When Worse Graphics Are Actually BETTER
562,764
Published 2023-02-21
Here's why retro video games looked better on old CRT displays!
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All Comments (21)
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One way to think about it is thinking of the developers using the CRT as part of the rendering process instead of simply a display meant to display the game as-is.
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I had gone thrifting trying to find a CRT TV a while back, to no avail. Was on the way home and on the side of the road next to someones driveway was a 27" Sharp for free. Nearly gave myself a hernia trying to get it into the car, but totally worth it!
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Thank you for getting someone from the retro scene to actually do the appropriate research for this video.
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I've played Mario 64 many times on modern displays and it had been a really, really long time since I last played it on a CRT, but seeing even a few seconds of gameplay of it on a CRT in this video hit me with a burst of good-feeling nostalgia that just can't be put into words
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I remember getting an N64 about 10 years ago at a flea market and coming back home and plugging it in to a 55 inch Vizio TV and noticing how weird it looked. Then I took out a Philips CRT TV from the garage and hooked it up to that and was amazed at how better the picture looked.
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The side-by-side comparisons were really helpfull. Before seeing this, I never understood the desire to use CRTs these days.
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Great video, love the retro content. At 1:16, when they are talking about how you had to screw in RF connectors, they show a BNC connector, which is a professional video standard. It usually replaces an RCA plug for audio, composite, or component, but also has other uses. The image before is an RF cable.
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I really wish new CRT's were a thing. less and less people are able to experience these retro games the way the were meant to be played. Let's also not forget that CRT's have the best motion clarity which really helps in fast paced games
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The most iconic example I can think of is the pipe in the orignal Mario Bros. It has two shades of green: light green and dark green, both sandwiching a strip of checkerboard pattern of both light and dark green. A crt display blurs the checkerboard pattern into a single new colour: medium green. So the pipe gets a gradiated colouring from light to dark green. This makes the pipe look like it's curved. On a modern display, all you see is a flat shape with an inexplicable checkerboad pattern on it.
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Old CRTs didn't really have a horizontal resolution. The beam would spread the pixels and they would kind of meld into each other in a natural way. This made things look nice and smooth but not in a vaseline-spread way.
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The effects of the CRT were especially considered with the PS2, as that console was designed with everything discussed here in mind.
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That's why I never threw away my 1998 sony trinitron. nothing like playing retro games on an actual CRT
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I had this exact same argument long time ago on firingsquad forums. I had claimed that the graphics on the old interlaced CRT looked better than the one on a modern monitor (at that time). Thank you Techquickie for finally setting it straight for after 20 years!
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Man I miss the good ol' days
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I have the same problem with movies and TV series. It was easier to hide the imperfections of CGI and props which made them more believable. Now you can see every detail of a costume which breaks the immersion and suspension of disbelief.
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Good video but one other aspect not mentioned in it is the fact that the "pixels" of a crt were not necessarily square, retro games came in a huge variety of resolutions that all had to fit the same screen. Playing them today without taking this into account can result in squished or stretched output compared to the originals on a CRT.
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There's a reason why I keep my mammoth 32 inch CRT around. It was the first TV that I bought for myself after I moved out of my parent's house.
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These games and old pieces of hardware are only getting rarer and more difficult to preserve over time. I think everyone that has the ability should do everything possible to keep them around!
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I just moved across country and as such decided to just get rid of my furniture and buy new, as that was a lot cheaper. When I went to throw out my furniture, I saw an old Bang & Olufsen CRT, complete with built in sound, that was completely smashed to bits. It broke my heart a little. I would not have been able to take something like that with me, but the fact that someone would purposefully destroy such a gorgeous piece of tech was heartbreaking.
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1:05 WOW This here is all you need to know the blending makes it look incredible while still being awesome pixel art. Our tech is to good return to monke! How they predict the dark spots being more shaded the further they are from the bright spots **chefs kiss**. 5:00 I actually didn't know you could do this, good to know I will get to experience these old games somewhat like the original as I don't think I'll ever get to play them on the actual consoles and a CRT themselves.
