That time a guy at a thrift store changed my mind about CRT monitors

I always thought old CRT monitors were junk, too heavy to bother with. But last Saturday at the Goodwill in Salem, some dude showed me his setup with a Sony Trinitron and a retro PC running Windows 98. He popped in Diablo and the colors looked way better than my LCD. Now I'm hunting for one under 20 bucks, anyone else given up on flat panels for old games?

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2 Comments

noahcampbell18d ago

Have you ever noticed how 90s game art was designed specifically with CRTs in mind? I read a whole article about how pixel art relied on that slight blur and glow to blend colors together. For retro games, those monitors really do make a huge difference in how everything looks.

foster.wade18d ago

Dude yeah I saw this thing on YouTube where a guy compared retro games on a modern LCD vs a CRT and it was night and day. The way the pixels kind of bleed into each other on a CRT makes gradients look way smoother than the harsh blocky look on a flat panel. It's wild how much thought they put into art knowing exactly how it would look on those chunky monitors.