I agree - I've had a similar panel and, while I've been satisfied with the look and feel of y2k era PC games, they always feel a bit too lucid. I haven't found any scaling options that take the edge off in the right way; they can be blurry, kitschy, or get in the way. I am definitely coloured by memories of gaming back in the day, I admit that much. Very hard to explain to people who haven't seen it, but, it's something I always feel!

What else I think is lost on LCD displays is the gamma. Once I set the brightness on my CRT right and started using the gamma correction in games, everything started looking very thick, very pretty, with deep but detailed shadows. I didn't quite realize what I was missing before. I haven't yet seen an LCD that pulls this off, but OLEDs come close.

For NTSC games (like consoles), I use this cheap 13" Panasonic, and I wouldn't have it any other way 😉

One of the keys for LCDs is to make sure to get one that has a true 10-bit or higher panel.

The difference over LCDs that have a lower color gamut (6+2 and 8+2) is night and day.

The problem is that most / all companies that sell LCD displays is that they are very good at trying to hide that the panels in their displays are trash.

Unless it specifically says 10-bit or has a very high color gamut, it is for sure 6+2 or 8+2 bit.

And you can't be 100% sure of a true 10-bit panel unless you can put your hands on one and test or if the specifications specifically say 10-bit.

HDR10 is also a pretty good indication that it is a true 10-bit panel.

And, if you get a true 10-bit panel, you should also be able to set it to 12-bit (10+2) in at least the Nvidia control panel.

Not sure if you have seen this before, but prepare to never be satisfied with most modern displays ever again:

https://blurbusters.com/faq/lcd-motion-artifacts/

https://blurbusters.com/faq/oled-motion-blur/

Motion blur caused by eye-tracking of sample-and-hold displays like LCDs and OLEDs is very likely responsible for a big portion of what you're experiencing. It is caused by our eyes perceiving each static frame as not moving, and our eyes are fast enough to do this up to probably 1000Hz\1000 FPS according to some sources. CRTs did not do this because the image is only visible for a split second, so our eyes do not perceive the motion as "stopping" in between frames. This makes the moving image crystal clear on a CRT, while LCD and OLED frames will be blurred together by our eyes even if they are being displayed crystal-clear with zero pixel response time.

There are tests on those pages you can do to confirm this with your own eyes.

The only way to remedy this on LCD screens is to strobe the backlight so that the frame transitions aren't visible. This is complicated, decreases perceived brightness\contrast and is easy to implement poorly, so a lot of displays just don't even have it or it isn't implemented well. Because the backlight can be strobed much faster than the refresh rate of the panel, strobing (or blur reduction) is flexible and can be really good if the manufacturer takes their time. OLED panels do not have backlights, but they normally have near instantaneous pixel response time so they rely on BFI (black frame insertion) to do this. It works but it is much less flexible since a black frame can't be shown for less than the time it takes to show one refresh\frame. I guess extremely high refresh rate OLED panels (360Hz+) running games at lower frame rates (120fps, 180fps, etc.) with some kind of rolling scan black frame thing at 360Hz may be the most CRT-like option, but that's complex and expensive.

In addition, VA-type LCD screens like the G55T often have very bad pixel response times which creates a ton of actual motion blur, especially when transitioning between black and colors (known as black smearing). So, they have some of the worst, least-CRT-like motion you can find in a display. The Rtings page you posted mentions that the G55T has terrible motion handling, and this is why. It is unfortunate because VA has much better black levels and contrast than alternative LCD panel types. It can have a bit of an "odd" look to shades of gray at slight angles, but I got used to it pretty quickly on the VA screens I've used.

IPS LCD displays don't have this smearing and tend to have better response times, but their contrast can be quite bad even now and they suffer from really obnoxious "IPS glow" that is hard to describe but impossible to ignore when viewing dark content. It basically looks like there is a dark shadow surrounded by a glowing light INSIDE any remotely dark-ish parts of the screen and it moves with you the way a reflection would. I owned an LG 27GR83Q which was one of the best-reviewed 27" 1440P 240Hz IPS panels a few years ago and I couldn't stand the IPS glow after using a high end TN (older tech) LCD for many years. I kept it for a while, but eventually swapped it out for a different display when I couldn't take the glow anymore.

There are some unicorn LCD panels out there that manage to minimize the problems of VA while not having the bad contrast and glow of IPS, and they are sold as Fast-HVA, but they seem to not be available consistently and some other inferior monitors are at times labeled as Fast-HVA despite behaving totally differently. The KTC H27E22 (and H27E22S) is a 27" 1440P 240Hz Fast-HVA display, and that is what I bought a couple of years ago. I have been extremely happy with them (I bought two!). The motion clarity is not CRT-like, but it is good enough at 240Hz that it didn't stand out to me after using the LG IPS screen above (which had no backlight strobing option). The display has basically no black smearing and only minimal discoloration when scrolling certain tones of light text on a dark background. There is also no IPS glow - THANK GOODNESS. This monitor does also have a strobing option, but it isn't tuned well and doesn't look very good. It kind of works, but I haven't been using it personally.

Sadly, I don't think the H27E22\H27E22S are available anymore and I don't know if any other monitors have started popping up with these same Fast-HVA panels.

And... we haven't even mentioned scaling. A lot of modern monitors do a poor job of scaling images that aren't at their native resolution. This can really make an older game look terrible in a lot of situations. CRTs obviously had no problem with this, so running at any resolution basically looked "native".

So... all this is to say, CRTs have their downsides but there are a lot of things they do beautifully that LCDs and OLEDs really struggle with. Still, I wouldn't gauge the viability of retro PC gaming on modern displays based on something like the G55T. The poor motion performance makes it much less suitable for retro gaming or gaming in general... which is baffling considering that they sell these as gaming monitors.

You may be happier with a decent IPS display as long as the IPS-glow doesn't bother you too badly. Preferably, find one with a decent backlight strobing option and you'll have a much more CRT-like experience. I would check out the recent posts on the Blurbusters forum to see what recommendations people have for different budgets. It may be possible to pick up a decent older model on the used market that would be much better for retro PC gaming.

Okay. Done with the info dump. I am a biiiiit picky about modern display technology, and I have a collection of CRTs that are to blame for that. 😁

Sounds very much like the road that led to me currently running a P991 Trinitron on my overkill XP rig. I initially had a 1440p 165hz IPS display (which i only ever got up to 75hz), but RTS games smeared horribly when panning, and FPS locked games like the Doom 3 family, being locked at 62.3 fps, just felt absolutely horrible to play on an LCD.