LCD vs CRT

[rtsPlayer]

I think for desktop LCD is better.

which one is better for gaming - LCD or CRT?

 

[dragabain]

I've had a 17in lcd for about 2 years and I love the performance that I get on it. I've had no ghosting or any other problems that other people are talking about. I love the picture. And to top it off I got it for like 300 dollars 2 years ago. I used to work at Circuit City so I got it on employee prices. Before my monitor I had a 19in lcd, which was smaller than the 17in lcd. You see they measure the screens differently for them. So yes, I'd go with an lcd if its in your budget.

 

[pauldh]

I still like a good CRT over an LCD for gaming, BUT would probably buy an LCD next time because of desk space, portability and possibly going wide screen like the 24" Dell. Not to mention the LCD's are down in price while good CRT's have not gone down. Main thing with an LCD is making sure your video card can easily handle playing your games at it's native resolution. If you are buying a 19" LCD with 1280x1024 native, and your video card is beastly enough to prettu much max out eye candy at that resolution...then the LCD will be very nice. If however you are running a GF6600, X700, or lower card, then you don't have the power to play the current titles and will have to already disable eye candy, lower in game details, and/or lower res out of your native setting. Paired with such video cards, I'd rather have a CRT for sure.

I have a 6800 Ultra, and prefer to play at 1280x1024. But in Fear & COD2 I have to lower the resolution, which on my 19" CRT isn't a problem. On an LCD I'd be even more disappointed in turning down the res.

 

[chuckshissle]

Yeah CRT compare to LCD are a lot better when it comes to price and performance. LCD is smaller and more portable, which I think cost it the most. Does the saying size matters is true! or not! :?

 

[enewmen]

CRT has been dead for years.
Some advantages of CRT are: cheaper and better contrast ratio. Some professional graphics artists feel CRTs have better color representation.

I personally feel advantages of modern LCDs far outweigh the advantages of CRT.
If you go LCD, get widescreen and at LEAST 1280x800 res. At least 500:1 contrast ratio, and at least 19". Responce time is important to some people, but I never had a problem. Modern LCDs have much better viewing angle and responce time than a few years ago.
If you can not afford this type of LCD, then you will get more performance from a CRT.

If you don't care about performance, you can get a cheap/slim 15" LCD some places.

 

[rtsPlayer]

I have a 19" viewsonic crt on a radeon x1300 pro. dvd playback is superb on this.
my compaq laptop 15" has built in intel graphics media accelerator 2. the same dvd does not look good at this. I have tried increasing brightness etc but still not good as the crt.

 

[rtsPlayer]

means laptop screens are not lcd?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

CRT has been dead for years.

And LCDs will be dead soon too. Long live OLEDs! :tongue:

Some advantages of CRT are: cheaper and better contrast ratio. Some professional graphics artists feel CRTs have better color representation.

It's not a question of feeling it can be quantitaively shown, why do you think LCD reviews have so many colour accuracy and uniformity tests, use a good calibrator and find out there isn't the same range period!

Another important advanatage for gaming is the ability to scale. Scan lines can show clear 640x480 and x1920x1440, whereas an LCD will always be best at native and interpolate everything else, even though interpolation has gotten better it's still not there.

Responce time is important to some people,

Especially gamers. Slow panels look terrible for fast moving FPS compared to an LCD, especially for things like jump straifing and 180 degree turns. Lots LCD screen wash/trails/ghosting for stuff like that.

but I never had a problem. Modern LCDs have much better viewing angle and responce time than a few years ago.

Better but still fall well short of CRTs. Also most of that increase in response time is due to different measuring methods. Heck a '4ms' panel now would likely be classified as 16ms panel then, still faster than the 20-25ms of that era. In fact it was around the time of the 'new' 16ms LCDs that the measurement changed, and 25ms panels were being rebranded as 16ms because they could do grey to black/white to grey in 16ms whereas before it was white to black to white in 25ms. They are better, but they're far from ideal for gaming.

If you don't care about performance, you can get a cheap/slim 15" LCD some places.

For gaming, you won't like those panels.

 

[tommydcc]

Absolutely CRT is better! BUT TOO BIG

 

[dmantech]

I have to say CRT's are better especially for workstation use because of the
higer resolutions. I have to agree they are huge.

 

[HoldenMcGroin]

I have to say CRT's are better especially for workstation use because of the
higer resolutions. I have to agree they are huge.

CRTs are also better because they give you more eyestrain headaches and keep you warm in the winter. You can cook on the top of the cover. Seriously, how many people died last year alone because they had to live at LCD of 1280x768 rather than CRT of 1600x1200?
Nurse: "I'm losing him......"
Doctor: "Give him 1600x1200 STAT!!"
Try bragging about about taking one of them puppies to a LAN party. So what if a CRT is bigger than your car? You can brag that real men break their backs lugging CRTs to LAN parties.

Of course, here in AZ the CRT heat is not appreciated.

 

[joefriday]

CRTs are cheaper and last longer. LCD's consume less power and take up less room.

Which options are most important to you?

 

[Katoshi]

I've used both LCDs and CRTs before, and at the moment I still prefer using my old trustworthy Iiyama vision master pro 454 19". If not for the no ghosting problem for my gaming, I'd still use it just for the 1600X1200 resolution.

I've been tempted by LCDs recently cos I'm lacking actual desktop space, but it'd take a very very good LCD panel to sway me away from my lovely iiyama

 

[cheetsy]

CRT is probably better for gaming, but a decent LCD is not far off, i just made the jump from CRT to LCD, been putting it off for months, i got the ViewSonic VX924 3ms, Toms gave it a mixed review, and the 3ms isnt probably accurate but ive been very happy with it, it looks decent, well made, and picture quality is good too, problem with LCD is u need a decent graphics card, because to get the best quality u need to run it on a native resolution, 1280x1024 in my case, which ofcourse requires slightly more graphics oomph, but i got a 7800gt and that handles things fine

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

CRTs are also better because they give you more eyestrain headaches

Those people need to learn how to setup a CRT and know the limitations.

I work with both every day, I like them both for diffeent reasons, and I've never suffered from headaches or eyestrain because I know how to setup my monitors/computers.

Seriously, wanna talk about eyestrain try watching an LCD that's interpolating something OMFG, now THAT makes me googley-eyed!

You can brag that real men break their backs lugging CRTs to LAN parties.

Here's an idea: do more excercise and less lan parties, the you wouldn't be so weak.

It's quite simple, gaming = CRT, text = LCD, photos/video = CRT. The thing is most people just use their PCs for text, but if you're specializing in gaming, nothing beats a CRT unless you're silly enough to worry about lugging it around, and then a laptop wins anyways, so there's only LCD.

 

[HoldenMcGroin]

Those people need to learn how to setup a CRT and know the limitations.

Seriously, wanna talk about eyestrain try watching an LCD that's interpolating something OMFG, now THAT makes me googley-eyed!

Here's an idea: do more excercise and less lan parties, the you wouldn't be so weak.

It's quite simple, gaming = CRT, text = LCD, photos/video = CRT. The thing is most people just use their PCs for text, but if you're specializing in gaming, nothing beats a CRT unless you're silly enough to worry about lugging it around, and then a laptop wins anyways, so there's only LCD.

These people need to learn how to set up an LCD and know its limitations. If you were so smart you could turn the interpolating off. If I were so smart, I could set up my CRT properly?? Are you talking about the display frequency?

Here's an idea: learn how to type; "the you" makes no sense! But I'll get on that exercise thing. Of all the LAN parties, I've NEVER heard someone brag about how nice their CRT was. So while you make some compelling arguments, there is a reason why LCDs are gaining ground fast. Why do you think companies like Dell advertise new computers and mention that you now get an LCD monitor? Because nobody really likes CRTs, otherwise that would be a selling point.

If you are good at gaming, an LCD wouldn't make a difference. For videos, LCDs were bad for that......about 10 years ago! I have had LCDs now for several years, and have NEVER had a video ghosting or any other problem that made me wish for a CRT. With the new LCDs, the human eye really can't distinguish between the current latency times, so 12ms to 8ms really is a moot point.

 

[dwave]

I switched from a 19 inch View Sonic monitor to a Samsung 17 LCD screen and I am happy that I did. I like my new screen alot better and I do all the same stuff that I did on the old one. I am a big time gamer running games like UT2004, Deus Ex (one of my favorites), and Half Life 2. I don't have a problem with ghosting on it at all when I play games or watch my DVDs on it.

HOWEVER, I do have one problem with LCDs, lit or dark pixels. I have a lit pixel on my screen, but I was lucky that it is in a corner and it is lit to green. It still mixes with the other colors, but always looks a shade off, but it is only one pixel so I never notice it at all. I have seen screens that had one lit to red and it was in the middle of the screen, and that was very annoying.

I would not want my old 19 inch back, I like this screen too much, just my 2 cents worth.

 

[ecosoft]

Dude you hit the nail squarely on the head! Interpolation of screen resolution is the single biggest "problem" with LCD tech ... I use a number of different resolutions depending on what it is I'm working-playing with ... I can't abide the LCD interpolation 'cause I too get googley-eyed :roll:

 

[500r420]

I admit I am no expert with displays, but I have been using a range of lcds and crts for the past few years. I have a few thoughts.

Lcds are quite a bit sharper than crts and look significantly better for text. I cant enunciate exactly what makes a crts colors better, but they just have a more earthy look to them, usually only apparent when watching movies or playing games. Lcd look more zappy and cartoonish.
Lcds also have no geometry issues, while I am always having to calibrate my crt when i change resolutions. Lcds appear to look pretty good no matter what the brightness or contrast/gamma and whatnot settings though a crt looks like crap when the settings are even a little away from what they should be (all guess and check)
Im not sure what interpolation is, but i must admit lcds do look very poor when under the maximum resolution. I made sure to get the 1440x900 display for my inspiron 9300 instead of the 1920xsomeone even though prices was not an issue.

Even viewing my friends vp191b, i still prefer my 22" viewsonic p225fb-5 crt, several years old
oh, and i hate shadowmasks
im always seeings these weird patterns on the screen and the text just doesnt look right
and on my 9300 lcd i notice these blotchy, reflective patterns on solid colors
and all lcds look as though they have less variety of colors in the extreme blacks and whites, worse on cheaper lcds, making games like doom3 and fear look pretty bad
crts also have brighter objects creating moving trails on very black backgrounds which can be annoying
both these problems might be improved with hdr rendering?

 

[corvetteguy]

I have a 15" crt but actually only 14" visable. I still like it better than most lcd's for many reasons. First, i'm not a... careful person and smack the thing a lot when i move around it, and since its a hard surface, it doens't destroy it. Second, there arn't any of the performance issues like on lcd with response time and stuff. Third, looking at this monitor, any icon, pic, anything, it has smooth edges, while on every lcd i've seen, even lcd tv's they have jagged edges if you look close. Fourth, i have a fairly desk, which i'm pretty sure is large enough for the new 19" viewsonic e90fb crt i'mgetting with my new system. Finally, the huge part doesn't bother me, since i only see the front, and even moving it, it takes up along with the rest of the system less than half the car, i know since i just moved. Plus a new high end 19"crt is 250cad, so thats damn good compared to most lower end 19"lcds for 350cad. Overall, unless space is a REAL issue, then get crt, and don't worry about eyestain, since i've been on this all day today about 11 hours and i'm still seeing straight, and theres no burning which i think is a good sign.

 

[johnmar33]

for gaming, its crt since it has a better response time than lcd's... the only con i see from crt's is its bulky compare to slim and elegant lcd's

 

[bront]

Well, I'm not sure, but I think they're hybrid LCD designed to be thin and use less power to keep the laptop battery life up. I think the basics are same.

Laptops use normal LCD screens.

Pros for CRTs:
More flexable with resolution (Can usually go higher, and never a scaling problem when going lower).
Cheaper initialy.
Quality is generaly good even on lower end models. (More mature technology.)
Never any ghosting.

Cons for CRTs:
Pixels can blend togeather a bit for a less sharp image.
Produces more heat and uses more power than an LCD.
Tube Size is not always the actual usable screen size (17" means 16.1" usable usually for example)
If not a flat screen, can cause eye strain.

Pros for LCD:
Lower power consumption, and gives off less heat.
Very sharp picture.
Screen size is exactly as advertized (17" means 17")
Less space on the desktop.
With DFI input, all digital.
Flat Screen easier on the eyes.

Cons for LCDs:
More expensive than CRTs.
Need to check contrast, brightness, and latency specs.
Potential for ghosting
Dead pixels can be annoying.
Potential issues with using lower than optimal Resolution.

now, LCDs have gotten much better. I love my Hyundai L90D+, and have no complaints about it, even if I run at a lower resolution. A 19" LCD has a better profile than a 17" CRT, uses less power, generates less heat, and looks a lot better in my opinion. I'd go LCD.

 

[hashv2f16]

2 questions:

1. Why do some games support my native of 1280x1024, but some (like FEAR) only go up to 1280x960?

2. The human eye sees images at about 60fps. What millisecond response time would be able to display at 60fps?

I believe its your graphics card that is limiting 1280x960. I swear I've seen FEAR benchmarks on THG done @ 1600x1200

 

[pauldh]

You need to add a con for LCD's. You left out the Interpolating when not in native resolution. Any advantage an LCD has for text only happens when run in native res. And for gaming, well rule out most midrange and lower cards for having the power to run the newest titles at a 19" or larger LCD's native res.

 

[cheetsy]

agreed