I have a 1908FP and only in some low res true DOS games do I notice much difference between it and my 19" Nokia or HP CRT monitors. IIRC those old games where EGA res not VGA res...

I might be wrong but given your Dell P990 is a rebadged Sony Trinitron monitor.. There's something about them that causes them to become overtly bright and washed out after some time.. Bear with me for a second (and I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies).

That is because they have a (for a lack of better words) mechanism that boosts the tube's G2 voltage to compensate for tube wear, on paper this sounds good and all but it turns out that the "mechanism" has a bug that causes the G2 to increase uncontrollably, to the point where either you'd get a very bright and washed out image (and in extreme cases, retrace lines all over the screen), and I recall in some instances, you'd get faded colors all over the place, to make the matters a bit trickier, there is no G2 adjustement knob on these monitors, it's adjusted electronically.

So it can be corrected using two ways, using the "COLOR RESTORE" function of your monitor, or using Sony's WinDAS software to readjust the monitor's internal configuration.

The first way is relatively easy, run the monitor for 30-35 minutes to let it warm up fully, then go in the monitor's menu, select "OPTION", then go to the "COLOR RETURN" setting and select it:

The second way is more involved, but from what I heard might work better. It'll require you to get a USB to TTL dongle, some wires and a lot of patience... What you'll need is to use a program called WinDAS (Sony Windows Dynamic Adjustement Software), it can be made to run on later windows (some folks recommand running it under Windows 98 or Windows XP) with some fiddling in command prompt:

You must copy the OCX file to C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64 if your system is 64-bit (which should be in most case […]
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You must copy the OCX file to C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64 if your system is 64-bit (which should be in most cases).

Then open CMD.exe (as administrator) and type regsvr32 C:\Windows\System32\MSFLXGRD.OCX then press enter. After doing this repeat the same thing but with SysWOW64: regsvr32 C:\Windows\SysWOW64\MSFLXGRD.OCX Alternatively if you can't find CMD, you can right click on the windows start button, then "Power Shell (administrator)" and when PowerShell opens it should give you this prompt:

PS C:\Windows\System32>

At the prompt just type "cmd" (without the quotes) and strike enter, it should give you a regular CMD prompt.

There should be a guide to calibrate these monitors here: https://hardforum.com/threads/windas-white-po … n-crts.1830788/

Just follow the "G2 voltage adjustement" part of the guide if you just want to lower the G2 voltage.

However if that doesn't solve the washed out color issue, then it might be something even more nefarious that is going on in this monitor.

It is not the G2. Real reason I see this issue in general not just Sony that utilizes the automatic kine adjustment keeping them in balance and at correct outputs does over drive them with time and cathodes wears out rapidly. The ones we see best results were non-automatic kine design where we manually adjust them lasts the longest. Rear projection other than sony lasts the long if you turn down the brightness in the customer adjustment screen by 20% to 30% if we catch them in time or on new ones, made cathodes to last longer.

Cheers,

Yes the P990 is a Trinitron. I can bring the color back up to normal levels by maxing out the RGB gains but that probably means the tube is worn. The red is strongest while the blue seems weakest. I don't think there's a need to play with the G2 knob yet (assuming this monitor has one), but is there a good program I can use to make sure I have the RGB colors adjusted properly?