[SOLVED] XP games look better in crt monitor?

[Tac 25]

Hi, have heard somewhere that XP games look better if played on a crt.

so asking now in this thread to be sure. Is there a huge difference in quality when using a crt monitor monitor to play these games?

 

[USAFRet]

If there were a huge difference, would you search out and use a CRT?

 

[Tac 25]

yeah, I'm building a Windows XP pc. I want XP to be in it's natural environment, separate from my other pc's.

the only games I played during the XP era are Starcraft and Ragnarok Online. Don't know how other games look like in crt.
I was a poor kid back then, now that I'm adult and have a job.. want to revive the OS of my childhood again. Play games in it again.

 

[TerryLaze]

the only games I played during the XP era are Starcraft and Ragnarok Online. Don't know how other games look like in crt.

It's not so much about being CRT than it is about the resolution, if you have an old lcd screen that was made for those resolutions it will also look fine.
Starcraft only runs at 800x600 with no way to change that, on a modern monitor even the smallest so a 1080 monitor, the graphics get stretched out to more than double and change the aspect ratio on top of that, so they also get more stretched into the horizontal than the vertical and everything looks squished. So all of this makes it look pretty bad, if you have a monitor with 2k or 4k it's even worse.
CRT monitors could switch to that resolution natively which means that each pixel of the game would show on one pixel of the monitor.

Many XP games have resolution settings and you can play them at high enough resolutions that they will look as good as possible on a modern monitor.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The benefit of getting a CRT would simply be that any resolution you can throw on it will look good, and it comes with the benefit of softening the edges automatically due to the analog nature of the device.

However, considering that unlike TVs, computer monitors basically used the best signal for an analog format, so PC games weren't really designed to work around quirks the other analog formats had. So I believe you're not going to find any real difference in image quality by not using a CRT.

 

[Tac 25]

@TerryLaze @hotaru.hino

thanks. That's another piece of the puzzle solved now. It's a good thing the second hand pc store near my house survived the pandemic. Will try to ask if they have a crt monitor for sale.