As most of the readers, i'm near my forties. And i've played games all my life. Lately nostalgia knocked in, and while chatting with my mate
Matrix on Whatsapp, he told me he was looking for a CRT monitor in local ads.
I understood what he was aiming for.
He finally got one. And I got one too. In 2017.
This is our story
The chaseBrowsing the ads on the area, there are some crt monitors. 95% are not good enough. 3% are too expensive. and 2% might be what you're looking for.
I was looking for a 19'' crt monitor, because I owned a 19'' Sony E430 before and that was about right. 17'' screen (16'' viewable) is too small for today's standards, and 21'' are monsters, too big for my desk and back.
About the monitor specs: I've learned that the single most important spec is
horizontal frequency. Not vertical. There is a formula that tells you what is the maximum vertical refresh rate on a given resolution. The formula is:
VrHz = ((MaxHrkHz*1000)/HorizLines) * 0.95
So, if I wanted to know what is the theoretical vertical frequency limit of my old
Sony E430 at 1024*768 (which has a max horizontal frequency of 96Khz):
((96*1000)/768)* 0.95 = 118hz
pretty neat, huh? from my 30 years using CRTs, I didn't knew that one.
so we've searched dozens of monitors. c|net has the specs for nearly any monitor. Our google searches were
<monitor brand and model> specs
And most of the times the first result was from c|net. To get the most reliable specs, google the monitor's manual instead. c|net is a good start though.
Matrix ended up getting a
NEC 95F for 15€, and me a
LG F900P for 25€.
Great!
The setupPlug and play. Just use an DVI -> VGA adapter or HDMI -> VGA.
To set the custom resolutions/vertical frequency there's a very nice little program for windows called
CRU - Custom Resolution Utility. There you can set all kind of combinations of resolutions and refresh rates. There are many Youtube tutorials explaining how to set it up. And there's some wicked possibilities too - how about running Interlaced 1600*1200 @ 160hz ??
I had some issues though. Since my monitor supports a pretty high 111kHz horizontal frequency, I can get for example 1024*768 @130hz or 1280*960 @100hz. And when using those high-demanding combinations, there was some blur, the image was not focused. Our own
Ciscon argued that the VGA cable I used might be causing it. VGA cables (like all cables) have limited bandwidth. And advised me to use my monitors BNC connectors. Not all monitors have BNC. They are only present in high end crt monitors and tvs. BNC cables shield and isolate the signals much better than a normal VGA cable. So I got one BNC (5 connectors) -> VGA cable. And its beautiful.
The resultFor all Quakes, the result is amazing. The benefits of using a CRT over my LG LCD 120hz are quite visible. It's smoother, there's no input lag, no ghosting... nothing. Just smooth as butter.
For browsing and most other games the LCD is better. But for the Quakes?.. CRT all the way. I can hit some rockets on Quake Champions now.
MOAR PICS!! CLICK HEREsources
https://www.reddit.com/r/crtgaming/https://www.reddit.com/r/GloriousCRTMasterRace/http://www.testufo.com/http://www.csgnetwork.com/videosignalcalc.htmlhttp://monitorinsider.com/cable_bandwidth.html
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