How Games Used to Look: Why Retro Gaming on a CRT Looks WAY Different

Crt filters for emulators is nice and all but if I still have the original console with games but only a led tv, what other options there are than to buy a crt?

As a 90s kid (born in the 80s), I still maintain that playing retro games on a real CRT is the only way to do it.

I still think Link to the Past looks great for when it was made.

I like how ps5 and series x play and look over old games and consoles. I been playing ps3 alot. It's great console. I have ps3 4 5 series x

Back in the SNES days the living room TV was 24" and you had a 13" in your room. Some of this difference is just in sheer size and pixel density.

I recently brought home an old RCA CRT TV from my mom's basement. I didn't even check it, but it doesn't even have RGB connections, only an RF Cable connection. Whoops~

You have an Identical model TV that I keep for my retro gaming a 27" Trinitron. I bought mine back in 2011 when Thrift Stores were basically giving CRT TV's away. I compared dozens of sizes and models including a flat screen HD Trinitron and nothing can touch the 27" Trinitron. If you hook up a good Sony 4 head VCR to this TV is amazing how good the picture looks. You'd swear your watching a DVD if not for the tapes having noise once in a while.
I bought my 6 year old son an a cheap $17.99 Chinese ripoff of the NES Classic preloaded with 620 games and it's only video output is composite red/yellow/white wires. We have so much more fun playing the Chinese NES Classic ripoff on the 27" CRT than the same game on the 55" 4k TV with the fancy emulator machine. Looks much better and more importantly plays so much better with zero lag.

I have been filming games on ps1, ps2, megadrive, snes, saturn, dreamcast etc on my CRTs if anybody would like a look, they are not an easy thing to record and I am struggling a little to capture the sound but honestly to the naked eye they are so much better than emulators those tvs really do something to the games that an emulator cant in my opinion even with the filters etc.

I remember when I first bought an Xbox 360 in 2007 and for the first month played on a CRT TV. I couldn’t believe how amazing and fluid everything looked on the new console. After that month I bought my first LCD TV, and it was not at all what was advertised. The resolution went up, yes, but everything else looked a lot worse.

I always used S-Video on my Sega consoles and I must say….My games always looked a lot better than PlayStation and Nintendo

Unfortunately no amount of filters or shaders can properly replicate the appearance of a CRT monitor on an LCD screen. You simply must use a CRT monitor to understand what games look like back then. They certainly didn't look like this weird grayish scan line mess you see with emulators today

Thank you for making this video

If you play SNES games emulated, I reccomend trying out BSNES, it has filters and shaders you can apply to specifically make it look like a CRT running games through different outputs and as someone that grew up playing games on real CRT, it has some of the most accurate filters and shaders. I personally use CRT royale shader coupled with the RF connector filter and its just like how NES games looked while using a crappy RF connection to the old CRT!

Megaman x on a pvm with s video is amazing, i ascended when i saw it

LOL I remember when moving the family tv was a burdensome chore and a mild feat of strength