I Treated Myself to Something EXTRAVAGANT

[AdamFromLTT]

The Sony GDM FW-900 is one of the greatest monitors ever made with its widescreen aspect ratio and an incredibly high rated resolution (for the time) this 20-year-old retro beast puts many modern gaming displays to shame! What makes this thing so special, and why did Linus spend so much money on it?
 

Buy an ASUS ROG SWIFT 360Hz PG259QN: https://geni.us/JR4O 

Buy an Alienware AW3423DW QD-OLED: https://geni.us/Lfvztv8

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

 

 

[da na]

I still firmly stand by the fact that my Trinitron Ultrascan 15 looks better than my MSI Optix G24c. 

[CoolJosh3k]

So we can discuss the technology improvements that might allow an engineer to design a CRT that can handle as much as 1080p120?

 

For the input lag reduction, we would should be good. While still needing to drive electric variables, all the calculations should be possible with digital electronics.

 

A big advantage would be our design goal of retro games only and not how good it looks as a TV.

[cdoublejj]

there is a DP to VGA adapter than can mostly do it, you need a nice thick arse well sheilded VGA cable and possibley some tweaking. i have weak cheap cables and can pull 2304x1440 but, it stops after a bit.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JART8HA/

 

you want DeLock based converters but i think something something non expired patent, something something infringement, something something stop and cease.

 

EDIT: see here about the sunnix, https://hardforum.com/threads/24-widescreen-crt-fw900-from-ebay-arrived-comments.952788/post-1045346864

 

you want this still active thread from 2005

 

https://hardforum.com/threads/24-widescreen-crt-fw900-from-ebay-arrived-comments.952788/

 

good luck finding the pages discussing the adapters. i'd work from the last page back, to find it sooner. i think there are some other adapters mentioned there.

 

 

19 hours ago, CoolJosh3k said:

So we can discuss the technology improvements that might allow an engineer to design a CRT that can handle as much as 1080p120?

 

For the input lag reduction, we would should be good. While still needing to drive electric variables, all the calculations should be possible with digital electronics.

 

A big advantage would be our design goal of retro games only and not how good it looks as a TV.

i think you can do that with some CRTs already, or close to. there were also some European 1080p wide screen CRTs back in the 90s too.

[Zodiark1593]

Thankfully with the move to 4K, we actually have enough pixels to emulate the aperture grille of CRTs. I'd have liked to have seen a face off between your Trinitron vs emulation + CRT Royale on an OLED for retro games.

[mrperson221]

Adam has been showing up in a lot of videos lately and he seems to have really good chemistry with Linus

[NomBread]

More retro videos with adam because the videos are really interesting to watch also maybe more retro videos in the future.

[poochyena]

Pro-tip if you are looking for one: Go talk to some colleges. I've gotten many high quality CRTs from colleges for dollars that I resold for hundreds. Many companies and government organizations have dozens or hundreds of these in storage. I've gotten 700+ of them this way. Never seen a wide screen CRT though

[Skyyblaze]

I absolutely loved this video and hate my teenage-self for throwing out my old CRT TV In the light of this video could you also make one about CRT shaders in ReShade and Retroarch? I would love the opinion of the LMG staff on them.

[MadAnt250]

CRT MASTER RACE

Nice to see that CRT monitors are still awesome.

 

[cdoublejj]

18 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Thankfully with the move to 4K, we actually have enough pixels to emulate the aperture grille of CRTs. I'd have liked to have seen a face off between your Trinitron vs emulation + CRT Royale on an OLED for retro games.

in all my years those filters and emulators just aren't the same. they are just now able to emulate LCDs with....LCDs... check out the analogue pocket. maybe in several more gens of LCDs. another thing they mention in this video is that picture isn't properly picked up by a camera. however with the higher pixel density, especialy if it goes VOER 4k they can possibly do some stuff as far as displaying low res content on LCD/OLED similar to the analog pocket.

[Zodiark1593]

5 hours ago, cdoublejj said:

in all my years those filters and emulators just aren't the same. they are just now able to emulate LCDs with....LCDs... check out the analogue pocket. maybe in several more gens of LCDs. another thing they mention in this video is that picture isn't properly picked up by a camera. however with the higher pixel density, especialy if it goes VOER 4k they can possibly do some stuff as far as displaying low res content on LCD/OLED similar to the analog pocket.

CRT Royale is pretty far from the cheap scanline filters you often see. Looking at the filter in action at close distance, it not only simulates the aperture grille, but also the phosphor structure, and even light bleed. It’s not perfect, but it gets you about 90% of the way there. For PS1 and Genesis games, this is the closest I’ve gotten to something that replicates the soft appearance of a CRT.  
 

Though unlike simpler scanline filters, you need a fairly decent GPU to run this. And though it technically can work on 1080P screens, you really want 4K to do it justice. 
 

As far as emulators go, I’d largely settled on Beetle PSX running in Software mode for PS1 games. As I was using a complex CRT shader, and many of the games I wanted to play used pre-rendered visuals, higher than native resolutions weren’t on the table. Additionally, from playing a game that I’d played the shit out of as a child on original hardware, I can attest that the accuracy is excellent, with minimal audio latency. 
 

Here’s a sample image to show what the filter is actually doing. Warning though, it’s a large file. Jpeg compression doesn’t work all that well with it, so PNG was used instead. 

[SolarNova]

In terms of tech I ,or my family, have owned over the years, there is but 1 standout regret I still hold.

Throwing out our old Trinitron CRT monitors.

 

They were not top of the line as far as i remember, and they were still 4:3, but damn wish I had argued more to my parents to keep them, would be worth a pritty penny today and well worth keeping for retro gaming.

We owned CRTs all the way from second hand burnt 15" models from my dads work place , all the way up to 22" Trinitron models. Those last display are what stopped me from buying LCD monitors and TV and go straight to a 42" Plasma which i still use to this day. Those CRTs were just that good that when i saw the LCD options available at the time, they sucked in comparison. Even today I look at LCD with an eye always on the past, i cant help but compare them to CRT and in some ways LCD still sucks.

 

Its nice to see that Linus can see this too, i was half expecting him to sh*t on CRT considering LTT doesnt have the best track record ( they have got a lot better ) of competence with Display technologies.

[MadAnt250]

On 5/6/2022 at 4:28 PM, SolarNova said:

Even today I look at LCD with an eye always on the past, i cant help but compare them to CRT and in some ways LCD still sucks.

The truth right there.

I too had lived with CRT displays, they were everywhere, then LCD displays got cheaper and everyone downgraded.

 

Story Time

A few years ago I was looking for a new monitor, but after watching some youtube videos made me remember that the old CRT monitors from 20 years ago where not as bad as people say compared to the modern displays, I then decided it was time to find a good CRT display. I wanted to take advantage of the full capabilities of the monitor since modern hardware could do that now, so after looking online for awhile, I struck gold (or maybe silver), but it was not online where I found it, it was in the trash. I took home the 50+lbs Hitachi made 19 inch Gateway VX900 and gave good cleaning inside and out. Very excited to get it going, I plug in the power to the wall and the VGA connector to the PC and press the power button. Then... there was a noise, a noise I have not heard in years, a hum like buzz followed by static. I had this feeling almost like meeting an old friend I had not seen in years. Holy crap it was nostalgia!

After adjusting the pots to get the focus, brightness and contrast good, I then started to realize when it came to black levels, color and moving pictures like gameplay and stuff, the LCD displays I looked at in the stores suck, even the pricey gaming ones. Using a high resolution CRT for gaming was like having candy for the eyes, now my standards for a gaming/editing display is much higher now, and for me it is not just about having high Hertz, but having the best visual experience. I now use a Mitsubishi Diamondtron Gateway VX920 and I can say it was worth every penny I paid and I love it.

(I don't use a CRT all the time, I use an LCD monitor for everything else)

 

Final thoughts

OLED monitors are getting better in many ways, but I believe I will still need to wait years before there are a good amount options that fit my needs.

[Patrik_]

On 5/5/2022 at 7:02 PM, AdamFromLTT said:

The Sony GDM FW-900 is one of the greatest monitors ever made with its widescreen aspect ratio and an incredibly high rated resolution (for the time) this 20-year-old retro beast puts many modern gaming displays to shame! What makes this thing so special, and why did Linus spend so much money on it?
 

Buy an ASUS ROG SWIFT 360Hz PG259QN: https://geni.us/JR4O 

Buy an Alienware AW3423DW QD-OLED: https://geni.us/Lfvztv8

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

 

 

Speaking of retro stuff, I found this I didnt even know it existed, but I think it would be interesting idea for a video.