Yea it's a problem because 1600 isn't divisible by 3 so you will have pixels of different sizes.

1920 x 1200 or 1600 x 1200 are ideal for 4:3 gaming (1600 x 1200 letterboxed on a 1920 x 1200 screen).

I usually use 1080p on most things.

m1so wrote:

Crash Bandicoot (240p, or properly said 512x240) on my PSX on a CRT TV looks crisper than Youtube "HD".

Well yeah. It does look good. In fact a CRT TV is the only way to properly play this console. But just to be fair it needs to be mentioned that this has some slight flickering to it due to the interlacing, which is a bit more apparent with a LDTV resolution. I was a bit surprised about this myself when I dug my PSX out after not having played it for a long time. Back in the day you simply didn't notice such minor technical details, especially as a kid.

You probably have read Andy Gavin's blog on the development of this game. My favorite from that is how they had to make Crash's pupils out of 2 polygons so that they wouldn't disappear so easily when he was standing far away. They had to work with a lot of such tricks to get around the limitations of the low resolution.

bristlehog wrote:

kolano wrote:

Ug, all you and your low resolutions. I updated to 2560x1600 a while ago, and look forward for 4k displays to come down in price. Definitely like that 2560x1600 is an even 8 multiplier of 320x200, while allows for nice filter/shader combos.

2560x1600 is 16:10 ratio, while 320x200 is 4:3 with non-square pixels. Do you really experience no problems with 320x200 on such a display?

The stretching doesn't bother me as much as the non-even pixel sizes you get when applying aspect ratio correction.

kolano wrote:

The stretching doesn't bother me as much, as the non-even pixel sizes you get when applying aspect ratio correction.

😳

Which again proves my point that LCDs are shit. They can't stretch an image without horrible distortion.

Well I don't miss CRTs at all. Glad to see them gone, but this is a very personal choice...

I use a 1920x1200 native resolution 25" monitor. I can easily display two pages side by side to get work done.

I hate the fact that all Windows monitors for laptops are 16:9 these days. More importantly, the resolution on many windows laptop screens is meh, (1366x768 or 1600x900). The MacBooks use a 16:10 ratio and have native resolutions of 2560x1600 (13") or 2880x1800 (15"). Google's Chromebook Pixel has a 12.85" screen and a 2560x1700 resolution. While that is a 3:2 ratio, the bottom 100 pixels or typically get used by the taskbar. Unfortunately, the Mac's have an OS that I personally detest and Google's expensive paperweight is not ready for productivity high time.

I finally had to replace my old Acer 22" widescreen as it had a native resolution of 1680 x 105 or 16:10 aspect ratio.

I went with a new Asus 24 inch model that runs at 1920 x 1080 which supports the 16:9 aspect ratio.

This is an LED backlit model which looks so much cleaner and sharper then the old Acer LCD did.

As for me, I have seen some good Plasma panels but really this would be better suited for my living room but my eyes are so bad that even with specs I can't see the difference until I'm too close to really see things properly.

Some of us probably can't tell the difference when looking at normal viewing distances due to this 😉

I still have a really nice 20" CRT TV from around 2005-2006 kicking around at my grandparents place. Back when it was my main TV, it was really nice for playing Perfect Dark on. 😁

I think 1080p is quickly becoming the minimum spec for a PC monitor. You can always go higher obviously. I'm currently at 1920x1200 myself.

We are on the verge of 4K (3840×2160) as the new bleeding edge. There is not much content for it yet, but the future for it does look bright. On the PC side, 4K requires quite a beefy card to render 3d games on. Myself, I probably will not jump into 4K until I can get a 27" or higher monitor for less than $400.

Personally I am cheap as they come when it comes to monitors but picky at the same time. It is hard to argue with a cheap 17in 1440x900 for $20 that has a decent quality panel. I despise all those low quality 1080p panels that have poor pixel density but the other reason is that I have other things that are higher priority on my list.

It is not that difficult to adjust between different ress and screen types once you get to working with different machines on a daily bases. Does 🤣 @ people who have gotten used to 1080p screens but are unable to adjust to old school CRTs and low end lcd screens.

Pixel density is purely a question of resolution vs. panel size. A common 24" Full HD screen will be relatively sharp in any case. The issues with TN panels are color accuracy (no real 16.7 million colors contrarily to what is listed everywhere), contrast ("dynamic contrast" is the most stupid thing ever invented) and viewing angles. Of course for 95% of buyers this is irrelevant as long as you can get a dirt cheap Full HD monitor with "awesome" glossy finish.

Just ranting a bit here to better explain my reasons for hating LCD screens:

With television, I can certainly understand the move to "1080p". The step-up from PAL/NTSC to 1920x1080 with 60Hz progressive scanning is a HUGE step ahead. LCDs can be made much larger than a CRT, don't take as much space, and are much lighter and easier to handle. Many problems of LCD are a non-issue in TV use, such as input lag and scaling problems. A few milliseconds lag are okay, and TV is only in one resolution anyway. Improvements like LED backlights take care of problems with backlight bleeding and low contrast. Perfectly accurate colors are not really a requirement. So LCD displays are perfectly fine for use in a TV.

What I don't understand, is why PC displays suddenly moved from CRT to LCD. And why the same naming scheme must suddenly be used in PC monitors as well. Saying "1080p" when referring to PC displays just makes no sense AT ALL. And phasing out CRTs completely, especially a few years ago in the middle of the big move to LCDs, makes just as much sense. LCDs were, and still are in my opinion, for the most part inferior to the last generation of CRTs. CRT monitors had far superiour colour reproduction, were capable of much higher refresh rates and resolutions, had no input lag at all, can perfectly display just about any resolution you throw at it (within it's limits), has a more or less 180° viewing angle, etc. So what were the benefits of an LCD? Thin. Lightweight. Can be made larger. Aaaand, that's it. Having a thin display and creating more desk space, that is certainly an improvement, I would agree with that. Lightweight is not much of an issue, unless you have to haul your screen around a lot, which would make sense in a laptop. Having a bigger screen area can be an improvement, to some people. I personally prefer smaller screens as you don't have to move your eyes and head around so much, and the only reason I use a 21" tube is because of the higher resolutions and refresh rate. But since these three points were the ONLY improvement over CRTs, I can not understand why CRTs were ever phased out in favour of this otherwise inferior technology.

The reason that I switched to LCD was mainly due to heat as CRTs are bulky and produce vast amounts of heat. Although most here and elsewhere on the net give the impression of living in a rather cool climate but in a hot climate like that of Texas or worse India that extra heat that a crt will make can turn a room from being a sauna into a little hell after a few hours.

jwt25 wrote:

So what were the benefits of an LCD? Thin. Lightweight. Can be made larger. Aaaand, that's it.

Don't forget less heat, a lower power consumption, and less flicker/eye-strain (for most people). I'm hardly the biggest fan of LCD technology, but for most undiscerning/average users these are legitimate advantages, and the downsides (which are conspicuous for people like you and me) they can live with.

As for TV, I actually still use an old 4:3 CRT; I rarely watch much TV anyway. Again, I can see why "1080p" TVs are the thing to have for most people, but I wish these things didn't have those built-in "image enhancement" filters, which often cannot be disabled, making actual human faces look more like half-melted wax figures (this is why most TVs are unfit to plug into a PC). But apparently, most people seem perfectly happy to watch even 4:3 content stretched to 16:9 just to feel that they're using up their wiiiiide screen to its fullest, so why should they care if every frame looks like a head-on collision between Photoshop's "sharpen" and "reduce noise" filters?

And yeah, I don't understand the "TVization" of the PC monitor either...

The problem with CRTs is that they deteriorate. It's a bit more difficult to change the whole tube than just changing the backlight on a LCD. Of course you get dead pixels there but I think they improved on that in recent years.

VileRancour wrote:

Don't forget less heat, a lower power consumption, and less flicker/eye-strain (for most people). I'm hardly the biggest fan of LCD technology, but for most undiscerning/average users these are legitimate advantages, and the downsides (which are conspicuous for people like you and me) they can live with.

The flicker is not an issue if you just use the maximum refresh rate. And CRTs that can do only 60Hz tend have slower phosphors anyway. If not it's a piece of shit.

Power consumption and heat. In older CRTs I can agree with that, but the later CRTs were becoming VERY power efficient.
My current tube, which is quite old, takes 150W and gets slightly warm, you can feel it if you put your hand on top of it but it's not much really. My much older "Radiation King" takes 60W and runs pretty hot.
The newest CRT I have, which I bought brand new in 2007 or so, takes only 60W, is exceptionally bright, MUCH brighter than any display I have ever seen, and stays just cold. It warms up very slightly after being on all day.
In comparison, most LCDs I've seen also take about 60W, are generally quite dim, and run MUCH hotter even than my current 150W monster.

VileRancour wrote:

As for TV, I actually still use an old 4:3 CRT; I rarely watch much TV anyway. Again, I can see why "1080p" TVs are the thing to have for most people, but I wish these things didn't have those built-in "image enhancement" filters, which often cannot be disabled, making actual human faces look more like half-melted wax figures (this is why most TVs are unfit to plug into a PC). But apparently, most people seem perfectly happy to watch even 4:3 content stretched to 16:9 just to feel that they're using up their wiiiiide screen to its fullest, so why should they care if every frame looks like a head-on collision between Photoshop's "sharpen" and "reduce noise" filters?

I'VE SEEN THAT. It is disgusting. I must say though that our CRT TV has the same feature, but it is disabled by default. Also these 120Hz 3DTVs, often use funky DSP magic to interpolate between two 60Hz frames, making movement look very unnatural.
My only guess is that people who watch TV often just don't mind? I don't know really. I don't watch TV at all.

d1stortion wrote:

The problem with CRTs is that they deteriorate. It's a bit more difficult to change the whole tube than just changing the backlight on a LCD. Of course you get dead pixels there but I think they improved on that in recent years.

True. Though it is much more of a problem with aperture grilles than with shadowmasks.
But this would not be a problem at all if they had just continued producing CRTs!

They don't build them anymore because it's not what the average consumer wants. The general trend has always been to miniaturize and to go digital where possible. People want paper-thin flexible displays, not old CRTs.

Not even the die-hard gamers who would kill for some extra framerate? Or graphics designers who have to make 100% sure their designs will look exactly the same on paper?
I find that hard to believe.