For me? Until 2016 when I got a monitor that had motion blur reduction that could provide motion clarity that at least somewhat resembled a CRT. That's when I finally stopped using my HP P1230 on my main rig (using a GTX 970). I used an LCD for several years (2011-2015) but ended up going back to a CRT when I started playing some fast paced games again.

2016 also marks the end of support for the VGA interface for high end nvidia cards, since Pascal dropped the interface entirely. No VGA = No CRT. 🙁

In real life I replaced my CRT (Samsung 757DFX) with an LCD (Packard Bell 220WDV) in 2007, quite late. It was affordable, but in some ways it was a step back:
-the resolution was inferior (757DFX could do 2048x1536, while Packard Bell could only do 1680x1050 (it had the option to do 1600x1200, but it looked bad).
-any non native resolution would look quite bad (scaling was very crappy), so older games that would not support 16:10 aspect ratio looked bad

But it was bigger, had a nice image quality and it was much brighter. Also it took a lot less desk space.

So, I'd say that if you don't want games newer than 2004 it's quite ok to go with CRT, LCDs were starting to become mainstream in 2004-2005, so almost all games will be optimized for 4:3 and 5:4 aspect ratio. Of course, you could go with a nice 20" 1600x1200 LCD or 19" 1280x1024, but, unless you find a high end one the image quality won't be so good, and most old DOS games will look bad (scaling issues).

Bottom line: go with a nice CRT if you have the desk space and you want that retro feeling (and you don't have health issues - for some CRT is bad, for some LCD is bad for the eyes).

I have a couple CRT's to choose from with me, both are 17"...

What are some good, affordable, 17 or 19 inch models to look out for? Not looking to spend a crap ton of money on one, but if there is something really good that is worth it, I may give it a hunt....

till 1995... 15"
1995-1998... 17"
1999-2001... 19"
2002+ ...21"

I have a preference for Trinitrons. So Mitsubishi or Sony. Prices here are around 0-20€. Doesn't matter the make or size.

RaverX wrote:

So, I'd say that if you don't want games newer than 2004 it's quite ok to go with CRT, LCDs were starting to become mainstream in 2004-2005, so almost all games will be optimized for 4:3 and 5:4 aspect ratio.

This is spot on, I bought a 17" lcd in 2004 for about $650 AUD, a year later they were half the price, 2005 was probably the year for mainstream lcds.

I use my lcd for everything but I'm also in an apartment

Right now, I have all my retro machines hooked up via KVM to a 19" LCD 4:3 Monitor from 2002, but really considering hooking up one of my CRT's (I have a Hitachi CM615 and some other one) for the older systems instead...but also want to look out for a better CRT to really give it the best look I can.

I have a 27" Trinitron WEGA Sony CRT TV just sitting here as well, but thinking that may be overkill if its even worth it....

2001 is when we finally got a brand new gateway that was state of the art at the time an it used a 1024x768 lcd which i used for years on end.

so anything past 2000 for me can have an lcd , i get that theyweren't common or good at the time but idc.

but most of my current retro build used new lcds. I like my retro machines to grow and change with me and if they can use a new monitor than i'll use them over a crt.

I ran CRT's on my daily until 2013 when I was forced to move to LCD as my new workspace could no longer fit two 21" tubes in front of the keyboard.

Smack2k wrote:

...

I have a 27" Trinitron WEGA Sony CRT TV just sitting here as well, but thinking that may be overkill if its even worth it....

This TV would be great for consoles and pretty much useless for PC.

I used CRT until about late 2012 or early 2013, but that was very late. Max usable resolution was 1280x960, but I used 1152x864 most of the time.

Then I switched to 16:10 LCD (1680x1050), last year to 4:3 LCD (1600x1200), and this year two 4:3 LCDs on my main machine.

I play newer (widescreen optimized) games in custom letterboxed 1600x1000 (or 1600x900 if non-standard 1600x1000 is glitchy).

I was using CRT monitors regularly until around 2014/2015. In fact I only switched to LCD as a friend gave me 2 of them for free. 🤣

I still have about 4 or 5 CRT monitors in storage, none of them particularly interesting from a retro viewpoint. I dumped a few cheapo generic Dell and suchlike CRTs a couple of years back to clear some space.

I use LCD for everything now, even retro systems, as they're much less power hungry than the old CRT beasts. Not to mention the massive saving of space.

At one point back in the early-mid 2000s I had a room with about 8 computers all set up, each one with a CRT monitor (3 of them being iMac G3s). Can you imagine the power drain? Hell, the circuit was even prone to tripping with only 4 computers setup with 4 CRT monitors.

I use LCD for reading/editing(sterile + precise) and enjoy CRTs for experiencing a finished product(could be a map or some test runs through a game). For me a CRT is tightly fused with certain low res graphics modes though, so I never really enjoyed the "high res stuff"(higher than 640 x 400) on them, even if they were top grade gear.

Running a 486/586 is of course a CRT only affair as nothing beats the whole package especially if you use CRTs that are a bit "exotic". I have 5 bigger ones(IIyama, SUN, Belinea, Samsung) and nearly every other day I sit down with a nice 486 board and a CRT of my choice and get some testing/programming/reading old faqs done.

I mained CRTs even on my modern PCs until I got my hands on an Eizo FG2421 for a reasonable price (a little over $240 shipped), because that monitor doesn't completely suck like most LCDs do when you're coming from a Sony GDM-FW900, quite possibly the best CRT monitor ever made when the flyback doesn't blow up on you and render it a spark-bulb-flashing big paperweight. Reliability problems aside, there's a reason that the FW900 still has this big thread going on [H]ardForum and people are trying to find DisplayPort to VGA adapters with RAMDACs worthy of driving it (because you can't use anything later than a GTX 980 Ti/Titan X Maxwell/Quadro M5000 due to NVIDIA dropping analog output on Pascal cards, and AMD abandoned it far sooner).

The FG2421 still has the typical "only 1920x1080, can't do 1600x1200" problem, but VA contrast is pretty good and it can do 120 Hz with "Turbo240" blur reduction strobing built-in, no driver hacks or anything. Getting anything with most of those qualities with at least a 2560x1440 res today requires at least $550, usually significantly more.

As for retrocomputing in general, almost all my retro setups use a CRT of some kind, the only current exception being my P4EE build in my bedroom because I don't have the space on the desk for it, and also my Amigas because the vast majority of VGA monitors just won't sync to 15 KHz TV-spec sources like those. Gotta get me a PVM/BVM that seamlessly switches between NTSC and PAL modes, lest I constantly fiddle with the vertical size knob on the Commodore 1080 that's recessed through a hole on the back.

My Macs use a 17" CRT Apple Studio Display (part of my VCF haul) and the ailing 21" Sun GDM-5410 that looks like it'll probably join the FW900 in the CRT afterlife sooner or later if I don't start diving in and figuring out what's wrong with it, largely as a matter of how I have my space set up there. The Studio Display is considerably lower-end in terms of what resolutions and refresh rates it can handle, but it has that graphite Power Mac G4 aesthetic going for it and doesn't have the reliability issues that FD Trinitron monitors tend to, being based on a curved Diamondtron tube.

It really depends whether you are looking at mainstream computing (i.e. what you get if you go to the local electronics shop and buy a mid-range PC with monitor) vs enthousiast.

I'm very sensitive to screen flicker and get headaches from prolonged exposure, so I was desperate to be an early LCD adopter around 2001. Unfortunately I was also a poor student with a liking to beer and travel, so simply couldn't afford the premium back then. That made me creative, so by 2003 I was running an SGI 1600SW on an (even then ) ancient Number Nine Ticket to Ride 4 AGP., and worrying about what the hell to do when motherboards stopped supporting AGP 1.0.

Aside from small specialty screens (Mainly POS/cash registers), I didn't really start seeing LCD monitors becoming mainstream in computer stores & general use until around 2005 or so. Yeah, LCD screens for desktop computers had existed LONG before then (I recall seeing one many times on the TV show "ER" way back in the 90s), but it really wasn't until 2005 or so that the quality had improved enough & the prices dropped to suitable levels for their adoption rate to really start ramping up.

For me personally, the first LCD flat panel I ever used on a desktop was a ViewSonic VA712b back in 2006. It was connected to the inventory management computer I used in the store I currently work at. In fact, the work computer I use is STILL using this monitor. This is a shared business computer though, so I really can't consider this computer and monitor as "mine" in my personal history.

At home, I cannot remember for certain whether the first LCD monitor I got was either for my father's or one of my own computers. In any case, the first LCD monitor entered our house around 2008 or so (Although getting cheaper, the cost was still a little too high for us until then). I got a new 21in LG monitor for my father's computer, but I don't remember the exact model. For my own computers, around 2008 or 2009 I got a used Dell 19in LCD to replace the HP CRT on my main desktop, and another used ViewSonic VA712b from work (It had died, but I figured out how to fix it) for my office computer.

As for 4:3 vs. widescreen...I actually have yet to personally buy, either new or used, a widescreen LCD desktop monitor. The four I currently have (The previously-mentioned Dell & LG monitors on my repair workbench, plus a couple other spares I have set aside which I can't remember the brands/models of) are all 4:3. Honestly, NONE of my desktop computers have ever been connected to a widescreen monitor of any kind*. It's not that I dislike widescreen, rather I had already switched to using laptops as my daily driver systems long before the mass transition to widescreen monitors happened, thus I've never had a need to buy a new(er) widescreen LCD for my own personal use.

*EDIT: I probably should clarify that my 2009 Mac Mini is connected to a 32in widescreen HDTV so I can use it as a low-end HTPC. I don't consider this a computer monitor proper though.

I use LCDs but that's more of a deskspace issue...

I used CRT till 2007 (17" with max. resolution of 1600x1200, but recommended 1280x1024), when I for some reason switched to notebook. But since 14" wasn't enough for obvious reasons, at home I had it connected to 20" 4:3 LCD with 1600x1200 resolution. Two years later, I bought desktop again, and I sticked with same LCD, because there wasn't any reason not to. I don't know, when widescreen blew up, but I stubbornly ignore it for a longest time, and only went from 4:3 to 16:9 in 2014 when even I had to accept, that widescreen is here to stay, and 4:3 will not return.

However, I'm so glad, that I didn't sell or throw out that LCD, since I'm using it with my current "retro" machine. I'm not really fan of the CRT anyway, and also, I don't have place for it, since I'm living in apartment.

Tough to say because I used laptops starting in 2001-2002 for college. I had a 20" 800x600 monitor/cable tv hybrid (purchased from QVC in the mid to late 90s) that I used all the way up until 2008 when it finally crapped out, then switched to a flat TV and flat monitors from there.

I never actually owned my own high res CRT monitor before, shamefully (short of a small Dell 1280x1024 I had for a few months). Browsing on that thing was a total joke by the mid 2000s but I never minded gaming at 800x600. That monitor saw thousands of hours of Diablo II which was 800x600 native anyways.