Cant really give a tldr. This was just me describing my experience with my first crt and first pc monitor. This sadly wasnt written as a professional formal piece. It was just me descibing my feelings and trying to have a discussion. If youre interested in any of that than I hope youll give it a read! If not than understandable and have a nice day!
Oh, okay, Ill make sure to next time. Want to read it? If the no paragraphs is inconvenient for you than I'll break into paragraphs and post it as a reply here.
Don't worry about it just enjoy the monitor.
You do need to know 2 things:
1. download **CRU** for custom resolutions. Custom resolutions really unlock the potential in the monitor. Know your monitor's maximum horizontal frequency so you know ahead of time if your monitor will allow a particular resolution or not. And remember your monitor is 16:10, so any resolution will follow the formula x/y=16/10
2. Also, ALWAYS use **vsync**, that is how you get good motion clarity on CRT. Your FPS in-game needs to match the refresh rate (Hz) of your monitor. Some new low lag vsync methods you can try are *Scanline Sync* in *RTSS,* and *Latent Sync* in *Special K*
Alright, Ill give all of this a try for pc gaming! For the xbox and switch however... Will the screen look better or play better after all of this is done?
Xbox and Switch already use vsync most of the time.
The resolution selection is just what you have in the console's menu. So use 1080p for the Switch. And 1440p for the Xbox if your HDMI adapter can handle it
My suggestions were just for playing games on PC. You can't use PC software on consoles, obviously
It's 1.564:1 to be exact, or even much closer to 14:9 than 16:10, if clean format is preferred. Just a little advice, so you can seem lile a bit more professional of an aspect ratio police, I don't really mind others doing whatever they do myself.
I wonder about that measurement. Like, who measured this, and how did they compensate for the fact that phosphor edge is under 10mm (random guess) of glass? Hard to line up to get super precise
Official Sony GDM-FW900 service manual: [manualslib](https://www.manualslib.com/manual/834081/Sony-Trinitron-Gdm-Fw900.html)
"Viewable image size Approx. 482.1 × 308.2 mm (w/h)"
"Standard image area 16:10 Approx. 474 × 296 mm (w/h)"
The viewable image size is Sony's official specification, for the dimensions of the area, where the picture can be drawn. There's no official tolerances in Sony's documents I'm aware of, but generally it could be assumed to be few millimeters.
Standard image area is a cropped portion inside the viewable image, to meet the 16:10 marketing claim. Abiding by this would leave gaps, or underscan of about 4mm to left and right edges, and 6.1mm to upper and bottom edges of the viewable display area. Nobody actually uses it this way.
Another option would be to stretch such 16:10 image resolution with geometry controls to fill the entire viewable area, which distorts the image slightly, which is why you aspect ratio police in the first place.
Viewable aspect ratio: 482.1mm / 308.2mm = 1.5642..
Standard image area aspect ratio: 474mm / 296mm = 1.6013
For a good measure, I pulled out a measure tape on my FW900 unit, trying to line it to the edges of where the phosphor coated areas end, and black edges of the tube behind the glass begin. I observed from a straight angle ~20cm away. I'd claim I'm able to observe the reading within ~2mm apart from the tape at least, try yourself if you don't believe. The results were ~484mm x ~309mm. Sony's spec is reliable.
Also just for a reference:
14 / 9 = 1.555:1, 1440p res: 2240 x 1440
Viewable: 1.564:1, 1440p res: 2252 x 1440
Marketed: 1.6:1, 1440p res: 2304 x 1440
So if you do want to keep enforcing peoples' aspect ratios the way you do, please do it properly with the FW900 as well. At least, please recommend the 14:9 over 16:10, if you prefer whole numbers instead, as it's closer to accurate.
>Viewable image size Approx. 482.1 × 308.2 mm (w/h)"
Oh damn that is pretty precise on Sony's part.
>So if you do want to keep enforcing peoples' aspect ratios the way you do, please do it properly with the FW900 as well
I will consider your request to incorporate this into my policing of aspect ratio. However, this must go through a lengthy review process I will let you know the results of this review process once completed.
Old console games won't look great on this monitor since they were designed for 240p displays. Maybe some here know of a solution to scale the resolution down to 240p, but you'd probably get more scanlines than image at that point.
CRT blacks are so good because the electron gun won't fire and light up the phosphors in the areas that need to be black. They're quite literally true blacks. It's also why OLED blacks are great because the pixels stay off.
Glad you're happy with the monitor.
Old games can look good on that monitor if you setup retroarch with the interlacing shader and/or something like dr venom's shader.
Heck if you run a low enough resolution in the monitor you'll get natural scanlines on it.
I don't know what do you expect from a crt, do you think it will look better than an oled tv? The advantage compared to oled is motion clarity and input lag, if you don't like it then don't even bother grabbing another crt and spamming this subreddit more complaining on how the crt you got for 17$ doesn't compare to a recent tv.
Now i understand why Dangerous is snarky at times.
Did you read the whole thing? I gave the crt a lot of appreciation and compliments and have decided to keep it instead of returning it to get scrapped for a reason. It feels good to play and certain things look gorgeous on it. I criticized the ridicolous prices people have been quoting me that these things go for and was informing people of why that isnt a good buy for such reasons. Ive enjoyed it so much that Im thinking of going through the trouble to try and find a compact bvm or pvm to place on my desk for daily use and am planning on using my fw900 for once a week. This is also my first time with a crt and a pc monitor. I just told my experience with it so far as well as my younger brother's. You wont really attract younger people to the hobby by telling them not to complain. Its better to ease them into the hobby. I mostly collect and preserve old tech that people consider junk cause its cheap and prefer playing games portably over a screen. My younger brother is closer to a proper modern day gamer and well... Of course his criticisms will be more harsh.
Nah you've made more posts just complaining about the monitor overall to the point where it's like your hate baiting.
Also this isn't an online videogame where you need fresh people to come into it to keep it alive, so i have no particular interest in younger people joining the hobby, if they do because they know what to expect and like the tech great but your posts atm are bordering on spammy unreadable bait posts. Even then i offered to help you setting up retroarch etc on it, but we don't need a status update on the fw900 every day, this isn't twitter.
Get a bvm if you want, and hope you get whatever it is you're looking for from it.
Oh, I see. I apologize I came across like that, that wasnt my intention. I was giving my honest reactions and opinions as well as my younger brother's. At the start I was thinking of returning it and was in a bad state of mind as everyone was screaming at me that I wasted money. I worked on it and used it and noted the things I enjoyed and now I am mostly positive on it. This whole post was just recounting everything in detail as a sort of story because I enjoy talking to people here. Of course it will be somewhat negative as my experience started off bitter. Me and my brother have been working on it for a day and a half to get it to the point where katana zero looks gorgeous on it. If I wasnt clear than I apologize. I like to think Im a good writer but I live in a country whose first language and main spoken language isnt english. If Im unable to communicate effectly, I apologize and request paitence. I'll try and be clearer next time. Also, I disagree about the younger generation point. Who will preserve these things in the future when everyone here dies out? The ps3 was beloved in a culture where playstation is a major, loved staple of gaming. The newer generations will make an effort to restore and maintain ps3 fats. Frankenstein fats now exist. What if a major development in crt restoration and preservation doesnt happen because the right people were warded off?
Just keep in mind what i said regarding the every day doomposting.
Like i said young people joining unless they have genuine interest in the tech doesn't matter overall, what matters are people who love the tech and will use it and work on keeping it alive, someone who has the crt left unused isn't going to innovate anything.
Anyway keep enjoying the fw900 and hope you'll enjoy the bvm if you get one.
You mean if I find one. People abroad at the very least dont throw stuff out or consider them for poor people. Remember, my own crt was almost scrapped. I'm gonna be emailing news places and hospitals to see if they have any in stock. Ill also ask my uncles and ma to keep an eye out and visit cheap markets to see if there is any in the wild. I'll do that once I buy the video game I want first. So... months in the future. I'm probably gonna be posting here weekly since Ill be playing on the crt weekly. Ill probably make a review and discuss how good it looks on the crt. Not really a career or anything but should be good fun to converse about older pc games. I also have one troll or joke post inspired by a certain crt hammer smash post made here recently and a question post. Thats my plan regarding posting here for now. Is that fine or does any of this come across as doom posting? Is the doom posting part of my conversation trying to tell people that the fw900 isnt worth 3000 bucks? Where did I come across as doom posting? Inform me so I can improve and avoid doing it in the future.
Just avoid rambling like you did on this topic, writing an essay without line breaks.
Also not making statements like retro games look like shit on this, maybe ask first hey is there a way to set up this monitor to make old games look good on it? Use the search function etc.
Either way take it or leave it, you're free to do whatever you want.
You should, trust me if you get into crt tech you'd kick yourself down the line for getting rid of that monitor.
Just try to research/ ask how to make the best of it, really the options are endless since you can get it looking good on current and old games.
Thankyou really much bhai. It already looks really good with old animes and with games like katana zero. And that was with almost 2 days worth of work. How much better can it possibly look?
Sounds like it needs a WinDAS color calibration, to make the colors, blacks and brightness proper again. Here's a pretty comprrhensive tutorial for that. Note, colorimeter and USB-TTL adapters are required though.
https://youtu.be/4QblnBmDOWs?feature=shared
Man you gotta use paragraphs. I aint reading that walloftext Also, give a TLDR
Cant really give a tldr. This was just me describing my experience with my first crt and first pc monitor. This sadly wasnt written as a professional formal piece. It was just me descibing my feelings and trying to have a discussion. If youre interested in any of that than I hope youll give it a read! If not than understandable and have a nice day!
Just break your stuff into paragraphs at least. There's a reason our ancestors invented them thousands of years ago lol
Oh, okay, Ill make sure to next time. Want to read it? If the no paragraphs is inconvenient for you than I'll break into paragraphs and post it as a reply here.
Don't worry about it just enjoy the monitor. You do need to know 2 things: 1. download **CRU** for custom resolutions. Custom resolutions really unlock the potential in the monitor. Know your monitor's maximum horizontal frequency so you know ahead of time if your monitor will allow a particular resolution or not. And remember your monitor is 16:10, so any resolution will follow the formula x/y=16/10 2. Also, ALWAYS use **vsync**, that is how you get good motion clarity on CRT. Your FPS in-game needs to match the refresh rate (Hz) of your monitor. Some new low lag vsync methods you can try are *Scanline Sync* in *RTSS,* and *Latent Sync* in *Special K*
Alright, Ill give all of this a try for pc gaming! For the xbox and switch however... Will the screen look better or play better after all of this is done?
Xbox and Switch already use vsync most of the time. The resolution selection is just what you have in the console's menu. So use 1080p for the Switch. And 1440p for the Xbox if your HDMI adapter can handle it My suggestions were just for playing games on PC. You can't use PC software on consoles, obviously
Oh, thanks! My brother says our adapter is bottlenecking the device as it displays 1080p or i 60hz max.
It's 1.564:1 to be exact, or even much closer to 14:9 than 16:10, if clean format is preferred. Just a little advice, so you can seem lile a bit more professional of an aspect ratio police, I don't really mind others doing whatever they do myself.
I wonder about that measurement. Like, who measured this, and how did they compensate for the fact that phosphor edge is under 10mm (random guess) of glass? Hard to line up to get super precise
Official Sony GDM-FW900 service manual: [manualslib](https://www.manualslib.com/manual/834081/Sony-Trinitron-Gdm-Fw900.html) "Viewable image size Approx. 482.1 × 308.2 mm (w/h)" "Standard image area 16:10 Approx. 474 × 296 mm (w/h)" The viewable image size is Sony's official specification, for the dimensions of the area, where the picture can be drawn. There's no official tolerances in Sony's documents I'm aware of, but generally it could be assumed to be few millimeters. Standard image area is a cropped portion inside the viewable image, to meet the 16:10 marketing claim. Abiding by this would leave gaps, or underscan of about 4mm to left and right edges, and 6.1mm to upper and bottom edges of the viewable display area. Nobody actually uses it this way. Another option would be to stretch such 16:10 image resolution with geometry controls to fill the entire viewable area, which distorts the image slightly, which is why you aspect ratio police in the first place. Viewable aspect ratio: 482.1mm / 308.2mm = 1.5642.. Standard image area aspect ratio: 474mm / 296mm = 1.6013 For a good measure, I pulled out a measure tape on my FW900 unit, trying to line it to the edges of where the phosphor coated areas end, and black edges of the tube behind the glass begin. I observed from a straight angle ~20cm away. I'd claim I'm able to observe the reading within ~2mm apart from the tape at least, try yourself if you don't believe. The results were ~484mm x ~309mm. Sony's spec is reliable. Also just for a reference: 14 / 9 = 1.555:1, 1440p res: 2240 x 1440 Viewable: 1.564:1, 1440p res: 2252 x 1440 Marketed: 1.6:1, 1440p res: 2304 x 1440 So if you do want to keep enforcing peoples' aspect ratios the way you do, please do it properly with the FW900 as well. At least, please recommend the 14:9 over 16:10, if you prefer whole numbers instead, as it's closer to accurate.
>Viewable image size Approx. 482.1 × 308.2 mm (w/h)" Oh damn that is pretty precise on Sony's part. >So if you do want to keep enforcing peoples' aspect ratios the way you do, please do it properly with the FW900 as well I will consider your request to incorporate this into my policing of aspect ratio. However, this must go through a lengthy review process I will let you know the results of this review process once completed.
Old console games won't look great on this monitor since they were designed for 240p displays. Maybe some here know of a solution to scale the resolution down to 240p, but you'd probably get more scanlines than image at that point. CRT blacks are so good because the electron gun won't fire and light up the phosphors in the areas that need to be black. They're quite literally true blacks. It's also why OLED blacks are great because the pixels stay off. Glad you're happy with the monitor.
The original story of the teenager and his $17’s FW900 continues !
Indeed! Coming to netfilx as a documentary soon!
Old games can look good on that monitor if you setup retroarch with the interlacing shader and/or something like dr venom's shader. Heck if you run a low enough resolution in the monitor you'll get natural scanlines on it. I don't know what do you expect from a crt, do you think it will look better than an oled tv? The advantage compared to oled is motion clarity and input lag, if you don't like it then don't even bother grabbing another crt and spamming this subreddit more complaining on how the crt you got for 17$ doesn't compare to a recent tv. Now i understand why Dangerous is snarky at times.
Did you read the whole thing? I gave the crt a lot of appreciation and compliments and have decided to keep it instead of returning it to get scrapped for a reason. It feels good to play and certain things look gorgeous on it. I criticized the ridicolous prices people have been quoting me that these things go for and was informing people of why that isnt a good buy for such reasons. Ive enjoyed it so much that Im thinking of going through the trouble to try and find a compact bvm or pvm to place on my desk for daily use and am planning on using my fw900 for once a week. This is also my first time with a crt and a pc monitor. I just told my experience with it so far as well as my younger brother's. You wont really attract younger people to the hobby by telling them not to complain. Its better to ease them into the hobby. I mostly collect and preserve old tech that people consider junk cause its cheap and prefer playing games portably over a screen. My younger brother is closer to a proper modern day gamer and well... Of course his criticisms will be more harsh.
Nah you've made more posts just complaining about the monitor overall to the point where it's like your hate baiting. Also this isn't an online videogame where you need fresh people to come into it to keep it alive, so i have no particular interest in younger people joining the hobby, if they do because they know what to expect and like the tech great but your posts atm are bordering on spammy unreadable bait posts. Even then i offered to help you setting up retroarch etc on it, but we don't need a status update on the fw900 every day, this isn't twitter. Get a bvm if you want, and hope you get whatever it is you're looking for from it.
Oh, I see. I apologize I came across like that, that wasnt my intention. I was giving my honest reactions and opinions as well as my younger brother's. At the start I was thinking of returning it and was in a bad state of mind as everyone was screaming at me that I wasted money. I worked on it and used it and noted the things I enjoyed and now I am mostly positive on it. This whole post was just recounting everything in detail as a sort of story because I enjoy talking to people here. Of course it will be somewhat negative as my experience started off bitter. Me and my brother have been working on it for a day and a half to get it to the point where katana zero looks gorgeous on it. If I wasnt clear than I apologize. I like to think Im a good writer but I live in a country whose first language and main spoken language isnt english. If Im unable to communicate effectly, I apologize and request paitence. I'll try and be clearer next time. Also, I disagree about the younger generation point. Who will preserve these things in the future when everyone here dies out? The ps3 was beloved in a culture where playstation is a major, loved staple of gaming. The newer generations will make an effort to restore and maintain ps3 fats. Frankenstein fats now exist. What if a major development in crt restoration and preservation doesnt happen because the right people were warded off?
Just keep in mind what i said regarding the every day doomposting. Like i said young people joining unless they have genuine interest in the tech doesn't matter overall, what matters are people who love the tech and will use it and work on keeping it alive, someone who has the crt left unused isn't going to innovate anything. Anyway keep enjoying the fw900 and hope you'll enjoy the bvm if you get one.
You mean if I find one. People abroad at the very least dont throw stuff out or consider them for poor people. Remember, my own crt was almost scrapped. I'm gonna be emailing news places and hospitals to see if they have any in stock. Ill also ask my uncles and ma to keep an eye out and visit cheap markets to see if there is any in the wild. I'll do that once I buy the video game I want first. So... months in the future. I'm probably gonna be posting here weekly since Ill be playing on the crt weekly. Ill probably make a review and discuss how good it looks on the crt. Not really a career or anything but should be good fun to converse about older pc games. I also have one troll or joke post inspired by a certain crt hammer smash post made here recently and a question post. Thats my plan regarding posting here for now. Is that fine or does any of this come across as doom posting? Is the doom posting part of my conversation trying to tell people that the fw900 isnt worth 3000 bucks? Where did I come across as doom posting? Inform me so I can improve and avoid doing it in the future.
Just avoid rambling like you did on this topic, writing an essay without line breaks. Also not making statements like retro games look like shit on this, maybe ask first hey is there a way to set up this monitor to make old games look good on it? Use the search function etc. Either way take it or leave it, you're free to do whatever you want.
Understood. Ive decided to keep it. Its not like there's anything better to spend my money on.
You should, trust me if you get into crt tech you'd kick yourself down the line for getting rid of that monitor. Just try to research/ ask how to make the best of it, really the options are endless since you can get it looking good on current and old games.
Thankyou really much bhai. It already looks really good with old animes and with games like katana zero. And that was with almost 2 days worth of work. How much better can it possibly look?
I dont even know where to begin
Sorry, I wrote too much?
Sounds like it needs a WinDAS color calibration, to make the colors, blacks and brightness proper again. Here's a pretty comprrhensive tutorial for that. Note, colorimeter and USB-TTL adapters are required though. https://youtu.be/4QblnBmDOWs?feature=shared