostly noticeable when displaying a completely white screen.

Plasma does flicker, but they usually have a duty cycle of about 40-50% while CRTs are more like 5%.
So they're better than a flicker-free LCD or OLED, but noticeably worse than a CRT.

Plasmas also have some very undesirable properties due to the response time of the phosphors used, and the fact that their pixels can only be switched on or off instead of displaying discrete values.
They make up their shades by driving the display at rates like 600Hz and using temporal dithering which means that the image can break up into separate color images similar to the problems that DLP displays had.
I find Plasmas very uncomfortable to watch, but have no problem with CRT flicker.

OMG. I knew I was seeing some minor rainbow effect on my F8500 whenever I'd move my eyes across the screen.
Very interesting info, thanks. 😀

Could do a retro type review of your BenQ XL2720Z?

Basically looking at anything that relates to old games, like 4:3 aspect ratio modes, refresh rate support. I've been looking at this screen for a long time, I think it can do 100+ FPS at 1024 x 768 over VGA, but nobody ever tests these things during reviews 😀

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Could do a retro type review of your BenQ XL2720Z?

Basically looking at anything that relates to old games, like 4:3 aspect ratio modes, refresh rate support. I've been looking at this screen for a long time, I think it can do 100+ FPS at 1024 x 768 over VGA, but nobody ever tests these things during reviews 😀

I will try to do this when I get time. 😀

I will say, I do very much appreciate the 4:3 modes. It has ones that emulate a 17" or 19" CRT... however, on that same note, I find it odd that it has a 21" screen mode for 5:4 resolutions, but not 4:3, as there is plenty of space to make a 4:3 resolution larger than a 19" screen. Also, in many situations it seems to disable "aspect" mode, which would give me quite a huge 4:3 screen. Coming from a 21" CRT (probably 19-20" viewable) I would appreciate having that extra bit of screen size back, especially since this monitor sits back quite a bit farther than my CRT did. Playing older games at 640x480 or lower seems to work fine aside from having to choose a smaller 19" display size. I may still be able to figure something out to fix that though.

It is pretty awesome to have little to no motion blur, no matter what input or source I'm using. As mentioned before, I don't believe there are any other monitors that can use any method of blur-reduction at 60hz (which is necessary for old games and systems). This flexibility gives the monitor a very CRT-like feel. The only problem is strobe crosstalk, which can be tinkered with using software or hidden factory menus... and its an unavoidable problem with any screen that uses a strobing backlight to reduce image persistence. After toying with it a bit, it is easy to ignore. If I got used to having two faint black lines on my old shadow mask CRTs, I can live with some crosstalk artifacts to completely get rid of image persistence. 😀 Still, if the crosstalk artifacts bother you and you find that image persistence doesn't bother you as much at super low resolutions, you can just use a different preset with Blur Reduction disabled to get rid of crosstalk.

is the blurring really all that tragic, i see it as free AA which CRT's dont give you. If you can precive the blur you get free AA in game

And the AA gets even "better" in non-native resolutions. I don't see a way how to exploit the potential while being agnostic to rendering.
It is not at all tragic for 99% of people. Some will get paranoid over delayed response, very few are fast enough to be affected.
But I agree blurriness has to go.

One advantage of LCDs over CRT that I don't see mentioned much, if at all, is that the pixels don't move.
On CRTs, scanlines will stretch horizontally depending on the brightness of the pixels. So you will get some distortion. LCDs don't have this at all.

That's exactly what I was excited of when LCD monitors were the new thing in town.
Pros:
- lower power draw
- lightweight, thinner
- flicker-free at 60Hz (no more messing with refresh rates)
- "no" radiation
- less eye strain
- perfect pixels
- better for the environment (less poisonous parts inside)
- only little heat generation (you could put an LCD safely near the wall)
- less RF noise
- can't be damaged by wrong video modes/demoscene stuff (no more broken flyback transformers)
- longer life span (ok, in practice things were different)
- the coolness factor

I don't know that I'd call CRTs "blurry".
They generally have a sharper appearance than using non-native resolutions on an LCD for example.
I'd say that CRT images are smooth because of the Gaussian beam profile, where pixels are made up of nice smooth circles, rather than hard-edged squares.

Scali wrote:

One advantage of LCDs over CRT that I don't see mentioned much, if at all, is that the pixels don't move.
On CRTs, scanlines will stretch horizontally depending on the brightness of the pixels. So you will get some distortion. LCDs don't have this at all.

I wouldn't necessarily call that an advantage if you're playing old games.
The scanlines and "bloom" that you get when displaying low-res games on a CRT has an "anti-aliasing" effect.

• Final Fantasy VII with pixel-perfect scaling
• Final Fantasy VII with "CRT Royale" shader applied (PSX version emulated in RetroArch)

For high-res, modern games, flat panels are absolutely preferable as far as image sharpness/resolution is concerned.

Jo22 wrote:

That's exactly what I was excited of when LCD monitors were the new thing in town.
Pros:
- flicker-free at 60Hz (no more messing with refresh rates)

Being flicker-free is why these displays have so much motion blur.
Most of your other concerns are either unfounded, or overblown. Power consumption was actually not a problem with most CRTs. CCFL LCDs got just as warm.

the technique to reduce blur on LCDs that started with the 3D Vision monitors is really interesting, but being tied just to Nvidia kills it for me, is this benq blur reduction method independent of driver support? just on the monitor side? that would be a nice thing to have, specially if it works with VGA connection.

SPBHM wrote:

the technique to reduce blur on LCDs that started with the 3D Vision monitors is really interesting, but being tied just to Nvidia kills it for me, is this benq blur reduction method independent of driver support? just on the monitor side? that would be a nice thing to have, specially if it works with VGA connection.

Yes, as I said I can use it on my retro systems at 60Hz. Which is what makes it special vs. other LCDs that have low-persistence modes.

There are some expensive TVs that do it as well, and they have no connection to nvidia.

Nvidia's Lightboost just sort of got monitor manufacturers to start thinking about the technology I believe. BenQ Blur Reduction is done on the monitor itself.

Deep Thought wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

That's exactly what I was excited of when LCD monitors were the new thing in town.
Pros:
- flicker-free at 60Hz (no more messing with refresh rates)

Being flicker-free is why these displays have so much motion blur.
Most of your other concerns are either unfounded, or overblown. Power consumption was actually not a problem with most CRTs. CCFL LCDs got just as warm.

1) Cool, I think we should be happy about this. 😀

2) I guess I should be grateful that only "most" of my other concerns are either unfounded, or overblown.. 😁

3) I disagree, my experience was different. I had got a 20" computer monitor a long time ago and its power draw was about 100 watts.
Maybe that was because it was an very old professional model. It think it was previously used for computer tomography or CAD.
Can't remember anymore. We got this thing in the early 90s. Anyway, a TFT at about the same size tops at about ~40 watts nowerdays.
And those models with LED backlight should be even more power efficient now.
I'm not saying that it is always this way, but I think CRTs and LCDs can differ significantly in this regard.

4) Can't confirm this. My 15"LCD monitor, a NEC LCD 1550ME gets barely warm after hours of continuous operation.
Heat generation is lower than the one of my external HDD or my 14" portable TV (CRT). It's quite an old model with CCFL backlight (2002).
The only other thing comparable in terms of heat generation is my old 9" monochrome monitor which I do use for my hercules card(s).
It does, however, only contain one tube instead of three. So I don't know whether this is a fair comparison or not (besides the differences in size).

Deep Thought wrote:

[*]Final Fantasy VII with "CRT Royale" shader applied (PSX version emulated in RetroArch)[/list]

Sorry, but that looks dreadful! 🙁

Jo22 wrote:

3) I disagree, my experience was different. I had got a 20" computer monitor a long time ago and its power draw was about 100 wa […]
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3) I disagree, my experience was different. I had got a 20" computer monitor a long time ago and its power draw was about 100 watts.
Maybe that was because it was an very old professional model. It think it was previously used for computer tomography or CAD.
Can't remember anymore. We got this thing in the early 90s. Anyway, a TFT at about the same size tops at about ~40 watts nowerdays.
And those models with LED backlight should be even more power efficient now.
I'm not saying that it is always this way, but I think CRTs and LCDs can differ significantly in this regard.

The wattage on the back of a CRT was it maximum power draw, which it would only pull when displaying an all-white screen at maximum contrast.
Average power draw was much lower since it varied depending on the picture content.
The latest LED backlit LCDs are indeed more efficient, but there actually wasn't much between CRTs and early LCDs in my experience. Manufacturers were being intentionally misleading about it.

Jo22 wrote:

4) Can't confirm this. My 15"LCD monitor, a NEC LCD 1550ME gets barely warm after hours of continuous operation. Heat generation […]
Show full quote

4) Can't confirm this. My 15"LCD monitor, a NEC LCD 1550ME gets barely warm after hours of continuous operation.
Heat generation is lower than the one of my external HDD or my 14" portable TV (CRT). It's quite an old model with CCFL backlight (2002).
The only other thing comparable in terms of heat generation is my old 9" monochrome monitor which I do use for my hercules card(s).
It does, however, only contain one tube instead of three. So I don't know whether this is a fair comparison or not (besides the differences in size).

I think that being a 15" display skews the results somewhat. Larger LCDs used to put out a decent amount of heat.

> but there actually wasn't much between CRTs and early LCDs
Got any real measurements to back up your statement? Since the LCDs have less volume they can emit less heat. If they were consuming the same power as a CRT they would be getting quite hot.

The 15 inch CRT were pulling 60, 70 watts (measured - it depends a lot on the beam current, thus the amount of light it currently shows). A late 22.5 inch monster was around 120 watts.

A 19 inch 4:3 CCFL LCD from around 2005 I have here takes ~25 watts.

> Most of your other concerns are either unfounded, or overblown.
Do you bother to give a reason why they are invalid? For me these are valid concerns. It rather appears you are blinded by love to CRTs or something.