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I have a cheap trinitron (here is hooked on a retro PC running Quake [1] and here it is running a retro game i'm working on [2]). As far as colors go, it has ha

I have a cheap trinitron (here is hooked on a retro PC running Quake [1] and here it is running a retro game i'm working on [2]). As far as colors go, it has hands down the best looking image in any of my other monitors, including a Dell U2713HM which i bought because all the artists in the (gamedev) company i worked at used it and recommended it to me (and i also used it myself at work, but wanted other opinions too), especially when it comes to contrast. Black looks like black, not washed out gray and white looks like white. The only issue it has is that it has been used a lot (i got it used) and the guns are wearing out so it is a bit dim. I opened the case to calibrate it a bit using a guide i found and it was mostly fixed, but i avoid using it for too much because, well, things are only going to get worse. So i only use it in short bursts mainly to play older 2D games, like Fallout, that look way better in a CRT than any flat panel tech. Which basically leads me to the main thing that CRT has over any modern tech: native support for multiple resolutions. Pretty much any resolution between 320x200 to 1280x1024 looks as good as it gets (although 1024x768 is the best resolution for this monitor due to size and refresh rate which maxes at 85Hz in that). With flat panels you are locked at whatever the native resolution and everything else looks blurry (if only Nvidia and AMD allowed integer nearest neighbor pixel scaling so we could at least get some resolutions crisper - that would also solve my main issue with 4K monitors, but that is another story). As far as OLED goes, OLED seems to have the potential to match and perhaps surpass the best CRTs (and certainly my cheap one) but it first needs to come in the form of a PC monitor - preferably one that doesn't get discolored areas within the year. I have one of the first gen PS Vita handhelds which have OLED monitors and the image quality is great, so i'd like a monitor that looks like that. [1] https://i.imgur.com/AdLcOGu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/AdLcOGu.jpg [2] https://i.imgur.com/BKk3RX0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BKk3RX0.jpg

blattimwind 9y ago
There's a method (a bunch of slightly different ones, actually) for rejuvenation of cathodes to improve emittance. This can significantly prolong the life of a tube and has been applied by many with great success to expensive measurement equipment.
ksec 9y ago
I know CRT is better than LCD, that is why i specifically mention OLED. The prices of OLED will come down, expect the WOLED which LG current uses to be around the same as Top Range LCD in 2019 or 2020. MicroLED, will fix every problem OLED has. Or may be MiniLED which allows up to 250ppi will be good enough. Just wondering if there are anything CRT still wins, because even latency problem is an non issues with OLED, HDMI connection and software issues aside.
- badsectoracula 9y ago
  My problem isn't the price, it is that there is no actual OLED PC monitor. There are OLED handhels, OLED mobiles, OLED tablets even OLED TVs, but no OLED PC monitors. Dell was planning to release one, but a) it was way too big (30") and b) they cancelled it. So in terms of CRT comparison, CRT at the moment still wins when it comes to colors and latency (since OLED doesn't exist yet for PC) and the ability to support multiple resolutions. OLED (or any other *LED) will solve the first two, but i doubt it'll solve the last one unless perhaps if we go to 500+ DPI where the inaccuracies of fractional scaling wouldn't be visible. Assuming Nvidia and AMD finally gives us the ability to scale without bilinear filtering, of course.

blattimwind 9y ago

There's a method (a bunch of slightly different ones, actually) for rejuvenation of cathodes to improve emittance. This can significantly prolong the life of a tube and has been applied by many with great success to expensive measurement equipment.

ksec 9y ago

I know CRT is better than LCD, that is why i specifically mention OLED. The prices of OLED will come down, expect the WOLED which LG current uses to be around the same as Top Range LCD in 2019 or 2020. MicroLED, will fix every problem OLED has. Or may be MiniLED which allows up to 250ppi will be good enough. Just wondering if there are anything CRT still wins, because even latency problem is an non issues with OLED, HDMI connection and software issues aside.

badsectoracula 9y ago
My problem isn't the price, it is that there is no actual OLED PC monitor. There are OLED handhels, OLED mobiles, OLED tablets even OLED TVs, but no OLED PC monitors. Dell was planning to release one, but a) it was way too big (30") and b) they cancelled it. So in terms of CRT comparison, CRT at the moment still wins when it comes to colors and latency (since OLED doesn't exist yet for PC) and the ability to support multiple resolutions. OLED (or any other *LED) will solve the first two, but i doubt it'll solve the last one unless perhaps if we go to 500+ DPI where the inaccuracies of fractional scaling wouldn't be visible. Assuming Nvidia and AMD finally gives us the ability to scale without bilinear filtering, of course.