Hello everyone! After talking to some nice people on the shoutbox about CRT max resolutions and refresh rates, it seems many of these old tubes can go higher than what they advertise and what your OS says. My Dad's Gateway VX700 VGA 17 inch CRT PC Monitor can go to 1920x1080i at 30Hz with a Windows setting turned off and 1600x1200 at 66Hz with it turned on. I have no idea if this is the max it can do but I have heard of people getting their CRTs to go higher than 1920x1080 with a refresh rate in the triple digits. What can your CRT really do? Will it go higher than your HDTV or not even do HD?
CRTs tend to have a resolution that best matches the dot/slot/grille pattern on the tube itself at a good V refresh rate. They can generally horizontally scan a bit faster for a higher resolution, but at a lower V refresh rate. The issue is once you exceed the pattern that's actually on the tube, it starts to get blurry. They can generally go lower than their preferred resolution and look great all the way down to their lowest available resolution, but you definitely start to lose quality as you go up. Just because it can sync to a higher resolution doesn't mean it's going to do it well. I actually almost picked up one of the holy grails of PC CRTs the other day. 10 bucks at my local Goodwill for a 21" Apple Studio Display. Second only to a particular Sony and NEC whose model numbers I forget. I was actually was picking it up to bring it to the counter, but the stand was broken so I had to leave it. The bottom is rounded and it weighs 70+ lbs so I cant just use it with nothing. The mount is a three legged thing, and there is a peg in the center that goes into a hole in the bottom of the monitor. The plastic holding that peg on was cracked off. It was there but I didn't trust it to an epoxy job. If I can find just the stand I will buy it immediately. So for now, I'm sticking with my 17" eMachines 17F3 CRT from 04 that I picked up new in box a few months ago. That one is happiest at 1024x768 @85hz, but will do up to 1280x1024. Once again, that higher resolution is blurry and runs at a lower refresh rate and just isn't worth it.
Was it working? They were very nice monitors, but had a big problem with blown flyback transformers, especially if you ran them at 1600x1200 - I had one of the clear/graphite ones on my G4 Power Mac, and it blew up twice - bad flyback both times. Apple fixed it, but the service guy basically said "Yeah, they do that. Try turning the resolution down a bit.".
Didn't get to test it, but for 10 bucks I would take the risk. I'd never be running it that high though. Really no reason to do so. Plus, while it syncs to that resolution, I'm pretty sure the native one for the tube is a little lower.
Like I mentioned before, my CRT monitor will do up to 2048 x 1536 at 85Hz. It will also do 160Hz at XGA. The model is LaCie Electron 22 Blue IV. It was sold by LaCie, but was actually made by NEC/Mitsubishi. The back of the monitor says it was manufactured in 2004. I'll include a list of all the resolutions it supports later, if you want.
Yeah, to be honest, it seemed a lot happier at 1280x1024, and didn't blow up again once i started running it there.
Dude it was apple, they talk out their ass a lot it seems.. I don't see how the resolution or refresh rate could damage a flyback....
Well, on a practical level it blew up twice when I was running at 1600x1200 and remained working for a much longer time without failure at 1280x1024. I can also see a plausible mechanism for this, since increasing the vertical resolution also increases the H sync frequency - and a multiple sync monitor will turn up the drive to compensate for this. This is, of course, just a theory.
I didn't. I was responding to the post above it. Since I was answering his question, editing the post made before his question would have made the conversation not make sense.
@la-li-lu-le-lo That monitor sounds absolutely incredible. How do you like it and what do you tend to use it for most?
I really like it. The video quality is really good. It's essentially a Trinitron, although it was made by NEC/Mitsubishi (Sony licensed Trinitron to them). In other words, it uses an aperture grille. I mostly use it for 480p gaming on DC, GC, Xbox. It also works with the PS2, but not many games support 480p. DC games look beautiful on this monitor. Lately I've been messing around with the higher resolution modes, partly because I'm considering getting a new computer monitor (an LCD) that has roughly the same resolution. Basically I wanted to know if my PC would be able to run games at that resolution at a reasonable framerate. It turns out it can run most games, even really new ones, very well at the LaCie's highest resolution (2048 x 1536). Technically it's slightly lower resolution than the monitor I'm thinking about getting (it's 2560 x 1440), but pretty close. Using the LaCie at its highest resolution for web browsing or normal computer stuff isn't very practical, but for games or videos it's really good, and almost comparable to a modern LCD.
The thing is... you aren't really forcing a higher resolution than what the display says it supports. What you are doing is called "Downsampleing." For example, Lets say your display is 1920x1080 pixels, but you have set a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels. The video card you have supports the higher resolution, but your display does not, that is fixed to 1920x1080. What happens is, the display receives 3840x2160 pixels, then downsamples it and displays it at 1920x1080. This is detrimental when games are concerned, as the display has to process the image, and that causes the time it takes to display the image to increase, (Response Time) causing things like input lag. For best picture and performance, you should always output your displays native resolution, if possible.
What you are talkin about really only applies to fixed resolution panels, LCDs, Plasmas etc. CRTs don't perform a scaling routine to get things to a fixed native resolution for every signal that it gets that doesn't match. They either sync to that scan rate or they do not. I realize I am over oversimplifying with that last sentence.
As MachineCode says, that only applies to fixed resolution panels. It doesn't apply to CRTs. Thank you for the info though.
