Should You Use a CRT for Modern Gaming? - Tech Hacks 

for us oldschool 90s gamers that grew up with classics like Command And Conquer and Neverwinter Nights. this is a wet dream to see old tech still having it's uses even today. especially when those older games look all stretched out and not as clear or crisp and way to zoomed in on new screens. but on these golden oldies, those classic games look fantastic. looking at you gog for still letting me play kings quest with a happy tear rolling down my cheek.

My uncle just gave me a 17 inch CRT monitor & I’m picking it up this weekend!!! I don’t know the specs but he said it works fine & I definitely believe him so I’m gonna use this as my stepping stone 👍🏿

I love CRT monitors. The image smoothness, response, deep colors and so much more. By the way best videocard to get for CRTs is the AMD R9 380X which has true VGA support and still is fairly modern. No Nvidia for me, but you can also get Titan X Haswell which is the best Nvidia card for CRTs.

I don't care about weight, power draw or whatever else. The single two biggest selling points are black levels and most importantly, no fixed resolution. I have an old Trinitron Multiscan from 1998 and it's excellent.

crts have no real nativ resolution and feel much better at 4:3 like 860p and let you run call of duty warzone with 3080 at 1% low fps and 200hz 100% stable unlike all other monitors

The secret of CRTs being top for gaming is "High Motion Resolution". Fixed pixel displays are blurry in motion, LCD is good to display static images but once it starts moving you can't see anything. On a 1080p LCD you get 1920 horizontal lines of static resolution but once in motion you get less than 300 horizontal lines of motion resolution and it gets worse with faster movement. On a CRT you get around the same static resolution and motion resolution, it's crystal clear in motion, ideal for high speed movement like on an First Person Shooter, a 2D Sidescroller or any videogame. Movies and "video" benefit from that motion blur on fixed pixel displays but not videogames. Also in most CRTs from 1995 onward you get a pretty good deep contrast, blacks are very dark and whites are very bright, color accurracy varies with quality, Trinitrons (Diamondtron, Flatron, etc.) are the best on that matter

I've bought a CRT monitor last year and my friends started making jokes about it, and i tried to convince them that the CRT is literally best than any monitor in the market but they just couldn't get the idea CRT monitors doesnt have a native resolution so the 480p on a CRT can really look like a 4k and the amount of details on the CRT and the quality is just amazing, also not to mention the colors the CRT can provide the best colors i love CRT monitors, also less stress on ur GPU/CPU because u r playing on a lower resolution with way better image quality

I will forever admire you for utilizing a CRT for gaming in the modern era. In general they are beautiful creations with possible muscle building features lul. EIther way great video!

it's quite understandable but a lot of new gamers wont actually realise just how smooth a CRT allows for. An lcd even from running a game at full fps will produce a blur to the static image. CRT when moving retains the static image and it's quite remarkable witnessing this as a difference. I'm lucky now to have a few of these and it's incredibly difficult trying to go back to playing on an lcd especially for past machines that mostly have 2 dimensional scrolling

I was around when LCD replaced CRT it felt like a step back somehow

Ever since DF popularized these things as OLED-killers they've been rising in price and scarcity. With how slowly OLED is coming into monitor form factor, I think I'll be be adopting a CRT this year.

Man you know your stuff so you just earned a subscriber 👍🏿

The color being described as dark on the CRT might mean that you didn't calibrate the display gamma, you really need to do that on CRTs if you want an accurate display picture. Just type "Calibrate display color" in the Windows search bar, and it will bring up the tool, and give you instructions on what to do, once you're done, it will save a custom ICC profile with the calibrated gamma for your display, without it content will just look way too dark, and it will often crush the blacks, this will also not affect the black level, so you will still get CRT's near-perfect black level. Overall though, great job explaining the strengths and weaknesses of CRTs, and clearing up doubts on whom they might be appealing for (I found that for me, the absolute best use case for CRTs is playing horror games, the black level and smooth non pixelated picture just add a big boost to immersion)

I am subscribing. Hope both this channel and you will have a very bright future...

LCDs are so good for text, office, web surfing.. My first LCD monitor i got in 2006..19 inch 5:4 aspect ratio.. And suddenly i had so much spsce on my desk.. I loved it.. 🙂

Wow i really enjoyed this video was in a bad mood, you just made my day ✌️

It just felt good to me switching back to CRT after using LCD for 10 years. Small screen size isn't a problem for me either, I actually prefer smaller screen sizes. I tried to game on 27" monitor for a long time, but I just couldn't. I'm now sporting 24" LCD and 19" CRT and couldn't feel happier.

you managed to make me want a monitor older than i am good job

I am surprised you're still stuck at less than 1k subs, you deserve alot of exposure man

Smoothest monitor drop ever, not even a drop noise. That's LCD. Light as feather.

Crts are often way better than modern screens. I use a Diamondtron 21" crt mainly for 240p emulation. It looks so good.

CRT all the way.. the smoothness from the screen.. how alive everythig looks!

awesome video man!

good video mayne. keep up the good work. you are to get your break soon, in the meantime have my sub!

I love that shirt. It feels good to see another fellow club member.

Only now im realizing just how lucky i got buying my Samsung Syncmaster 997MB for 34$ 4 years ago , its been my main driver since. It can do 1280x720 @ 120HZ , 640x480 @ 165HZ , 1600x900 60HZ , 1280x800 @ 100HZ I find that 16:10 or 15:10 resolutions work best with this monitor, still working like a charm, but it is true that lights gotta be off to get good blacks, and i had to do some fine tunning. Will not go back to liquid screens until i can save enough money to jump to a good 240hz or 360hz.

The best things about CRT's are essentially the great white, black and color levels, no motion blur, and the ridiculously low input lag. The downsides are the size, and the power draw.

I still have a 17 in CRT, so I will give this a try. Cute cat.

You have a really beautiful explanation 🙂

I have 2 I use everyday. An HP pavilion M50 I got for free. and an HP pavilion vx74. I not for 10.00 when the price was 15.00 bit dropped 5.00 when I made it from the trip I went to get it. They both work great. I've had a great experience with CRT monitors for year and I believe they can still out shine modern days monitors we have now

I just got a massive 24 inch Elsa Ecomo 24H96, a very High End CRT for CAD. It has a maximum Resolution of 1920x1200 at 75hz and my god, it is a sight to behold!

Sick T-Shirt Brother!

When the adaptor costs more than your monitor

heh, to think of all the money i paid for crt's back then, then people threw away working ones when they got lcd's. the crt's were HUGE and HEAVY, picture was blurry, refresh rate at 60hz had a flicker, some of them made awful high pitch noise, the heat they put off. trying to remember was i using 75 -90hz and 800x600 maybe 1024x768, it was nice not being stuck to the native res, the ghosting on lcd's was so bad back then. funny how he mentions having to adjust the screen to fit, i used to do that all the time on other people computers cause they just used them out of the box. i was so glad to get rid of that 19" monster i had. but crt was harder to break, unless you took a magnet to the screen, but you could fix that, and computer monitors did have degauss. are modern speakers still magnetically shielded so you could put them next to your crt or does everyone just use headphones now so it wouldn't matter? crt tv i held out longer, older movies look better on a crt, unless you have some crazy remastered copies. another thing, speakers in most tv's were not as bad as some are today.

A way to offset the somewhat blurrier CRT picture is to use the CAS shader in Reshade, and there's another shader that lets you adjust brightness and contrast

For some reason when I opted for flat monitors instead CRTs, my eyes were getting more tired. I always heard that CRTs are more damaging to the eye, but I experienced quite the opposite. I could use a CRT for 10 hours without any problem, while on modern monitors I was getting tired after 2-3 hours. My first flat monitor was a Samsung 2032BW, so it was not one of those high latency displays.

What software was that where you configured the monitor?

i might get one in the future tbh. As a kid, i was growing up just before flat panels came out. And i remember having Lan Partys at school and how hard it was to transport crts around. I havent seen a crt in ages, so i dont know how they would look like now but something i noticed over the years, how much nicer it was to simply look at crt. i dont remember getting eye-strain and stuff like on flatpanels. The fact you cant see moving pixels at all annoys me for years. Even to i m using a pretty good 144hz Benq, thats also color calibrated...it does look good, but slight movements in game and you dont see anything at all, even at 144hz, it kind of feels like youre sitting in a super fast car just staring outside at close distance and everything is just zooming buy as colors. If i play a shooter for example, i cant constantly look around and then spot an enemy, especially since newer graphics makes it super hard to see (eg, a small head poppoing up behind a tree in some super dense jungle area) I basicly need to look a certain direction and then basicly stop movement, so i can clearly see everything and spot movements. So basicly spotting moving stuff in a still image because spotting an enemy visually in a moving image is nearly impossible. I dont remember i ever had these issues back then. We were mainly playing stuff like unreal tournament 2004 or cs on lan and, no issues. i think my crt i had as a kid was actaully really good, if i remember correctly, i was using something like 1280×960 100+hz , it was able to get higher in resolution but the funny thing was: as a kid, i didnt even fully understand how resolution and refresh rates even work. it was more like: Trying out 1600×1200 and it basicly almost looked the same than 1280x almost but i noticed it showed less hz. So my basic kid understanding was: ''okay if hz goes up, it feels better'' But if you had a game that was insanely demanding, you could drop to 800x600 and it still looked good. You had PC Hardware performance, you could scale up and down based on resolution, wich was awesome because basicly everyone was able to play the game.

hey, thank you for the video man. you inspired me and reopened my past closed dors. i will research CRT. i am a fps gamer since doom quake 1 2, 3, halflife & cs 1.6... all of them played on crt screens. i recently started to game apex and i love it buy i always find the motion is fishy and stupid for my neuros when i turn camera.... my brain is still searchin for that perfect fast smoothness. is CRT the solution that i forgot about? i do play on 180 fps cap + 3060ti and buyed"esports" monitor benq zowie xl2546k but nothing satisfyes my eye nowdays. i am still looking for that childhood memory of super smooth motion when i turn my camera in fps games. hope crt will be the solution, i will research more. thank you

Why would you only upgrade to a top-tier CRT if you have a crappy LCD monitor, a good CRT beats even a 33 thousand £$ RGBOLED BVM, let alone a top-end gaming LCD, nothing comes close to CRT for gaming. 1920x1440 @ 120Hz on my LaCie Blue 22" would take at least 1000Hz on LCD to feel as smooth.

You can put launch commands on apex to support 4:3 or just straight up use the dx12 launcher it has

For a moment, I swore to god that the thumbnail was an edited screenshot from Terminator 2. Looked so much like Eddie Furlong

the link to reddit is not working. Please give a link to good adapter (HDMI/Display port - VGA). I have perfect 22" HP p1230 but cannot have all resolutions and freshrates.

is there a way to turn an old CRT tv into a decent monitor? I have tons of them around town. maybe there are some chinese boards around for turning HDMI/DP into analogue signal fit for a tube display?

Me: **using a Compaq CRT monitor in 2021** Also me: its beautiful! 😌

Your t-shirt had me lauging out loud!

I have a Mitsubishi diamond Tron which does 1600 by 1200 at 85 or 1800 by 1440 at 75 but I'm trying to change it to interlaced and get higher refresh but Nvidia is being a but any ideas?

I have crt i use vga to hdmi its runs but screen start blinking after 1 min its annoying can you tell me how to fix it or its impossible tor un 1050ti on crt moniter?

love your shirt 💀💀

I wanted to try it just for fun on my switch and a crt tv and man it looked great. Too small on some games but great on others tho some of it could be the tv I dunno. But with older games especially like ps2 etc it makes the games look so much nicer imo and the FPS drop isn’t as noticeable

I have a beautiful 22' trinitron and am having a really hard time finding an adapter that can do 2048x1536@80hz. At the moment im slumming it using a gtx960 with the native VGA out (vire dvi-i) my gtx980ti died :-(.

Why ain't anyone telling the most notable thing, CRTS LASTS LONGER!

I have found a great addition to CRT. A hardware scaler. My scaler is Kramer VP-724XL. The only specific thing about this scaler is that I found cheap used one. Otherwise Extron or something else will also do. But most of them have problem of not having VGA output. Or else they have D-SUB pin output, but with some RGB TV signal which is not VGA. Modern games think they run in 1280x960, and then hardware downscaled to 640x480 with nostalgic scanlines. I like this feeling of getting used to scanlines and looking through them. There is something magical in this graphics. Modern games won't run that good on CRT if I try to run them in authentic 640x480.

Motion blur = 0

Good video, i have an hp v7650 with 1440x1080i 144hz or 1600x1200i 120hz, depending on whai im playing

What do I think about using a CRT monitor for modern gaming? I now use a CRT monitor for gaming and only a CRT monitor, because it is the best choice for gaming today. The main thing that is important to me is the complete absence of input lag on the monitor. This allows the player to have much better control. Response time and color rendering also matter. The benefit from a high refresh rate in a CRT is much higher than the benefit from a high refresh rate in an LCD monitor. Summarizing everything together, I came to the conclusion that an LCD monitor could never replace my CRT monitor. The return of CRT monitors to the market is inevitable. Once upon a time, just as CRT monitors were forgotten, tube sound amplifiers and vinyl records were also forgotten. Today, these technologies are making a comeback and are in great demand on the market. If our world has not gone crazy, CRT monitors for games will return to the market and make a success. I have just one comment. For some reason I can't stand pot-bellied monitors; I only recognize the Sony Trinitron as an acceptable CRT monitor for gaming.

@Displays Guy i have problems with DVI-D to VGA active adapter(my GPU have DVI-D, HDMI and Displayport)..The resolutions have bad Quality and diferents screen sizes..i use a Netbook with native VGA to test The CRT monitor and works amazing..The DVI-D to VGA active adapter feels bad..now, Displayport to VGA adapter is better option?

Old is gold

thought this was a joke but now I wanna get one

Im using an old probsbly fw900 level sgi, its 85hz on my csgo resolution of 1024x768 and its obvoiusly instant resposne with no refresh times since they literal tubes. Very instant hand to monitor feeling im thinking of getting a 980 ti for the analoge port, pair it with zen 4? Lol

CRTs are great for retro games because a lot of those games were made to take advantage of such a display. The fact you can find them for cheap makes it even better. You can make a badass retro gaming setup that's entirely separate from your main gaming rig for super cheap so you don't have to constantly reconnect your monitors too. Grab an old ass office PC or even a raspberry pi and install something like lakka (linux distro meant specifically for emulator boxes).

I hate LCDs especially for watching TV. I am 54 yrs old and I grew up with CRT tech. This is going to sound weird, but I totally like the look of a CRT image better. The smoother look is more realistic and comparable to real life IMHO. When I got my first LCD tv 54" to replace my CRT TV in 2018 it took some getting used to. It was so crisp it looked fake. I know that makes no sense but watching stuff especially old movies the LCD shows any imperfection and the CRT just is just better to me. This video is making me want to get my 42" CRT TV out of the shed and plug it back in. Another thing is CRT TVs last so much longer. I literally bought a 36" CRT in like 1987 and the only reason I don't still have it is because my house was in 9' of water after Hurricane Katrina. When I got my first LCD it broke after 2 weeks. I returned it and got a different brand, and it broke after 3 months. My third LCD has lasted since about 2019 so I feel I am lucky. Also, with regard to TV I miss when you turned on the TV it was just on and worked. I really hate that now I turn on my TV and it has to boot up. Then I have to select input and grab the cable remote and hit the center button before I get a picture. I hate that if you watch for more than an hour or so it pauses you and asks "are you still watching? yes or no" I just want to turn it on, and it stay on until I turn it off. Is that so hard to understand. LOL

That post in the start says that your crt is 1600x1200 100hz but later in the video you said that its 1080p 85hz which means that it can only do 75hz at 1600x1200p

431st sub. here.. i hope you reach a mill. subs.

Love the shirt

also..lower resolutions will likely look better. I know that makes no sense to a modern view of display technology, but consider it....and try some lower res's before you stick to the 1600x1200.

I also have the Omen 27i :D !

The post in the start says that your crt is 1600x1200 100hz but u said that it is a 1080p 85hz which that it can only do 75hz on 1600x1200

Is the difference from say 85hz to 120hz as big on CRT as it is on LCD panels or is the CRT technology already smooth enough to make the jump harder to notice?

so me remembering Quake and Unreal tournament looking better than today isn't just nostalgia?

im looking for crt/retro monitor to be in my backround but cant find anything

im getting a 2048 x 1536 dell p991 ultrascan trintron rebrand today cant wait

While I would probably never go back to using a CRT,I still use LCD 4:3 monitors over widescreen as I just prefer it as the height is closer to the width.

"And if you give it a second, hasn't aged a day" hahaha

so Amd fsr can make an old gpu run smooth again using this crt monitor??

So what are you using to adapt to your CRT? I kept having tonnes of issues with it flickering.

when u see his tshirt

i watch this on my COMPAQ P920 CRT from 2002!

I’m more of a console gamer. I’ve thought about streaming old 4:3 shows on a CRT via a PS3 or something because they have component support. I like scan lines for certain games. I got one somebody wanted to donate but we don’t sell CRTs. So me and my boss got it in my car. Eventually I got a good set up. Got an NES recently for light gun games.. I tell myself. I turn the power grid off whenever I’m done using the Trinitron beast.

Rofl I was just going to say "damn, that monitor might be older than YOU!" but at the end you made the joke.

Someone tested high end CRT one of those PVM monitors against the best Oled on sale today and the crazy thing is the 20 year old CRT was better than the $2500 monitor lol and it had a higher refresh rate too

Does anyone where I can buy a CRT monitor? I tried looking on ebay, but there may be lots of scammers out there.

a lot of monitors would remember your geometry settings for different resolutions so you wouldn't have to readjust every time

What's the crt's resolution?

2 years too late but ngl i just subbed cuz of the Tshirt

I once used a CRT monitor, and I categorically did not like the flickering and blurring of the image, especially on small text, as well as the glass screen in which everything was reflected as in a mirror These monitors have too many disadvantages, that's why I prefer LCD

The Photo Shop where I go.. there are 4 CRT monitors as big and fat as an old TV...and the people edit on those.. on asking them, they said they just upgraded the CPU and RAM..but didn't think of these items like keyboards, monitors and mice as necessary to upgrade if they are working fine...

I miss the old days Coming in from school Watching toonami

PC CRT strengths: Good on/off and low ADL contrast(falls apart at mid-low ADL levels), better motion clarity than any lcd(no crosstalk and 1ms MPRT, strobe frequency=hz at all refresh rates, no response time/gtg), resolution flexibility. Enjoy your CRTs today. By the end of the decade they will finally be made completely and totally obsolete by new display tech. Hopefully sooner rather than later with miniled fastIPS pc monitors. I'll be on mine until then(and until prices come down on those, probably til 2026 if my diamondtron keeps chugging til then).

I felt a jolt when he choke slammed his LCD monitor

Oleds are so light that they are easy to steal. Since big boi CRT heavy, they are much harder to steal.

CRT monitors gave me eye strain like HELL back in the day. I do not have issues with the newer models. man... ugh.

I have 2 crts, a 15 inch and a 19 inch. I don't know if the 19 inch even works anymore. It's been in my parents basement for 15 years. I literally don't have any room for it where I live.l

what is the name of your CRT

I want an ancient monitor 😂

I just use a CRT monitor cause I think it looks cool

okay that shirt made me giggle ahahaha

You can force games to use any resolution. CRU is just one way.

I wonder what knew tachonology could do to improve crt screens?

Nah. My 27i are currently on rBay with a mount. My CRTs are faster drawing and have 0 ghosting. I don’t want to use an LCD monitor ever again!