Retro Gaming on CRTs: Why the Original Look Still Matters
If you've ever plugged an old SNES, PlayStation, Sega Mega Drive or GameCube into a modern 4K television, you may have had the same reaction: "This doesn't look right."
The image might be sharp, the colors might be bright, and the TV might be far more advanced than anything available in the 1990s.
And yet one of the biggest complaints we hear is that retro games can look pixelated or blurry on modern TVs.
At RetroGamer.ae, we see this all the time. We have been working with retro consoles and games since 2013, and CRT televisions have always been a big part of what we do. We repair them, service them, RGB-mod them and, most importantly, actually use them with original hardware.
After spending years comparing consoles on CRTs, LCDs and modern OLED displays, there is a very simple explanation for why so many classic games look better on a CRT: the games were designed around the technology.
Warning: There are probably way too many scanline shots in this article. I’m a bit obsessed with them, so I couldn’t help myself.
CRTs Were Part of the Picture
When developers were creating games in the 1980s and 1990s, they knew exactly where most players would be seeing their work: on a CRT television.
A CRT doesn't display an image in anything like the same way as a modern LCD or OLED.
Inside that box sitting in your living room, an electron gun operating at more than TWENTY THOUSAND VOLTS fires a beam of electrons towards the glass tube, exciting phosphors that produce the red, green and blue light that makes up the image. Yes, all of that is happening inside your TV.
And that process has a huge effect on how the final image looks.
The picture isn't made up of perfectly defined squares. There's natural softness, blending, glow and interaction between neighboring pixels. Different CRTs also use different types of "masks," which means two TVs can display the exact same game and produce surprisingly different results.
Modern displays do almost the opposite.
Take a 240p game and put it on a modern flat panel, and those pixels can become incredibly sharp, individual blocks. The TV may be displaying the signal perfectly, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're seeing the image the way the original artists intended.
In a way, the CRT is doing some of the image processing for you — and that's a big part of the reason retro games can look so good on them.
The Magic of Scanlines
One of the most obvious characteristics of a CRT is scanlines.
Many classic consoles output a 240p signal. On a CRT, the image is drawn line by line, producing the familiar alternating bright and dark horizontal lines.
On a modern display, those same pixels can appear extremely hard and square.
On a CRT, the scanlines help soften the transition between pixels. Combined with the glow of the phosphors, they create an image that appears more cohesive.
This is particularly noticeable with pixel art.
Characters, diagonal lines and curved objects that look blocky when viewed as raw pixels can suddenly appear much smoother on a CRT.
Pixels Were Never Really Meant to Be Perfect Squares
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about retro graphics.
When you look at a screenshot from an old game on a computer, you might think you're looking at the actual artwork.
You're really looking at the raw pixel data.
The original artists knew that those pixels would eventually be turned into light on a CRT.
They could use color patterns, dithering and neighboring pixels to create the illusion of colors, gradients and shapes that didn't technically exist in the raw image.
Put those same pixels on a modern LCD with razor-sharp edges and the illusion can fall apart.
On a CRT, the colors naturally blend together.
A checkerboard pattern can become a shade of grey. Two neighboring colors can visually merge. A jagged edge can become considerably smoother.
The CRT isn't hiding the artwork, it's completing it.
Why Dithering Looks So Much Better
Dithering was everywhere in retro games.
Developers had extremely limited color palettes and memory, so they used patterns of different colors to trick the eye into seeing additional shades.
On a modern display, dithering can look like an obvious checkerboard.
On a CRT, those colors blend together naturally.
This is one reason games such as Metal Slug, Street Fighter, Sonic and many 16-bit RPGs can have such a dramatically different appearance on original hardware and a CRT compared with a perfectly sharp digital display.
The individual pixels become less important than the overall image.
Composite, S-Video, Component and RGB
The CRT itself isn't the only thing that matters.
The input signal can have a huge impact on how a retro console looks.
Composite video introduces considerable color blending and softness. S-Video provides a cleaner image, while component and RGB can provide significantly greater clarity.
This is something we deal with regularly at RetroGamer.ae when servicing and modifying CRTs in the UAE.
A properly RGB-modded CRT can give you an incredibly clean image while still retaining the characteristics that make CRTs special.
That's one of the reasons RGB is so popular among serious retro gamers.
You get the sharpness and color separation of a high-quality analogue signal without turning the image into the overly harsh, pixel-perfect output you often get from a modern digital display.
Why This Matters in the UAE
There is another problem for retro gamers in the UAE: finding good CRT equipment isn't particularly easy.
CRTs are large, heavy and increasingly difficult to find in good condition. Many of the televisions that were sitting in homes across the UAE 20 or 30 years ago have long since been thrown away.
The ones that remain can have problems ranging from worn picture tubes and bad capacitors to geometry issues, color problems and general deterioration.
That's why we spend a significant amount of time servicing the CRTs we sell at RetroGamer.ae.
A CRT isn't simply an old television that happens to work. For retro gaming, the condition of the tube, geometry, focus, convergence, color and input circuitry all matter.
A good CRT can completely change the experience of playing original hardware.
CRT vs Modern OLED: Which Looks Better?
There isn't really a universal answer.
If you're playing a modern game designed for a 4K OLED, the OLED is obviously going to win.
But if you're playing a 1994 Sega Saturn game that was designed around a CRT, the CRT has some very significant advantages.
Modern displays can imitate some of these characteristics using shaders, scanline filters and other processing techniques.
And some of these solutions look excellent.
But they're still an approximation.
There is something different about sending an original 240p analogue signal into a real CRT and seeing the electron beam physically draw the image.
It's a completely different display technology.
The Best Way to See Retro Games
After years of working with original consoles and CRTs, our recommendation at RetroGamer.ae is simple:
We are CRT maximalists. Retro games should not be played on anything other than a CRT. After all, one of our mission statements is to preserve the original experience, so it is natural that we feel this way.
Try Sonic on a Mega Drive.
Try Street Fighter II on a SNES.
Try Final Fantasy VII on a PlayStation.
Then connect the same console to a modern television.
You may be surprised by how different the two images feel.
Retro games weren't designed to be viewed as collections of perfectly sharp pixels. The pixels, video signal and CRT display were all part of the same visual system.
The television was part of the artwork, not just where the game was displayed.
That's why, decades later, CRTs are still worth keeping around.
