curl-6 said:
SvennoJ said:
Same here, I miss CRTs. I still have one in the basement with ps2 and wii connected and each time I turn it on, I marvel at the vibrant colors. I do use component video cables though, composite video is one step too far back for me. The color bleeding of composite video can go, and progressive scan is much nicer as well.
On PC we didn't care about fps either, at least I didn't. Wolfenstein 3D ran at, I don't know. Doom in a small window to have it run at all and it was fantastic. Descent the same. I actually played Descent with Nvidea shutter glasses on a CRT projector, 320x240 resolution, 60hz, thus 30 frames per eye, it was magical (back in '98) It wasn't perfect (no 3D hud) but since it was CRT, no latency, no hoops to sync the glasses, it just worked. I have no idea what FPS the game actually animated at, it didn't matter.
All this stuff nowadays, HDR, DSR, 120hz, it's all trying to get back to what we already had with CRT. Input resolution was never a problem with CRT, more or less scan points, it interpolated automatically, physics at work. Monitors were rated in max scan frequency Khz and Dpi. A much nicer system than the fixed pixel grids we have now.
The one big problem with CRT projectors is blooming. It could create some horrible horizontal stretching in bright areas. Physics at work, but with current tech that should not be difficult to correct on the fly. My projector had a grid of 16 potentiometers per lamp and it took monthly fiddling to keep Red Blue and Green matched up perfectly. A smart algorithm should be able to do that on the fly, adjust the settings for each frame / scan line to prevent blooming.
Of course the one big advantage of modern tvs is, you can actually carry them yourself. My 34" CRT is never coming out of the basement again!
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Yeah, CRTs are awesome, I actually picked one up from my grandmother when she moved houses late last year to play my retro consoles on, and I can't believe how amazing games like Donkey Kong Country still look and feel on these glorious old machines.
Sure, it's fucking massive and bulky by today's standards and takes up a lot of space, but its weird how in some ways display technology has actually gone backwards compared to twenty years ago.
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The thing I notice right away when playing on a CRT is how there's almost-zero input lag. I was trying to play SMB3 on my 4K TV via the Switch one day and kept dying in ways that I never use to die when I was younger. Curious, I went downstairs, popped the actual cart into my actual NES, turned it on, grabbed my controller and within seconds, I was literally flying through that game on my CRT. It was crazy how much more accurate my button presses and timing was. It was as if I were some sort of cyborg ninja utilizing the full brunt of the force!
After that experience, I completely gave up trying to play anything retro on newer consoles (I own all three). From now on, if it's PS2 or older, it's on a CRT via an actual disc/cart. There's just no other way.
