Modern Gaming with the Fastest CRT Monitor in Windows 11 is Amazing!

Watch as we connect the world´s fastest CRT Gaming Monitor to a modern PC and push it to 255 Hz in Windows 11. Behold the incredible results as we further use a special anti-aliasing technique to get great image quality even though we only play on a very low resolution. Thus we eliminate the only draw back of modern gaming with CRTs on modern computers and all that is left are the advantages of this display technology, like lightning fast speed, no input lag and almost instant response time.
00:00 Introduction
00:58 Image Quality with Sparse Grid Anti Aliasing at 640x400
02:12 Fast Gaming with 255Hz in Aliens vs Predator 3
02:25 How high can we get with the refresh rate on this Monitor?

[@hagen.360]

Somehow, this topic makes me really happy. CRTs, Voodoo accelerators... Loved it.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Glad to hear that ❤️

[@TechSid-hn6eg]

ah so thats why games looked nicer in old times. so our nostalgia is actually correct lol CRT monitor are definitely much smooth and the graphics still looked nice

[@bjornna7767]

Used to play Quake World 320x200 on a 14 or 15 incher back in 1997, still looked amazing (in my mind). Ofc, there's the effect of nostalgia, but low res definitly looks way better on CRTs than modern displays.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Yeah the nostalgia is real, you are absolutely correct. CRTs made our games look as good as we remember them 😀👍

[@RetroGamingBase]

Hmmm while reading this I wonder if I could squeeze out more Hz here at 320x200 🤔 thanks 👍😀

[@bjornna7767]

@@RetroGamingBase Maybe you'll invent the very first 500hz monitor.

[@Slay3rOne]

@@RetroGamingBase Yes, I tested 420Hz at 240p on my Vision Master Pro 514 some time ago! Works amazing as well! You just have to correct the slight bowing with the menu at such an extreme refresh rate. That said, I did not test this for long myself.

[@davidperry4013]

I wish they start making CRTs again.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Yeah, totally agree! Sadly someone who knows these things once said to me, it would almost be impossible. He compared it to the Apollo program of the late 60s. Once that stuff is gone and the factories are closed you cannot restart it again because so much knowledge gets lost…

[@davidperry4013]

@@RetroGamingBase need to find the patents for Sony Trinitron and make an 8K 70 inch CRT TV. The fly back transformer frequency would be so high that only dolphins can hear it due to scanning 4320 lines 120 times per second.

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@davidperry4013 muhahaha! Maybe we can start a crowdfunding for that sometime in the future 🤣😁

[@MarcABrown-tt1fp]

@@davidperry4013 And it would weigh nearly as much as a small car... 💀

[@Slay3rOne]

On the other side, go for interlaced and it will do 3840x2400 (16 : 10) at 72Hz with an absolute crystal clear and very sharp picture. I have to test high res interlaced on my Vision Master Pro 514, see how the sharpness is. I just wrote a test report on Reddit about this a few days ago, after testing on both Sonys GDM-F520 and FW900, via the Intel UHD 700 iGPU and an external DisplayPort to VGA adapter. Very exciting stuff! Absolutely love the flexibility of the CRT technology!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Oh this sounds very interesting! Did you write it in the CRT subreddit? Also some great Monitors you have there man! I also have FW900 and some Sony’s but not the F520. Do you know a bit about calibration of the Sony CRTs? Sometime soon I wish to calibrate especially my FW900s but I want to test on another before, that’s not sooo valuable 😅

[@Slay3rOne]

@@RetroGamingBase Haha yes! The title in r/crtgaming is « Finally got interlaced working at high res on F520 & FW900! With Intel 13/14th gen iGPU (UHD 7xx series) ». Regarding calibration, yes. Back in 2015 I did go through the full calibration of my FW900, the damn dynamic convergence was tedious I seem to remember. And like a week after going through the whole thing, my flyback started having some slight internal arcing... Fortunately it resolved itself after a week or two, never had the issue again since then. But it threw off my calibration a bit... So I will have to redo it again at some point. A couple years ago I calibrated a friends F520, I didn't touch mine since it looks to be pretty good. Everything can be done through the WinDAS software, have a look at the FW900 reference forum post on [H]ardForum. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's called « 24" Widescreen CRT (FW900) From Ebay arrived,Comments. » and it's been going strong since 2005 to this day, with 488 pages as this time and counting. I learned a lot from this thread, at some point a decade ago I remember reading a full WinDAS White Point Balance tutorial written by one of the forum members.

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@Slay3rOne sweet! Thanks! I will check it out immediately and I remember that thread about the FW900 LoL! When I got mine in the years 2016 - 2018 I looked there often and I remember that there also was something about calibration there! I will check again. Let’s stay in contact and maybe I can ask you a thing or 2 when it’s time to do it? 😁

[@Slay3rOne]

@@RetroGamingBase Sounds good! 👍 Yeah that was probably the same thread lol! Got mine back in 2015 and learned everything on there afterwards.

[@blacktick6171]

Please record more videos with this monitor. Picture quality seems be amazing.

[@RetroGamingBase]

I will! Thanks and I totally agree

[@marcogalli4562]

This is awesome! Wish to see it in person

[@ClaytonCLF]

Ah, the magic of CRTs! I retired my last 17" one 5 months ago after using a few as my main monitors for almost 8 years straight, and that is literally the last one, it seems, because I can't find any others in good condition around my region here in Brazil. I used every resolution possible on that thing; having a maximum vertical refresh rate of 160Hz and horizontal refresh of 71kHz, it could do 640x400@160Hz no prob, though I usually had a res of 480x360@160Hz for perfect 4:3, or a "super resolution" of 1280x400@160Hz to mitigate the aliasing, though it required games to have custom aspect ratio options (very few have it). It could do higher super resolutions, like 2560x400, but my GTX 960 would start chugging, and I wouldn't really enjoy the higher refresh. I still plan on using that GPU as a native VGA adapter for the CRT, coupled with a better GPU as the renderer, whenever I upgrade my PC with a good mother board and CPU to conform that setup. People say it would introduce lag, but I really cannot find a good HDMI / DisplayPort to VGA adapter.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Very interesting! You got that 17” very high in refresh rate! As for the Display Port adapter I think I can help you because on one of my next videos this will be exactly my topic! I use this Delock and that’s the best one I know and the only one I ever found that did exactly what I wanted and where I can use my CRTs to their full potential. www.galaxus.de/de/s1/product/delock-displayport-zu-vga-adapter-vga-2000-cm-data-video-adapter-6610972?supplier=2705624&Prod_DE_Pmax_pred_1_score_2&campaignid=19508006075&adgroupid=&adid=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAC7ye-6nrOw-hfYeADOJsPCdPtFV_&gclid=CjwKCAjwuJ2xBhA3EiwAMVjkVAyRrkFM7Zc5ahhQxEV03M2CdpItEeBAJLUgt96MFU0uOe49pRhfaBoCf64QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[@phantomtec]

Motion Rendering in Arcade Smash type games with pixallated explosions are second to none also on CRT monitors and in turn extremely gratifing to use for this case also. Thanks for the video. Peace

[@RetroGamingBase]

No problem! Thanks for your insights 👍 always nice to know more people that appreciate this still awesome technology

[@kenshirogenjuro873]

I still have a Sony Trinitron WEGA CRT. It’s approaching 30 years old and still works like new. 1080i, 720p, and 480p. It makes a seriously liquid appearance that just looks fantastic. And as you cited it’s not fixed pixel, making it by far the best way to game with older consoles and DVDs. The plan is to build a dedicated stand for it with shelves for every old console I still have, all feeding into an older Marantz AV receiver that can convert everything into component video format. I’m just thinking on how I’ll position it in the guest room.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Awwww those were awesome! Sounds amazing bro! What consoles do you still have and connect to it? 😀

[@kenshirogenjuro873]

@@RetroGamingBase the most important ones are the OG Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, and GameCube. And I’ll also be plugging my old Marantz DVD player in for all those old irreplaceable DVDs I have. And it may sound funny but probably even my OG Xbox One and PS4. The CRT has DVI inputs which HDMI can feed into via adapters I have. I might even stick a PC on the thing. It’s a fun experience playing new games on CRT. The vibrancy and liquidity in all directions is just awesome. I really wish the old Sega Genesis and NES systems I had didn’t die. The Marantz receiver has an amazing ability to recover and reintegrate those old composite signals and make them look better than they ever did previously, and the Sony has a lot of visually enhancing features as well. Feeding all those old games into that CRT at 480p should have been quite the experience. Eh well.

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@kenshirogenjuro873 damn that sounds awesome! If you wanna share this with videos or pics then consider joining our discord and do it there 😀🍻 I’m sure many would love to see. Myself I don’t have any old CRT TVs, just Monitors

[@myairspace121]

Very cool - thank you for sharing!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thanks for watching!

[@agfa1854]

I run interlaced 240hz 1080i on windows by using intel igpu passthrough. great performance

[@RetroGamingBase]

That sounds nice! I have to experiment with these interlaced myself a bit! Honestly never really used them before

[@bjornna7767]

800x600, guess some old fart GPUs wanna step into the game again with FSR, GT710: Hold my capacitors!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Haha so true 👍

[@marcel1463]

Sehr gutes Video 👍🏻Röhrenmonitore sind immer noch eine tolle Erfahrung!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Absolut richtig! 👍

[@darkmoon88]

It really looks very good 👍

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@Fredkeyb]

I have the 514pro and also play Doom ethernal at 250hz/480p. Didn't know about the filter, thanks for the tip! I usually play Modern Games at 1440p and 60-85hz depending on how demanding the game is for my 3080 (with Vsync even 60hz looks smoother than any LCD)

[@RetroGamingBase]

Hey nice! Great to get to know someone who even has the 514pro! Yeah, without the AA settings it looks bad at this resolution, and we can be honest to each other, no one really needs 250Hz anyway, not on CRT, not anywhere else 😉 Personally I like playing with exactly 100Hz on all my CRTs, I may be a bit more sensible or so, but I still see slight flickering at 85Hz and I don't like it in the eyes. I also get really dizzy when I look at 60Hz to long...

[@bjornna7767]

@@RetroGamingBase My RX6700xt draws an extra 25 watts from the wall, when I use 3 screens in idle above 60hz. Adding up the watts each monitor needs with higher hz. Thus, I'm using 60hz for work and surfing and 100hz or 144hz just for gaming. Got IPS panels, I'm also quite sensible to too low hz, but in this case it really works out well. In newest titles I stick to 1080p x3 instead of 1440p or actually also go down to a steady 60fps/hz (many times with reshade effects like blur, sharpeners etc.) Sometimes you can even get 720p x 3 look astonishing with Reshade. P.S.: Right now I'm into Red Dead Redemption 2, 1440p x 3 low-mid settings + Reshade. Haven't finetuned it yet, it's hovering around 55-60 fps. 60fps and 60hz with good motion blur looks really smooth in my eyes. 720p x 3 is giving me a steady 130 fps, but the low res is quite noticable. Put many things on high/ultra, still good fps, but in this game, res really matters.

[@YannMetalhead]

Good video!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thanks!

[@settlece]

you got my sub

[@RetroGamingBase]

thank you! 😊

[@Pe721]

i saw someone overclocking a nokia tube to 420 hz. What cru version and cru settings for porch do you use? I have a vision master pro 514 and i get many problems at 144 khz with 194 hz at 720p and try to stabilize it

[@RetroGamingBase]

I don’t use CRU. I do it with the Nvidia driver

[@jittertn]

I wonder why new CRT monitors with modern specs/technologies are not being developed. It has its uses cases where its vastly superior to current tech.

[@userunknown1030]

well it had already hit its prime. this is why he have the newer tvs in the first place because people wanted more and yeah that kind of lost us a few things the crt did right but that is how it goes sometimes.

[@jittertn]

@@userunknown1030 it makes sense when you frame it like that, thanks for the answer

[@bjornna7767]

@@jittertn Well, they have a lower res and need more power, more space + more weight = more cost for transport as well as having it on stock. And you can repair them more easily which isn't the case with newer ones. My feeling is also that these old TVs and monitors last much longer. If you add everything up the disadvantages dominate the advantages both on customer as well as producer side. It's the low res where it shines, higher res wouldn't look that much better considering it would use the very same technique like in the beginning of the 2000s. Guess, it's over for them

[@drunkhusband6257]

The parts are too expensive since they are no longer mass produced, they also don't meet current energy use standards, nor is there anyone to repair them properly anymore. OLED tvs are close enough at high refresh rates also to not warrant the need/want for crts

[@jittertn]

@@bjornna7767 yeah there's no doubt that they cannnot compete with mass market modern displays, I was thinking about niche use cases like certain gaming genres But it seemingly the orignal tech has reached its limits in many ways

[@jrazor247]

Had a 450gtx connected to my CRT; if I remember, DVI to VGA couldn’t drive the monitor faster than 100Hz even @640 then. My old TNT2 would do 160Hz.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Yeah that makes sense! 👍

[@mintasyx]

Cooles Video, hab seid kurzem einen 454 hier stehen, womit habt ihr die configs für den Monitor erstellt, einfach try and error mit CRU? Wollte mich jetzt auch mal rantasten, hab alle Adapter beiseite gepackt und eine 900er grad reingepackt um natives analog out zu haben, über dvi-i Port an der Karte. :)

[@mintasyx]

Autokorrektur.. 900er gtx* sollte das natürlich werden haha :’ )

[@RetroGamingBase]

Im Discord haben wir jemanden der dies mit CRU macht. Ich selbst nutze den Nvidia Treiber um custom resolutions zu erstellen. Wenn du magst, berichte mal wie es läuft mit der 900er. Ich habe den Monitor jetzt bis auf 380Hz gepushed (siehe Neuestes Video) Will aber jetzt auch ohne Adapter weiter machen und mal schauen wie hoch es noch geht

[@Hi-levels]

I used to have a crt when i was a kid. That must he why there wasnt fps issues

[@RetroGamingBase]

yeah on these CRTs everything looks smooth and fast. Especially old Games rely on that and thats why we think they look worse today than we remember them when we see them on LCDs, OLEDs and so on.

[@roller4312]

200Hz is the frequency given by the manufacturer to be guaranteed to work.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Yep! Many CRTs are also locked to their guaranteed max frequency, as you put it 😀 only a few can be clocked higher.

[@user-nx1bl3dh5j]

Nice 👍

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thank you ❤️

[@neur0manc217]

Hat tip for using the Planescape Torment OST

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thanks! You are the first to notice it 😀 this is the Theme from Annah and as far as I know, Sheena Easton, who voiced her, also helped produce it.

[@neur0manc217]

@@RetroGamingBase It's a great choice! There are few soundtracks I have listened to more. I loved the game back in the day and he music really helps me focus.

[@Neb_Raska]

Why the hell did you take Ciri to Emyr?

[@serhio1337]

9 years old modern gaming

[@RetroGamingBase]

Haha indeed 👍😂

[@Ansive]

There only so much you can do with 640x480. Hopefully we'll get OLEDs with backlight strobing one day.

[@ricarnuninho80]

If OLED screen is for 'pixels', this doesn't need any backlight.

[@0Mike0B]

I use a DiamondPro 2070SB it is amazing but I have difficulties pushing the limits of refresh and resolutions this monitor can due thanks to needing a DAC to get anything out of my 3080TI

[@RetroGamingBase]

Yeah I know that problem myself. 👍

[@Polowogs]

You need to do high resolution interlacing, I can help you with whatever hardware you have if you let me know your cpu and gpu

[@RetroGamingBase]

Hey! Yeah sure man! This PC has a RTX3070 but if needed I also have a 3080Ti and a RX6900 Liquid Devil in other Computers. CPU is standard 8 core of the previous years, nothing fancy but fast enough I think. I absolutely want to try out interlacing. Many here have mentioned it! 👍😀

[@Polowogs]

@@RetroGamingBase Is it an Intel cpu

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@Polowogs this one is a Ryzen, the others are intel

[@Polowogs]

@@RetroGamingBase You need to either: -Add a gt1030 or r7 250 to this build in a second pcie slot Or Use an intel cpu instead These ways you can interlace

[@corwin.macleod]

You know what else you can do? Interlaced mode. Yeah, it exists on pc. Literally doubles an already high refresh rate.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Oh? Yeah I know what you mean but never tried that. Is this also something only CRTs can do or would that work with modern displays also? I will test it but if you can tell me more it would be very interesting to me.

[@corwin.macleod]

​@@RetroGamingBase It entirely depends on your setup and software, but it's an available option, just google interlaced VGA. It's like analogue version of DLSS. As for modern displays it's a rather tricky qustion to answer, interlacing itself can be done on any type of display, I just hardly see how you can benefit from it on anything but crt.

[@AugustoV8Cesar]

You should try God of war, Red Dead Remption 2 and of coursely Try Crysis 1 Can it run Edition!

[@RetroGamingBase]

Oh yeah! I agree that it would be interesting to see these here! Someone who plays Half Life competitively also said he would be interested to play it on that much Hz 👍

[@AugustoV8Cesar]

@@RetroGamingBase certainly you should also try call of duty warzone and CS2 .

[@WOTRetro]

CRT and Voodoo in one video.. instand subscribe

[@RetroGamingBase]

Thanks 😊

[@_marqu_8650]

If you have an old Radeon card you can try interlaced resolutions - with interlacing you can just double the frame rate at the same res. Imagine 480i at 500Hz 😂 if this monitor can do this ofc. Its funny to me how this old tech is not really worse than LCDs, even with that 20 years difference in age. Okay, OLED is great, but its still missing that motion clarity, you cant run every res as native and.. it cost a fortune ofc. Also sorry for any language errors, im still learning English 😅

[@RetroGamingBase]

Hey thanks for your input and you are right with everything you said! Its also amazing to me that this tech is still superior even to OLED in some aspects, as you rightfully pointed out! I have to try interlacing very soon. Right now I have gotten this Monitor to over 300Hz in regular resolutions. I will post a video about that soon and I’m very curious how high he can really go… 😀

[@juanme555]

@@RetroGamingBase If you need any help regarding interlacing let me know, btw you cant interlace with modern gpus be it amd or nvidia.

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@juanme555 thanks! What is the newest card that can do interlacing? I have a GTX980, a 780TI, 3070 and newer

[@juanme555]

@@RetroGamingBase Natively, just running from the card, you can use a 1080Ti or Titan XP to do interlaced scan through HDMI port using an hdmi to VGA converter even with more modern drivers (at least up until 531.39 ). With the 980Ti (i have this gpu) the advantage is that you have a native analog port in dvi-i from the card itself, so you dont need any actual converters, just a silly little pin adapter from dvi-i to vga and nvidia's own ramdac (which is a very respectable 400mhz) will be doing all the work. The other options as some other users in the comments have pointed are something called "gpu passthrough" which is having 1 gpu for displaying an image and another gpu used for the actual powerwork, IN THEORY, the best solution should be to use an intel's integrated graphics because when you use the pci-e port, you are cutting your main x16 port's bandwidth in half, as in, lets say you have an rtx 3070 or something, and then you get a gtx 750ti for interlacing, your rtx 3070 will no longer run on x16, it runs on x8, which may not be much of an issue if your motherboard is pci 4.0 but is still not ideal, you dont have this issue if you are using intel's uHD igpu's for display. Remember, hdmi and displayport to vga adapters have limitations in their bandwidth, every time you create a custom resolution at a given refresh rate, it needs pixel clock (also known as bandwidth), generally speaking DP to VGA adapters have enough bandwidth to max most crt's on progressive (340-450mhz) , hdmi adapters are usually worse because they have lower bandwdith, and an hdmi to vga adapter with high bandwidth (400mhz+) is going to cost you a bit (+40U$D minimum). Intel Arc can actually interlace, but not properly and only on day1 drivers which are useless. Interlaced resolutions open up massive possibilities and logically, massively increase your pixel clock expenditure, because you are able to push such higher and faster resolutions...you end up pushing massive pixel clocks before even realizing.

[@RetroGamingBase]

@@juanme555 damn! Good info, thanks a lot man. I know about adapters and will make a video about this soon as it really is very hard to find one with a high enough pixel clock to run these CRTs! I definitely have to try this out with interlacing. I think I even have a Mainboard with intel on board gpu… Is there a big loss in image quality when you interlace or is that negligible?

[@melon7592]

i run my lacie electron CRT at 164hz 800x600

[@RetroGamingBase]

Ohhh black Lacie? Those are beautiful 🤩 I have one of these also somewhere in storage. Don’t they have a Sony tube?

[@tvndno6023]

You can spoil monitor this way unlocking highists refresh rates

[@RetroGamingBase]

Oh yeah I’m sure you need to be careful and use it for hours or so. I don’t plan to at least. This Monitor is as fast for our eyes under 800x600 with 200Hz. It’s just interesting that this is even possible.

[@tvndno6023]

@@RetroGamingBase I have Eizo F930 with Hitachi tube very good contrast and fokus, I have also Philips p202 with Mitsubishi tube but it need calibration and clean, only 6000 hours of operating on counter, I have also trinitron tube Dell 1030 but in bad contidion.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Damn those are some nice tubes! I also have a Eizo F930 in storage. Do you calibrate them yourself? I need to calibrate some Sonys soon here…

[@tvndno6023]

@@RetroGamingBase I dont calibrate myself, I give to the service

[@OttoLindstam]

Damn I had one of those and got rid of it way back.

[@RetroGamingBase]

Ack dang! Yeah I know those regrets very well myself 😅

[@AdanGiuseppeGonzalezDangelo]

Google? it's clearly bing, good video though.

[@RetroGamingBase]

haha yeah you right! I only notice that myself right now!

[@mr.electronx9036]

bist du deutsch oder sowas?

[@RetroGamingBase]

oder sowas 😊😉

[@mr.electronx9036]

@@RetroGamingBase nice 🤣

[@Copimi]

ve ar sinking. what ar you sinking about?

[@ko260]

starts with a lie "ask on google" shows a bing result

[@ark_knight]

thats what i thought.

[@RetroGamingBase]

yeah you are so right! I can only say to my defense that I noticed that right now with your comments 🤣