[HN Gopher] A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LC...
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A 20-year-old CRT monitor can be better than a 4K LCD (2019)
Author : MrJagil
Score : 157 points
Date : 2020-10-11 13:19 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| nottorp wrote:
| I have a different problem with LCDs. I still think they're too
| bright. With a CRT you could set everything to white on black and
| you had almost no light coming out of the screen. Also brightness
| meant brightness and you could turn it way down for when working
| in dim light or darkness.
|
| Of course i'm talking about text work here.
|
| Maybe when OLED monitors become affordable we'll go back to
| monitors that aren't basically a lamp shining into your eyes all
| day. At least the oled on my phone looks like it doesn't put out
| light where it shouldn't.
|
| For gaming, i'm not latency sensitive, but then i don't play
| twitch shooters any more. I'm more the kind that buys mid-low
| range video cards and turns on the fps limiter where it's
| available.
| jdietrich wrote:
| VA panels have by far the blackest blacks of any LCD
| technology. Viewing angles and uniformity aren't as good as
| IPS, but they're the best option if you care about contrast.
|
| https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tests/picture-quality/contras...
| amelius wrote:
| I think we need monitors with more dynamic range.
| nottorp wrote:
| No thanks, because they add more light at the top not
| complete darkness at the bottom. The lantern shining in your
| eyes just gets brighter.
|
| Incidentally this is how LCDs became so bright. So they can
| claim better contrast.
| t-writescode wrote:
| An OLED HDR1000 10-bit display can go from 0 to 1000 peak nit
| brightness with 10 bits per channel of color differences. Is
| that not good enough for you? It's better than we've had for
| a long time with our 5 or 8 bit monitors that peak at like
| 250 nit.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah I have no idea why the lowest levels on monitors are so
| bright. Are there models that can go really low without the PWM
| flicker effect kicking in (that's another problem I have with
| monitors, I can notice the damn cheap PWM backlight)?
|
| Laptop (and phone) displays don't seem to have this problem,
| the brightness goes really low...
| ianai wrote:
| After lowering brightness to 0 the brightness can be lowered
| by lowering the contrast ratio. It's obviously not perfect
| but does work.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I've always wished the Macbook's lowest brightness setting
| was subdivided two or more times. It's still too bright when
| I feel like reading in my dark room perhaps on the way to
| sleep. I have to use an app called Shady to cover the screen
| in a dimming overlay.
| cmurphycode wrote:
| Have you tried using option-shift-[f1] to subdivide? or the
| brightness slider in the settings.
| Infernal wrote:
| Interestingly, on my early 2015 13" MacBook Pro, the very
| lowest brightness setting seems to have no change in
| brightness on those last three subdivisions. Once I get
| down to one full "block" of brightness, option-shift-F1
| moves the slider down in quarter-block increments but the
| screen gets no (perceptibly) dimmer until it shuts off
| entirely. All the other brightness settings have
| perceptible changes in brightness at every subdivision
| level.
| [deleted]
| 4ad wrote:
| Oh my god, thank you!
|
| How does one find these "hidden" features?
| onli wrote:
| Yes, there are a bunch of monitors now that do not use PWM
| for brightness control. And since PWM became known as a
| problem PWM rate is tested in professional benchmarks. So you
| definitely can get monitors that do not have that flicker,
| where the minimal brightness will also not be too high.
| jdietrich wrote:
| The vast majority of modern high-quality monitors have
| flicker-free backlights without PWM dimming.
|
| https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tests/motion/image-flicker
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Most better monitors and everything targeted at office use
| does not use PWM for backlight brightness control.
|
| LCDs have poor blacks because they're a filter put in front
| of a lamp, so to render black, they have to try and block as
| much light as possible, but our visual perception is
| logarithmic and adaptive, making them look quite bad. The
| workaround is to add bias light behind the monitor; it quite
| literally provides a bias for the eye to keep it inside a
| certain adaption range, which reduces the perceived poorness
| of dark tones. (It also is more ergonomic.).
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| It's mildly annoying but easily fixed with a touch of ambient
| lighting or a software tool looks f.lux.
|
| Brightness isn't nearly as bad for eye strain has contrast
| between the screen and ambient light.
| Arubis wrote:
| Better even than f.lux was Nocturne
| (https://github.com/strider72/blacktree-nocturne), though it
| hasn't worked in years. (Maybe a decade? I can't even find
| screenshots.)
|
| Nocturne would let you invert your entire screen, then shift
| it to monochrome (ideally red). Obviously useless for gaming
| or color work, but I've not run across anything since that's
| so great for late night text work across the whole OS.
| Moru wrote:
| I have switched all programs to darkmode where possible. If
| not possible I don't use it.
|
| f.lux can do invert and redshift though: shift+alt+end
| [deleted]
| kasabali wrote:
| I've never seen Nocturne but on Windows 10 inverted
| colors+night shift works well (IIRC has an option for
| grayscale, too). On Linux you can achieve the same effect
| with xca+redshift (not sure about grayscale).
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I'd recommend adding bias lighting to your monitor. It won't
| make the monitor less bright, but it'll light up the wall
| behind your monitor so there's less of a contrast between the
| wall and your monitor, which reduces eye strain.
| nottorp wrote:
| I tried that but looked like too much effort. Instead, I
| never turn off the room lights any more when using monitors.
| Seems good enough since oled is coming.
| freeqaz wrote:
| I use a normal desk lamp and point it at the wall behind my
| monitors. Super easy, cheap, and effective.
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B083DG5CK1/
| gattr wrote:
| Same!
|
| I do it for both the monitor and the TV, with two cheap
| "Ingared" lamps from IKEA; can recommend.
| eikenberry wrote:
| Same. I like this lamp for it.
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XC5KNB6/
| imhoguy wrote:
| I am still waiting for a decent size e-ink screen (22"+)
| without backlight which should be enough for low-FPS stuff like
| backend coding, slack, terminal and text content web pages.
| Existing solutions are still too small - Dasung and Onyx Boox
| are 13.3" with HDMI.
| gmadsen wrote:
| i have never heard of an e-ink screen with fast enough
| refresh to be viable for coding
| officialjunk wrote:
| what is your minimum refresh rate needed for coding?
| smusamashah wrote:
| Scrolling would be painful on e-ink
| bee_rider wrote:
| This is why vim has multi-character movements.
|
| The problem here doesn't seem that different from coding
| over a slow network, something that's been possible for
| quite a while.
| nottorp wrote:
| Also programmers tend to type pretty fast after getting
| some experience. It's disconcerting enough when code
| completion slows down the editor, not sure i could stand
| a screen that can only refresh every full line.
| tzs wrote:
| How about a display that had a large e-ink screen plus a
| small LCD of maybe 2-4 lines at the bottom?
|
| Go old school for editing. Use something like TECO or ed or
| Rob Pike, David Tilbrook, Hugh Redelmeier and Tom Duff's
| Unix version of QED [1].
|
| The small LCD is for seeing the command you are currently
| typing and a little command history.
|
| With those editors you entered editing commands but did not
| see the results until you asked for them. You'd tell the
| editor to show you the current line plus say 10 lines
| before and after. Then you'd give it commands to edit the
| current line, such as telling it to change the text "float"
| to "double", or telling it to insert a new line before the
| current line, and so on. When you had done enough changes
| that you needed to refresh your notion of the current state
| of the file, you'd ask it to show you again.
|
| Even the older generation, slower e-ink screens would be
| fast enough for that kind of work.
|
| Maybe instead of putting the small LCD display at the
| bottom of the e-ink screen, make it a separate unit that
| can attach to the e-ink screen or attach to the top of your
| keyboard or stand alone somewhere if you prefer.
|
| [1] https://github.com/phonologus/QED
| imhoguy wrote:
| I think both of these are usable
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NozoRkE0DTo they use
| various optimizations to avoid full panel refresh. Here is
| coding example with Dasung although it is hard to judge
| scrolling quality
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO0Qzuw18q8
| rburhum wrote:
| I have OLED screens all over my house - I can never tell if the
| monitors are on or off unless the screensaver kicks in. 0
| regrets spending that money.
| nottorp wrote:
| By "monitors" you mean TVs? Or did you buy some of the $3-4k
| monitors that seem to be available?
|
| At a quick google there's nothing under 3k and they're either
| 21" (too small) or 55" (fine for console gaming but not for
| programming if you ask me).
| balfirevic wrote:
| According to this youtube video [0], LG's OLED TVs work
| well as a monitors, at least the 48 inch one. Can't vouch
| for the quality of that channel though, and it is a
| sponsored video.
|
| Regarding size for programming, I use a 40 inch monitor and
| wouldn't mind additional width.
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzp3fF6AL88
| nottorp wrote:
| Funny, most programmers complain they don't have enough
| _height_. Me included.
|
| Say, are there any 16:10 oleds? :)
|
| Edit: Hmm, one 40" 4k instead of 2x24" 1920x1200. Maybe.
|
| Not that LG has any 40" oleds, the smallest i see
| (locally) is 55".
| balfirevic wrote:
| I would usually agree with them - but I finally feel like
| I have just about enough height with my 40 incher. Not
| that having more would be harmful, but I'm worried that
| the webcam on top would start to look weird if it was
| higher.
|
| Here is the 48 inch oled from LG:
| https://www.lg.com/us/tvs/lg-oled48cxpub-oled-4k-tv
| nmstoker wrote:
| This is part of the reason why, when LCD screens were being
| introduced as "the new thing" most large shops would not display
| them side by side with CRTs - so you didn't notice how aspects
| were much worse, like responsiveness and sharpness.
| rvr_ wrote:
| I miss 4:3
| elric wrote:
| I remember reading something by John Carmack back in the early
| Oculus days, where he was basically saying he wished he could use
| small CRTs in VR headsets for many of the same reasons the
| article highlights.
| [deleted]
| pritovido wrote:
| I had one of those that a programmer that worked for me sold me.
|
| It did cost him something like $6000-9000 new.
|
| The image was incredible, but it had lots of drawbacks:
|
| 1. It was huge and heavyweight. Most people that say "people
| obsession with flatness" has never expirienced having an screen
| that is as deep as long and tall. Attaching it to the wall was a
| nightmare.
|
| 2. It had problems with magnets. I put a big magnet like 1 meter
| away and it affected the screen.
|
| 3. It emitted X-Rays directly to your eyes. Not good.
|
| In the end replacing it with LCDs was a great decision. Much
| better for the programming or CAD that I do.
|
| OLED is great, as the article says, if you can buy-recover the
| cost somewhat.
| nickjj wrote:
| CRTs were really good. They really were.
|
| I remember back in the day the HardOCP forum[0] had massive
| threads about people buying the FW900 in the mid-2000s. It
| definitely achieved legendary status. Sadly I never had a chance
| to use one.
|
| I remember having a 21" NEC that let me play Quake 2 / 3 at 120hz
| at 640x480 in the mid-late 1990s and I think I paid like $120 for
| it back then from one of those refurbished monitor sites. It also
| did 1600x1200 at 60hz for non-gaming.
|
| I still don't know how those refurbished sites stayed in business
| because they offered free shipping, but a decently sized CRT back
| then used to weigh like 60 pounds (30 kg).
|
| Back then I remember waiting so many years to get an LCD because
| the input latency, refresh rates and color accuracy were
| horrendous for so long despite being 3x the price.
|
| [0]: https://hardforum.com/threads/24-widescreen-crt-
| fw900-from-e...
| indymike wrote:
| For a long time the big advantage of LCD was just size and
| energy use. You lost a lot of the clarity with the conversion
| from analog VGA or SVGA signal in devices that predated DVI and
| HDMI connectors. It would be really hard to trade in my 28" 4k
| display for any CRT I've ever had.
| nickjj wrote:
| > It would be really hard to trade in my 28" 4k display for
| any CRT I've ever had.
|
| Agreed. I use an LCD today (25" 2560x1440) and I'm happy with
| it.
|
| But I did wait until about 2007 or 2008 to get my first LCD
| which was a 1600x1200 Dell FP2007 (which still works the last
| time I plugged it in a year ago as a very temporary 2nd
| monitor while I waited for a replacement).
| garaetjjte wrote:
| > You lost a lot of the clarity with the conversion from
| analog VGA or SVGA signal in devices that predated DVI and
| HDMI
|
| VGA connection on non-crap hardware and cables should have
| identical image to digital connections.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| For work, LCD is absolutely superior.
|
| Gaming - especially shooters -, however, are a totally
| different use-case: Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for
| quick reaction times, while something like readability is not
| as big of a factor (Games tend to use big and easy-to-read
| fonts). Of course, you still need some color quality to spot
| enemies, but it's very different from reading text for
| several hours.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Refresh rate is absolutely necessary for quick reaction
| times
|
| This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping $5k
| on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a tiny
| bit faster.
|
| Most people are average enough at video games (or whatever
| their hobby of choice is) that they're still going to be
| average whether they have a CRT or an LCD (or whatever
| pricy pice of gear they "need").
|
| Sure it's fun to spend money on your hobby but to say it's
| "absolutely essential" is a little silly.
| ddingus wrote:
| When one craves that trance or flow state possible in
| gaming, average or not, the low latency may be essential.
|
| Relative to elite players, it won't matter.
|
| In terms of the experience? It really can be.
|
| We all get old. Enjoying what potential we have on the
| way through can be worth a little money.
|
| "Need" and "want" can be blurred here and it is OK.
| nickjj wrote:
| > This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping
| $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a
| tiny bit faster.
|
| I think anyone who is a step up from a casual gamer would
| recognize the difference between 60hz and 120hz if they
| were somewhat familiar with a game. Especially games that
| required tracking your opponent with a mouse, such as
| aiming a hit scan weapon like a lightning gun where your
| goal is to keep a continuous beam on them while both of
| you move unpredictably.
|
| It was especially apparent in Quake 3 back in the day. If
| you didn't run at 125 fps with a 120hz refresh rate you
| were at a disadvantage at competitive levels. Not even
| world class competitive, but enough to be good enough to
| play in tournaments with thousands of dollars in prizes.
|
| If you ever want to see hardcore technical analysis of
| hardware from a gamer's POV, try reading forum threads
| from the early 2000s when ball mice started to transition
| to laser and optical mice. Or using after market Teflon
| pads on your mouse feet to get more consistent friction.
|
| Fortunately most of these things were only a few bucks.
| Most competitive gamers in Quake would also use config
| settings that reduced the graphics quality[0] of the game
| to maximize visibility and get consistent frame rates.
|
| [0]: https://www.esreality.com/files/inlineimages/2011/82
| 175-conf...
| formerly_proven wrote:
| 60 vs 120 Hz is obvious enough that you don't even need a
| shooter to notice the big difference. The mouse cursor is
| enough, scrolling is enough, dragging windows around is
| enough, scrolling in an RTS is very obvious etc.
| pvg wrote:
| 60 fps games look and play obviously better than 30 fps
| games, to anyone. For something like a first person
| shooter, 90 fps feels obviously better than 60, I think
| to most people. In VR, meaningful latencies get even
| lower. I don't think we're really at the pro-athlete-gear
| types of improvement with most display technology yet.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > This reminds me of weekend warrior bicyclists dropping
| $5k on components to save a few ounces of weight and go a
| tiny bit faster.
|
| Was in a high end bike store in Philadelphia in around
| 2007 or so (pre-crash). There's a guy in front of me at
| the repair desk who is holding a carbon fiber bottle
| cage. The tech is looking at it, because it's cracked. He
| tells the guy that he probably overtightened the bolt
| holding it on ("very easy to do on the carbon cages") and
| suggests that he just puts a metal (even titanium!)
| washer between the bolt and cage, and everything will be
| OK.
|
| Guy says "yeah, but the extra weight of the washer that
| would mean that it was pointless to buy the lightest
| possible cage"
|
| I interrupt and ask the Guy if he ever adds slightly too
| much powder to his energy drink when going out for a
| ride.
|
| /badaboom
| paulcole wrote:
| If the guy in question was an optometrist with a beer
| gut, it would match the ridiculousness of the
| conversations I've heard in Portland's high end bike
| shops.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > Sure it's fun to spend money on your hobby but to say
| it's "absolutely essential" is a little silly.
|
| Well, when optimizing for FPS performance, it is :)
|
| I agree that it's rather unnecessary in general, though.
| You can game on an old TV with 60hz interlaced and 30ms
| response time just fine. But then you're probably very
| much not in the market for dropping four-digit sums on a
| display.
| hakfoo wrote:
| In 2005, I went and bought a $400 19" LCD.
|
| In 2006, I pawned it off on the family and bought a $65 21"
| Sun-branded Trinitron CRT. Used it for a couple years then sold
| it to a co-worker for $25.
|
| It wasn't til 24" 1920x1200 LCDs became available that I felt
| like there was a wild improvement over a CRT. Yeah, the FW900
| would be the same story, but you never saw those for sale
| locally.
| dreamofkoholint wrote:
| I have one of the variants(HP A7217A) sitting away gathering dust
| at a relative's place. Its weight/size just made it too difficult
| to move with over the years.
|
| I hadn't realized they're still desired now. I'll have to dust it
| off and see if there's a buyer out there.
| vidanay wrote:
| There was a really good article shared a few weeks ago about
| video memory on old systems that didn't use a frame buffer,
| instead the video data was streamed to only a couple of bytes and
| calculated in real time. This had the effect of nearly zero lag
| because sprite location could be calculated right up until the
| moment the first row was drawn to the screen.
|
| I wish I could remember exactly what that article was.
| deergomoo wrote:
| This was quite a popular technique to achieve fancy video
| effects on low powered hardware.
|
| A good example is the various parallax and scrolling effects in
| the intro cinematic to Link's Awakening on the Game Boy/Color,
| achieved by changing various hardware scroll registers in the
| horizontal blanking interval (time between one line being
| finished and the other starting). The main limitation is that
| you can only do horizontal effects, not vertical.
|
| I'm wondering if the article you're thinking of was the Wired
| piece on the Atari 2600? That famously ran all of its game
| logic in the H- and V-blank intervals.
| vidanay wrote:
| I seem to recall the article being about Apple II hardware,
| but it might have been Atari 2600. They are of similar
| generations.
|
| edit: Yep, you are right - the article is titled "Racing the
| Beam"
|
| https://www.wired.com/2009/03/racing-the-beam/
| Someone wrote:
| If so, "sprite location could be calculated right up until
| the moment the first row was drawn to the screen" is a tad
| optimistic.
|
| In theory, you could, but on the Atari 2600, during screen
| drawing, the CPU cycle budget for each line was 76 cycles
| (see https://cdn.hackaday.io/files/1646277043401568/Atari_2
| 600_Pr...). Rounding up, that's 40 instructions, and if the
| current line is different from the previous one, you'd have
| to update memory from that same budget.
|
| Because of that, reading of user input and updating of
| player/object positions typically/always was done during
| the vertical blank interval.
| caymanjim wrote:
| I was part of the Commodore 64 demo scene back in the 80s,
| and this technique was heavily used. You only had so many
| sprites available, limited color palette, could only use
| one font (with a small set of glyphs), etc.
|
| By setting up "raster interrupts", which would execute code
| when the CRT reached a specific raster line on the 320x200
| display, you could do all sorts of trickery. The raster
| interrupt would trigger after it rendered the first
| horizontal line, and then you could change the pointer to
| the sprite/font/palette/etc. for the duration of the next
| display line. A common effect that everyone would learn
| first was to simply change the background color, so that
| every display line was a different color, producing a
| rainbow background.
|
| In a sense, the [video] demo scene was almost entirely
| about this effect. How much could you do in the tiny number
| of CPU cycles available to you between the raster interrupt
| triggered at the end of one horizontal scan line, and the
| start of the next line, as the beam wrapped around? You
| could just barely execute about a dozen CPU instructions.
| Usually you'd flip a couple pointers that the video
| hardware would look at when it started rendering again, and
| then you'd pad in a couple no-op instructions so that the
| change occurred "off screen". This really happened in the
| margins of the CRT that were covered by a bezel, which
| meant that on some displays the transition really was
| invisible to the eye, but on others, there would be
| flickering at the edges as the background color changed. I
| used to test my demos on multiple displays to try to
| minimize the effect, having to shave off an instruction or
| two in order to make things look better.
| taneq wrote:
| Gaming LCDs these days boast response times in the low single
| digit millisecond range. Even at 144Hz that's less than a frame.
|
| If there's framebuffer-to-photons lag, I'd point my finger at DVI
| decoding before the physical movement of liquid crystals.
|
| Also, for all the focus on "physical changes" there's no mention
| of phosphor fade rate, which is a physical property of the CRT
| screen with a built-in trade off between latency and flicker.
|
| Please let's not have CRTs become the new Monster Cables.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| The gray to gray response time is heavily gamed. There's some
| tech reporter investigation on it that shows how most monitors
| that game the GTG response time have slower overall response
| than monitors with a ~7ms time.
| wtallis wrote:
| TFT Central's reviews are a great source for detailed
| measurements of response times: https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/
| reviews/asus_rog_swift_360hz_pg...
| bla3 wrote:
| It's weird to me to see all this affection for CRTs here. I had a
| "flicker free" 120 Hz CRT and I could still easily see it flicker
| and got headaches when using it for more than a few hours.
| MrJagil wrote:
| CRTs are still being made: https://dotronix.com/our-work/dnr-
| series/
|
| Via
| https://reddit.com/r/crtgaming/comments/j930qr/brand_new_crt...
| bserge wrote:
| My eyes used to _hurt_ a lot on CRTs. A few hours every day in
| front of one and I could not go outside without sunglasses,
| anything would make my eyes hurt.
|
| Everything was fine if I went a week without using a computer.
|
| With LCDs, that's not a problem anymore, and I like it.
| elric wrote:
| Many LEDs have an annoying flicker as well, which can be very
| annoying and distracting for me. Especially around christmas
| time, when everyone and their grandmother puts out thousands of
| cheap LEDs. Even when they're not trying to blink, they're
| still flickering. I suspect I'm sensitive to this kind of stuff
| because I suffer from migraines, but still, I can't imagine I'm
| the only one.
| vidanay wrote:
| Christmas LEDs are technological abominations. They literally
| hurt to look at.
| bserge wrote:
| I don't understand what it is about _some_ LEDs that make
| your eyes hurt when you look at them.
|
| Best way I can describe it is that my eyes can't focus on
| them and are constantly trying to.
| therealidiot wrote:
| I can't focus properly on bright blue things. There's a
| football stadium not far from where I live and its name
| alternates between red and blue in big text.
|
| I know what it says but I cannot read it at night when it
| is blue.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > I can't focus properly on bright blue things.
|
| No one can, for a bunch of reasons. The eye is mostly
| corrected for red-green wavelengths; the eye is a lot
| less sensitive to blue light; there are far fewer
| receptors for blue light, which reduces spatial
| resolution.
|
| Monochromatic blue displays are an extreme UI antipattern
| and should not be used for anything. If combined with
| high luminosity, they become essentially unreadable
| unless close up. E.g. ultra-blue seven segment LED
| displays. VFDs can suffer from this, but this is also the
| reason why many of them use green-blue phosphors, and not
| blue phosphor (which would be possible).
| ddingus wrote:
| And they don't really twinkle like the heat driven, blinker
| style incandescent lights do. I loved to watch the pattern
| on the ceiling as a kid. It would change in subtle ways.
| Never the same, but sometimes really close.
|
| I got a set and I am scared of them. Fire hazard. But I do
| run them once in a while for young ones at Xmas time. Just
| so they can check it out.
| golem14 wrote:
| I have had the same feeling about early cfl lamps.
| Turning those on seemed to make the rooms darker and more
| dingy instantly
| ddingus wrote:
| Yes! We tried to like those and had the same impression.
|
| Amount of light seemed good, but quality was in the
| dumps.
| elvis70 wrote:
| It was impossible for me to spend 8 hours a day in front of a
| screen until the end of the 90s. I still have a 1999 CRT
| monitor and I don't have that problem. This feeling of pain in
| my eyes is something I wouldn't want to experience anymore.
| There are times when I miss my dot matrix printer.
| dmead wrote:
| Same.
|
| A crt with refresh rates below like 60 and I could see the
| frames. It was torture. 120hz or more didn't seem to be an
| issue and its certainly not a problem since ive had lcds.
|
| That being said it might be fun to go back for while.
| vidanay wrote:
| I think this had a lot to do with low quality fluorescent light
| ballasts in offices. I agree that it seemed to happen a lot
| more with CRT, but I have experienced it with LCD too.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| In 2008 or so, I ended up going to a neurologist because I
| was getting these brutal headaches that couldn't be resolved
| by my GP. They couldn't find anything either. And then I quit
| my job and no longer spent my days starting at a CRT under
| shitty fluorescent lights, and all the problems went away.
| Magic!
| Moru wrote:
| Some people call it allergy to electricity but most of them
| just have problem with flickering lights. It's incredibly
| straining even if we don't notice the flicker.
| bserge wrote:
| On LCD monitors, I could notice that on very low brightness
| settings, which was likely due to PWM flicker. I guess I'm
| sensitive to it.
| thedanbob wrote:
| I guess most people can't see the flicker on a CRT set at 60Hz,
| but I can. It's especially bad in a room with fluorescent
| lights. First thing I'd do upon sitting down at a new computer
| with a CRT monitor was to bump up the refresh rate to 75Hz so I
| didn't get a headache.
|
| Taking standardized tests in the early 2000s on locked down
| computers in fluorescent-lit test centers was torture.
| deergomoo wrote:
| I'm fine with 60 but I'm in a PAL region so all of my 90s
| consoles run at 50Hz. That is seriously uncomfortable to look
| at now and I have no idea how we all put up with it.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Presumably the phosphors in the PAL CRTs glowed for longer?
| izacus wrote:
| 60Hz wasn't really a default for long though? Most CRTs in
| Windows 9x era would do 75Hz or 85Hz if you didn't push them
| above their native resolutions.
| ardit33 wrote:
| I found the flickering at 60HZ unbearable, but at 75HZ it was
| barely noticeable. My sweet spot wast at 80-85HZ. I tried
| until 90HZ, but you had to sacrifice resolution and past
| 90HZ, I didn't notice much difference.
|
| I think for today's LCD/OLEDs 90-120hz should be the sweet
| spot, especially for gaming and motion. More than that is a
| waste of computing. (there are monitors that offer 144-200Hz
| refresh rates, but that is mostly a waste).
| nichch wrote:
| I've had a 240hz monitor for a while now and I wouldn't say
| 144hz is a waste.
|
| I do agree 100-120hz is the sweet spot, good balance of
| refresh rate and graphical quality.
|
| I would not suggest a 240hz monitor if you are not playing
| competitive shooters a majority of the time.
| ardit33 wrote:
| I agree. By 'a waste', I didn't mean that it is not
| better, but I meant that it is a diminishing returns
| curve, and you will end up sacrificing a lot to achieve
| it (resolution and graphical quality, as computing is not
| free) and it doesn't feel that much better. Going from
| 60HZ to 120, or even 90HZ is very noticeable by everyone,
| even in normal 2D content. Past 120 it is like, eh, just
| a bit better.
|
| Between 120HZ 4k, and 240HZ HD, I'd take the 120HZ 4k
| Between 120HZ 4k, and 90HZ 4k but with fully Ray Casting,
| I'd take the 90HZ (unless it is a competitive FPS)
|
| etc...
| bserge wrote:
| But the fundamental difference is that LCDs are static.
| Like, if you have a static image on screen, it does not
| refresh. A CRT is _always_ refreshing at x Hz.
|
| On LED backlit displays, it's the cheap PWM brightness
| controllers that can be noticeable. They're supposed to
| pulse hundreds of times a second to maintain the brightness
| setting, but as you go lower, it can be noticeable and
| tiring on the eyes.
|
| On LCDs, refresh rates matter only in constantly changing
| pictures, like movies and games.
|
| On a CRT, you're exposed to the constant refresh flicker
| even if you're editing a file or reading an article.
|
| All in all, I'm happy with LCDs. Even in games, they're
| enough for me, I'm not _that_ competitive.
| beagle3 wrote:
| An LCD with 20hz won't give you a headache - an LCD pizel
| is always on (but only changes on refresh).
|
| A crt pixel is on for only a very short time, while picture
| results from eye's persistence of vision (which is also why
| in movies CRT screens flicker)
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, I used the highest refresh rate I could force, usually
| 75-80 Hz. Some monitors could handle 90, and it made a
| difference, but it was still worse than LCD PWM flicker.
| baq wrote:
| most people absolutely can see the 60hz, the effect is simply
| subtle. if you look at a CRT from an angle it's more visible,
| or you can wave your hand in front of you and observe the
| strobe effect.
|
| i definitely do not miss 60hz CRTs, they made me miserable.
| Moru wrote:
| I was so happy when I figured out how to switch to 60 Hz.
| Living in a PAL region I was stuck at 50 Hz. Later on PC I
| cranked up the Hz as high as it would go while still
| display something.
|
| And yes, the flicker is easy to spot if you just sit in
| front of the screen and look just above it, prefferably in
| a dark room. Or wave your hand in front of it. With LED
| lightbulbs you can also use your phone camera, move it
| _realy_ close to the lamp and if you see banding, it 's not
| good.
| dghughes wrote:
| I remember when I switched from a CRT to an LCD monitor. The
| difference was so dramatic I remember my head aching. For me it
| wasn't the brightness it was the curve vs flat. Going from
| looking at a curved screen for years to a flat one was a
| massive change.
| LocalH wrote:
| Out of curiosity, did you ever have similar issues with flat
| CRTs?
| yardie wrote:
| I used to have one of these (GDM-FW900) at an old job, a long
| time ago. They were great monitors for the time, top of the line.
| They weighed almost 300lbs, IIRC. And like all CRTs they can put
| out some heat.
|
| LCDs at the time still left much to be desired so VFX houses
| weren't rushing to replace them with inferior, at the time,
| technology.
|
| I remember running mine at a higher refresh rate. 75Hz and 100Hz
| was easily reachable. 120Hz and you started to drop resolution
| and the coils would sing. I miss the wide range of resolutions
| you could run. LCDs still haven't been able to replicate that
| without making everything a blurry, boxy mess.
|
| I was able to take the broken smaller GDM-F500 (21") home. It was
| dim and after a bit of research I found out replacing a capacitor
| and a few resistors would bring it back. But it was terrifying
| working directly on the HV board. Once it was working I had so
| much screen. Almost getting electrocuted was practically it.
| dreamofkoholint wrote:
| Yes! I think the ability to watch lower-res video (even 480p)
| on them and still have a decent picture is what I miss the
| most.
|
| It would be quite comical if the 300lb figure were correct,
| having lugged one around before. They hovered around 92lbs,
| though.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| Heh, everything is better on Tubes whether it is guitar amps or
| gaming monitors? :-)
|
| I can pretty much assure you that with a 240Hz refresh rate 4K
| LCD monitor it will look better than your CRT :-) But it is
| perfectly valid to say "What is the best experience I can get for
| $X?" and find that CRT solutions out perform LCD solutions at
| various price points.
|
| That said, I suspect it is less about the "superiority" of the
| CRT than it is about the corners cut by the LCD manufacturer in
| terms of display fidelity. A _lot_ of the early "high res"
| displays got there by sacrificing video image quality.
|
| That those monitors aren't great for gaming is not surprising, it
| is also not surprising if that was the only monitor you've ever
| gamed on, when you saw gaming on a better image experience you
| would be impressed.
|
| If you consider the amount of RAM and processing power you have
| to have _inside_ the monitor at 4K resolution you start to
| understand why there is a thing like nVidia 's G-Sync technology.
| That is a lot of bits to throw around. Similarly, a monitor that
| processes the 4k video stream down to 1080p, and has 10 or even
| 12 bit dynamic range on the pixels with full motion emulation
| might give you a better looking display than a 4K display.
|
| So many ways to optimize for particular markets.
| skybrian wrote:
| It seems like 4k is pretty darned wasteful part of the hedonic
| treadmill. At a more reasonable resolution, this processing
| power could be used for higher-end graphics algorithms, better
| AI, longer battery life, and so on.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I've had 4K monitors on both my work laptop, my PC, and my TV
| for as long as that was possible. Nearly 7 years.
|
| This has cost me thousands and thousands of dollars.
|
| My logic is that when I use a computer, it's the monitor that
| I'm looking at. I don't sit next to the case staring at RGB
| LEDs. I can't "experience" a processor in any aspect except
| speed, and that's been perfectly acceptable for a decade.
|
| But I'll stare at the screen for 8 hours a day for work, and
| an additional few hours at home.
|
| Spending money on improving the image quality of something I
| _look at_ for 10+ hours a day is absolutely worthwhile!
|
| This is also the advice I give people: Buy a bigger, better
| monitor than you planned, and make sacrifices elsewhere. A
| larger 4K monitor is a _very visible_ upgrade in the literal
| sense versus, say, a few hundred more megahertz on the
| processor.
| skybrian wrote:
| A larger monitor I can understand, but on a laptop, how can
| 4k resolution be visible if it's... too small to see?
| redler wrote:
| I feel this way not only about monitors, but chairs and
| shoes, and for the same reasons.
| mleonhard wrote:
| And keyboard, mouse, headphones, bed, pillow, and
| underclothes.
| fock wrote:
| yeees. Just look at the crappy Netflix 4k, which is less
| bandwith than a 1080p Bluray (like 30% less iirc). Now,
| obviously, it's a better codec, but h265/VP-9 (or whatever
| they use) won't give you a > 400% increased efficiency over
| h264. So, people are buying new Fire-TVs/TVs/GPUs all so that
| they can enjoy a 4k artifact show.
|
| Meanwhile I've fallen under the hedonic treadmill and bought
| a TV. Sitting 3m from this 49inch screen, I play Netflix in
| 540p (on Linux) - and it totally looks fine. Well...
|
| But, truth be told: I'm typing this on a 32inch 4K monitor.
| For work it's gorgeous (yet some people still buy FHD...).
| wazoox wrote:
| Even worse, you can't see in 4K. :)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNBiAV4UnM
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Compared to what? A cheaper monitor? On a relative basis,
| spending $400 on a 4k monitor vs $250 on a similar 1440p
| monitor is wasteful. But if you compare to any other category
| of goods, it's a drop in the bucket. Most people don't even
| consider efficiency when adding thousands of dollars of
| options to a new car purchase. You can buy a lot of 4k
| monitors for the amount families spend on larger than needed
| houses throughout the suburbs of the United States.
| paulmd wrote:
| Things are getting obscene at the high end of the treadmill
| though. Current high-end monitors like 38GN850G and X27 are
| already plumbing the $2000 price point and the X32 is
| expected to tip the scale at $3600 MSRP. "Compared to" just
| going out and buying a TV and using it as a monitor - you
| could buy a 55" OLED for your PC and a 65" for living room
| at that price. Or two 55" oleds, replace it in 3 years when
| it starts having burn-in from years of marathon Starcraft
| sessions or whatever.
|
| There really isn't a lot to justify a 32" IPS 4K144 over a
| 48" OLED 4K120 other than burn-in.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Enthusiast, early adopter products have always been
| expensive. This doesn't seem that exceptional to me. It's
| not like tons and tons of people are buying that high end
| monitor. I'm also not sure what 4k 120hz tv you're
| referring to. Do they exist? Hdmi 2.1 isn't even done yet
| is it? How do you get a 4k 120hz signal into such a
| device? And how am I meant to fit it in my 3ft deep desk?
|
| Fwiw I have a 4k 144 monitor that I got for $800-900. I
| believe I first heard about it on this site actually. 4k
| is important to me for text and 120hz is important to me
| for gaming. It's nice to have both, and gsync
| compatibility, all in one device. Well worth a small
| splurge.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| I don't disagree at all with this.
|
| In an adjacent field, graphics, we used to debate spending
| cycles on simulating thing like lens flare, as if in a first
| person shooter you are wearing goggles with tubular optics?
| Sure it showed off mad math skilz but what was the point?
|
| I do appreciate the lack of eyestrain for detail work on a
| high resolution CRT though.
| imstate wrote:
| The CRT monitors do have a faster response time and higher
| refresh rate (I've seen up to 640x480@480hz <1ms).
|
| But you would be sacrificing fidelity for this "competitive
| advantage".
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| You might find this note[1] interesting to read. I would love
| to see a commercial off the shelf cathode ray tube (CRT) that
| could do 480 Hz, so please share with us a link if you can
| find it in your notes.
|
| A CRT monitor, with a refresh rate of 480 Hz, allows just 2
| mS (2.083333 mS to be precise) for excitation of the
| phosphor. As you know, (here is a similar explainer [2]) the
| phosphor is excited by the arrival of electrons which
| contribute their kinetic energy when they impact the phosphor
| to the electron energy of the particular phosphor. When the
| energy decays back to base level, it emits a photon at a
| frequency that is characteristic of the band gap between the
| excited and rest state of the electrons in the outer orbit of
| the crystal.
|
| The more electrons you can get excited in the phosphor
| crystal, the brighter the display. But the more electrons in
| the beam gives the beam more inertia and so rapidly moving it
| from one side of the screen to the other requires higher
| voltage potential.
|
| I haven't seen any high refresh rate CRTs but back in college
| we had a device which was a "flying spot" scanner which had a
| very fast phosphor but it was enclosed in a black box and
| basically relied on photographic film for persistence (it was
| made by a company called "Dicomed"). The shorter the
| persistence of the phosphor gave it a very high dynamic range
| of brightness which allowed us to transfer digital photos
| with a high dynamic range to film without losing fidelity.
|
| I haven't really followed the evolution of cathode ray tubes
| post the Sony Trinitron era, I would really love to play with
| the tube you mention, or at a minimum get the engineers
| specification for it. I'm assuming it was full color? (the
| Dicomed's screen was a sort of yellowish white and it had
| three filters that it would place over the screen to scan out
| a color image).
|
| [1]
| https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87778main_H-609.pdf
|
| [2] https://www.phosphor-technology.com/how-do-phosphors-
| work/
| buildbot wrote:
| Somewhat tangential, but Dicomed also made pretty special
| large format digital backs at one point [1] that really
| have yet to be eclipsed in terms of chip size (definitely
| in quality). Interesting they also produced what sounds
| like a really high quality digital to film solution too.
|
| [1] http://www.epi-
| centre.com/reports/9604cs.html?LMCL=xIZMrP
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I can pretty much assure you that with a 240Hz refresh rate
| 4K LCD monitor it will look better than your CRT :-)
|
| Since you bring up the refresh rate, then i'd assume that you
| include motion in the "look better" - in which case, i can
| easily respond with "no, it absolutely does not".
|
| I have a CRT next to me which can do 120Hz at 640x480 (which is
| a low resolution but the CRT is also very small and i use it on
| a mid-2000s PC for playing some older games, so it doesn't
| bother me). It is a Samtron which is basically poor man's
| Trinitron, so not even among the best out there (i also have a
| Trinitron but that was also not among the best out there... it
| was one of the cheaper models).
|
| Despite that, motion on this thing at 120Hz can only be
| described as liquid butter smooth. Just moving the mouse around
| makes you want to... well, keep moving the mouse around because
| it feels so good. FPS games feel amazing.
|
| It is so good that i decided to buy a high refresh rate monitor
| for my main PC. I avoided that for a long time for two reasons:
| a) good monitors use high resolutions like 2560x1440 often at
| huge sizes like 27" and i do not really like high resolutions
| nor huge monitor (huge in terms of viewable area) and b) all
| flat panels have persistence issues so chances are they
| wouldn't be that good.
|
| But you know, having that CRT next to me and using it from time
| to time _really_ made me want to have a similar experience on
| my main PC. So i decided to find something that would be close
| enough and bought a (rather expensive) 165Hz monitor. I mean,
| ok, how _bad_ can it be?
|
| I rarely get disappointed with new purchases i make and i can't
| say i was _completely_ disappointed, but i can easily say that
| if i hadn 't experienced using a decent CRT for years (like
| many that seem to praise modern display tech do - assuming they
| ever experienced a CRT at all, things aren't getting younger)
| i'd probably be much more enthusiastic.
|
| The thing is however, i had experienced a CRT and my brand new
| expensive monitor is far from being as good as the CRT i bought
| for barely 15 euros.
|
| It is day and night. Not just something that you need to go
| back and forth to compare - i realized how worse the new
| monitor was the moment i tried to move some windows around and
| launched a game i also had played on the older PC and that even
| though i hadn't used the older PC since a while. All it takes
| is using both once to realize how better the CRT is.
|
| And it isn't like the new monitor doesn't feel smoother than
| the 60Hz, but it just isn't as good at the old CRT i have next
| to me. At best it brings back _some_ of the responsiveness i
| lost when Windows forced a vsync 'd compositor on me. But i
| never used vsync in games so that sort of responsiveness in
| games wasn't something i lost and i disable vsync for almost
| two decades now, so any tearing not only doesn't bother me - it
| barely registers.
|
| Also, aside of motion, CRTs (at least the decent ones) have
| much better contrast than any tech outside OLED (which isn't
| available in PC monitor form, at least not at a non-ridiculous
| size, non-ridiculous resolution and non-ridiculous price).
|
| Sadly it isn't just a matter of older or cheaper monitors. It
| is just that modern monitor tech simply sucks at most things
| outside being flat and having high resolutions. It is fine for
| office work, etc, which is how i guess they became popular, but
| for gaming they just aren't as good as the better CRTs (sure
| there were many crappy CRTs out there - and i am certain that
| anyone who complains that they dislike CRTs because they
| flickered used a crappy one - but people who say that they
| prefer CRTs do not refer to the crappy ones as i'm certain that
| people who say things are better nowadays do not refer to
| crappy TNs with washed out colors either).
|
| > So many ways to optimize for particular markets.
|
| I'd like an optimization for a high end CRT please :-/. The
| article mentions $500, i'd actually pay $1500 for a brand new
| (not old stock, i mean truly new) good CRT like those mentioned
| in the article.
| saurik wrote:
| I don't know what brand of LCD you might have, but do you
| have an opinion on the refresh rate settings? My Samsung 4k
| LCD has a feature I only a few days ago realized I had jacked
| up to "Fastest" as soon as I got it (from its default of
| "Standard"). It apparently does something wonky with the
| backlight? (And without it I think the published refresh rate
| is nowhere near accurate, as that's like the maximum if you
| are willing to accept the ramifications of this strobing?)
| badsectoracula wrote:
| It is an Agon though i do not remember the exact model
| name[0]. What you refer to is some trick a few high end
| monitors have to alleviate image persistence. I think some
| also do black frame insertion (ie. they insert a black
| image inbetween updates) which also tries to reduce pixel
| persistence.
|
| Both of them try to mimic how CRTs work (though i think
| black frame insertion is closer) but as a side effect they
| affect the image brightness (usually causing everything to
| become dimmer) and can introduce perceptible flickering.
| And yes, some monitors are indeed marketed as the
| theoretical refresh rate you'd achieve with these effects
| in action - you'd need to find dedicated monitor review
| sites (e.g. i've heard some good comments about rtings.com,
| though ignore the scores and look for the metrics... their
| scores take into consideration stuff you often wont care
| about) and of course look for comments on places like
| Reddit's /r/monitors subreddit for people who already
| bought a monitor.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/System32Comics/status/1313194747209
| 49862...
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| My experience is the opposite, a high refresh rate LCD is far
| more pleasant than my old CRT ever was.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| What do you mean with "far more pleasant"? If it is about
| eye strain, your old CRT was probably either bad or you had
| it at a very low refresh rate. But a bad modern flat panel
| will have a lot of its own issues too (e.g. a _very_ cheap
| Fujitsu monitor i bought some time ago had colors so washed
| up and awful, it was straining just to look at a static
| image on it).
|
| If it is something else... i'm not sure what that would be.
| Can you elaborate?
| andrewzah wrote:
| CRTs are still heavily used in the smash bros. melee gaming
| community as the nintendo gamecube natively outputs to 480i.
|
| Using a modern 720p+ display involves upscaling, which causes
| latency. This latency is wildly inconsistent across tvs, which
| makes competitive play untenable.
|
| There are monitors with extremely low response time (~1ms), BenQ
| was the go-to for a while. It used to be that the cost was
| prohibitive, but now finding CRTs is more prohibitive...
| especially finding a good trinitron.
| ddingus wrote:
| I love CRT displays myself. The standard 50/60hz is a bit rough,
| unless one is working on a high persistence phosphor. Older
| monochrome, amber, green screens often have that phosphor.
|
| I like how simple they are to drive too. Managing a high
| resolution analog stream takes far fewer resources.
|
| For personal electronics, retro fun, I recommend one.
|
| Glowing phosphor in a glass tube just rocks!
|
| There were variations too. I got to work on one of these in the
| 80's:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T-F7ZySfgZ0
|
| In a dim room, these are beautiful. Up to 4k resolution in the
| 70's, no display buffer. Surprisingly techy looking and feeling.
|
| I will miss CRTs when they are no longer available. They should
| be made in 16:9 for a while longer. People would use them.
|
| All that said, current flat panels continue to improve. They are
| fine for the majority of things most of us do.
| ddingus wrote:
| Just a late edit:
|
| My favorite thing to watch on CRT displays is well produced SD
| programs. They look really good.
|
| At the peak of SD, I had tuned a great Sony to near what a PVM
| can do. Watching DVD movies on that via RGB OR component in a
| dark room was a good experience. Huge dynamic range. The
| occasional trail from a bright entity in the program. Real
| black.
|
| In many ways, many of us did not experience what was lost in
| the tech change. This revival makes sense in some ways.
|
| Look at vinyl. It is a similar thing. The overall experience is
| really good. Gratifying.
|
| Fact is, where there are limits, there is art. A great vinyl
| production is something I appreciate a lot. A similar one done
| digitally actually sounds better, but the art is not there.
|
| The CRT is art. We had limits and the CRT bubbles up out of
| that just nailing it.
| hexbinencoded wrote:
| I remember my Sony Trinitron and Iiyama monitors fondly. RIP.
| qayxc wrote:
| Had both, don't remember them fondly at all because I moved a
| lot. These 35kg monsters were the perfect combination of
| unwieldy and delicate at the same time...
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Taylor said in an interview that he's willing to pay up to
| $500.
|
| I wonder what the shipping cost of those heavy monsters are.
|
| Me, I've used CRTs for 25 years. I have zero nostalgia for them.
| I don't want to ever use one again. There's nothing about them I
| prefer.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| Reminds me of a story in when I was in university in around
| 2005. In our usenet group some people found a sale of used
| fw900s (definitely for less than 500EUR each). They then
| organized a group buy, which had around 20 interested people.
|
| Then they wondered how they would actually get all of those
| transferred across half the country. I think in the end they
| rented a truck or trailer to pick them up. It was definitely a
| bigger feat than getting a LCD shipped from your favorite
| online store.
| sosborn wrote:
| I feel the same way about CRTs. Things are so much better now
| (to me anyway). I also feel the same way about loud keyboards.
| The current fetish for "clackety clack" keyboards cracks me up.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Better at some things than some LCDs maybe, like taking up desk
| space, heating the room, that sort of thing.
| chaganated wrote:
| don't forget the lead and the ionizing radiation!
| dbuder wrote:
| I've picked a lot of junk off the streets but never managed to
| get a nice Grundig.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Ah man, memories, and not from 20 years ago, either. I bought a
| top-of-the-line 21" Trinitron in 1999 and after 4.99 years of the
| 5-year warranty something stopped working inside it so I shipped
| it back to Sony and they couldn't or didn't want to fix it and
| they didn't have any more to replace it so they shipped me a new
| 24" GDM-FW900 for free, which gave me years of trouble-free
| service. Eventually I had to get rid of it because video cards
| with respectable analog outputs became scarce. Younger computer
| users never had to deal with this but in the late stages of CRT
| technology the quality of the analog end of the video card (the
| RAMDAC) was a major differentiation between brands. Having a
| quality RAMDAC and a quality cable of minimal length made a
| visible difference in the resulting picture.
| speeder wrote:
| I still use CRT, and I own a Radeon R9 380X.
|
| I am worried with the fact that this card is the final one with
| a RAMDAC, any newer one doesn't have, but any monitor better
| than mine is ludicrously expensive.
|
| I dunno what to do now.
| vidanay wrote:
| Trinitron were great monitors. Except you could never un-see
| the embedded wires once you noticed them.
| jeffbee wrote:
| `xsetroot mod 2 2` and I rarely thought about them.
| stakkur wrote:
| Also, a 20-year-old CRT monitor (21") consumes almost four times
| the electricity of an LCD, and can cost about 5x more to run-even
| with energy saving mode.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Gamers aren't really known to go out of their ways to save 100
| or 200W.
| peatmoss wrote:
| I wonder if there'll eventually be enough demand for new CRTs,
| and if manufacturing technology has improved enough to make a CRT
| that is less of an ecological menace. If cost were only partly a
| constraint, how good could we build a CRT today?
|
| I am still mesmerized by new display technologies / display
| technologies that I haven't seen in a long time. Like the vector
| CRTs that exist in old Asteroids cabinets. The phosphors are
| really bright--brighter than you can imagine an LCD being.
|
| I also remember the first time I saw e-ink and being shocked to
| see something so inert looking shift to a new image.
|
| This article really captured my imagination. I've not seen a
| modern GPU driving high frame rates on a CRT, but now I'm very
| curious to do so. I'd imagine the experience would defy my
| intuitions the same as it appears to have done for the authors
| here.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I've not seen a modern GPU driving high frame rates on a CRT,
| but now I'm very curious to do so.
|
| You can probably find some decent CRTs on Facebook marketplace
| for very cheap (e.g. the other day i found a bunch of them less
| than 10 euros each) - they wont be as good as those mentioned
| in the article (unless you get really lucky) but anything that
| can do 120Hz or above should be enough to let you see that.
|
| A bigger problem would be connecting them to the modern GPU.
| Nvidia removed the DAC from their GPUs after GTX 9xx series and
| even that wasn't that great (AMD also removed it some time
| before). So you'll need to find some way to convert the digital
| signal to analog VGA signal and a good DAC for that. I think
| there is some thread in the HardOCP forums about that but
| personally i haven't tried to go down that rabbit hole (yet
| :-P).
| ptx wrote:
| They took up a huge amount of desk space though, which was
| quite inconvenient. But perhaps they could be made flatter?
| jeffbee wrote:
| At least back then we got to have desks that were bigger than
| a cabinet door, if only because they had to accommodate the
| CRT.
| everdrive wrote:
| The obsession with device thinness and smallness is a cancer.
| Engineering gets put into the wrong efforts, and cost,
| efficiency, and repair-ability are all damaged.
|
| Modern lcd screens seem to be the worst of this. The screen
| itself is quite thin, but then the base, and the cables
| coming out the back mean it's still effectively 3-7 inches
| "thick." The thinness accomplishes nothing, and has made the
| device worse.
| vikramkr wrote:
| Sure, but I think you're looking at CRTs with rose tinted
| glasses if you think the thickness, size, and weight of
| those monitors was not a problem. I physically couldn't fit
| a couple of extra monitors on my desk, and a vertical
| monitor for code, etc, on my desk if they were as thick as
| the CRT I used to use ages ago. And having recently
| upgraded from a plasma TV to an LED - good lord even the
| plasma TV was stupid heavy. Sometimes you want to be able
| to move around physical objects you know? Cleaning,
| rearranging, etc? There's a difference going from a 10 mm
| phone to a 9 mm phone vs going from a 30 inch CRT to a 65
| inch LED
| andrewzah wrote:
| I used to have around 10 CRTs at a given moment in my
| collection, 5 of which were usually in my trunk, ready to
| go at a given moment.
|
| The weight made transporting them absolutely horrendous. I
| find it ridiculous to think that it's not worth spending
| time, money, and research on smaller form factors if
| possible.
|
| I will take the compactness and weight of a modern LCD over
| a CRT any day.
|
| The only reason I had those CRTs was the smash bros gaming
| community needed them, as the nintendo gamecube natively
| outputs to 480p. Which makes modern displays untenable due
| to their upscalers, which take different amounts of time to
| upscale. (480p) CRTs are consistent.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The thinness makes it take a little less space if you lose
| the base and switch to an armature (which is generally
| nicer anyway).
| throwanem wrote:
| Not without significant consequences. The closer the electron
| gun is to the phosphor, the lower the incidence angle of the
| electron beam becomes - think of aiming a laser at a card
| perpendicular to the beam, and gradually rotating the card
| toward the parallel. The same thing happens to an electron
| beam hitting an acutely angled screen as to a laser dot
| hitting an acutely angled card. So you lose power density as
| the beam spreads out, which both dims the target phosphor
| dots (as they receive less energy) and causes adjacent dots
| to light dimly (as they receive energy "smeared" off the
| target point). To passively counteract this effect, you need
| to increase the curvature of the screen, which causes
| pincushion distortion in the resulting image. To actively
| counter it, you need to vary beam intensity with scan
| position, but that still doesn't resolve the loss of focus
| away from center. That can only be fixed by using a narrower
| beam, so that the incidence angle matters less. Whether
| that's feasible I don't really know - this is about where my
| understanding of the relevant physics and electronics plays
| out, unfortunately. But if it can be done at all, I would
| intuitively expect the required control and drive electronics
| to be very expensive to produce, and maybe also needing
| regular tuning in a way that ordinary CRTs largely avoid.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-conduction_electron-em...
|
| These have almost all the advantages of a CRT, but without a
| lot of the downsides like bulkiness and materials usage.
| skavi wrote:
| Reading through the history section pisses me off. That seems
| like some really impressive tech; I wonder where it'd be
| today if it had succeeded.
| danjc wrote:
| Haven't seen any other mention of this in comments but the sound
| of CRT's used to drive me mad, particularly CRT TV's. If I walked
| in to a house where the TV was on, I could often hear it from the
| entrance!
| User23 wrote:
| I bought the Sony Trinitron from the story back in 2000 at Fry's.
| When the salesman tried to upsell me on a service contract I
| accidentally laughed in his face. It happened before I could stop
| myself and Sony had an absolutely incredible record for quality
| at the time. I used that monitor heavily for over a decade, but
| finally replaced it because the phosphors were starting to go and
| the picture was getting dingy. Still it was a great piece of
| hardware.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Interestingly enough the LG CX 48 inch TV has been pretty much
| targeted at gamers and has received some really good reviews.
| This was targeted at Nvidia setups. Granted at this size they
| don't work well on desktops
|
| One Review https://youtu.be/IR6RnZI2uoY
| kristopolous wrote:
| Unless you play video games, the space, power and heat aren't
| worth it. I didn't have much desk space and higher resolutions
| became really cheap to come by.
|
| So maybe 8 years ago I got rid of my 2 fw900s and now use
| rotatable 4ks that I put side by side in portrait mode,
| essentially getting a ~4kx4k square (18:16). It's $750 or
| whatever 2 go for now well spent. Most modern laptops can even
| drive two monitors as long you get the adapters right. It's a
| really good work set up. Highly recommended.
|
| I'd honestly say it's the most significant thing that's affected
| how I interact with computers (and I've done foot pedals,
| gestural systems, custom made input devices I've designed myself,
| repurposed midi device for UX, my own window manager, etc ... 2
| 4k monitors in portrait is the top of the list, really)
| MrJagil wrote:
| I stumbled upon this article while trying to figure out if i
| could hook up my ipad to a crt. If any one has any wise words for
| me on my journey, I'm all ears.
| opencl wrote:
| Apple sells both USB-C to VGA and Lightning to VGA adapters,
| just buy one of those depending on which iPad you have.
| 02020202 wrote:
| that was a surprisingly good read
| 02020202 wrote:
| lol, thanks for the downvotes. so i guess it was not that good
| of a read after all :D
| ellis0n wrote:
| Yeah, CRT was amazing. In my childhood I experimented with my
| 320x200 black and white CRT monitor and 4-color CGA, and went
| over the 720px resolution by manipulating the registers of the
| video adapter.
| LockAndLol wrote:
| What's the energy consumption like for LCDs, OLEDs and CRTs? It
| wouldn't surprise me if using a CRT meant higher consumption.
| Shooting around electrons I'm a vacuum can't be cheap.
| BearOso wrote:
| > On a CRT monitor, the screen is coated in millions of phosphor
| dots, with one red, green, and blue dot for every individual
| pixel.
|
| Not true. The number of dot triads is usually greater than the
| number of pixels. The distance between them is specified as the
| "dot pitch," which serves as a physical resolution cap. In
| aperture grilles they're continuous RGB vertical lines, with the
| dot pitch being the horizontal distance between them.
|
| Framebuffer pixels don't align exactly with the dots, and that's
| one reason why CRTs are so blurry. The other reason is that the
| DAC analog output doesn't transition discretely between pixels.
| As the refresh rate and resolution get higher, the DAC has to
| spend less time on each pixel, so the output becomes blurred
| horizontally.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I loved the warmth of this blur. When I sold my old mitsubishi
| diamondtron, I tested it before shipping it. And watching an
| old divx made me feel all confused. It looked nicer .. warmer
| .. something.
| thdrdt wrote:
| The only thing I miss are the resolutions. 15 years ago I had a
| Sony Trinitron running at *XGA. Today most monitors are still HD.
| And even most 4k monitors are in fact sharper HD displays.
| Terretta wrote:
| TL;DR: For gaming, because 'input lag'.
|
| _[In a CRT] the electron-to-photon exchange happens instantly.
| While CRTs do have some sources of lag --namely, the time spent
| buffering each video frame and scanning each line of the frame
| from top to bottom on the screen --those delays are on the order
| of microseconds. When you move your mouse or press a button on
| the keyboard, the response time is imperceptible..._
|
| _By contrast, an LCD requires physical movement on the part of
| every pixel. On an LCD, the back of the display emits a constant
| stream of white light, which passes through a polarizer and onto
| an array of liquid crystals. Applying voltage to each crystal
| causes them to twist, altering the amount of light that comes
| through the screen 's front polarizer._
|
| _Compared to electron-photon conversion, the physical movement
| of liquid crystals inside an LCD display takes a lot more time,
| introducing input lag. It also creates blurriness when there 's a
| lot of motion happening across the screen._
|
| Also TL;DR: CRTs to look for.
|
| _Sony FW900 16:10 CRT [also sold as] HP A7217A, SGI GDM-FW9011,
| and Sun GDM-FW9010 ... 16:9 CRT monitors including the Intergraph
| InterView 28HD96 and 24HD96... [and] you 'll need a graphics card
| with an analog output, such as Nvidia's 900 series and AMD's 300
| series cards, or a digital-to-analog converter._
| gruez wrote:
| > a digital-to-analog converter.
|
| How much latency would that typically add?
| labawi wrote:
| If you're using DVI-D -> VGA or HDMI -> VGA, probably a
| couple of pixels worth on a simple converter, as it would be
| expensive and unnecessary to cache a whole frame.
|
| DP has incompatible timings so I would expect a frame or so
| on a cheap (though significantly more expensive) converter.
| Grazester wrote:
| For eternal analogy to digital converts/upscalers, with
| good ones you can have zero lag since they would be no
| frame buffer. I have an OSSC that I use to upscale my the
| VGA signal from my Dreamcast to HDMI output and there is
| zero lag.
| Matthias247 wrote:
| The description is actually not very good.
|
| Input lag doesn't purely exist because of liquid movement and
| pixels changing colors. If it would, then an input lag of
| 50-100ms (which where common with older generation LCDs) -
| would also mean the screens response time (the time to change
| color) would be that high. Which would mean your picture would
| be a blurry mess.
|
| The majority of input lag came from additional signal
| processing algorithms which were built into LCDs, which
| buffered the full picture for 1-2 frames. E.g. to apply
| overdrive algorithms, color correction, scaling, etc. Those are
| all running before the signal gets towards the crystals.
|
| I think a lot of that was actually just bad design in the
| earlier generation of LCDs. And it was really bad, I had a
| screen with 100ms input lag and neither working nor gaming on
| it was really fun.
|
| But it seems like manufacturers now understand the problem
| better and try to minimize the delay through signal processing.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Color convergence on large CRT monitors is problematic. Back in
| the early 90s I spent $1200 out of my own pocket to buy a 20"
| CRT. At the time I was designing 3D rasterization algorithms and
| circuits and would spend hundreds of hours tweaking constants
| (how much difference loss does a 5b interpolation fraction
| introduce vs 6b, etc) and A/B testing to get the most cost
| effective & high quality results.
|
| I bought and returned two and just lived with the defects of the
| 3rd one when I realized it was impossible to get good convergence
| across the display. I would confine my A/B tests to a specific
| area of the screen where convergence was best.
|
| BTW, I forget the exact details, but color convergence at the
| factory was set with the monitor facing some particular
| direction, lets say north. If you set up the monitor facing east,
| the convergence would be off a little bit.
|
| When quality LCDs became available, convergence was a non-issue,
| but they used dithering to attempt to increase the color
| gradations, so it didn't really help my kind of work anyway.
| nitrogen wrote:
| In my youth I bought one of those types of high end monitor
| second hand. Had 5 BNC inputs and required a resolution
| tweaking utility to change the sync polarity.
|
| I spent hours tweaking convergence on the 9 million trim pots
| to get it just right. Best color gamut of any display I ever
| owned. Sadly the display physically broke something internal
| when I lost the included plastic screwdriver and tried using a
| metal one. The internal heads of the trim pots were apparently
| connected to the circuit.
|
| The display was fixed to 1024x768x75Hz exactly (though you
| could squeeze in a bit more with modeline tweaking), but the
| colors were great.
| liquidise wrote:
| As a former epileptic, the strobing that comes with CRTs is
| something i'm happy to be rid of. It wasn't something I could
| _see_ so much as _perceive_ , but it's a feeling my body still
| remembers.
|
| That said modern monitor tech still has big problems. Quantum dot
| has a chance of shifting the field in the next 10 years but right
| now any monitor effectively excels at only 2-3 of: color gamut,
| color accuracy, pixel density, refresh rate, response time. HDR
| is a whole different topic that the industry hasn't figured out.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| The problem with monitors is much more with the display
| industry's preference for finding new ways to scam customers
| instead of commercializing display technology improvements.
|
| The history of LCD monitors and TVs is a history of the
| industry increasing prices while finding new corners to cut by
| removing functionality that reviewers and users didn't know
| they needed to test for.
|
| When users first realized that IPS was vastly superior to TN
| for most purposes, the industry responded by making low-quality
| 6-bit IPS panels, which the industry happily described as 'IPS'
| without disclosing that the panels can't display color
| gradients--and often flickered badly due to FRC. Early 6-bit
| panels were worse than TN in everyday use.
|
| 6-bit IPS is now essentially unavoidable in smaller, non-4K,
| screens.
|
| Another fun scam the display industry concocted was releasing
| one production run of good quality 8-bit IPS monitors, to get
| positive professional reviews and user word of mouth, then
| making subsequent production runs _under the same model number_
| with 6-bit fraud-IPS, PVA, or even TN panels.
|
| The low-frequency PWM backlighting scam (which probably saves
| all of ten cents per display) is now known well enough that
| reviewers will test for it, but the industry has developed
| other ways of preventing users from purchasing good-quality
| hardware at a fair price.
|
| Dynamic contrast is a particularly insidious problem. This
| piece of joy from the display industry changes the backlight
| intensity and RGB pixel values depending on screen contents. As
| a result, the color tint of the display changes depending on
| screen contents. These constant color shifts make dynamic
| contrast monitors unusable for even non-professional
| design/photo/video work and prevents color calibration
| entirely. This technology is even applied, with no user option
| to disable it, to monitors sold as sRGB pre-calibrated and
| marketed towards mid-range color work. Officially, dynamic
| contrast is intended to save energy, but the actual intent is
| likely to force people who want stable colors to buy
| professional displays at ten times the price.
|
| A new scam that's emerged since the start of the pandemic is
| color gamut restriction; it's now very difficult to get
| displays--especially laptop displays--that support more than
| 50% of the sRGB gamut. Displaying actual red is now something
| the industry has decided to exclusively paywall into
| professional panels targeted at the design market.
|
| The problem with displays isn't technology; it's an industry
| that's built on the premise of ripping off consumers.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| I'm curious if you've ever had the chance to see an oled
| monitor in person and if it reacts similarly to a CRT for you.
| They have a global refresh/flash instead of one that's
| rasterizing so it might not have the same effect and they don't
| have the same phosphor fade of a CRT either. I'm also curious
| about the LCD monitors that strobe the backlight to reduce
| apparent motion blur (basically they shut the backlight off
| during the time that each pixel is fading between colors in
| each frame).
| liquidise wrote:
| I own a 77" LG oled that I positively love and have not
| noticed any strobing. I'm also no longer epileptic, so maybe
| that also plays a role?
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Ugh. Keyboard hipsters are bad enough. Now we're going to have
| CRT hipsters!
|
| It's like, name some piece of newly vintage tech, find its fans,
| start a movement, sell folks their shit nostalgia, lather, rinse,
| repeat
| visarga wrote:
| Being able to choose your desired mechanical response of the
| keyboard switches is useful for serious work.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| For some, I guess. For others it is pointless materialism and
| social posturing that this hobby-slash-profession could
| really do without.
| taf2 wrote:
| My lower back disagrees. Not having to lug super heavy CRT
| monitors is one of the best things about the light weight LCD.
| tuxracer wrote:
| Please don't let CRTs come back in style. After a while they tend
| to develop this headache inducing high pitched tone almost akin
| to tinnitus that is emitted constantly while they're powered on.
| It seems to be so high pitched most people cannot hear it at all
| but if you're one of the lucky few who can it can actually be
| really disruptive. Unfortunately it's also often loud enough to
| hear through doors, walls, etc... Please be mindful of this
| before setting up a CRT if you go down this path. For example a
| house might be better for this setup vs an apartment or condo.
| titanomachy wrote:
| When I was a kid I would always hunt down and turn off CRTs
| left on anywhere in the house since the sound annoyed me so
| much. Either my hearing has gotten worse or all the CRTs are
| gone now... probably both.
| ImaCake wrote:
| I read somewhere that you lose high pitch hearing first,
| which is why the young could hear the CRTs when the elderly
| could not. I tried to google for this (actually DDG) but all
| I got was SEO spam.
| hvis wrote:
| Something like this?
|
| https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/age-related-
| heari...
|
| https://playback.fm/hearing-test
|
| and
|
| "gradual loss of sensitivity to higher frequencies with age
| is considered normal"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range)
| jyoshi wrote:
| For the longest while I used this to tell my friends in high
| school I had a mini-superpower. Because I knew when there was a
| television on in the house, and somehow none of them heard it.
|
| There is an old telly in my apartment, I turned it on to test
| it last week and heard the tone again, must have been like 18+
| years since I last turned one of those on.
|
| It never gave me headaches but I definitely heard (and still
| hear it) all the time.
| knuthsat wrote:
| Yep. I experienced this too. My left ear hears 22kHz to this
| day and I could hear even even plasma TVs.
| oblio wrote:
| Besides that (I have the same problem), there's the obvious
| "electron GUN pointed at your face/eyes" problem.
| sigstoat wrote:
| maybe if you spoke a different language you wouldn't be
| bothered?
|
| electrons can't travel very far in glass, or atmosphere,
| which is why the tube has a vacuum inside of it.
| quesera wrote:
| That was the flyback transformer. I could hear them too, but it
| never really bothered me much.
|
| It was useful ability if you were responsible for closing up a
| computer lab at night.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| You can often get a CRT to stop whining, at least for a little
| bit, by either turning it off for a few seconds, then back on;
| or degaussing it. At least that's my memory of the situation. I
| haven't owned a CRT monitor in 20 years, and I don't miss that
| 90-lb monster one bit. That may be because I carried it up
| stairs a few too many times. :-)
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