Anyone recently switch back to a CRT to compare input lag?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I've pulled out my old CRT and am about to give it a try vs my Viewsonic 120Hz monitor. Has anyone done this for a comparison? My CRT is a Sony Multiscan G400.

will report back later

Happy Holidays!

 

[lupi]

you couldn't pay me to use a crt again.

 

[Veliko]

Unless there is a specific technical reason, I can't imagine why anyone would want to.

They are awful beasts.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Input lag

 

[Karstein]

About the only thing I use CRT for these days is playing old consoles, as the majority look terrible on LCD once upscaling has had its evil way with them.

 

[Phynaz]

No, but I switched back to a horse and buggy to get to work.

 

[motsm]

Unless there is a specific technical reason, I can't imagine why anyone would want to.

They are awful beasts.

No input lag, accurate colors, deep black levels, multiple resolutions without scaler blur, no back light bleeding, and I imagine there are some other reasons I'm forgetting. Either way, you can find LCD's these days that match a couple qualities of a CRT listed above, but it's still impossible to find it all in one monitor because of the 3 or so main panel technologies.

So there are plenty of reasons why someone would want to.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

CRT monitors are massively huge and heavy, I definetly do not miss my old CRT monitors.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I did and still use one. See sig, Sony FW900. It is not my main monitor, owing to the weakness inherent in CRTs, (warm up time, and text reading) but for games it is FANTASTIC. Granted it takes a lot of time to warm up, then add the time I spent calibrating it, and it weighs just shy of 100 pounds, so it definitely has weaknesses.

However, going from a 60hz LCD display, to a 85hz CRT in CS:S... Night and day. The extra 25 fps, makes everything feel buttery smooth. As far as input lag goes, modern LCDs have come very far, so input lag difference isn't as big as it used to be in terms of numbers. The difference in input lag, while small in terms of numbers, is huge as far as how "good" the input feels. The benchmark for this is go play some UT2004 instagib, so much better on a CRT than an LCD.

Now I have never played on a 120hz LCD display, so I'm not sure what the input lag is like on those. You may not have the jaw dropping night and day difference I felt. I litterally squealed with joy when I was flying around Deck17 instagibing the shit out of some bots at 1920x1200 @ 85hz, with basically no monitor input lag compared to my 60hz LCD from 2007.

 

[Ross Ridge]

Most LCD computer monitors should have little or no input lag. Unlike LCD TVs they do very little processing. Any lag will come from the relatively slow response time of LCD displays, but it should still be less than one frame's worth.

 

[TridenT]

Nope. I never will. I don't have the space for a giant ass CRT.

 

[wuliheron]

Most LCD computer monitors should have little or no input lag. Unlike LCD TVs they do very little processing. Any lag will come from the relatively slow response time of LCD displays, but it should still be less than one frame's worth.

The human eye can detect over 300fps, but for most practical purposes 120 is good enough and people with 120hz LCD monitors will tell you they can see the difference just by moving the cursor around. For the rest of us trying to play games with 60hz monitors every little delay adds up to make what is already very noticeable just that much worse. On a CRT you wouldn't notice the slight difference its internal circuit latency might introduce, but with a 60hz LCD every little bit adds up.

 

[TridenT]

The human eye can detect over 300fps, but for most practical purposes 120 is good enough and people with 120hz LCD monitors will tell you they can see the difference just by moving the cursor around. For the rest of us trying to play games with 60hz monitors every little delay adds up to make what is already very noticeable just that much worse.

I've got a 1ms 60hz Samsung monitor with low latency internal circuitry myself. Its not nearly as good as 120hz, but I wouldn't want to use anything slower.

Where the hell did you pull the 300fps number? The number I've heard for the longest time is around 75.

 

[Anarchist420]

About the only thing I use CRT for these days is playing old consoles, as the majority look terrible on LCD once upscaling has had its evil way with them.

I've pulled out my old CRT and am about to give it a try vs my Viewsonic 120Hz monitor. Has anyone done this for a comparison? My CRT is a Sony Multiscan G400.

will report back later

Happy Holidays!

A 120Hz LCD with vsync off should offer pretty close to zero input lag so unless your Viewsonic does a lot of processing, then it shouldn't be much of a difference. My Apple LED Cinema display sucks because it's limited to 60Hz, doesn't have an RGB LED, and it doesn't have deep blacks.

 

[shortylickens]

Superior image quality and refresh are nice. When I made the switch recently to an LCD on my gaming system it took some getting used to.
HOWEVER, once my eyes adjusted I was quite fine. Now I'm saving a hundred bucks a year on electricity. After a couple years I'll be able to buy an even better LCD aligned to gaming.

 

[Anarchist420]

About the only thing I use CRT for these days is playing old consoles, as the majority look terrible on LCD once upscaling has had its evil way with them.

I know a Genesis would need its video circuitry replaced by now even if it was one with a good encoder because the caps would've leaked. Both of the PS2s I've had had awful video circuitry. Shit was WAY too sharp.

I sure don't miss the days when video circuitry mattered. Digital LCDs suck, but so did analog CRTs. Nothing exists that is anywhere close to perfect.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

On my 120Hz monitor & Unreal Tournament III, frames per second reports also come in (x.xx ms) e.g. 4.23 ms @ 240fps. If I take the fps cap off it will hit around 356fps reducing the ms to around 2.5 ms. When in the in-game menu the 'fps stat' still runs and the fps reports jump to around 756fps @ 1.xx ms

 

[zerogear]

To be honest the sacrifice of the desk space isn't worth it to me.

 

[imaheadcase]

No reason to go back, like everything people actually think things as better, its placebo effect works with electronics as well to a degree.

Its like DPI with a mouse, you don't miss it or even consider it if you don't have a high DPI mouse. You don't improve, its just you thinking you will when you get one.

Input lag is the same way, same with 120hz vs 60hz. You don't really notice a difference, you can't possibly notice a difference. You just want to so you do.

 

[Grooveriding]

A brand new high quality CRT is still superior to LCD in every way apart from footprint, weight, lack of 2560x1600 sizes and power consumption. But... there are no more brand new CRTs to be had.

So LCDs are superior now. CRTs degrade and the colour reproduction and even the correct size of image being presented degrades.

I loved my old Mitsubishi Diamondtron, but it's gone never to return.

 

[wuliheron]

Where the hell did you pull the 300fps number? The number I've heard for the longest time is around 75.

The BBC did experiments for HDTV:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP169.pdf

I usually recommend people set CRT monitors to at least 85fps to prevent the headaches the harsher light can cause blinking at slower rates. Higher frame rates over 100fps are particularly good for when the camera pans fast. It helps the background details to remain crisp instead of looking like the familiar blurry mess we usually see on TVs and monitors when the camera pans fast.

When you also start interacting with what is on the screen like in a video game even higher frame rates are helpful. Some competitive first person shooter fans of games like Quake will use 120hz monitors and push their rigs to produce 180fps or more to insure the frame rates remain high at all times. This reduces stuttering to a minimum allowing their timing and aim to be as good as possible. Other games like Crysis have deliberately introduced motion blur effects like those we've become used to seeing on TV to hide the stuttering which can become obnoxious at really low frame rates.

The human eye can detect a single photon and the brain actually works like an FM receiver taking the differential between the optic nerve signals and its own internally generated oscillator signal. In other words, its incredibly sensitive, fast, and accurate. Its also extremely complex and all this is just the quick and dirty answer because nobody has the complete details yet as to how it works.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I havn't downgraded to LCD's yet.
I have 2 Samsung Syncmaster pluuged in (and 2 in spare if one dies)

The I.Q. of LDC's are horrible compared to CRT's.

And most degradation has nothing to do with the tube, but most often a cheap second component that either can be repalced...or recalibbrated.

As for inputlag:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/632-1/lcds-images-delayed-compared-to-crts-yes.html

In the end, if the optimum solution is chosen, we will have one Razer Copperhead mouse, one graphic card with V Sync OFF and one CRT. The delay will be 1ms + 0.5 images (with a frequency at 100 Hz, it will be 1/100/2= 5ms) + 0 = 6 ms. Less than one image of delay, which shouldn´t be perceptible.

Standard solution: a good USB 1 mouse (all Microsoft´s, most of Logitech´s, the cheap razer) + V Sync ON + average LCD, type Dell 2407WFP monitor. The delay is now 8 ms + 2 images (LCD = 60 Hz, or 33 ms) + 24 ms = 65 ms. Almost 4 images late!

Unrecommended solution: slow mouse + Triple Buffering + slow monitor (Acer AL2032W). 16 ms + 3 images (3 x 16.7 = 50 ms) + 44 ms (the longest delay measured with the Acer monitor) = 110 ms, or 6.5 images late!!!

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I do not miss my 40 pound 15 or 17" (can't remember) CRT.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I do not miss my 40 pound 15 or 17" (can't remember) CRT.

Yeah, becuase you lift them around all day and thats...oh wait...:hmm:

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The real-estate on my desk is the troubling issue with where to put it atm.

Do they still make CRTs?