jheronimus wrote:

... new old stock CTX PR711FL (17 inch, 2002 model with a Trinitron tube) ...

...I also don't remember dealing with it back in the day.

Maybe back in the day you did not use obscure no-name monitors like CTX "brand"?

retardware wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

... new old stock CTX PR711FL (17 inch, 2002 model with a Trinitron tube) ...

...I also don't remember dealing with it back in the day.

Maybe back in the day you did not use obscure no-name monitors like CTX "brand"?

Like I've said, previously I had same issues on Samsung and Sony models (though I don't have them anymore). Also, I wouldn't exactly call CTX obscure. In my area this seemed to be a midrange brand. Since you get a Trinitron tube for around 30% cheaper than the actual Sony screen, they seemed to be pretty popular, too.

I am not sure I understood what you are saying OP, so let me ask this:

Are you absolutely unable to adjust the geometry (width, height, position, etc.) using the OSD controls, when the currently active resolution is showing up as "no preset"?

Or did I misunderstood the issue at hand?

edit: And what operating systems do you want to use with this monitor?

I second the question from duga3: Can you use the size and geometry controls from the monitor to adjust the picture? If you are expecting the monitor to remember the correct picture size for every mode there is, I'm not sure it's really possible. In my experience I have to adjust the image size on my Trinitron CRT periodically. It will remember certain modes but will be confused by others. I rarely use auto adjust as it seems to be very conservative and will give black borders around the picture.

duga3 wrote:

I am not sure I understood what you are saying OP, so let me ask this:

Are you absolutely unable to adjust the geometry (width, height, position, etc.) using the OSD controls, when the currently active resolution is showing up as "no preset"?

I'm able to manually set the geometry. I'm just bummed by the fact that the auto configuration doesn't work and I assumed that if that would be an issue everyone had to deal with, there would be some sort of tool or technique to make it easier.

And what operating systems do you want to use with this monitor?

Windows 95OSR2 and its DOS mode, Windows 98SE.

jheronimus wrote:

I'm able to manually set the geometry. I'm just bummed by the fact that the auto configuration doesn't work and I assumed that i […]
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duga3 wrote:

I am not sure I understood what you are saying OP, so let me ask this:

Are you absolutely unable to adjust the geometry (width, height, position, etc.) using the OSD controls, when the currently active resolution is showing up as "no preset"?

I'm able to manually set the geometry. I'm just bummed by the fact that the auto configuration doesn't work and I assumed that if that would be an issue everyone had to deal with, there would be some sort of tool or technique to make it easier.

And what operating systems do you want to use with this monitor?

Windows 95OSR2 and its DOS mode, Windows 98SE.

You have assumed correctly as far as I know. Personally I am already doing a lot of fiddling/setup before I start a game anyway so this doesnt bother me in the end. There may be instances where the geometry settings could be changed directly in the internal memory using special hardware and software but that probably wont be the case with this particular model (or the equipment would be nearly unobtainable these days). And these settings are usually only for the preset modes (which you are unable to reach in this case).

So what you saw online are probably pics of users who manually adjusted the screen size and position. Good CRT should remember those settings for relatively long time so the adjustments are not needed too often.

Since you have a NOS unit (so you probably dont need hw calibration - yet), I recommend sw calibrating it with DisplayCAL and for example DTP94 to achieve better black level without the black crush that is normally present in CRTs - but it requires at least WinXP I think. I have not played with pre-WinXP OSes too much so I have no idea how it works there.
Making multiple profiles (day, night,...) for gamma 2.2 (more shadow details) and 2.4 (less shadow details) works great for me for gaming and movies. You can force those profiles using for example "Color Profile Keeper" app into most games. It does crush the colors a tiny bit in various ways but its unnoticeable compared to seeing a dark grey screen (instead of a black one) in a dark room.

I think you may just be spoiled by the gift from the video gods that was DVI. There's a lot of romanticism about analog video and CRTs and all that, but they really were all just sloppy, flawed, picky contraptions that we only put up with because "today's" model was better than "yesterday's", for any definition of "today" back then.

If you study the semantics of VGA signalling, you'll see that it's a total guessing game on how to align it. Everything is based on the vertical (frame) and horizontal (line) sync pulses. There's a reference timing guideline on when the video card should start putting voltage on the R / G / B lines relative to the hsync (beginning of the display area), and when it should stop (end of the display area). Ditto for how many blank lines should exist after the vsync (top of picture) and before the next (bottom of picture). The video card, being a digital device, would control all of this to the precision of its pixel clock, but the monitor only had the rising and falling edge of a TTL sync signal to go by, and that's after it was conditioned to minimize electromagnetic radiation at the video card output, passed through a long and sometimes cheap video cable, at least one VGA connector that was never meant to be impedance-matched, and through the analog receiver in the monitor.

On top of that, adherence to the "ideal" timing could be, and often was, fudged to allow for customization -- other video modes, and engineering compromises to make the circuit easier or cheaper to build. Similarly, the monitor's detection of timing and derived resolution details were subject to the processing power available and justifiable at the time.

It ain't perfect. It's never going to be perfect. 😀

Here's what I remember from that time: I had one computer, running one OS, primarily under one video mode. I would twiddle the knobs of my monitor to get that video mode to look right. If I decided that, for example, 1024x768 @ 256 colors was good for everyday use, but I wanted to do something where I needed 16-bit color and would have to drop to 800x600 to get it, then I would probably have to twiddle the knobs to fix the picture again. When I went back to 1024x768, I would then have to fix it back.

What I didn't have to worry about was trying to get two or three (or, you know, ... 15) different PCs from different eras, using different video cards, to all look the same when I switched between them. That is a uniquely "now" problem to have.

As I'm building, tweaking, fixing, and playing with a stash of retro computers, I regularly lose half the bottom line of text, or the left half of the first column of text, or a quarter of the Start menu, or deal with a slightly botched aspect ratio. The OSSC I use has (IIRC) 16 memory slots to save customized sampling parameters, so some day I will find or write a utility to switch between all the video modes that a given PC is likely to use, tweak them to perfection, and save that as one of those presets. Then on to the next one. I do not think any CRT will be up to that task, and so, I will probably spend half the time in the OSD and the other half looking at a less-than-perfect image. C'est la vie.

(P.S., CTX is a perfectly fine brand. Not top-shelf, but not obscure or terribly cheap.)

SirNickity wrote:

I think you may just be spoiled by the gift from the video gods that was DVI. There's a lot of romanticism about analog video a […]
Show full quote

I think you may just be spoiled by the gift from the video gods that was DVI. There's a lot of romanticism about analog video and CRTs and all that, but they really were all just sloppy, flawed, picky contraptions that we only put up with because "today's" model was better than "yesterday's", for any definition of "today" back then.

If you study the semantics of VGA signalling, you'll see that it's a total guessing game on how to align it. Everything is based on the vertical (frame) and horizontal (line) sync pulses. There's a reference timing guideline on when the video card should start putting voltage on the R / G / B lines relative to the hsync (beginning of the display area), and when it should stop (end of the display area). Ditto for how many blank lines should exist after the vsync (top of picture) and before the next (bottom of picture). The video card, being a digital device, would control all of this to the precision of its pixel clock, but the monitor only had the rising and falling edge of a TTL sync signal to go by, and that's after it was conditioned to minimize electromagnetic radiation at the video card output, passed through a long and sometimes cheap video cable, at least one VGA connector that was never meant to be impedance-matched, and through the analog receiver in the monitor.

On top of that, adherence to the "ideal" timing could be, and often was, fudged to allow for customization -- other video modes, and engineering compromises to make the circuit easier or cheaper to build. Similarly, the monitor's detection of timing and derived resolution details were subject to the processing power available and justifiable at the time.

It ain't perfect. It's never going to be perfect. 😀

Here's what I remember from that time: I had one computer, running one OS, primarily under one video mode. I would twiddle the knobs of my monitor to get that video mode to look right. If I decided that, for example, 1024x768 @ 256 colors was good for everyday use, but I wanted to do something where I needed 16-bit color and would have to drop to 800x600 to get it, then I would probably have to twiddle the knobs to fix the picture again. When I went back to 1024x768, I would then have to fix it back.

What I didn't have to worry about was trying to get two or three (or, you know, ... 15) different PCs from different eras, using different video cards, to all look the same when I switched between them. That is a uniquely "now" problem to have.

As I'm building, tweaking, fixing, and playing with a stash of retro computers, I regularly lose half the bottom line of text, or the left half of the first column of text, or a quarter of the Start menu, or deal with a slightly botched aspect ratio. The OSSC I use has (IIRC) 16 memory slots to save customized sampling parameters, so some day I will find or write a utility to switch between all the video modes that a given PC is likely to use, tweak them to perfection, and save that as one of those presets. Then on to the next one. I do not think any CRT will be up to that task, and so, I will probably spend half the time in the OSD and the other half looking at a less-than-perfect image. C'est la vie.

(P.S., CTX is a perfectly fine brand. Not top-shelf, but not obscure or terribly cheap.)

This is also been my experience. It's pretty frustrating. Even on the same computer, many combinations of resolution and refresh rate are no good. I also get my fair share of screen juddger, which to me is ever more annoying. Grrr built in frame caps and opengl always defaulting to 60hz.

I find that 70hz+ refresh rates tend to undrescan at most resolutions and look pretty good. Signals meant especially for VGA displays, my like dreamcast and lots of VESA modes also usually work out.

Whoa, guys. Thanks a lot for your extensive replies. Yeah, looks like my nostalgia got the better of me, and I simply didn't remember having this issue in the 90s. Guess I can either learn to live with manual calibration or switch to LCD screens.

Only on the LCD monitors the AUTO function works as intended. On the CRTs it usually gives centered image but not optimally sized. Most CRT didn't have AUTO function at all and you had to manually set the image. But with presets this was managable. With analog controls the settings were a pain as you had to manually correct the image for every resolution you used.

If you want to maximize your image quality, look into finding a pro-grade video cable that has 5 coax lines, internally for R G B H V.