>many modern screens still are 12bit

Unless you're using a really cheap screen, most LCDs are 8 bits per color. The cheap ones use 6 bits + 2 bits FRC. 12 bits (presumably 4 bits per color) seems insanely low because it would mean only 16 possible shades per primary color.

>meanwhile silicon graphics had a CRT screen in 1995 that was 48bit

Source for this? 10 bit color support in graphics cards only became available around 2015. I find it hard to believe that there was 48 bits (presumably 16 bit per color) back in 1995, where 256 color monitors were common. Moreover, is there even a point of using 16 bits per color? We've only switched to 10 bit because of HDR.

>7. Those things are crazy resilient, I still have some working screens from 80286 era (granted, the colors are getting weird now with aging phosphors), while some of my new flatpanels failed within 2 years with no repair possible.

This sounds like standard bathtub curve/survivor bias to me.

> 1. Arbitrary resolutions

Consult the dot pitch of your monitor for the actual resolution. Everything is “scaled” to that resolution. Of course, the algorithm is physics, which is much better than cubic interpolation, so it does look slightly better, but a modern hidpi lcd will provide a higher dot pitch and thus a sharper, more accurate picture.

3. 60hz CRT refresh rate is 16.67 millseconds of delay. Interestingly, I connected a VT220 to my 56' 4k Samsung TV via a BNC-to-RCA cable, and by comparing the cursor blinking on both screens there's a very noticeable and visible delay, like a 1/4 second.

4. CRTs are analog. It's as many bits as your output hardware can make up.

5. CRT is still supreme for contrast (at least over LCD) despite all the tricks and such for LCDs.

7. That VT220 I mentioned above is from 1986. It's monochrome, but works great.

Do they even still make CRTs, or are you using a really old one?

What CRT(s) are you using?

You raise some very interesting points. I've appreciated the physical lightness and ease of positioning of LCDs, plus the absence of flyback whine. And they can go to higher resolutions than the scan circuitry in a CRT can physically manage.

But all those other things, yes the color resolution, the smoother fonts, the response time. I might have to swing by the recycler and pick up a nice "new" Viewsonic. :)

I kept a CRT for quite a while but when I switched, I realized I didn't miss it.

1- True, if there is a thing I'd miss, that's it. At low resolutions, CRT sometimes get really nice refresh rates too (I've seen up to 18O Hz).

2- Modern gaming monitors have freesync/g-sync that not only give you arbitrary refresh rates, but they are also adaptive.

3- Also true, but not as significant as one might think. The monitor itself is zero latency, but what's behind it isn't. We are not "racing the beam" like in an Atari 2600 anymore, the image is not displayed before the rendering of a full frame is complete. The fastest monitors are at around 144Hz, that's 7ms. So for a 1ms gaming monitor to a 0ms CRT, you actually go down from 8ms to 7ms, to which you need to add the whole pipeline to get "from motion to photon". In VR, where latency is critical, the total is about 20ms today. More typical PC games are at about 50ms.

4- CRTs are usually analog. They don't use "bits" and it is all your video card job. Also 48bits is per pixel, 12bits is per channel. Apples to oranges comparison. CRTs do have a nice contrast ratio though, good for color range. Something worth noting is that cheap LCDs are usually just 6bit with dithering. True 8bit is actually good and I'm not sure that you can actually make a difference passed 12bits.

5- Never noticed that, maybe some driver problem. An interesting thing is that CRTs have a natural gamma curve that matches the sRGB standard (because sRGB was designed for CRTs). LCDs work differently and correction is required to match this standard, and if done wrong, you may have that kind of problem.

6- I hate text on CRTs. And unless you have an excellent monitor (and cable!), you have tradeoffs to make between sharpness, resolution, and refresh rate. And refresh rate is not just for games, below 60Hz, you have very annoying flickering. I wouldn't go below 75 Hz. And at max resolution, it can start getting blurry: the electron beam is moving very fast and the analog circuitry may have trouble with sharp transitions, resulting in "ringing" artifacts and overall blurriness. One old games, that blurriness becomes a feature though, giving you some sort of free antialiasing.

7- Some CRTs are crazy resilient, others not so much. Same thing for LCDs. And as you said, phosphors wear out, that's actually the reason why I let go of my last CRT (after about 10 years). My current LCD is 8 years old and still working great, if fact, better than my CRT at the same age (because it doesn't have worn phosphors).

Nice, I think I still have a Sony Trinitron somewhere.

I wonder if there are any market for a modern take of CRT.