Blur Busters Forums

Chief Blur Buster wrote:

Jason38 wrote:It was interesting I was at a garage sale and someone was giving away a NEC CRT so I took it. I tried to hook it up to a Windows 10 machine and thought I was going to die from the flicker. 5 minutes made me feel terrible. It's strange though because when I hook my Sony Wega KV-20FS120 and play N64 it doesn't feel terrible like the NEC hooked up to Windows 10.

That's to be expected especially if you used it in a TV room style manner.
(brightness was set to a comfortable level, you used a room with sufficient lighting, etc)

Jason38 wrote:Makes me wonder if I would get a different result with Windows XP and older hardware?

Nope. Same problem happens to other people.

The explanation is simple. My elementary, it is very simple in Sherlock Holmes terms. The reasons are mutlifold:

(1) Brightness of Windows themes. Windows has a lot of white-colored windows. Bright = harsh.
(2) Loss of acclimation. One is no longer used to it.
(3) Default refresh rate of Windows 10 is automatically 60Hz.
(4) Viewing distance to a CRT. Viewing too close to 60Hz.

You must use NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Catalyst Control Center, or ToastyX CRU to properly configure a higher Hz such as 85Hz. It partially compensates for the factors above, and back in the day, 75Hz, 85Hz options were easily available, but is configured through a different mechanism today than it was yesterday. Did you raise refresh rate from the default 60 Hz setting?

I've heard of this over and over enough and it just essentially boils down to (1)/(2)/(3)/(4) and similar factors.

Jason38 wrote:I can't notice the motion blur with the LG ultragear and this is something that almost always bothers me and causes me eyestrain. I play Sonic on it and can't notice it causing me any strain.

Use a higher refresh rate when using PC games, but stick to games that allow framerate = Hz.
Too low Hz = too much flicker
Too high Hz = too hard for framerate to match Hz

Find your goldilocks Hz. I recommend at least 100Hz for impulse-driven viewed displays viewed at computer-viewing distances.

We're familiar with this at Blur Busters...

Chief Blur Buster wrote:That's because of the EDID / DisplayID system that transmits Plug-n-Play information between the display and computer.

Most old CRTs did not have this, and Windows 10 does not unlock >60Hz by default.

Make sure you don't exceed the specs of your CRT -- horizontal scanrate and refresh rate. Make sure you check the rear of the CRT for the scanrate ranges, and keep within that with Custom Resolution Utility. Use the old blanking interval feature (CRT sized), not the CVT-Reduced (designed for digital displays) -- CRTs can't handle reduced blanking intervals.

Chief Blur Buster wrote:...
You must use NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Catalyst Control Center, or ToastyX CRU to properly configure a higher Hz such as 85Hz. It partially compensates for the factors above, and back in the day, 75Hz, 85Hz options were easily available, but is configured through a different mechanism today than it was yesterday. Did you raise refresh rate from the default 60 Hz setting?
...

Chief Blur Buster wrote:You can use any aspect ratio. CRTs do not care. 1920x1080, 1423x761 or whatever. You can use the analog vertical picture resize knob to make the aspect ratio correct.

You can also remove vertical resolution without removing horizontal, e.g. 1280x900 in order to get enough bandwidth to raise refresh rate from 100Hz to 120Hz.

Even, 3000x900 and 1000x900 behaves the same on a CRT. The only thing that changes is horizontal resolution and how horizontally compressed the Windows desktop becomes at default picture aspect ratio.

Focus on the scanrate specs, and vertical resolution specs -- the horizontal resolution is arbitrary for sake of convenience. Just make sure that the blanking intervals scale properly. e.g. doubling horizontal resolution requires you to double the horizontal blanking interval numbers.

Just don't exceed horizontal scanrate limit and don't exceed vertical scanrate limit. And don't make those blanking intervals too small.

Jason38 wrote:Does every LED monitor cause you strain?

Chief Blur Buster wrote:You can use any aspect ratio. CRTs do not care. 1920x1080, 1423x761 or whatever. You can use the analog vertical picture resize knob to make the aspect ratio correct.

Chief Blur Buster wrote:You can also remove vertical resolution without removing horizontal, e.g. 1280x900 in order to get enough bandwidth to raise refresh rate from 100Hz to 120Hz.

Even, 3000x900 and 1000x900 behaves the same on a CRT. The only thing that changes is horizontal resolution and how horizontally compressed the Windows desktop becomes at default picture aspect ratio.

Focus on the scanrate specs, and vertical resolution specs -- the horizontal resolution is arbitrary for sake of convenience. Just make sure that the blanking intervals scale properly. e.g. doubling horizontal resolution requires you to double the horizontal blanking interval numbers.

Just don't exceed horizontal scanrate limit and don't exceed vertical scanrate limit. And don't make those blanking intervals too small.