VictimOfGrief said:
How exactly is it a shame? CRT's are a waste of space.
Because the only categories LCDs win are size, weight, and power usage. CRTs are better in every other category, and substantially better in some of them.
dark10x said:
That's crazy.
CRT features vastly superior motion handling, contrast ratio, color accuracy, resolution handling, etc. I've been using a CRT for the last couple weeks now and the difference over the LCD I was using for PC gaming is insane. Games look incredible on a CRT and no LCD comes close to the richness and high quality motion of a CRT. I remember again why I love 60 fps. CRT also handles lower resolutions much better than an LCD. 1024x768, for instance, is butt ugly on an LCD...but looks lovely on a CRT. I'd say that 1024x768 with 4x AA produces a smoother image for games than a higher resolution LCD running at its native resolution. Of course, CRT can do much higher resolutions than that and look even better.
LCD is superior for Windows usage, but a CRT trumps it for gaming. No contest. It just feels so rich. If you are going from a CRT to an LCD for gaming, prepare to be disappointed.
LCDs run Windows better? Maybe, but only if you use the LCD's native resolution as your desktop resolution... I've used low resolutions for years now, so I don't know if I'd even say that for me. I run Windows at 1024x768 on my new (Vista) PC; on my old one that I had untilearly this year (running WinME), I used 800x600. I just didn't like how small everything seemed in ME at 1024x768, and because I have a CRT monitor, that was the only factor. Vista looks better at higher resolutions, though, so I use 100hz 1024x768 (60hz is eye-hurtingly awful looking on CRTs in Windows, I'd say...), and it looks fantastic. For a monitor, most of the time I'm still using my same old 17" Dell CRT that I got with the old computer (1600x1200 max resolution, which is way above anything I'd ever want to use in Windows); the place I got the computer from only offered LCDs and I didn't really want one... I've used one with my computer, and while the small size and light weight was great, I'd never want it as my main display. The drawbacks are just too huge. A larger CRT would be nice, though... that would support higher resolutions for gaming... I've always run games (that let you change their resolution) at much higher resolutions than Windows itself. I use 1280x960 in a lot of games now, it'd be nice to bump that up a notch.
I will admit that in Windows Vista some of the biggest drawbacks to LCDs are gone -- that is, that they do a REALLY, REALLY bad job of display DOS resolutions of 320x240 or 320x200 or others like that -- because Vista doesn't allow fullscreen DOS mode and DOS emulators like DOSBox use a 640x480 scaled resolution, I believe, but even there... as I said, just look at how awful 640x480 looks on an LCD! I tried playing Starcraft on an LCD once... the difference was huge. CRTs, meanwhile, can display pretty much any resolution below their maximum all equally well, with no input lag, no ghosting, higher refresh rates, perfect colors... try using a CRT and then an LCD and play a few games (particularly ones that weren't released in the last couple of years and don't support your LCD's native resolution) and the differences will become immediately obvious.
Oh yes, and you can touch CRT screens. They aren't squishy like LCDs...

I will admit that LCD monitors do look really cool, though, and the space they free up on your desk is quite nice.