st31276a wrote on 2026-06-20, 07:58:

I started reading this thread about things I recognize and ended up reading about stuff I know nothing about. (Or rather, really don’t care about)

Anyway, just wanted to stop and say I have exactly that syncmaster 17” spoken of in the beginning, and I run mine at 1024x768 at 85Hz. It seems as if it has been made to do that.

For old games, yes, 1024x768 85hz is not bad. But for modern games in interlaced mode, 1440x1080i 120hz really gives better results, but in text environments or when high precision is required, it is not so good and I feel that this monitor is not very normal.

This entire thread is basically you trying to convince yourself that a 17" CRT (a.k.a. table-buckling monstrosity with a usable view area of 15.5" and Moire effect at resolutions that have been already considered sub-standard 15 years ago) is suitable for modern gaming.

Then you also talk about older games, so I suppose it depends on how you define modern and older. The shift towards widescreen started ~20 years ago during late XP era. Everything after XP era (including the OS itself) will benefit more from widescreen monitors and high resolutions.

I feel that everything has its place and time. DOS games and early consoles will always look better on a CRT, no matter how much the filters, shaders, scalers and cool hacks of modern emulators try to come close to it. Modern stuff - completely opposite.

Back in the era of 60Hz LCDs, many folks had a problem because of the way LCDs refresh their frames - 60 frames per second means the effective 'response time' is 16.67 seconds, which causes "ghosting" on the retina.
Early TNs with their atrocious contrast and viewing angles were a problem of its own.
Now with 120Hz+ IPS LCDs, both are non-issues.

If you don't have the $$$ to spend on a modern gaming monitor at the moment, that's fine. Don't buy a crappy one which will annoy you. Stay with what you have until you decide it's time to invest.

dr_st wrote on 2026-06-22, 09:55:

This entire thread is basically you trying to convince yourself that a 17" CRT (a.k.a. table-buckling monstrosity with a usable […]
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This entire thread is basically you trying to convince yourself that a 17" CRT (a.k.a. table-buckling monstrosity with a usable view area of 15.5" and Moire effect at resolutions that have been already considered sub-standard 15 years ago) is suitable for modern gaming.

Then you also talk about older games, so I suppose it depends on how you define modern and older. The shift towards widescreen started ~20 years ago during late XP era. Everything after XP era (including the OS itself) will benefit more from widescreen monitors and high resolutions.

I feel that everything has its place and time. DOS games and early consoles will always look better on a CRT, no matter how much the filters, shaders, scalers and cool hacks of modern emulators try to come close to it. Modern stuff - completely opposite.

Back in the era of 60Hz LCDs, many folks had a problem because of the way LCDs refresh their frames - 60 frames per second means the effective 'response time' is 16.67 seconds, which causes "ghosting" on the retina.
Early TNs with their atrocious contrast and viewing angles were a problem of its own.
Now with 120Hz+ IPS LCDs, both are non-issues.

If you don't have the $$$ to spend on a modern gaming monitor at the moment, that's fine. Don't buy a crappy one which will annoy you. Stay with what you have until you decide it's time to invest.

Honestly, no one answers my main question. This is what bothers me and the discussion continues. My monitor in interlaced mode, whether it is high resolution, low resolution, high refresh rate, or low refresh rate, has a chance of v-morie. That is, every time the video signal is disconnected and reconnected, I have to adjust the v-morie again, and usually it cannot be adjusted at all. The number 0 to 100 in the monitor's OSD does not allow this. I have to roll the dice and disconnect and reconnect the signal several times until the v-morie is fixed. Unfortunately, no one says that this is normal? Or is this the fault of my cheap monitor? Can an aperture grille monitor also have this problem? If this problem is not a problem there, then I will have to buy an expensive IPS monitor. If there is one, then I have to. I can't do it. I search the internet and ask about artificial intelligence converters and specific people. No one answers my question directly.

afshin6760 wrote on 2026-06-22, 10:36:

Honestly, no one answers my main question. This is what bothers me and the discussion continues.

I guess I understand your frustration, and, no, I cannot answer your question as I don't know enough about CRTs.

With that said, your thread title is very generic, and in the first post you asked a few different questions, so it naturally attracted a broad discussion and your main question got overlooked.

I have never seen an interlaced video mode look good, ever.

afshin6760 wrote on 2026-06-22, 10:36:

Honestly, no one answers my main question. This is what bothers me and the discussion continues.

No-one really can tell you without having the monitor and trying your custom out of spec timing settings, I estimate >99% of CRT usage was at or around the factory recommended resolution. All you can say is the larger the mask openings the less chance there is of it happening at the same dot pitch, having a smaller dot pitch would also reduce the chance of it happening and a physically larger screen also has more mask dots for the same resolution so it also reduces the chance.

Looking online at what monitors people are using for doing high resolution interlaced signals, they seem to be expensive 19-22" monitors which have all those advantages. Just changing one of those things may not get you to the resolution you want without still having issues.

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-22, 12:22:

afshin6760 wrote on 2026-06-22, 10:36:

Honestly, no one answers my main question. This is what bothers me and the discussion continues.

No-one really can tell you without having the monitor and trying your custom out of spec timing settings, I estimate >99% of CRT usage was at or around the factory recommended resolution. All you can say is the larger the mask openings the less chance there is of it happening at the same dot pitch, having a smaller dot pitch would also reduce the chance of it happening and a physically larger screen also has more mask dots for the same resolution so it also reduces the chance.

Looking online at what monitors people are using for doing high resolution interlaced signals, they seem to be expensive 19-22" monitors which have all those advantages. Just changing one of those things may not get you to the resolution you want without still having issues.

I mean, doesn't anyone in the world have a CRT monitor? Try this and tell me? I insist that this is not the fault of the high resolution overclocking, it's actually much worse at lower resolutions and its sweet spot is 1920x1440i 86hz. I get it, I guess the Deflection Yoke or my monitor board has terrible accuracy, which makes the problem more obvious in interlaced mode, but I really can't be sure. But the points that I feel prove my stupidity are these: 1) My monitor's image lags in interlaced mode, about 6 to 10 seconds. 2) Sometimes my monitor shows white noise and is only resolved by banging my fist on the monitor. I mean its native progressive mode. 3) V-morie is random. It's different every time the monitor is turned on. This is not a fixed thing. It changes every time. 4) Well, this is clearly a bad monitor. 753s (S is one of Samsung's lower tiers, and Samsung, unlike Chinese models that buy parts from elsewhere, makes them themselves, I think, and this is worse.)

st31276a wrote on 2026-06-22, 12:13:

I have never seen an interlaced video mode look good, ever.

You're probably just talking about CRT TVs, that resolution of 480, 576i 50-60hz?

afshin6760 wrote on 2026-06-22, 13:10:

I mean, doesn't anyone in the world have a CRT monitor? Try this and tell me? I insist that this is not the fault of the high resolution overclocking, it's actually much worse at lower resolutions and its sweet spot is 1920x1440i 86hz.

Moire will be at the worst when 1) resolution is near dot pitch (~1200x900 on a budget 17" monitor 0.27mm) and 2) strong high frequencies are present. Using interlaced video halves the video bandwidth and maintains very strong high frequency signals since it scans at half rate. So moire will be most extreme at approximately 1280x960i 60hz.

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-22, 13:25:

afshin6760 wrote on 2026-06-22, 13:10:

I mean, doesn't anyone in the world have a CRT monitor? Try this and tell me? I insist that this is not the fault of the high resolution overclocking, it's actually much worse at lower resolutions and its sweet spot is 1920x1440i 86hz.

Moire will be at the worst when 1) resolution is near dot pitch (~1200x900 on a budget 17" monitor 0.27mm) and 2) strong high frequencies are present. Using interlaced video halves the video bandwidth and maintains very strong high frequency signals since it scans at half rate. So moire will be most extreme at approximately 1280x960i 60hz.

For me it's exactly the opposite, lower resolutions give worse v-morie. 1280x960 isn't too bad for me either. In fact, the worst case for me was 1024x768i 120hz and the best case was 1920x1440i 86hz. I don't think my problem has anything to do with your explanation.

I don't think I'll get any answers here because no one is going to turn on their CRT and test it. I'll have to go buy another CRT and test it myself.

For some reason I don't know, this time the dice came up 6 and the 1920x1440i 86hz image with v-morie 55 has a completely healthy image. But I'm pretty sure that if the monitor is turned on and off, I'll have to be lucky again to get the image right and I'll have to turn the monitor on and off a thousand times.

I used to play modern games c. 2020 with a Gateway ev910 (may be wrong on the model number). It's a fairly nice 19" model from around 2000. I had it primarily for period correct games, but used it sometimes on modern games for the novelty.

How useable it was depended on the game. Virtually nothing scaled right to 1024x768, my preferred resolution, so I was at 1600x1200. This gives a soft but smooth image, but many games were hard to read.

Birds-eye view strategy games like Wargame were unpleasant and hard to play; I just found it too hard to read the playing field. War Thunder RB air was frustrating, RB ground battles were okay; this was probably the most fun I had with this setup. Destiny 2 was fairly easy to read the playing field but I found it similarly unpleasant.

In comparison, I find period correct games like Ground Control, UT, and the ilk to look great at 1024, with no problems like a hard to read UI, lack of contrast in the playing field, or anything like that.

I generally do not play modern games today, but when I do, I always run then on a 21.5" LCD. I don't like big screens 😉

I wouldn't recommend anyone seriously consider playing most modern games with a CRT. Maybe a high end 21" would do okay, but my Gateway never cut the mustard, and I can only imagine what a 17" is like.

spunky_h0rn wrote on 2026-06-22, 15:04:

I used to play modern games c. 2020 with a Gateway ev910 (may be wrong on the model number). It's a fairly nice 19" model from a […]
Show full quote

I used to play modern games c. 2020 with a Gateway ev910 (may be wrong on the model number). It's a fairly nice 19" model from around 2000. I had it primarily for period correct games, but used it sometimes on modern games for the novelty.

How useable it was depended on the game. Virtually nothing scaled right to 1024x768, my preferred resolution, so I was at 1600x1200. This gives a soft but smooth image, but many games were hard to read.

Birds-eye view strategy games like Wargame were unpleasant and hard to play; I just found it too hard to read the playing field. War Thunder RB air was frustrating, RB ground battles were okay; this was probably the most fun I had with this setup. Destiny 2 was fairly easy to read the playing field but I found it similarly unpleasant.

In comparison, I find period correct games like Ground Control, UT, and the ilk to look great at 1024, with no problems like a hard to read UI, lack of contrast in the playing field, or anything like that.

I generally do not play modern games today, but when I do, I always run then on a 21.5" LCD. I don't like big screens 😉

I wouldn't recommend anyone seriously consider playing most modern games with a CRT. Maybe a high end 21" would do okay, but my Gateway never cut the mustard, and I can only imagine what a 17" is like.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and what you say is true. But my biggest problem is v-morie in interlaced mode, finding a CRT larger than 17 inches where I live is like a miracle. I'm looking to see if this v-morie problem I'm having is only on my CRT or what, so I can see if I'm crying about the problems of a CRT or the problems of an IPS 180hz gaming monitor that has a response time of 12.67ms and the backlight is always bright.

Damn Intel, I updated the igpu driver and now Windows won't even show me the interlaced resolution option. I want to set myself on fire.

edit: i installed old version and it fixed.

If you want to fix the moiré at higher (or specific, adverse) resolutions you have to adjust the focus of the beam itself by tuning the potentiometers on the HV transformer in the monitor, toward less focus and then the moiré will disappear but image sharpness will suffer aswell. 17" monitor at any mask tech will not give a lot of playroom, if the beam focus makes the spot small enough and resolution tried to be displayed approaches mask geometry limits, there will be moiré.

The option in the OSD merely wobbles the raster and makes the moiré less noticable at cost of jittery image, which I find far worse than the moiré itself.

I have two CRT monitors and I have also seen weird patterns when I try to run it in an interlaced mode. Actually I do not like the images they produce in interlaced modes for a variety of reasons, and I choose to only run them in progressive.

On my 19" CRT my favorite resolution for "modern" games is 1024x768 at 120Hz. I'm running a "modern" computer with a Radeon 6600 (through a good DisplayPort-VGA adapter) and Ryzen 5700X3D. Running Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart on a CRT at 120 fps is a hilarious, and I love it. Also, running remastered / re-released / emulated games (Banjo Kazooie recomp, PCSX2 with framegen) at 640x480 120Hz is truly amazing.

I do not run my CRTs interlaced as I do not enjoy the interlaced image quality - I prefer to accept lower pixel resolution in exchange for stability.

I understand that finding a CRT larger than 17" is difficult or near impossible. I think that some 17" CRTs might be able to run 120Hz at 800x600 through "custom resolutions". My suggestion to you is:

• Find games that you can enjoy at 800x600 or 640x480 at 120Hz (Quake I+II Remastered, N64 recomps, etc)
• Accept lower resolution for other titles (1280x960 85Hz, etc) and just try to enjoy them
• Save up for a high refresh LCD and just understand that in some situations you will still prefer your CRT

bZbZbZ wrote on Yesterday, 20:32:

I think that some 17" CRTs might be able to run 120Hz at 800x600 through "custom resolutions".

800x600@100Hz is typically achievable for most 17". 120Hz, not so much...

I guess you can find a sturdy solid wood or heavy steel desk and buy a Sony GDM-FW900 (92lbs).

1920x1080 at 85Hz is all it can do for refresh.

Unknown_K wrote on Today, 06:27:

I guess you can find a sturdy solid wood or heavy steel desk and buy a Sony GDM-FW900 (92lbs).

1920x1080 at 85Hz is all it can do for refresh.

1920x1200, IIRC.