Unpopular opinion: CRT monitors were better for retro gaming than modern LCDs

I swapped out my old 2005 Dell CRT for a new 27 inch LCD last month for playing PS2 games. The difference was way worse than I expected. Everything looks too sharp and smooth now, like the pixels got erased. Can anyone else see the blurriness issue on modern screens for old consoles?

2 comments

2 Comments

knight.diana4d ago

Swapped my PS1 into my old CRT just last week to test Gran Turismo 2 after reading similar complaints. The difference is night and day - on LCD the cars look like cheap plastic toys with no depth. On CRT the colors pop and the track lines actually look like real roads instead of jagged mess. I think people who never played on CRTs just dont get what theyre missing. Those modern screens make every sprite look like its floating on glass instead of sitting in a game world.

joseph_coleman3d ago

Yeah man, you're totally right about that artificial smoothness. I tried playing Final Fantasy X on my friend's nice LCD and it looked like the characters were made out of plastic action figures from a cheap toy store, no warmth to anything. On a CRT those bright colors and soft dithering actually made the world feel more natural, like you were inside a real place rather than staring at a spreadsheet. I miss how the scanlines hid the jagged edges and made everything blend together in a way that felt right.