After budgeting for the next tier of PC upgrades, I found myself weighing the total cost of new components over and over again at every dollar spent. I kept thinking, “Do I really need this?” And “how much difference does this really make?”, the answer to both is always a simple variation of “it depends”. In a world of unoptimized, unfinished triple-A games, owning top-end hardware feels more irrelevant than ever, and a graphics card alone won’t let him drop $1,000. If that’s the case, it’s simply impossible to beat the Rubicon for 4K gaming.
So I went in the opposite direction. I bought a CRT instead.
If you’ve done a quick search for the latest games on CRTs in the 2020s, you may have come across something like this. This detailed explanation by Digital Foundry. This is a great video outlining some of the technical advantages of CRT displays. That means vibrant, vibrant colors that really pop, with deep blacks and dazzling whites that you can only dream of on an LCD. Responsiveness and motion clarity still fall short of most high-refresh flat screens today. Digital Foundry’s video showcases the Sony FW900, a Rolls-Royce with a CRT display capable of handling his 4K resolution at 16:10.
Neither you nor I would have found a monitor this good without the miracle of Craigslist. Because monitors are extremely rare and ridiculously expensive. No, if you go this route, you’ll probably end up with something in the 900p range at 4:3. This isn’t necessarily an amazing spec on paper. But the experience of using a CRT to play PC games, especially fast-paced shooters, is far better than the specs tell you, and will make you feel like Milhouse is playing Bournestorm.
Bunnyhopping from twilight shootout to shootout is almost as comfortable as it looks, with the extreme contrasts of saturation and saturation in the art design exploding with rich tones and deep shadows. The same was true for the Grimdark versions of the Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun and Darktide. Boltgun’s blues and magentas were overwhelming, but Dark Tide’s depth of browns, blacks, and greens made the photo look smeared with industrial smudges. Hotline Miami’s pulsing background was like a tsunami of liquid neon streaming off the screen.
However, just getting these things is a high hurdle. Given its size and age, it makes the most sense to purchase locally. That means you’ll be scouting your local community. When I decided to hunt down an old monitor, I joined a local vintage computer parts group and asked the admins for advice on where to start looking for a 19″ CRT. I got totally lucky when he said he had one he was going to list for $80.
If you prefer to bag it yourself, you might want to take a look at the large e-waste recycling bins you sometimes see at your local shopping mall. You may not even need to use cash. The Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji listings are also great, especially if you search for the keyword “old computer monitor”.
One mistake I made when purchasing was not pre-measuring the monitor’s entire footprint. The CRT will be competing with the entire setup for the space it deserves. Ideally, a deep corner desk with plenty of support. Ever since I got this in January, my electric standing desk has been deadly.
When I finally got everything set up (and got the RGB balance right), I reveled in the glory of yesteryear’s technology. Hotline Miami’s CRT filter options and emulators quickly became unnecessary. One of the first games I rushed to launch was Armored Core 3 (PCSX2 emulated). This was a long awaited replay ahead of the upcoming Armored Core 6. The CRT melted away much of the jagged, low-resolution “detail” that was mapped onto the map. The exposed surfaces of the mecha give the impression of rivets, sensors and panels rather than the blobs of pixels that actually convey them.
CRT displays are coveted by the retro gaming community, especially among fighting game fans who value the extra few frames of responsiveness afforded by analog signals. Low resolution console games also benefit visually by avoiding the cumbersome process of HD upscaling.of CRT pixels A Twitter account highlights how the “fuzz” of CRT displays smooths out (often for the better) the naturally rough edges of pixel art. Modern games also benefit from that analog fuzz, giving the image some kind of built-in antivirus. aliasing.
In high-end PC games, this frees up a lot of the GPU’s load to focus on texture quality, lighting, or resolution. Running the notoriously unoptimized Darktide at 1050p and disabling most of the post-processing produced a remarkably appealing image on a CRT. It’s better than an LCD monitor and gives you a few more frames you need. I had the same experience with Cyberpunk 2077. Immerse yourself in Night City’s iridescent electric blues, greens, and magentas so varied that I ended up spending a week replaying the entire game.
Not only was the extremely vibrant color palette of Night City’s signature neighborhoods rendered tear-jerking on analog displays, but the calculated lower graphics settings kept performance consistent.
Of course, there are also very serious drawbacks and compromises. I decided to play the second half of the great Bayoneta 1 PC port to test the latency, but was subjected to an unavoidable off-screen attack. The responsiveness of the screen was great, but the game logic doesn’t take the aspect ratio into account when determining enemy AI aggressiveness. This is an unexpected example of software incompatibility. If you care about the environment or are already paying high electricity bills, you also have to keep in mind the enormous power consumption.
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But behind all the hassle that has allowed me to put this beast into my setup is a real charm. When you turn on the CRT, it feels heavy and purposeful, like igniting the engine of the Nostromo. The power button is sunk deep into the chassis like an electrochemical Palantir priming agent encased in plastic with yellowing cigarette smudges. As the screen comes to life, brownish greens and blues slowly drip, finding the right shades and blossoming into this vibrant iridescent fluff. A deafening discharge of electrons turns into a low chirping, a constant reminder that something is moving behind the glass. With these things right in front of you, it’s easy to see why they’re so fetishized right now. It feels like magic.
CRTs are far too little of a first choice for those looking to be on the cutting edge of high-refresh, high-resolution displays, but for enthusiasts on a budget and with an open mind, they’re a serious consideration. I think it’s worth doing. Experience revitalized with some of PC gaming’s most uncooperative recent releases is an unexpected advantage of modern games on the CRT, getting a game that matches the stars and works for a decent price. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s worth choosing if you can. My monitor was niche as a dedicated emulation and retro his FPS display, occasionally running weird pixel art indie games and Media Player Classic.
After all, I loved having something that specifically tied me to the history of PC gaming. It, like building his PC on his own, requires his own level of tweaking and finesse for maximum effectiveness.
