I don't know if this has been brought up before in this thread... (sorry, I've
not read the whole thread - only saw it because it came up in "Active topics")

One CRT specific thing that I doubt could be emulated (without a LOT of
processing power and very specific pixel control)... Is:

CRT scanning. This is important with some old video game systems that had
peripherals that looked at the screen and used the scanning "flicker" to
detect objects positioned on it.

Two things that come to mind are both NES - one is the "light gun", a pistol
you pointed at the screen which used a detector focused on a small area - when
you pulled the trigger, the screen would (almost imperceptibly fast) blank, a draw
a box at the position of the object you wanted to hit - during this time it
would look for the scanning frequency being received by the gun)
eg: "duck hunt" used this to detect if you were aimed a the duck which
would then "get shot"

And even more annoying one was the Nintendo Robot which used screen flicker
to communicate to the robot. I've never gotten these to work on an LCD.

Hi, I think the light gun games started to fail with later CRT TVs already, namely those using 100 Hz/120 Hz in the 90s.
In retrospect they're often being forgotten, I think.
Then there were HD CRT TVs with HDMI input from the 2000s,
which had little in common with traditional SD CRT TVs, I admit.

For 20 years I hoped we eventually would get laser-based CRTs or better reverse-projection systems in general, with vibrant colours.
Or true OLED screens with self-glowing OLEDs instead of OLED back light panels.
Or larger e-ink monitors with VGA, DVI or display port..
But that’s another story! 😅

Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-30, 10:54:

Hi, I think the light gun games started to fail with later CRT TVs already, namely those using 100 Hz/120 Hz in the 90s ...

Makes sense ... don't think I ever tried them on modern TV ... for years I kept a cheap CRT TV just
to use with the NES ... and only within the last year or so have I let it go (and sold off the NES stuff)

The light-gun I didn't care so much about, but the Nintendo Robot was a really cool piece of video
game history (not to mention an awesome looking bit of kit).

UselessSoftware wrote on 2025-06-29, 20:19:

This looks awesome. Should there maybe be a bit less reflection around the edges though? […]
Show full quote

Mr_Blastman wrote on 2025-06-26, 18:55:

.42mm dot pitch Commodore 1084s in a grainy 1980s vintage low quality VGA "What if?" […]
Show full quote

.42mm dot pitch Commodore 1084s in a grainy 1980s vintage low quality VGA "What if?"

Because why not? There were lots of monitors and tubes I wish I could have hooked up to my PC back in the day, but never could. I "can" now!

This looks awesome. Should there maybe be a bit less reflection around the edges though?

What would be really cool is to have an option where you can use this in VR. Like you're really sitting in front of a virtual old school CRT.

Use new tech to make virtual old tech feel as real as possible. 😀

Absolutely, the bezel can be tweaked for reflectivity. My previous version was far more reflective. I settled on something that enhances immersion and draws me in.

Getting really close to the real monitor now with slot mask. Taken with a camera for comparison with my real monitor photographs many years ago on page 5, earlier in this thread. The slot mask is very detailed in application, but the photograph will obscure the proper structure.

It depends on what you mean by emulated. There are plenty of filters you can apply to provide that CRT look but you can go further than this. Years ago I was writing a CPC emulator in MonoGame and I tried to implement a CRT emulator. What I did was roughly along the lines of drawing the screen line by line 50 frames a second and having the virtual beam sync to the emulated VSync in the 6845 CRTC. The plan was to combine it with cycle perfect CPU and video chipset emulation so I could accurately create all of the special screen effects. I took a load of work (timing was a PITA) but I did eventually get something that almost represented a working solution. In the end though you couldn't even tell that I'd tried to emulate a screen it just looked like any other emulator but it was fun doing it.