The PlayStation 5 is emblematic of the latest console generation, featuring some of the best graphics on the market and some of the most advanced mainstream gaming hardware ever pushed into production. As neat as the cutting edge of gaming might be, however, it's sometimes nice to look back at all the old tech that came before.

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It was just a few days back that one gamer tried playing Elden Ring on a 13" CRT display, and Caolan114 seems to have had a similar idea. They plugged their PS5 into a tiny CRT and got output that, as they claim, wasn't half bad on its own. Games themselves seem to have played just fine on the TV, but the real problem was the text, which Caolan114 said gets rendered very poorly at such low resolutions and ends up being virtually unreadable.

What's particularly interesting about CRT displays is that, since they have an effectively infinite refresh rate and no smoothening or upscaling of any kind, it's possible to get a remarkably crisp and reactive image. The highest-end CRT TVs of yesteryear still outperform modern displays in some respects, which might be particularly important for players looking to enjoy the PS1 games that will be playable on PS5 with PlayStation Plus Premium.

Since CRT screens are a legacy technology that's, in practice, no longer produced in any meaningful capacity, it's not hard to get a great retro gaming haul for little money. While Caolan114 seems to have kept his old CRT in working condition all these years, players interested in experiencing this for themselves shouldn't have a hard time finding a cheap CRT on the used tech markets.

For those who feel that this is too much trouble for the end result, YouTuber Distorted Reality recently prepared a nostalgic PS1 gaming animation showing off what the experience might've been like for some players in the 90s. As interesting as CRTs are nowadays, they're a heavy and impractical piece of technology that simply isn't for everyone, after all.

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