/vr/ - Retro Games

old games are 240p, a non-standard resolution that is actually just a 480i signals but with half the lines drawn over the same 480i screen space, LCDs only support a fixed resolution, are typically widescreen, have backlighting so there is an uneven spread of color making it impossible to achieve true blacks, and when not rendering at a native resolution they are going to be introducing copious amounts of image processing to upscale that image to correctly fit the display. this results in a really, really ugly image.

A lot of old games also relied on things like the shadow mask/slot mask/aperture grille along with the natural bloom of CRTs to generate the image as it was intended to be seen. Sending the same signal to an LCD will result in the image as it was created, but not as it was intended to be displayed giving you a very ugly representation. Many developers used the way CRTs draw image to render things in interesting ways, exploiting a trait of the technology to squeeze more detail that would be lost on an LCD.

Numerous games also require the timing of a CRT as each system sends a sync signal with its video signal, light gun games rely on the exact timing of that signal to read certain types of inputs accurately. LCDs are not fast enough to do this (update time for LCD is measured in milliseconds and CRT is measured in nanoseconds.) This also affects the rate at which you receive new frames of a game, more realistically its about 2-6 frames depending on the type of display, but you will be 2-6 frames behind in things like rhythm games and fighting games, any other games which require precise inputs and timings will be needlessly difficult to play on an LCD for this reason. It'll also make some older platformers a little harder but frankly I think this is the least affected genre.

Also cats can't fit on top of LCDs and wouldn't like those cold lifeless slabs if they could.