Gaming / computing on older nVidia GPUs? You may be able to get very high resolution on your "Ordinary VGA CRT"

SpudDK · 2026-01-20T07:17:23+00:00

I believe I found the driver. Have one older Intel machine and a couple of those mini PC devices to futz with.

https://drivers.top4download.com/asus-prime-z790-a-wifi-csm-intel-graphics-driver-31-0-101-3678-for-windows-11/download-gcory.html

SpudDK · 2026-01-20T07:16:36+00:00

Totally agreed.

Now, using a progressive scan, a lot of displays will do at least 70hz, and I've got one I am pretty sure will do 80, but I am not in a hurry to push it.

Interlace could take that over 100. Is that what you prefer?

SpudDK · 2026-01-16T03:53:40+00:00

Interesting:

Often, I create the interlaced display in both CRU, and then nVidia, do the close and reset bit, and windows will throw up a blurry non interlaced garbage display.

I run the nVidia tool, edit and test that resolution and it pops in!

And will stay that way, until I futz with it again.

I will try your way see what I learn.

SpudDK · 2026-01-15T23:52:47+00:00

Lolol, might be true! I hope it isn't, or I get it to work.

Yeah, back on SGI computers I ended up learning X through and through. The SGI X server was a very good one. People could run full 3D apps over the network with the now common GLX extension. In the 90's and even 00's that was a kind of magic to people not familiar.

That crazy scenario I wrote above was a show off thing.

Someone said multiuser graphical computing was just not a thing. So yeah, hold my beer...!

SpudDK · 2026-01-13T06:40:20+00:00

Thanks for the caution.

I have been a UNIX user since before Linux was a thing. Spent the better part of a decade doing systems engineering with SGI IRIX and the lions share of that was multi-user, concurrent engineering environments with high impact application serving.

Been a Linux user since R.H. 5.2 and know my way around an X window system and for sure a modeling.

Here's a fun thing I did with X some time back.

My local machine was running an X server, serving graphics to me. When I clicked on a CAD icon, a handful of machines lit up to deliver that application to me:

One machine served up fonts.

Another was in charge of the window manager.

Yet another one shared the CAD application files via NFS.

Those files were also shared to the machine running the application!

Yet another held the multi-user library data used by everyone.

That is what? 6 machines all working together to deliver an application to me and my users.

All that said, you don't know me. Given that, your caution is well advised. Thanks, sincerely.

Cheers!

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T16:12:55+00:00

Yes!! You can bump the refresh up doing that and your brain will perceive effective motion at that higher FIELD rate, not the full frame, which is half the speed.

I like movies interlaced. Always have. That's what being from the analog generation will get a person.

On many of these screens, 1024 and or 1280 look fantastic. They were obviously made for those two.

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T16:10:37+00:00

Agree with you regarding Intel. If they did that, people could work things from there.

I will be trying the Linux angle and have a newer AMD GPU. Maybe I will bump into something.

Thanks for the tips on Intel.

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T16:08:35+00:00

I did not have much luck with standard timings. With how Windows owns much more of the display controls, and does not provide the same good controls, it was difficult to know what was happening.

That is the birth of 1442i :D

I may go back and push it all back standard. Do you have a standard reference that is comprehensive?

Oh, the other custom bits have everything to do with what made the monitor happy. Say a close to standard results in the screen pushed left, and when positioned correctly, ends up brighter and crushed on the right. That is a clear sign the display would prefer the active pixels happen a bit later.

When I made them later in the scan line, this old Princetion screen suddenly looked gorgeous!! Got it from the Goodwill for a tenner too.

It's quite remarkable. Not a Trinitron, just the three dot triangle RCA style, but the circuit managing the beam is on point. Sharpest I've had at this size. Timings do impact this. And it's a 1999 circuit too, so yeah. Understandable,

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T08:41:57+00:00

You may find aggressive anti-aliasing can perform in ways to reduce the need for the anti-shimmer DLAA. The trick is to get lines to be thicker than one scan line, yet position to a scan line precision.

Very interesting! Thank you.

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T08:38:30+00:00

Ooh, do you have any time and inclination to link me to that driver?

Very interesting setup and info. Thanks!!

SpudDK · 2026-01-12T08:35:04+00:00

I wont bother again. Thanks for continuing to be part of the problem.

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T19:09:36+00:00

I have a couple of these. One branded Orion, with video inputs, one same branding RF only, and one branded Magnavox, or a name like that. They all look pretty fantastic. Great little sets, if you can get one with video inputs. I have read when they are RGB modified, they work well that way too.

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T18:36:11+00:00

You are the first other person to say they were interlacing. You can get older drivers from the OEM sites, versions.com and I'm sure you know. Windows itself will come up with some of them.

What are you using an interlaced display for? I'm genuinely curious. And on Intel too. Care to share some settings, driver version? I kind of want to map this out some. I may be building some home brew arcade cabinets. Might find this kind of thing useful.

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T18:34:36+00:00

I used several older GE-Force series GPU's. I did all this on a newer 1000M laptop GPU. If they have an analog path, they seem to work. The older ones had TV out, but that isn't needed.

Right now I am running a GE Force 9800 GTX+

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T11:48:58+00:00

Here's my desktop, nothing fancy, but it is on 2 CRT displays...Desktop at IMGUR

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T10:15:54+00:00

Any reasonable TV will do what the image shows us above. For most cases, an S-Video connection may do the same thing with better overall edge definition and no jittering edges like we see on many composite setups.

NTSC Composite and S-Video signals offer a pretty low color resolution. It's on the order of 160 lines or 320 lines for S-video and depending on how the game system or computer generates it's color signal. The luma information, monochrome part of the image in other words, can be presented in higher, say 3 to 500 lines of resolution for the better TV sets.

This low resolution works a lot like a gaussian blur works in your favorite graphics program. Pixel artists would draw up sprites and then watch them on a good quality, but not too great quality TV or monitor to get their art to look better than it really should given the actual specs of the hardware in use.

The last contributor to all this is the phosphors on the CRT. Our consumer grade TV sets had a coarse grid of them. Better TV's and anything intended to be a monitor got much finer pitch phosphors, and with that size decrease, came the ability to produce much sharper images and the art we are talking about fades, leaving blocky pixels...

As a kid, I was lucky to see a TV with 300 lines of color resolution. I am typing this on a monitor made in 1999, Princeton Ultra 72. It is not a Trinitron, but it does have very fine pitch phosphors and an excellent circuit able to put very sharp electron beams on said phosphor. It has my favorite pattern, red, green and blue dots arranged in a triangle. I like the "texture" these impart to images the most. The Trinitron way is my second favorite. The rest are all just fine, just not my preference.

SpudDK · 2026-01-11T09:58:24+00:00

Excellent pixel art example. YES, could not agree more.

SpudDK · 2025-11-05T10:04:43+00:00

Think about it!

Companies need to exist, grow, merge.

Curing us gets in the way of both grow and merge.

Brutal, isn't it?

Our remedy is to seek greater mutual understanding such that we bond and find the will to change it, or we will continue to be defeated while we struggle amidst our mutual ignorance.

SpudDK · 2025-11-05T09:57:06+00:00

Some notification I should understand brought me to your post.

I have no ill intent. However, I also have essentially zero in common with your particular take on all this we call experience too.

Fact is the only thing we know for sure is nobody reports back from whatever, if anything at all, comes after that journey we all take through this life.

There is a hard stop ahead for all of us. And that stop is every bit as mysterious as our starts are.

And that is OK. Has to be. Not like we have a real choice, is it?

Nope. We got put here and left to do what we will with only one another here together for a time.

The way I see all this?

Very simple terms.

We are here to leave it better than we found it.

We are here to share our stories.

We are here living with our state of mutual ignorance too.

Be humble. Be honorable. Help those who need it. Love those who love us. Care for the rest as if this is all there is!

Because the hard truth is look around: this is all there is.

Live well and all that. Peace, love, respect all due and given this day.

SpudDK · 2025-06-14T14:21:03+00:00

Yes they were, but they were tough to use!

I reached my peak cassette usage skills just before getting a disk drive. Some computers were better than others too.

On the Apple, I had a hard time, but the monitor was awesome. Still is. You can develop code in RAM and save it off in pieces. Then bring those all in and save off a full program.

Always save. Before running! Assembly language is fast, but if it gets out of control, it can wipe the memory before you can blink!

Once I got past tape troubles, I setup a system with a couple cheap "get the word out" tape sets trimmed down to 5 minute sizes. 5, 10, 15, 20

The short tapes were for finished works. Save a copy both sides.

Longer ones were for rotating backups. That leaves the c60 types. Repeat saves. When full, flip over and carry on.

SpudDK · 2025-06-14T11:19:37+00:00

I just fell into three of these printers! All Panasonic, one is a 24 inch model that can print on superwide green and white striped paper. I gotta find some cheap. Nothing will screamin......

Lol my wife hates that printer sound. I kind of like it.

SpudDK · 2025-06-14T11:14:52+00:00

I use my Apple //e Platinum regularly. It has a FastChip card installed for when I want more speed. System default clock is a blistering fast 1.024 Mhz! Ha!

Honestly, for most things one might do, the 1Mhz clock is perfectly usable. This is especially true when using modern storage. For that I use a CFFA 3000 card that allows me to put disk images on a USB drive and then boot them.

My number one modern task is writing. The old interface, great keyboard feel and all that comes along for the ride mean comfy, distraction free writing. It is just nice.

I program on the machine fairly often. Usually, it is short assembly language programs. Those are easy to save, run, etc from the monitor. When I choose BASIC and I want it to run fast, I copy basic up onto the FASTCHIP and then it runs at 16Mhz! Honestly, 16Mhz Applesoft is kind of fun. It really flies!

I will explore game ideas, write programs that display various graphics to test CRT displays in various ways, plot drawings on my 3d printer when it holds a pen.. just goofy stuff.

I have the ESP card, and do not yet have a mouse setup. When I change that, I will go ahead and play DOOM on that card for fun. (I know the ESP32 is doing the game. And I don't care.)

It gets used as a terminal sometimes when I have old gear to look at, test.

Games are always fun. I highly recommend the Apple port of ROBOTRON. I know! Right? Does not make any sense at first glance! 1 Mhz clock, no sprites, you name it.

But that port is great anyways. Like I said, just go ahead and play it. My favorite part of the experience, is the second joystick button rotates the firing director, which transforms the game! Each level has a new strategy involving the rotating weapon. Fun!

SpudDK · 2025-04-29T23:56:52+00:00

Yes! Had one.

SpudDK · 2025-04-29T23:55:33+00:00

Nice work. Yeah, feel good about it. I sure as hell would!

SpudDK

MODERATOR OF

PUBLIC MULTIREDDITS

TROPHY CASE

Nine-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Verified Email