Comment by D13Fd

Comment by D13Fd 6 hours ago

7 replies

I don’t know. I grew up on CRTs and have never missed them one bit. I have to disagree with the idea that CRT images were somehow better overall. A high-DPI LCD or OLED screen with decent color range runs circles around any CRT, IMO.

People also forget that most video game CRTs ran at a headache-inducing 60hz, which had an unpleasant strobe effect.

aidenn0 6 hours ago

A good CRT makes a better image than any LCD screen I've ever seen. There are plenty of caveats: an aperture-grille CRT will look better when ambient light is high, but will wear out a lot faster than a shadow-mask. My last CRT monitor could handle 1600x1200@75Hz and the IPS panel I replaced it with was a huge downgrade in image quality.

The IPS panel was cheaper (19" vs 27" diagonal), larger, lighter and widescreen (both were 1200 vertical lines).

  • D13Fd an hour ago

    But that 1600x1200@75hz is awful by today's standards. I'm typing this on a 120Hz 4K monitor, and my other monitor is a 240hz 4k monitor.

    I'm not saying they are better because the numbers are bigger, either. The subjective feel of using the screens is much improved, plus just about everything surrounding it (the menus, the colors & calibration, the interfaces).

    And the comparison to the LCD at the time is irrelevant -- I was making the comparison between modern high-DPI LCD and OLED monitors and CRTs.

Froztnova 6 hours ago

I remember back in the 90s, when I was REALLY young, having a computer in my room that I figure was basically my dad's old hand-me-down computer, with a few basic toy programs like Kid Pix and the like. The CRT was a bit of a mess, and would occasionally 'go yellow' and need to be degaussed and otherwise fiddled with to get the color tone back to normal.

I can definitely appreciate the draw of the old monitors, and I wouldn't mind owning a few myself for when I get the fancy, but it feels like a very 'vinyl' sort of impulse. There are certainly attractive factors, but I think in the pursuit of those people are willing to overlook the inherent flaws. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's an interesting quirk of psychology.

I think LCD/OLED is definitely an improvement, though I've never been a fan of the 'softness' in comparison to the rigidity of the glass CRT screen. It's always seemed fragile to me.

  • D13Fd an hour ago

    Yeah, if I had unlimited space, I'd love to have a 486 or earlier Pentium PC set up with a CRT monitor for true classic games. Not because it's better, but just for the nostalgia factor.

em3rgent0rdr 5 hours ago

Let's not forget the cost for making and transporting a large thick glass tube and the associated electronics and energy required to heat metal and liberate electrons and guide them using magnetism. I too am much happier with LCDs and OLEDs.

glimshe 5 hours ago

I find CRTs horrible. Just like vinyl. But I understand this is a matter of taste combined, of course, with some nostalgia.

I know some pixel artists did great work with CRTs, but I still dislike the fuzzy look.

WesolyKubeczek 4 hours ago

> I have to disagree with the idea that CRT images were somehow better overall.

This is about artists working in this medium, and how they had to resort to tricks so that the pixel art looked good on CRTs. Newer technologies expose how flawed the workarounds are.