Finding the right display is crucial for gaming of any era! While no pre-HD CRT’s suffer from lag, some might have features and inputs gamers can take advantage of. Flat-screen displays are much harder to deal with, as most have a significant amount of display latency that will severely impact any gaming setup!
RGB Monitors
Considered by many to be the “holy grail” of classic console and arcade gaming, RGB monitors offer a much sharper image then most consumer-grade CRT’s. Most offer direct RGB inputs and a range of compatibility for different devices. The RGB monitor section will provide everything you need to know about the monitors, their uses and which are the best to look for.
Consumer-Grade CRT’s
People in Europe had it easy with their CRT’s, as it was very common to find them with RGB SCART inputs. Gamers in the rest of the world could look for TV’s with S-Video or component (YPbPr) inputs, but finding any sort of direct RGB input was extremely rare. This section will show some excellent consumer-grade CRT’s to look for, as well as provide information on how to RGB-mod certain TV’s to get an experience similar to an arcade monitor!
Flat-screen TV’s and Monitors
Finding a flat-screen display with low latency and high compatibility with older consoles is a challenge! Sites like rtings.com do their best to calculate input lag, but not from a retro-gamers perspective. This section will be dedicated to low-lag flat-screens, or other display technology that’s focused on gaming. I’ve seen some 4:3 plasma displays that were good for retro gaming, as well as a few others that process 240p nicely.
Also, someone started a list of some modern monitors compatible with 15KHz signals: http://15khz.wikidot.com/
Projectors
Projectors can be an interesting and different way to display your game content. CRT projectors can display onto very large screen and support light gun games! Also, certain models offer an extremely sharp picture!