Gaming on a CRT, is it worth it?

[Shady Guy Jose]

I live in a PAL region, so RGB SCART support was mandatory for a very long time. I find that the best option for retro gaming is a 15" CRT that supports PAL60 and NTSC (most later ones do). I have one that I've been using with my NTSC SNES, PAL Mega Drive (both through RGB SCART) and PAL N64 (through composite cables) and I'm satisfied with the picture. All of these consoles look downright horrible when I plug them into my 2012 40" 1080p HDTV (at the time, they still had RGB SCART as well in Europe). I probably wouldn't hunt down a CRT just for that purpose, but I had two of them lying around, and the difference is enough for me to keep them for as long as they work.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

If you're not emulating and you want to play retro systems in the most "original" way possible (or if you want to play light guns games), absolutely. The only real downside to CRTs are their size and weight, and if you can accommodate that then I see no reason not to have one, especially when you can usually find someone just giving theirs away for free, if you pick it up yourself anyways.

If you don't care about atrocious stretching and shit scaling modern TVs do, or if you have lots of extra cash to buy a decent upscaler, or if you're totally fine with emulation, then you don't really need one, no.

Really as simple as that, just down to personal preference and nothing more. Is it a necessity? Only if you think it is (unless you want to play classic light gun games, then it is).


I keep a big 28" CRT for all my retro consoles myself, I can't see myself spending tons of cash on a decent upscaler and I have all the room in the world so there's no downside to me having one. That said, I don't use it too often, usually if I'm playing a retro game it'll be on one of the many devices I have that emulate them.

 

[supergamer368]

I’m not 100% sure about for games you’d hook up to a tv (my only crt tv is dora the explorer-themed and barely functioning.) But for PC games. Y E S . I have a Windows 98 machine and I use it to play all sorts of games from Half-Life to Lego Racers. These games run at quite low resolutions and look terrible stretched out on high-res LCDs. But on a CRT, they look AMAZING. I love everything about my CRT and my old computer (which my dad still thinks is a hunk of junk, i can remember him saying the CRT wouldn’t fit on my desk... who’s laughin’ and playin’ Lego Racers now???) I only paid $60-ish for the monitor, but many of them online cost a ton. I’d say it’s worth it if you can find it for a good price.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

I’m not 100% sure about for games you’d hook up to a tv (my only crt tv is dora the explorer-themed and barely functioning.) But for PC games. Y E S . I have a Windows 98 machine and I use it to play all sorts of games from Half-Life to Lego Racers. These games run at quite low resolutions and look terrible stretched out on high-res LCDs. But on a CRT, they look AMAZING. I love everything about my CRT and my old computer (which my dad still thinks is a hunk of junk, i can remember him saying the CRT wouldn’t fit on my desk... who’s laughin’ and playin’ Lego Racers now???) I only paid $60-ish for the monitor, but many of them online cost a ton. I’d say it’s worth it if you can find it for a good price.

I actually find that PC games are much easier to play on newer screens, as long as you know your way around resolution configurations, graphics drivers and third-party scaling apps. I have a 28" 4K screen and I play emulated and old PC stuff quite well on it, since most emulators have built-in integer scaling and scanline filters, and old PC games can run in windowed mode, meaning I can use a handy app called Lossless Scaling (the free Demo version is more than enough for most cases)

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I would say, only do this if you care about the waterfall in sonic the hedgehog to look like a proper waterfall. Even officially licensed emulators by sega can't do this, no matter how hard I tried. (Note, only works for games using dithering.) Take that all you sharp pixels that like to be square and jagged.

 

[Captain_N]

I only game on a crt. I love the way they smooth everything out. I never liked the sharp edges that stand out on lcd tvs. There is 0 onput lag. thats do to it being analog. there is no signal processing. I prefer the color depths as well. there is no pixelation from 2d games as the crt screen hides that.
I converted my switch from hdmi to rca and it works well. A crt does not care the resolution as it has no native resolution.

They last alot longer then modern tvs. They are much easier to fix. The older ones dont have many integrated circuits. The tv i use has 3 main chips one is a multi function chip (that is available to purchase), one is a small cpu and the other is a small ram chip to store settings. every other component is replaceable and easy to solder. The one part i cant fix is the picture tube. once that goes that's it. That why i have extras.

The only issue is the small text in some games. there is no reason the gui and text have to be 1 centimeter big. Most of nintendos games dont have this issue. xenoblade 2 text is 100% readable. The text in modern games is small even on a hdtv. These devs need to change the gui/font to size 12 ans no 4. Look at xenoblade x text. that is like size 2.

 

[Sabotage0]

Absolutely for light gun games. Be careful with hd crts though. Mine converts the analog to digital so there is a delay in video processing and my nes light gun games don't work.

 

[Deleted User]

I live in a PAL region, so RGB SCART support was mandatory for a very long time. I find that the best option for retro gaming is a 15" CRT that supports PAL60 and NTSC (most later ones do). I have one that I've been using with my NTSC SNES, PAL Mega Drive (both through RGB SCART) and PAL N64 (through composite cables) and I'm satisfied with the picture. All of these consoles look downright horrible when I plug them into my 2012 40" 1080p HDTV (at the time, they still had RGB SCART as well in Europe). I probably wouldn't hunt down a CRT just for that purpose, but I had two of them lying around, and the difference is enough for me to keep them for as long as they work.

I find it strange that in Portugal, SCART wasn't used that much when we practically used SCART until HDMI took over. I'm glad it's over for SCART cables because they were really fat/thick and RCAs could do the same and they were far thinner.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

I find it strange that in Portugal, SCART wasn't used that much when we practically used SCART until HDMI took over. I'm glad it's over for SCART cables because they were really fat/thick and RCAs could do the same and they were far thinner.

SCART was used a lot here in Portugal for Cable boxes and (sometimes) VCRs. Consoles always came with composite cables and a SCART adapter, but it was only an adapter to pass the composite signal through a SCART input. I never saw an RGB SCART cable for a console in a retail store.

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I would say, only do this if you care about the waterfall in sonic the hedgehog to look like a proper waterfall. Even officially licensed emulators by sega can't do this, no matter how hard I tried. (Note, only works for games using dithering.) Take that all you sharp pixels that like to be square and jagged.

Hmmm... I've been using an RGB SCART cable with my Mega Drive, and I didn't notice that. It makes perfect sense that it would happen if developers leveraged the expected pixel blending to create a proper transparency effect with alternating vertical bars. Maybe my 15" TV is just too small for me to see it? I'll have to check it out

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That's probably dependent on the CRT and cables you have. Composite will make everything you describe. A good Scart/component will make everything look better not a smeary.


It just seams a little bit nit picky to me. Flat screens have input latency so low that the very small fraction is probably not noticable to human eyes.

A CRT does bring all of the best picture qualities under one display. Low Latency, good black reproduction, wide viewing angles, good motion handling (but there is phosphor trails), good colors. On an LCD there is usually a compromise. Low latency but bad picture. Really good picture but bad latency. Though recent flat screens are challenging that with both good picture and low latency. IPS panels (usually in the past having more lag compared to TN panels) are becoming more and more suitable for gaming, and Oleds TVs are shipping with lower latency.

CRTs do require some kind of anti glare protector so that gamma won't be bad. But some people don't like the blurriness it gives, although this may also be bit nit picky and the slight blurriness probably is not very noticable, kind like people that complain about screen protectors on their phones.

It's the light bleed on the pixels, it makes everything look blurry/smeared.

I don't know about "all of the best picture qualities", sure it has some benefits, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. You can get all of those benefits in a modern TV, without any of the drawbacks.
Viewing angles are not much of a concern to me, as you are never going to want to watch TV or play games at a 70 degree angle from the screen, it's not pleasant. But if you for some reason want to be able to do that, you still can, you just have to pay the premium.
The main compromise with CRTs is the blurriness/smear, meaning loss of detail, and that is a much bigger deal to me (as it should be to most) than viewing angles on something you typically will want to look at from directly in front anyway, or close to it.

 

[SG854]

If you're not emulating and you want to play retro systems in the most "original" way possible (or if you want to play light guns games), absolutely. The only real downside to CRTs are their size and weight, and if you can accommodate that then I see no reason not to have one, especially when you can usually find someone just giving theirs away for free, if you pick it up yourself anyways.

If you don't care about atrocious stretching and shit scaling modern TVs do, or if you have lots of extra cash to buy a decent upscaler, or if you're totally fine with emulation, then you don't really need one, no.

Really as simple as that, just down to personal preference and nothing more. Is it a necessity? Only if you think it is (unless you want to play classic light gun games, then it is).


I keep a big 28" CRT for all my retro consoles myself, I can't see myself spending tons of cash on a decent upscaler and I have all the room in the world so there's no downside to me having one. That said, I don't use it too often, usually if I'm playing a retro game it'll be on one of the many devices I have that emulate them.

I would say theres more downsides then just weight and size. You can't put magnets near it without it messing up the screen, so that means external speakers can't be close to a CRT especially if space is limited, unless they are shielded which is more money and a hassle to learn to do.

Not all consoles output the same on a CRT. Having an all in one perfect geomytry setting is not possible. On some the picture my be shifted little to the right cutting off the right side, some output smaller then the full screen size. You would have to set it to be good enough for most consoles, not perfect but good enough. People may complain about digital upscalers and lag they may/may not introduce but they make life much easier with image size and scaling then dealing with an analogue display.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

It's the light bleed on the pixels, it makes everything look blurry/smeared.

I don't know about "all of the best picture qualities", sure it has some benefits, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. You can get all of those benefits in a modern TV, without any of the drawbacks.
Viewing angles are not much of a concern to me, as you are never going to want to watch TV or play games at a 70 degree angle from the screen, it's not pleasant. But if you for some reason want to be able to do that, you still can, you just have to pay the premium.
The main compromise with CRTs is the blurriness/smear, meaning loss of detail, and that is a much bigger deal to me (as it should be to most) than viewing angles on something you typically will want to look at from directly in front anyway, or close to it.

That's why most purists go for Component or RGB Cables when available, then S-Video, Composite and RF in decreasing order. The blurriness and smear disappear (for better or worse, as described in a previous post by @Sonic Angel Knight above) when using a better cable, and the scanline effect that most retro games expect is not that easy to reproduce in fixed pixel displays unless the resolution is like 10× higher.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

That's why most purists go for Component or RGB Cables when available, then S-Video, Composite and RF in decreasing order. The blurriness and smear disappear (for better or worse, as described in a previous post by @Sonic Angel Knight above) when using a better cable, and the scanline effect that most retro games expect is not that easy to reproduce in fixed pixel displays unless the resolution is like 10× higher.

It has nothing to do with the cable used, it's due to the CRT technology.
Bad quality image might make it worse, but it's not the main cause.

 

[SG854]

It's the light bleed on the pixels, it makes everything look blurry/smeared.

I don't know about "all of the best picture qualities", sure it has some benefits, but it also has a lot of drawbacks. You can get all of those benefits in a modern TV, without any of the drawbacks.
Viewing angles are not much of a concern to me, as you are never going to want to watch TV or play games at a 70 degree angle from the screen, it's not pleasant. But if you for some reason want to be able to do that, you still can, you just have to pay the premium.
The main compromise with CRTs is the blurriness/smear, meaning loss of detail, and that is a much bigger deal to me (as it should be to most) than viewing angles on something you typically will want to look at from directly in front anyway, or close to it.

It depends to on the CRT you're using. Lower end ones around 300 TV lines blur and smear, less sharp, lots of bleeding. Higher end ones around 800 TV lines are sharper even just as sharp or almost as sharp as an LCD, and don't bleed but this is going into PVM Professional Monitor territory and at this point why not get an LCD, less of a hassle with weight and stuff.

IPS panels with wide viewing angles no longer command really high premium prices. I see quite a few pretty cheap.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

It has nothing to do with the cable used, it's due to the CRT technology.
Bad quality image might make it worse, but it's not the main cause.

Unless you mean the fact that the grid isn't exactly square, as has been discussed here as well. That is, indeed, true, but again, most retro games were developed with that in mind, so forcing them to display on fixed square pixel screens will yield results that aren't necessarily better than the natural blurriness of CRTs. In that case, it's a matter of personal preference.

 

[subcon959]

I grew up with a 14" CRT in the 8/16-bit era so that is what I enjoy playing on now as it's 100% about the nostalgia and escapism (back to my favourite years) for me.

Once the tube in my CM8833 goes though, I won't bother replacing it.. and I certainly would never fork out for a PVM.

 

[TunaKetchup]

Do you wanna play games how they were designed to be played?

To look how they were designed to look?

To have the proper input lag for how the game was designed?

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You wouldn't play Resident Evil 2 Remake on a CRT TV

You wouldn't play Resident Evil 2 Original on an HD TV

 

[Deleted User]

A seller I was chatting with on eBay via PM told me that a 14" SONY Trinitron CRT TV is really good for 8/16bit games.

Looks like this, I think:

 

[SG854]

A seller I was chatting with on eBay via PM told me that a 14" SONY Trinitron CRT TV is really good for 8/16bit games.

Looks like this, I think:

A 14 inch is pretty small at least for me. I would say 20 inch and up is better. But 14 inch is a lot less heavy and easier to move around. Smaller screen sizes do have a sharper picture, it follows the same principle of flat panel pixel per inch, the SD image is less blown up to a bigger size and therefore sharper.

Sony Trinitrons are the best of CRT tech. They have an Apature Grill which gives a better brighter picture then other non Sony sets. Non Sony sets sometimes use a Shadow Mask which isn't as good as the Apature Grill, at least for the early ones. In the 90's though Shadow Mask technology became very good and would say those sets are pretty good, debatable though as some still prefer Sony sets.

If you want it for classic gaming and want CRT tech then go for it. But there is a few things you must learn about a CRT and maintenance to get it at peak performance and get the best out of it.

Also a concern is the condition of the tube, a worn out one will give you horrible picture.

 

[Nobody_Important4u]

Yes, quality is much better.

Sorry i had to show off.