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What is it about CRT sets?
- Jun 5, 2013 7:38 pm GMT
I've heard it said many times that older consoles don't look as good on modern tvs. That they looked better on CRT screens.
What exactly is it?
A modern screen will show every pixel and frame. How can that look worse? Is there some technical issue I'm not aware of?
I'm not saying this is wrong, I recently saw one of the old GTA games on PS2 hooked up to a 50 inch LED screen and it looked choppy and attrocious. What's going on?
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- Jun 5, 2013 8:56 pm GMT
[QUOTE="Audacitron"]
A modern screen will show every pixel and frame.
[/QUOTE]
That's exactly the problem. Games from 6th generation and before were designed with CRT in mind, and CRT TV's have a powerful smoothing effect. Therefore, games focused more on the overall look and weren't made to be looked under a microscope.
HDTV's are designed so that you can see everything, but when you can see everything on a game that was hiding all of its flaws, then you have the problem you're talking about.
I'll tell you something else, CRT's are still the best TV for having no input lag unlike HDTV's now, and the colors on LCD, LED and even Plasma absolutely pale in comparison to CRT. Thing is, the only reason we got rid of CRT's is because of their enormous size and power hogging, as well as not being good for your eyes. We're only now in a few years going to catch up with CRT with OLED, and then there's still the problem of input lag. CRT > everything else currently in terms of quality.
They also made HD CRT's, those are the best tv's you can have.
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- Jun 5, 2013 10:19 pm GMT
CRT don't have a fixed resolution so they don't scale the images like modern hdtv. Basically if a game is 640x480 on a ps2 the CRT can display it natively while HDTV on the otherhand needs to take the 640x480 image and make it fit into the 1920x1080 pixels it has. Any amount of scaling of the image will degrade the quality and the greater it is the worse it will be this is why it looks worse. 3D games take a bigger quality hit from the scaling then say live action dvd even if both are SD due to the hardlines of games(2D animation suffers cause of this also). So dvd can look quite nice scaled up HDTV meanwhile even modern console games from the ps3 let alone ps2 or ps1 games can look bad on the same t.v the hardlines of games and lack of antialising of games on top of having to scale from a low resolution really hurt image quality.
Factors such as quality of scaling chip how far your sitting from the set as well as how big and what resolution the t.v is as well as the resolution of the game and how much antialising it has will affect how it looks. A t.v with a good scaling chip will help as well as sitting farther away relative to your t.v size like 7 feet away from a 32" t.v should look better then 7 feet from a 60" t.v all other factors being the same. A lower resolution set 720p set vs 1080p should looks better all other things being the same since it doesn't have to scale the image as much.
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- Jun 6, 2013 12:13 am GMTBuy an upscaler or play on native resolution.
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- Jun 6, 2013 1:32 am GMT
CRTs can display interlaced material natively whereas HDTVs have to deinterlace it first
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- Jun 6, 2013 2:40 am GMT
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I disagree about CRT's being worse for the eyes than LED's. At least with older TV's your eyes have time to get used to the flicker, whereas on 60-100hz screens it's hello headache after 3 hours play. Or perhaps that's because i've grown up with CRT's.
Either way, i am sad my CRT broke 2 years ago as console gaming on an LCD is annoying with the input-delay and the requirement to change colour/constrast/sharpness almost on an individual game or TV or DVD basis. I never had to readjust my old TV when changing media.
Oh and the sound thing. It's crap unless you have a surround-sound system on modern TV's.
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- Jun 6, 2013 2:55 am GMT
there are 2 big reasons people get CRTs
1) no upscaling
2) support for old light guns
a modern HDTV/HD monitor has to upscale a low res image to fit the native resolution of the screen , that makes the games look worse. you can't create something out of nothing, and some quality is lost when stretching an image well above what its meant to be.
that said, people tend to over emphasize CRTs, quality obviously varies, and there is just as much of a chance a poor quality CRT will look terrible, as it does good, even more so when people (who care more for nostalgia than image quality) get a beat up TV from the 80s, which doesn't have certain connections like RGB , or S-video , so when looking for CRTs, its often better to sometimes wait until a good quality one (Im thinking something like a Sony, or a B&O, or even a Panasonic) comes along.
I personally use an older LCD that doesn't upscale the picture since its not HD (it also acts as the monitor for my old PC , and looks considerably better than the HD monitor I have), I did have a Panasonic CRT TV, but it stopped working properly
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- Jun 6, 2013 3:09 am GMTPikachu69er wrote:So what, i love it! any pokemon game that is released i will buy it so the more the better
A fine example of fanboyism -_-[QUOTE="Chozofication"][QUOTE="Audacitron"]
A modern screen will show every pixel and frame.
[/QUOTE]
That's exactly the problem. Games from 6th generation and before were designed with CRT in mind, and CRT TV's have a powerful smoothing effect. Therefore, games focused more on the overall look and weren't made to be looked under a microscope.
HDTV's are designed so that you can see everything, but when you can see everything on a game that was hiding all of its flaws, then you have the problem you're talking about.
I'll tell you something else, CRT's are still the best TV for having no input lag unlike HDTV's now, and the colors on LCD, LED and even Plasma absolutely pale in comparison to CRT. Thing is, the only reason we got rid of CRT's is because of their enormous size and power hogging, as well as not being good for your eyes. We're only now in a few years going to catch up with CRT with OLED, and then there's still the problem of input lag. CRT > everything else currently in terms of quality.
They also made HD CRT's, those are the best tv's you can have.
[/QUOTE] This answers it perfectly. Older consoles made up for some of their limitations through their purposeful design for CRT tvs. They are designed with the limitations of a CRT in mind.- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jun 6, 2013 3:56 am GMTsimomate wrote:Chozofication wrote:Audacitron wrote:
A modern screen will show every pixel and frame.
That's exactly the problem. Games from 6th generation and before were designed with CRT in mind, and CRT TV's have a powerful smoothing effect. Therefore, games focused more on the overall look and weren't made to be looked under a microscope.
HDTV's are designed so that you can see everything, but when you can see everything on a game that was hiding all of its flaws, then you have the problem you're talking about.
I'll tell you something else, CRT's are still the best TV for having no input lag unlike HDTV's now, and the colors on LCD, LED and even Plasma absolutely pale in comparison to CRT. Thing is, the only reason we got rid of CRT's is because of their enormous size and power hogging, as well as not being good for your eyes. We're only now in a few years going to catch up with CRT with OLED, and then there's still the problem of input lag. CRT > everything else currently in terms of quality.
They also made HD CRT's, those are the best tv's you can have.
This answers it perfectly.
Older consoles made up for some of their limitations through their purposeful design for CRT tvs. They are designed with the limitations of a CRT in mind.
This is why I keep all my older consoles on my CRT TV(Well my only TV >.>
and then have my 360 and PC on my computer monitor. I'll play the wiiU on either though.
Next Gen: PC + WiiU
PC Specs: i7 875k OCed to 3.6ghz, GTX 560, 4gb RAM, 60gb SSD + 300gb & 450gb 10k drives
Consoles: NES, Genesis, PS1, Gamecube, Wii, 360, WiiU
Handheld: GBC, GBA, GBmicro, DS, 3DS, iPhone3G, IpodClassic
[QUOTE="simomate"][QUOTE="Chozofication"][QUOTE="Audacitron"]
A modern screen will show every pixel and frame.
[/QUOTE]
That's exactly the problem. Games from 6th generation and before were designed with CRT in mind, and CRT TV's have a powerful smoothing effect. Therefore, games focused more on the overall look and weren't made to be looked under a microscope.
HDTV's are designed so that you can see everything, but when you can see everything on a game that was hiding all of its flaws, then you have the problem you're talking about.
I'll tell you something else, CRT's are still the best TV for having no input lag unlike HDTV's now, and the colors on LCD, LED and even Plasma absolutely pale in comparison to CRT. Thing is, the only reason we got rid of CRT's is because of their enormous size and power hogging, as well as not being good for your eyes. We're only now in a few years going to catch up with CRT with OLED, and then there's still the problem of input lag. CRT > everything else currently in terms of quality.
They also made HD CRT's, those are the best tv's you can have.
[/QUOTE] This answers it perfectly. Older consoles made up for some of their limitations through their purposeful design for CRT tvs. They are designed with the limitations of a CRT in mind. [/QUOTE] This is why I keep all my older consoles on my CRT TV(Well my only TV >.>) and then have my 360 and PC on my computer monitor. I'll play the wiiU on either though.- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jun 6, 2013 4:03 am GMT
Can you imagine living in a world without lcd tv's and crt's only kept getting better and better?
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- Jun 6, 2013 4:03 am GMT
[QUOTE="simomate"]This answers it perfectly. Older consoles made up for some of their limitations through their purposeful design for CRT tvs. They are designed with the limitations of a CRT in mind. [/QUOTE]
No, most of the other posts answer it better to be honest (especially DJ_Headshot)
HD TVs look worse because of the fixed resolution.
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- Jun 6, 2013 4:19 am GMTAndross's enemy...is my enemy
[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]
[QUOTE="simomate"]This answers it perfectly. Older consoles made up for some of their limitations through their purposeful design for CRT tvs. They are designed with the limitations of a CRT in mind. [/QUOTE]
No, most of the other posts answer it better to be honest (especially DJ_Headshot)
HD TVs look worse because of the fixed resolution.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, the prior answer was very true. Games were designed around crts. There was nothing else known besides their ultra fast(instantaneous) response times. It has been documented that developers did this, particularly with Genesis games because of the lower color palette.
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- Jun 6, 2013 5:54 am GMT
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Actually, the prior answer was very true. Games were designed around crts.[/quote]
No, that answer stated that HD TVs show up the original graphics because they are clearer, thereby making them look worse, which is completely wrong. HD TVs look worse because they can't display the graphics properly due to resolution differences, simple as that.
My late CRT hooked up with RGB showed every pixel of my retro consoles, and it looked awesome.
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- Jun 6, 2013 6:20 am GMTAndross's enemy...is my enemy
[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Actually, the prior answer was very true. Games were designed around crts.[/quote]
No, that answer stated that HD TVs show up the original graphics because they are clearer, thereby making them look worse, which is completely wrong. HD TVs look worse because they can't display the graphics properly due to resolution differences, simple as that.
My late CRT hooked up with RGB showed every pixel of my retro consoles, and it looked awesome.
[/QUOTE]
Some hd sets can display content at native resolution, it just doesn't fill up the screen. Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult. The problem arises lag, and the lack of scanlines, etc. What the post was referring to was that developers utilized the crt tech in ways to improve the overall visual. Things like scanlines were taken into account when dealing with gradients, particularly on the genesis.
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- Jun 6, 2013 6:38 am GMT[QUOTE="Heirren"]
[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Actually, the prior answer was very true. Games were designed around crts.[/quote]
No, that answer stated that HD TVs show up the original graphics because they are clearer, thereby making them look worse, which is completely wrong. HD TVs look worse because they can't display the graphics properly due to resolution differences, simple as that.
My late CRT hooked up with RGB showed every pixel of my retro consoles, and it looked awesome.
[/QUOTE]
Some hd sets can display content at native resolution, it just doesn't fill up the screen. Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult. The problem arises lag, and the lack of scanlines, etc. What the post was referring to was that developers utilized the crt tech in ways to improve the overall visual. Things like scanlines were taken into account when dealing with gradients, particularly on the genesis.
[/QUOTE] youre thinking of aspect ratios , not resolutions which is a different thing (though related), scaling is a big deal , especially since TV manufacturers are not really investing money in making it any better, since less and less people use standard def. Lag however, is not as much of an issue, because that is one thing being improved all the time, its gotten to the point with newer HD screens don't have much noticable lag unless you're into very competitive online multilayer- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jun 6, 2013 6:52 am GMT
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult.[/quote]
True its not difficult, if you don't mind the image quality getting worse, which is what's being discussed.
This is how I've always thought about it (could be completely wrong) -
If you have an image on Microsoft Paint and you need to double its size the program simply doubles up every pixel, and the image looks perfect, just larger, because its still exactly the same image, just with larger "pixels". If you need to make it 50% bigger then it tends to go double pixel, single pixel, double pixel, single pixel etc image quality is being altered. Anything in the middle of the two is going to be worse, because it can't make half pixels, it'll be doubling some pixels whilst leaving others depending on how much the resolution needs to be multiplied by.
Consoles output a variety of different resolutions, some upscale to HD better than others.
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- Jun 6, 2013 7:01 am GMTAndross's enemy...is my enemy
[QUOTE="Darkman2007"][QUOTE="Heirren"]
[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Actually, the prior answer was very true. Games were designed around crts.[/quote]
No, that answer stated that HD TVs show up the original graphics because they are clearer, thereby making them look worse, which is completely wrong. HD TVs look worse because they can't display the graphics properly due to resolution differences, simple as that.
My late CRT hooked up with RGB showed every pixel of my retro consoles, and it looked awesome.
[/QUOTE]
Some hd sets can display content at native resolution, it just doesn't fill up the screen. Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult. The problem arises lag, and the lack of scanlines, etc. What the post was referring to was that developers utilized the crt tech in ways to improve the overall visual. Things like scanlines were taken into account when dealing with gradients, particularly on the genesis.
[/QUOTE] youre thinking of aspect ratios , not resolutions which is a different thing (though related), scaling is a big deal , especially since TV manufacturers are not really investing money in making it any better, since less and less people use standard def. Lag however, is not as much of an issue, because that is one thing being improved all the time, its gotten to the point with newer HD screens don't have much noticable lag unless you're into very competitive online multilayer [/QUOTE]
No, im not thinking of aspect ratios. Some sets have "native" settings. Say I throw in a dvd, instead of filling the entire screen and scaling the image, it simply displays the dvd boxed off in its native resolution.
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- Jun 6, 2013 7:06 am GMTAndross's enemy...is my enemy
[QUOTE="Domino_slayer"]
[QUOTE="Heirren"]Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult.[/quote]
True its not difficult, if you don't mind the image quality getting worse, which is what's being discussed.
This is how I've always thought about it (could be completely wrong) -
If you have an image on Microsoft Paint and you need to double its size the program simply doubles up every pixel, and the image looks perfect, just larger, because its still exactly the same image, just with larger "pixels". If you need to make it 50% bigger then it tends to go double pixel, single pixel, double pixel, single pixel etc image quality is being altered. Anything in the middle of the two is going to be worse, because it can't make half pixels, it'll be doubling some pixels whilst leaving others depending on how much the resolution needs to be multiplied by.
Consoles output a variety of different resolutions, some upscale to HD better than others.
[/QUOTE]
I'm not grasping the point as you are just reiterating what I had said, and sort of ageeing with the initial comment in question. CRTs mask this, because the image has a more film like nature to it in the sense that focus plays a bigger role in quality.
Again, the comment was very correct in regards to the topic title of "what is it about crt sets?" Developers masked a lot of the unsightly nature of the lower resolution and color palette behind the technology at hand. View a Genesis game with a gradient sky background on an hd set and the visual will show a very stark contrast. The same image on a crt will provide a more natural gradient/shading.
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- Jun 6, 2013 7:10 am GMT[QUOTE="Heirren"]
[QUOTE="Darkman2007"][QUOTE="Heirren"]
Some hd sets can display content at native resolution, it just doesn't fill up the screen. Outside of that, scaling a pixel based image from 320x240 to whatever is not to difficult. The problem arises lag, and the lack of scanlines, etc. What the post was referring to was that developers utilized the crt tech in ways to improve the overall visual. Things like scanlines were taken into account when dealing with gradients, particularly on the genesis.
[/QUOTE] youre thinking of aspect ratios , not resolutions which is a different thing (though related), scaling is a big deal , especially since TV manufacturers are not really investing money in making it any better, since less and less people use standard def. Lag however, is not as much of an issue, because that is one thing being improved all the time, its gotten to the point with newer HD screens don't have much noticable lag unless you're into very competitive online multilayer [/QUOTE]
No, im not thinking of aspect ratios. Some sets have "native" settings. Say I throw in a dvd, instead of filling the entire screen and scaling the image, it simply displays the dvd boxed off in its native resolution.
[/QUOTE] then it would literally run in a corner of the screen , if it is indeed a 1080p screen., and who exactly wants that? whats the point in watching a movie or playing a game that only fills , at best 1/3 of the screen either that or you're confusing it with aspect ratios- Please wait. Quick reply will be available shortly.
- Jun 6, 2013 7:13 am GMTAndross's enemy...is my enemy
[QUOTE="Darkman2007"][QUOTE="Heirren"]
[QUOTE="Darkman2007"] youre thinking of aspect ratios , not resolutions which is a different thing (though related), scaling is a big deal , especially since TV manufacturers are not really investing money in making it any better, since less and less people use standard def. Lag however, is not as much of an issue, because that is one thing being improved all the time, its gotten to the point with newer HD screens don't have much noticable lag unless you're into very competitive online multilayer [/QUOTE]
No, im not thinking of aspect ratios. Some sets have "native" settings. Say I throw in a dvd, instead of filling the entire screen and scaling the image, it simply displays the dvd boxed off in its native resolution.
[/QUOTE] then it would literally run in a corner of the screen , if it is indeed a 1080p screen., and who exactly wants that? whats the point in watching a movie or playing a game that only fills , at best 1/3 of the screen either that or you're confusing it with aspect ratios[/QUOTE]
I don't know who would want that, im just stating that its possible. I believe the ps3 even has the ability to throw dvds out at native res in the middle of the screen.
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